Time is slipping away. It seems like only yesterday it was spring, and now summer is here. We've already had a few 100 degree plus days, and this week, which is cooler, is undoubtedly the last taste of low-nineties until maybe October.

A mama dove is incubating her eggs on top of one of the posts outside the carport. A mama quail has repeatedly flown out from behind some boxes on the top shelf of a very cluttered shelving unit at the back of the carport. I haven't seen her in a while, so maybe her eggs hatched. I wish her well. So many of the baby quail fail to make it past the feathered-thimble stage.

My pond area is shaping up, and things are growing. Unfortunately the pond is overrun with algae again. I try to rake away as much of it as I can, but it's a losing battle. There are seveal dozen bees buzzing the pond every day. They settle on the algae and become trapped, then die. It's rather gross.

I have a new feeder, a mesh sock full of niger thistle. It's attracting lots of beautiful goldfinches. The cardinals and pyrrhuloxia come often to the cardinal feeder, but I've not yet seen any babies.

The saguaros are blooming, the ocotillo just finished. The pix above are of a whitewing dove on the big saguaro behind our house, and the lovely ocotillo outside our bedroom window. It no longer has blossoms, but the leaves are still green.

SABINO NOW
This weekend we went to Sabino Canyon for the first time since the devastating floods last summer destroyed many of the trails, bridges, and roads. Overall, things didn't look as bad as I had feared. In fact, except for Rattlesnake Creek (a dry wash near the start of the hike), which is now about twice as wide as it used to be, we didn't see much change up until the first couple of bridges. Then we saw that the creek is full of sand, and the sand is preventing the water from running under the bridges, so they are all wet with water running over.

As we got further up, we saw that many of the bridges have been badly damaged. These are structures that have stood through many floods since the 1930's, when they were built. After Stop 4, the damage gets worse. Along the side of the road you can see many places where the cliffs just gave way. The Phone Line trail is supposedly being rebuilt, but there are so many wiped-out places high above the road that it's hard to imagine how they can make a safe trail.

The road was closed for months, and now is open most of the way to the top. There were apparently huge boulders, dead trees, and dead cactus lying on the pavement, which they have somehow managed to clear out. As you get higher up, you can see deep scars in what remains of the pavement from where the boulders lay. In many of those areas the shoulder on the side of the road is gone, along with part of the road. There are lots of places along the road where the cliff walls are close to the walking area and obviously very unstable. I'm assuming they'll have to dynamite some of these (killing more cactus, especially sahuaros) to ever make it safe. Supposedly they are not going to rebuild anything until a thorough geological study has been done of the likelihood of further rock falls.

There are still a lot of beautiful cottonwoods and willows in the creek, and forests of sahuaro on either side all the way up. (We went up to the former Stop 8, which is about a third of a mile before the end of the road.) We met a woman who told us that the beautiful, almost jungly area behind the dam down in lower Sabino has been wiped out and is now just a tangle of broken trees, branches, and roots. Also, many of the picnic tables and stone ovens (also built in the thirties) are gone or buried in sand.

But Sabino is still beautiful. It is still my church.

Bird Singles Ads

Young, handsome male mockingbird, great territory, awesome song repertoire, able to leap into air and turn completely around while singing, seeks unattached female for nesting and egg-laying. Good insect-gleaning skills a plus.

Gorgeous unattached female cardinal seeks brilliant red male for flying along the beach, sharing seeds, and ....? Good territory a must, no cowbirds, please.

Strong, protective male Gambel's quail, beautiful markings and large topknot, seeks healthy female companion. Object: raising a very large family.

Exceptionally good-looking male Anna's hummingbird, brilliant red gorget, great flying skills, striking singing voice, seeks comely female for SLAM BAM THANK YOU MA'AM.

March 14, 2006

Note: Google has "improved" Blogger and now for some reason my text is blue and underlined. I cannot change it. But here is my post:

It suddenly became summer, after a mostly-cold winter (January was one of the coldest on record). No transition, just one day it was so cold we had to have the heat on all day, and the next day it was in the eighties. A little weird, but all my plants are loving it, putting out new leaves and stems like crazy, and the citrus are starting to bloom with that incredible sensual scent that to me defines Spring in Tucson. (My picture for this post is grapefruit blossoms. Wish I could somehow attach the perfume.)

The climbing rose in the backyard that I thought had been assassinated by critters put forth leaves and stems, and then a rabbit or something got to it. We have now re-surrounded it with chicken wire, securely staked down. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the leaf-cutter ants will leave it alone and it will finally start to cimb the trellis.

The animals are also starting to realize that it is Sex Season. Male birdies are chasing the females, and I expect to see nesting activity soon. I think it is a good thing that humans don't mate only during a certain time of the year. Can you imagine, say, if you're trying to sell a book, you'd have to work everything around avoiding the rutting season. Actually, if you're in any kind of business at all, except maybe the singles business, nobody would pay any attention to anything unless it helped get them laid. And come to think of it, things are like that already in some respects.

January 22
Woo-hoo! There was major snow last night, all over Tucson (everywhere but here at our house). When I went out to check the rain gauge this morning, it was frozen! (.6; I guess I'll have to wait for it to thaw to see how much rain actually fell.) The mountains are covered with snow down to the valley floor, and there are little patchy bits here and there in our yard. The Meyer lemon tree out front is all frozen on the outside. I haven't checked the regular lemon and orange trees, but I imagine there is at least some damage. Too bad, because we have (had) a bumper crop of lemons.

The woman who bought my house called to say that a hummingbird had fallen out of a tree onto her boyfriend's shoulder. From her description, I knew it was a beautiful Broadbill. She had it in a box in her car, on the way to work, and wanted to know what to do with it. She is no longer feeding the hummers, so she couldn't give it a sip of nectar. I told her to take it home, that it would probably be all right, that it was just cold, had no doubt been in torpor and just needed to come to a little. She called back later to say that it was fine, it was trying to get out of the box so she pulled over and let it go. I hope it finds food soon. And I am VERY dismayed to hear that "my" hummers are no longer being fed over there. I'll just concentrate on these ones over here. And maybe I'll eventually end up with as many as I had over there. After all, I've only been here two and a half years, and I was there for nearly fifteen.

Above are two not-too-good picture of the feisty male Costa's who's been hanging around for most of the winter. One of the pix is a good close-up out of the sun, so you can't see his gorget. The other is very out-of-focus, but shows the brilliant amethyst of the gorget.

This bird is one of the boldest and most fearless hummers I've been acquainted with, similar to the Broadbill I nicknamed "Olivier" over at the other house. He will perch on a feeder when I'm holding it for changing; when he's perched near the porch he lets me get within a few inches of him; and when I'm wearing bright colors he buzzes me to see if I have anything good to eat. Day before yesterday a cactus wren was perched on the gate in between the two porch feeders that Mr. Feisty guards. Although the wren had no interest in nectar, Mr. Feisty didn't want it around, and as I watched he repeatedly flew at the cactus wren, fiercely spreading his wings and tail and swearing at the top of his voice to show the Cactus wren how tough he is. The cactus wren responded with the bird-equivalent of a yawn, then eventually flew off, maybe tired of being pestered. I swear Mr. Feisty had a satisfied air as he returned to his perch, mission accomplished.

December 7, 2006

I have much I want to blog about, and many new pictures to post, including a living Thanksgiving turkey. But for now, I just want to share the beautiful exotic butterflies I saw in an exhibit at the Tucson Botanical Gardens. I'm not sure what will happen when I post so many photos, so I can't identify them in order. But they include the "Dead Leaf" and "Paper Kite" butterflies from Asia, and a Chinese Silk Moth. More anon.

November 7, 2006

I've been busy with non-blog, non-nature stuff for several months. I hope to get back to regular blogging now, because there have been a number of nature-things going on.

But first: the beautiful photo above appears with the permission of the photographer, Bob Moul, who has a breathtaking gallery of nature photos at http://www.PBase.com/rcm1840.

The bird is a juvenile Cooper's hawk, the same species as my previous hawk picture. One has been visiting my pond every morning for the last few days, I think looking for breakfast. Although the one visiting me is about the same size as the hawk I photographed, it is clearly a real youngster, with its pale yellow legs and feet, and the flattened, yellowish beak. I haven't managed to photograph the new guy yet, but this one looks just like it.

In other nature news, we are well into fall now, but it has been very warm and beautiful for early November--in the mid to upper eighties in the afternoon, but cool in the morning and cold at night. Just about perfect, except that if it were like this all year long twenty million people would be living in this valley now.

Except for the hawkling, I have noticed no unusual birds either here or on the Riverwalk lately. I still have quite a few hummers, hopefully here for the winter. I think they are all either Anna's or Costa's.

A lot of the plants are drying up and dropping their leaves, including the beautiful lantana by the pond and the pomegranate tree. In the rose garden, a tribe of leaf-cutter ants has been attacking my lavender miniature rose. I tried two semi-lethal methods of control for a few days, then gave up and applied those scary granules that kill a whole hive. I didn't put too many down, but it was enough to make a difference. There's still a little activity at the hive, but the poor rose is finally free to try to regrow some leaves.

Leaf-cutter ants are very interesting. They have humongous nests--for all I know our entire yard is host to one big one. They cut the leaves and take them to the nest where they treat them with enzymes and then grow fungus to get through the winter. I feel sort of bad about hurting the ants, but I love my roses too.

September 16, 2006 Yes, it has been a long time since I have blogged. My non-nature life has been too intrusive, but now I have time again. All along I have had time to watch the beautiful world in my increasingly beautiful garden outside. The creature above is a Lesser long-nosed bat. The picture was taken by the young woman who lives in my old house, where the bat visited shortly after we moved. She has told me that it has not returned. However, about two weeks ago I awoke one morning to find all my hummingbird feeders drained. I knew immediately it was bats (though at the time, I thought "fruit bats.") I was put in touch with a woman, Sandy Wolf, who studies these bats. She was very excited to hear that the bats came "so far into town" to feed. She said that they have been starving this year, because their prime food, agave blossoms, have been virtually nonexistent. The bats are endangered, and they live only in caves. They can travel up to thirty miles a night in search of food. Next week Sandy and her husband are coming over to videotape my bats in infrared light. I'm sure I'll have more information after that. Other nature highlights: The Broadbill hummingbird stayed around through Sept. 4th or so, but has since disappeared. I now have only Anna's and Costa's hummers, as far as I know, and their numbers have fallen off.

I saw another Summer Tanager down by the river a couple of weeks ago. Birds I have recently seen in my pond-garden include a female black-headed grosbeak (scarfing seeds) and lots of goldfinches. I watched one goldfinch eat zinnia petals, one by one. Just lately a male cardinal has been wearing himself out feeding a cowbird baby. I'm down to one last baby dove on the northernmost pillar. Its sibling flew off sometime during the last few days. And I don't think there will be anymore till next spring. This was the sixth-wettest monsoon on record. On the morning of August 7, it rained 1 1/2 inches up here in about two hours.
Earlier this week a stench drove us to a garage, where they removed a HUGE dead packrat and his nest from INSIDE the car's air-conditioner air intake. Then they cleaned the engine. Miraculously, it does not stink. And the juniper tree did die. We had it cut down and planted a beautiful young mesquite just to the north of the stump. The mesquite has grown from every branch. I think it will be happy here.

July 30, 2006

I've been too busy to post, but there has been a lot of nature going on. First, the two things I do NOT have pictures for: I saw some adorable baby bunnies in the front yard the other day. They were so cute, like little plush toy animals. I could almost forgive them for their parents' sins of eating all my flowers, INCLUDING the new zinnias.

Second, there have been a lot of hummers. Broadbill male is still around, and a bunch of others that appear to be mostly juveniles of various species. The other morning I was changing the feeders. An immature something--probably male Anna--was feeding at the back feeder. I approached with the new, full feeder. Anna kept feeding. I got closer. I moved the fresh feeder to within a couple of inches of the older one. The hummer flew over to the new feeder and fed for a while. Then he flew straight up and checked out my face, circumnavigated my head, and buzzed away.

Pictures are of the Rillito after the recent rains. We got 2.4 inches the other night, overnight, and have received in dribs and drabs another probably three inches in the last week. For the Sonoran desert, this is a huge amount of rain. The river running full is such an unusual sight that the banks are crowded with people looking at it and photographing. I'm pretty sure the last time I saw this much water was in January, 1993!

July 17, 2006

I've been literally to busy to blog, though there's been a LOT of nature stuff going on, including monsoons (like the old-fashioned ones from back in the day); fledged dovelets (three, I think, survived from the four being raised on the pillars); two baby finches still in the nest tended by that nincompoop mother); and other things. I have taken pictures but not downloaded them. More soon, I hope. But today: red letter day: a beautiful male broadbill drank nectar from one of my back porch feeders. And I happen to have a great broadbill picture of Olivier, a bird who hung out at my old house most of one summer. That is him illustrating this entry.

June 19, 2006

Above are two more photos of my hawk. I sent all the pix to the man who bands Cooper's hawks in Tucson. He says that this is one of "his," that it is a year-old male, and that he can't tell where he banded it without seeing the number on the band. He says that by next summer the hawk will be looking to breed, so maybe I will see it with its mate.

A lot of mating has been going on around here. I now have nesting doves on BOTH porch pillars, and a finch familly has moved into the abandoned dove nest above the kitchen door. They seem to have built a small, tidy nest on top of the dove's large messy one.

A rabbit dug a burrow right next to my pomegranate tree last week. We filled it in, she re-dug it, we filled it in, she re-dug it. I was worried about the tree getting its roots damaged. Anyway, we finally put a rabbit-proof wire fence around the tree, and it seems to have worked. I'm just hoping that the rabbit didn't have babies in the burrow. Hopefully, she hadn't had time to deposit them.

June 18, 2006

Quite a bit of nature news, but I will save most of it for another day. This morning, when we took the paper and our iced coffee out to the back porch, we saw a hawk standing in the pond. Just standing. Didn't seem in the least disturbed by our presence, and stayed there long enough for me to go in and get my camera and get closer and take some pictures!

June 10

Lots of nature news the past couple of weeks. We had a mini-monsoon event, which cooled things off, though the humidity was unpleasant. Lots of wind, which one night blew away one of the dovelets on the pillar of our carport. The remaining dove was still there as of this morning, but it has grown big enough to probably fly away on its own. (The picture above is of last year's dovelets.)

Baby quail are starting to appear. I haven't seen any really little ones or any large flocks, but have seen four or five at a time (somewhere between adorable fluffy thimbles and ungainly adolescents with pimples), trailing behind their parents.

New bird in yard: about the size of a cardinal, appearance like a very large sparrow, but long black beak like a woodpecker and red eyes. Also a small ruff on its head. From my bird book, it is some sort of fly catcher, probably a brown-crested.

I have discovered why the seeds are disappearing so quickly from my cardinal feeder: some of the finches have learned that if they double up on the perch they weigh enough to open the door. Then they shovel seeds out onto the ground, where they can try to crack them at their leisure. I am very impressed with their intelligence, but wish they were not so profligate.

Final nature note, the one I most wish I had a picture of: today while we were on the River Walk, we saw a very well-built male cyclist who was stark naked. Nice body, nice package. Very, very startling.

May 30, 2006

Tomorrow is the official beginning of "meteorological summer," which fortuitously coincides with the beginning of the year's first real hot spell. They are promising us 100 - 107 for at least the next seven days. And strangely, there will even be moisture in a couple of days, as if it were monsoon, though it isn't, and there won't be real rain but dry thunderstorms.

It's already hot--around 100--but doesn't feel bad at all in the shade. The cardinals and pyrrhuloxias have been eating a lot of seeds (and unfortunately so have the finches, so I have to get the feeder adjusted). All day today a male cardinal has been bringing seeds from the feeder, out in the sun, to his two children, in the shade of the porch. A male pyrrhuloxia is also feeding his one offspring just now. The baby looks very heat-stressed, with his bright-yellow bill open and panting.

Unfortunately I have no pictures to show, so am putting up my best male Anna's hummer, since I have several of these guys around.

The latest mama dove has hatched at least one egg from her precarious perch on the porch pillar (I guess her name is Allitera), but still no baby doves. The pond scum has become quite overwhelming and keeps clogging the filter. It's always something, but on the other hand, there's always something to look at out by the pond.

May 17, 2006

It is currently very cloudy and dark--what my father used to refer to as "clobbering up." We have a slight chance of rain, bu I don't expect any, though I can see rain and virga [rain that doesn't make it to the ground because the air is too dry] falling all around the valley. It's been in the high nineties, though today probably stayed in the low nineties because of all the cloud cover.

The grapefruit tree is recovering nicely--has put out a bunch of new leaves. I will post a picture when I take it out of my camera. The tanager returned for a couple more days, but I haven't seen him lately.

There has been a LOT of dove sex. Besides the male's strutting and fanning his tail, I've also seen pairs "billing and cooing," where they tenderly entertwine their necks , flutter their tails, and peck each other's faces. It's really sweet.

No baby doves yet, but I've seen parents feeding immature finches and pyrrhuloxias. Also a thrasher, on the suet feeder.

Today a bronzed cowbird stopped by for a drink of water. I basically hate cowbirds because they lay their eggs in cardinals' nests and the cowbird babies then kill their siblings and wear the adult cardinals to a frazzle with their demands. But the adult cowbird is a quite handsome bird. The picture here is copyright by Robert Scanlon, who kindly gave me permission to post it. It's from the website http://www.pbase.com/rsscanlon/image/29462832. The cowbird in the picture is from Colombia, but looks basically the same as the one I had here. Most notable are the ruff at the neck and the red eye, like Hal in 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Cinquo de Mayo, 2006

Oh my gosh! I just watched a beautiful male Western tanager drink from my pond. Those who think desert birds aren't colorful should check this guy out. (Although the desert is actually only part of its range.) I have seen them too seldom and too far away to photograph, but this link goes to one of the nicest pictures I've seen, which looks exactly like my visitor:

http://www.briansmallphoto.com/gallery/weta.html

Not much else exciting going on. I have planted a few new things: a couple of roses (rose gardening is an addiction), and two cape honeysuckles to shade the western part of the patio so I can keep stuff alive on it during the summer.

What's blooming in the desert these days: Mexican Bird of Paradise (I will try to get a photo of one), some cholla, some prickly pear, and especially palo verde trees, glorious and golden. The picture is the biggest palo verde in our front yard.

April 30 Part 2

Apart from the excitement of the ravenous rabbits, there has been quite a lot of bird action lately. A mama dove built her nest on the southern pillar of the carport. Just the other day the second baby flew away. Now another dove has built a nest on the north pillar. I'm pretty sure it is a different dove, because she looks smaller and skinnier. Yet a third dove (or maybe dove #2) built a nest inside the carport, over the screen door. Every time we opened the door she flew away in a panic. One day I found a broken egg below the nest, and I haven't seen her since.

But speaking of eggs... I found a beautiful little quail egg in my gardening equipment drawer the other day. Why only one egg and not twenty-three? No idea. I photographed it, and then dropped it on the concrete (by accident). It bounced, but also cracked. A couple of days later I startled a female quail sitting in the drawer, where there is barely room for her. She flew away in terrible panic, and couldn't figure out how to get out of the carport. I haven't seen her since, nor have I seen more eggs.

Finally, yesterday I saw a very ruddy female or immature male hummer. Probably a broad-tail, but I'm thinking maybe a rufous. I am hoping for a return visit so I can get a good look at its throat.

The pigeons, pyrrhuloxias, and cardinals are all paired up. Ain't nature grand?

April 30 Part 1

Well, duh, I guess I should have realized that rabbits can eat through plastic, which is why rabbit fence is made of metal. The very next morning the bunnies were frolicking in the pond area, so we bought some 3-foot high chicken wire and made a bigger fence for the poor grapefruit.

This morning my husband and I spent a couple of hours attaching plastic mesh all along the bottom of the fence around the pond area (81 feet plus three gates). I'm pretty sure no rabbit can get in now.

The quail are another question. The adults can fly in, but if they start bringing babies around, they won't be able to enter until the kids are fairly big. This morning I was watching a quail who had come in to use the pond and peck the crumbs under the suet feeder. It was time to leave, and he kept walking up and down the fenceline, looking for his customary exit. He became more agitated, the longer he searched. You could almost see the thought balloons:

"I know there's a way out of here... I've used it a million times. But where?... I got in here, there must be a way to get out.... Where is the exit?.... Wait a minute! I know how to fly!" (Glance upward) "That's the ticket--I'll fly out!"

And so he did.

Aargh! Rabbits just ate half of my grapefruit tree! It was looking so beautiful, had put out a gazillion leaves and flowers, and was sporting tiny baby grapefruits, and now it looks as if the Cossacks ran rampant through it.

I don't know how they got in through the wire enclosure around it, but I am reluctantly now going to place rabbit-proof fencing around the entire pond area. That will allow me to plant even more things, but I feel bad about keeping the rabbits away from the water. It's their own fault though.

Not much other nature news. The desert has been looking gorgeous, with glorious golden palo verde blossoms everywhere (except our yard). Some wildflowers, though not many. I've had way fewer hummers, I think because there have been enough flowers out in the desert to satisfy them.