Stayed in the Tucson area for a couple of weeks. Nice to see that grass front yards are 98% gone. Many people have used creative ways to continue the desert landscape around homes and business’. Saw a lot of dead palm trees and eucalyptus trees in the area.
Above is the eastern unit of the Saguaro National Park looking towards the Catalina Mountains.
Drove the Catalina Highway to the top of Mt. Lemmon. It rises 4,000 feet in around 25 miles—it’s all uphill. Lots of bicyclists were making the grueling ride to the top. It would be a beautiful place to see a sunset or escape the summer heat at 7,000 feet elevation.
Curved billed thrashers seen in an urban area.
Birds, and critter, seen at Catalina State Park in the campground: a canyon towhee with a malformed bill, a gila woodpecker, a Cooper’s hawk, and a ground squirrel. The Cooper’s hawk flew to the ground, perhaps to catch one of the many ground squirrels. Later saw it hiding in a bush stalking birds and squirrels.
Have not seen many vermilion flycatchers or scissor-tailed flycatchers, perhaps due to the caracara’s and the young red-tailed hawk that patrol the area around my campsite. Have never seen so many caracaras. You usually see them in pairs, they mate for life.
Osprey coming up empty, without a fish, after diving for one.
Gold-fronted woodpecker
Scissor-tailed flycatcher
After three or four days of warm weather, started seeing lots of butterflies. The ash-throated flycatcher above caught and ate one amazingly fast, in one gulp..
A congested corn field at Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge filled with sandhill cranes and snow geese. The geese suddenly took flight. Looking at my pictures on my computer, saw a coyote in the background that I had not noticed when I was taking the pictures. The cranes stood their ground.
Northern pintails
Red-tailed hawk, light adult. It was fussing above some snow geese. Maybe it knew the geese would all take flight if it flew toward them.
Also saw a bald eagle, but it was too far away to get a good picture.
Gambel’s quail and a canyon towhee near my campground.
Below, three swans and sandhill cranes coming in to roost.
Have been at Bottomless Lakes State Park near Roswell, New Mexico for about a week. I have never been here during November and was really surprised at the thousands of sandhill cranes that winter here. The second picture above occurred after a helicopter flew over a hay field where there were a huge number of cranes. Most of the cranes return to Bitter Lake Wildlife Refuge to roost at night. It is an incredible sight to see wave after wave of them fly in.
Getting here: Stayed at Brantley Lake State Park before coming to Roswell. Went through bird withdrawal there after all the birds at Rockhound State Park. Not many birds at Brantley. There is DDT in the fish in the reservoir and they also have a problem with blooming algae. There was no bird activity on the water. Where the Pecos River reconstituted below the dam, however, there were ducks and herons.
The campground at Brantley was nice with drip irrigation providing for some shade trees. The nearby town of Artesia is a former small farm town that is now overrun with the oil industry. Southeast New Mexico is divided up into oil fields and their home base seems to be Artesia. Have to wonder what is going to happen to all the artesian wells after the oil is gone.
Got an Amazon Kindle recently and was thrilled at finding all the free digital books you can get from Project Gutenberg. I’m rereading all the classics that I read as a teenager. Just finished War and Peace. Have to admit I use the read outloud feature on the Kindle.
Hawk seen along the road when I first arrived at the State Park.
A Say’s phobe flying around catching insects in the air. They are so intent on hunting they don’t pay much attention to nearby people.
A loggerhead shrike at the Bitterlake Refuge.
Below, scenes from Bottomless Lakes State Park. The camping area is on the left side of the second picture.
Above, two kestrals. The one in the top picture has blood on it’s feet.
Two meadowlarks. Think the second one is a young one.
Sage thrasher
Swainson’s hawk
Below: Saw some white pelicans soaring and gliding at the refuge one day. The next day a very large flock were near my campground at Storrie Lake State Park. Half of them were preening and the other half were in a very large fishing group working their way along the shoreline. Pelicans are not common in this area, so I assume this is a flock migrating south (like me).
Still in the Camas National Wildlife Refuge area. Seeing all the rv traffic on the nearby I-15 over the holiday weekend, was relieved not to be in it. Saw quite a few people towing trailers and a cart with atv’s. It must be legal to do this in Idaho.
Above, a western tanager in a flowering tree.
Above, another northern harrier came after me after I stopped my truck on the road not far from where it was nesting (top picture). The truck gave me protection this time, but I didn’t stay long.
An adult and juvenile harrier flying and playing in the wind (bottom picture).
Swan (trumpeter?)
While I haven’t seen a lot of sandhill cranes, did pass one pair that had two young ones. So some are nesting here.
Young barn swallow
This looks like a Swainson’s hawk. It was on farmland near the refuge eating a mouse. Have seen a lot of these hawks in the area.
The weather has been ever changing, with winds blowing a continuous stream of clouds through. For the most part it has been partly cloudy with clouds shrouding the mountains. Snow is down to 7,000 feet. The valley is a little over 4,000 feet. Had one day with mostly rain. Made use of it by installing new hard drives in my computer, along with the mac’s Snow Leopard operating system.
I stayed at Prado Regional Park in Chino for three days to wait out some rain and wind alerts before heading north. Went to visit some peacocks that stay around their office area and one male put on a show. With feathers extended in full showgirl mode, he would try to envelop any of three females that walked by. At the same time, he’d do a shimmy of sorts. The females were just looking for food and seemed puzzled by his behaviour. To add insult to injury, sparrows were landing on his feathers.
When I was leaving the park, noticed a man taking pictures of a hawk that was very close to him. Think he was feeding it. First time I’ve seen anything like it.
Made a quick visit to the Cibola National Wildlife Refuge. It is listed as an Arizona refuge, but it’s along the Colorado River and the border with California. I stay on the California side, below Blythe.
Saw some sandhill cranes, but most of them were out of range of the refuge tour route. The visitor center said they start to leave in March when the winds pick up. There were lots of Canada geese and other assorted waterfowl. They know they are safe on the refuge, but can be hunted when leave that sanctuary.
The American kestral above has to be one of the calmest I’ve seen. They usually are gone by the time I point my camera in their direction.
A huge ball of yellow-headed blackbirds were in a cleared corn field.
Spent four days at Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument in Arizona. Had forgotten their Twin Peaks Campground doesn’t have hookups. Had not used my generator for a long time, probably last summer. A camp host helped me start it up. After that there was no problem. Promptly at 8 a.m. and 4 p.m., all the generators in the generator section of the campground started up for the allotted two hours. It was cold at night, and my furnace draws a lot of power. Otherwise, I could go two days before needing a generator. Glad to know it works. It is good to have the option to stay places that don’t have hookups and are often free.
Also had a problem with my hitch jack, the fuse blew. I asked another Airstream camper to look at it and he was able to diagnose the problem. Really lucky he was there.
Could not get an internet connection at the park. Really missed it, to say the least. I don’t watch tv. The internet is my main connection to what is going on.
Cactus wrens
Gambel’s quail
Both the cactus wrens and the Gambel’s quail usually run from bush to bush so as to not be seen by predators, like the red-tailed hawk above.
This curve-billed thrasher really sang it’s heart out one morning.
House finch
Gila woodpecker. None of the birds seemed to have a problem standing on a cactus or other thorny plants.
Have been at Falcon State Park for a week. This is where you start seeing pyrrhuloxia (above). They are one of the calmer birds who don’t fly away the minute they see you. An online article said they should have been named desert cardinals rather than pyrrhuloxia.
My first sighting of a northern bobwhite (above). Grackles imitate bobwhite sounds and search through the brush for nests with eggs.
Orange-crowned warblers are very common here.
Yellow-rumped warbler
Ladder-backed woodpecker with peanut butter.
Swamp sparrow
A hispid cotton rat. Looks like a hamster. There is lots of brush for them to hide in. Bobcats have been seen in the area and these rats are something they’d hunt for.
Birds seen in the area, but not pictured: one white-tailed kite, a pair of caracaras, cactus wrens, roadrunners, and several loggerhead shrikes. The shrikes were always perched on barbed wire surrounding private property. They are known for impaling their prey on barbed wire.
Below, a Harris’ hawk and a great kiskadee. I’ll miss seeing the kiskadees as I head north.
