Firelight Blogging

It has simultaneously felt like a month that they've been here, and a day now that they're leaving. The family left me alone by the backyard fire about ten minutes ago. Tomorrow they head home to Flagstaff and Chicago, and life returns to the normal routine.

I miss them already.

The week was a mixture of familiar (Sweetwater Wetlands, Sabino Canyon) and new (San Pedro Riparian Conservation Area, Pima Canyon Trail) hikes. Birding took most of our attention, but other natural wonders couldn't be ignored.

Cooper's Hawk chowing down, Catalina State Park.

View across the arroyo from Romero Ruin, Catalina State Park.

Beaver attack, San Pedro National Riparian Conservation Area




























Cottonwood by pond, San Pedro NRCRA




























Bullfrog, SPNCRA

Snowy Huachuca Mountains over a pond, SPNRCA

Highlights included a Scott's Oriole on the Pima Canyon Trail, American avocets at the Sweeetwater Wetlands, and a yellow-rumped warbler on the San Pedro. And food, oh my goodness.

When my dad walked out the door tonight I hugged him and said you're the best, which here means I know you try your best and sometimes that doesn't even come close to being enough but I love you anyway. And they all hopped into cars and drove off.

They'll be back in December. I hope I'm rested up.

Recovery Package

Recovering? Yes I am. The family was here in various permutations for a week, and now that they've gone back home I have taken the deep breath I've been needing... and find myself wishing they were still here, or at least coming back sooner than they actually will. We did far less hiking this time around than in previous years, so I don't have many general-interest photos to share.

We did make it down to the Nature Conservancy's Patagonia-Sonoita Preserve on a horridly windy Friday to search for birds that, like us, weren't smart enough to stay hunkered down someplace sheltered. Sonoita Creek, fed by groundwater, flows perennially and is so clear and surrounded by greenery that it looks fake.






















Sonoita Creek burbling along.

Whimsy! Snakey decoration on handrail on Creek Trail.

The preserve has a few miles of interconnected trails, about half of which follow the creek before looping around through a partially burned mesquite bosque. The birdwatching was probably hampered by the wind, but we managed to spot a thick-billed kingbird (rare in Arizona), a Cassin's kingbird, several vermillion flycatchers or possibly a single, very energetic flycatcher, finches by the bucketload, a black phoebe, and a pair of gray hawks that we heard whistling for an hour and a half before we finally saw them wheeling in the updrafts.

The preserve is notable not only for the year-round stream and numerous bird species, but also for its stands of old-growth cottonwoods, some of which top out at 130 years old and about a million feet tall. These are the oldest and largest cottonwoods on the planet.

Giant cottonwood.

After a day well-spent, we retired to my back yard and watched my aunt grill up slabs and slabs of ribs, and then we worked off dinner in the best possible way.

The family gathers 'round the TV machine to watch Rachel.

Tonight I'm watching basketball and thinking I'm pretty damn lucky to have been born into this family. Good times, people!

Suddenly Summer Sunday

Barely two weeks past Epiphany and not only is it NO MORE HAPPY CHRISTMAS in Tucson, but no more winter as well. We have vaulted directly into a long succession of what would be perfect Chicago June days, 73 degrees, bright blue skies, and so much sunshine that the shady side of the street is very inviting, but with enough of a breeze to make it okay if you can't marshal the energy to stroll over there. The burgers-on-the-grill scents wafting out of Bob Dobbs' Bears and Cubs neon-signed windows, paired with the occasional whiff of cigarettes from the patio completed the illusion.

Then the prickly pear pads I had to dodge in order to continue down the sidewalk brought me back to the desert. Well, that and the hoots coming from the Cardinals bandwagon jumpers watching the game at the bar and in many houses I passed on the way home.

The flock of lesser goldfinches has returned to our yard, along with the house finches and white-crowned sparrows. Gila woodpeckers have polished off the suet cake in the feeder my dad made for us, and continue to squawk from all points of the yard and surrounding trees. The hummingbirds perched in the mesquite squeak their hope for new sugar water. Spring has sprung, calling me up to the trails in the Catalinas while water's still running. It finally cracked 0 in Chicago yesterday. This isn't a bad place to be in January.

Little Help Here?

The girlfriend gave me the National Geographic guide to North American birds and nifty new binoculars (!) for my birthday. Upon paging through the book, I realized I've never seen a shrike out here in Arizona, and they're allegedly all over the place. Have any of you Tucsonenses seen a local shrike? Am I looking in the wrong places? Please advise; I'm feeling inadequate as a birder.

Urban Nature Report

I am nursing the wounds of being an unwilling bachelor this week. The girlfriend is off on an excursion back east, which would explain why I am up at this ungodly hour, fully dressed and almost coherent despite the sun barely peeking over the Rincon Mountains.

The back yard has become the early morning roost of choice for a noisy coffee klatsch of house finches. It took several mornings of lying in bed half-awake to sort through the offset cascade of calls before I was able to extract a single identifiable phrase. They seem to start their songs a half-second apart, resulting in a rippling sound that is more like a maniacal giggle echoing through a canyon than the benign twittering of a couple dozen five-inch birds. It was kinda disturbing until I figured it out.

Once the sun comes up, the gaggle disperses somewhat and the individual songs come through more clearly, now joined by the three descending notes of the verdins and the occasional squawk of a Gila woodpecker. The thrashers keep to a more civilized schedule than these smaller birds, waiting until later in the morning to start knocking their beaks through the dust in search of breakfast. They neatly lopped off the first sweet peas to sprout in my garden a few weeks back, but have so far ignored the second batch of vines, as well as the three tiny tomatoes warily peeking out from inside their cages.

Wildflowers are scarce in the yard this time around. A few globe mallows have straggled in on the edges, but only one has flowered. Every year about this time I remember that I forgot to scatter seeds in the fall, and make a mental note to do better next fall. Then the note promptly falls off the bulletin board in my brain and joins the collection of other reminders like fix the screen door and call your grandmother that are gathering dust under the fridge or whatever other large appliances I may be keeping in there.

Despite the lack of flowers, I am heartened by the apparent health of the two little volunteer mesquite trees in the front yard. The wretched, hateful acacia trees are at least showing signs of growth, meaning they will now be shading roughly nine square feet of dirt apiece, an improvement over their previous useless, hateful existences. Seriously. You can't get close to these trees. In fact, don't even look at them or think about them too hard when you're out there or you'll find yourself stuck in the little bastards.

The thrashers have started their whee-wheet calling, which is my signal that it's time to go to work.

Monsoon Special

Hum. Blogger is acting odd this morning. Apparently choosing a font is no longer an option; hope this one remains legible upon posting.

Yesterday was the first major daytime soaker of the season, at least in my neighborhood. More than an inch of rain fell in less than an hour, leaving flood marks far enough off the curb to make it look like Country Club Blvd. was under a couple feet of water at some point. My wretched, hateful acacia trees seem happy; their little wells stayed full for quite a while. Unfortunately, the butyl rubber caulking around the front door has completely surrendered, meaning that our ill-designed inward-sloping entryway helpfully directed the rainwater through the wall and into the front hall.

The rug smells... just... lovely.

In bird news, the doves continue to be pigs with wings, hogging all the seed and the peanut butter suet as well. Here is a white-winged dove (Zenaida porcini) chowing down on the fancy birdseed bell while a female house finch waits patiently in the background before toppling into the thorns of the hateful acacia tree in hypoglycemic shock.

No, not really. The dove eventually gave up on trying to peck millet out of the rock-hard bell and left it to the finches.

Finches, triumphant.