Wildlife on San Simeon

A video collection of wildlife taken on our little acre of the Sonoran Desert, including bobcats, javalina, mourning doves, Gila woodpecker, king snake, hummingbirds, chipmunks, rabbits, rattlesnake, Gamble's quail, Cooper's hawk, owls, bats, kangaroo mice, lizards, coyote, grackle, Colorado River toad, and even a raccoon.

Some are taken on my video camera; some on repurposed security cameras.

Bobcat & Prey

Our neighborhood bobcat had a good catch yesterday. These videos were captured using re-purposed security cameras. Towards the end, the effortless jump on the wall is amazing.

Inspiration

Another morning in the Desert. It's late winter in the Finger Rock wash where I take Nazar the Wonderdog for his early morning saunters.

A hummingbird sits on topmost bare branch of an acacia. A female red cardinal makes its call. I hear javalinas grunting and wait with Nazar to catch a glimpse of the pack. A Gila woodpecker hammers away on a utility pole. A rabbit forages on greens by the side of the road. Doves and a phainopepla sit on electrical lines studying their surroundings. Cactus wrens sit on their adopted saguaros.

I often tell the story of how this city boy, at age forty-seven, moved to the forests of Whidbey Island. For the first time I saw deer, coyotes, rabbits and owls — even the occasional eagle circling in the sky. When we moved to Tucson, I thought living among such wildlife would be a thing of the past. I was mistaken.

I see more varieties of wildlife, and more of them, here in the Desert than I ever saw on our Whidbey Island ten acres. In addition to the variety I saw yesterday morning within the space of twenty minutes, we often see coyotes, wrens, flycatchers, finches, king snakes (we pranam to them), rattlesnakes (we give them wide berth), coachwhip snakes (stunning colors), Gambel's quail, brown and black haired squirrels, ground squirrels, small mice (true masters of tunneling), bobcats, bats, vultures, Harris hawks, owls, jack rabbits, lizards and butterflies of all sizes and shapes, roadrunners, the occasional flight of herons, and during monsoon, toads (unpleasant croaking), tarantulas (scary but harmless), all manner of beetles, and even a desert tortoise. Less common around our house, but frequent in the nearby canyons, are deer, mountain lion, coatamundi, Gila monsters, and bighorn sheep, to name a few.

They inspire me to write.

That same day, my sisters and I took our grand-niece and grand-nephew to the Tucson Festival of Books. The Festival dates back to 2009 and is held on the University of Arizona campus. It started with some 450 authors and presenters, 50,000 visitors, and 800 volunteers. Since then, the visitors have tripled.

We got there before the scheduled opening time. The campus was already crowded. The quad on the campus, several acres of lawn, was covered with hundreds of booths. Our young niece was interested in getting an autograph from one of her favorite children's books authors. We found the classroom in the Education Building and listened to a panel discussion among five authors and illustrators. Nice people. Promoting their books.

They were all nice people. Publishers, hundreds of authors, the volunteers who helped people find their way, and the crowd. It's not easy to become an author accepted by a publisher. You need not only a good book, it has to be in a popular subject matter, you have to find your way through the maze of submittals and agents, and even if you are published, it's still pretty much up to you to promote your book and yourself. Which is why I self publish.

It was a bit daunting to see so much promotion. My morning walks are more inspiring.

Homage to Blue Elves

The funny thing about the blue elf aloe is that it is neither blue (or even a little bit depressed) nor an elf. However, it is an aloe.

The blue elf is a cultivar of the aloe genus which originated in the Old World, Africa and the Near East in particular. Aloes have been grown in the New World for centuries, long enough for one of the five hundred or so aloe species to be named "Mexican" and for the Mexicans to cook the leaves.

No one seems to know who developed the blue elf or how the cultivar got named. They are not blue. If happy (a little shade is always welcome) they are quite green. If over exposed to sunlight or cold, they turn dark, not blue.

They are early bloomers, starting to grow their long stalks and coral colored blooms in winter, even before the aloe vera (the "true aloe") take off. When the regular aloe bloom, it's all at once as if they all had a meeting and unanimously decided upon the opening day. The blue elves tend to be more independent, different plants blooming over weeks and months.

We inherited a couple of clumps of blue elves when we bought the house. I thinned the clumps and planted a few around the gully. I noticed hummingbirds feeding off of the trumpet shaped blue elf flowers. I thinned and planted more clumps.

This winter has been a bumper crop of flowers and the hummingbirds are happy. See for yourself.

The River Flows

Weather is in the news all around the world. Much of it is pretty dire.

It's been a while, but so far the monsoon season this year has brought us rain pretty much every day this July, and the forecast is more of the same.

We had a trace all through June. Here in the Foothills for July, we are at around three to four inches.

The monsoon bust last year, coupled with a wildfire in the Catalinas, make us appreciate the rain. We could not be more ecstatic.

These days remind us why it's called the Rillito River. Can you hear the Colorado River toads croaking?

Purple Finch

 Saguaros are handy places for nests, but the chicks have to keep really still.

Dancing Light

Sitting outside on a February evening, appreciating the warm light of the setting sun, Shari takes a video shot. On playback, a light can be seen, sometimes a single spot of green, sometimes splitting into several spots all clustered together, an aura around them.

The camera is pointed to the sunset, and the light disappears as the camera moves away from the sunset, but the light does not move with the camera. It seems to have a life of its own.

Cooper's Hawk

We see hawks often enough, but not hanging around our swimming pool. We wondered whether this Cooper's hawk was thinking about taking a dip. (It didn't.)

November at San Simeon

The heat of summer is forgotten as we wear long pants and a sweater in the mornings, then shed layers as the sun in a cloudless blue sky heats up the days. We had some rain a week ago. One hardy creosote bush responded with flowers. The devil's tongue barrel cactus is budding with deep red flowers.

We have spotted the owl in the eucalyptus tree several times. Judging by the offal on the park bench directly below its perch, and the scattered feathers on the driveway, the owl has been a successful hunter.

Much thanks for the many kind comments.

"Thanks Shari for sending the video and well done Tom-you certainly capture the desert garden, loved the music and was that an owl because it was great capture!" 

 " OMG. ... This is amazing, beautiful, sculptural, spiritual, melodic, under the watchful eye of the owl, and the moons glow. Wow. The hardscape, the stately cactus the protector of the many pots, and steps of continuous beauty. You have created, recreated the essence of Turkey, Australia, India etc, all them warmer exotic places that I have unfortunately not gotten to yet,. Congrats on so much hard work, and grace and beauty that you have shared with us and all that come by your place." 

 "What a beautiful garden that we would like to discover for real !" 

"Very beautiful yard, vegetation and even an owl! I love the editing with such lovely music as always." 

"WONDERFUL!!!! I really plan to see all that/YOU next… May? I hope I hope!!!!" 

 "One word: Fabulous!! makes us wish we were there." 

"🙏🏼 What a masterpiece you’ve created! The video is an amazing meditation in the midst of chaos." 

"Lovely lovely lovely! Thank you!!!" 

"So very nice! Great job, Tom. Such a perfect sanctuary! Thanks for sending, Shari! Always love seeing your place, in real life or in pictures!" 

 "Thank you for sharing views of your magical desert gardens. It's raining cats and dogs here--has been for days and no end in sight. ... It's such an interesting mix of plants, pots, whimsical items, paths, walls, furniture and level upon level of beauty. You two are sensational stewards of the land." "A lot of work but looks beautiful and well done!" 

 "Your garden arts are amazing, so to know you think Tom’s display being wonderful is quite the compliment!" 

"What a wonderful tour of your Oasis. Wish I could teleport down there for a few days and suck up the sounds and smells you capture so well." 

"Love the movie….the ending is WOW. Your place is so wonderful….I love it and miss my time there." 

"Thanks, that’s wonderful., and so much warmer and sunnier than say, Whidbey Island November-June. You’re lucky to have all those wonderful rocks to play with. " 

 "WOW.........put me into another place inside and out. Especially like the owl and crescent moon at the end of day. Thx a million for sharing your WONDER FULL garden."

Beep, Beep.

Thanks to Junior Walker and the Allstars.

Sleeping Rattler

This sleeping rattle snake was no problem. I was watering the oleander when I noticed this coiled up rattler getting wet. It never flinched from its mid-afternoon nap. Shari called Rural Metro and presto! The snake barely moved as the fireman scooped it up and plopped it into a plastic bucket.

Things have changed, the fireman told us, since Rural Metro dumped their collected rattlers at Reddington Pass.  See Mileage Marker 4. It seems Fish & Wildlife did not approve, so now the Rural Metro firemen dump snakes a mile or a mile and a half up-wash from where they are removed.

"How far do these rattlers range?" I asked the fireman.
"About a mile or so."

I suppose we may be seeing this critter again. If it is still like Sleepy of the Seven Dwarves, should be no problem.

Beep Beep

Wiley Coyote cartoons introduced me to roadrunners, but I've never heard a roadrunner go "beep, beep" or seen a coyote open a box of Acme dynamite and read the instructions.

We often see roadrunners on our little acre of the Sonoran Desert. They seem friendly enough and not too afraid.

I suppose they don't confuse people with food or predators. Like hummingbirds, they don't get too concerned about our presence, although they are curious. They go about their business, which seems to involve constantly moving.

It's tough to have enough time to fetch a camera and take a snap, but yesterday, one of these fine looking, graceful birds decided to leisurely stroll through our backyard. That gave me time to grab the camera.

These snaps were taken through various back windows as the roadrunner took its exploratory stroll. It ended up by the goldfish pond, seemingly puzzled by the cinderblock walls that enclose our backyard. It explored the mineral garden by our ash reliquary.

It was curious about the water in the pond. It may have taken a drink. I don't know. I was running from bedroom to bedroom, poking the camera through window shutters.

The bird made no attempt at fishing. I suppose goldfish are not a part of its routine diet. Do roadrunners swim? Probably not.

Finally it took advantage of the African sumac tree behind the pond to scamper up to the top of the wall. A few minutes later, it had disappeared.

In life, roadrunners (and coyotes) are impressive and graceful creatures. To see such a being is like getting a warm smile from a stranger.

Mileage Marker 4, Reddington Pass

My job is to fill two large Waste Management garbage cans each week. I use a regular Rubbermaid can to collect "yard waste", then carry the can-full over to one of the large WM cans and dump the contents. Each Tuesday, the garbage truck comes and collects. In Pima County, WM doesn't segregate yard waste from ordinary garbage. Which is why we pay for two WM cans. On our acre of the Sonoran Desert, I pull a lot of yard waste.

This morning, I was trimming a palo verde tree in front, clipping the unruly, long branches into small pieces so they pack inside the regular garbage can. Then I dumped its contents into the large, two-wheeled WM can by the side of the garage. Twice I dumped and stuffed a load into the big can.

I keep a piece of 4x4 wood there. I use it to stomp down the branches to make room for more. "Stomp, stomp, stomp" as I jammed and flattened the branches inside the big WM can. I clipped another Rubbermaid can full of branches, then again dumped it into the bigger WM can. Again I smashed it down at least a dozen times. I can stuff a lot of branches inside a WM can.

Then I noticed something coiled between the two wheels of the WM can. It's amazing how time slows down as the mind catches up with a dangerous situation. It's a snake. Not just any snake. It's a rattlesnake taking a snooze under the WM can. It doesn't make a move.

I walked backwards really quickly. "Shit," I thought. Actually, I had lots of thoughts, mostly of surprise, fear, and relief. And within the same space of a few seconds, I thought a lot about how damned lucky I was that it was still early in the morning and it was still almost chilly. Maybe the snake wasn't too active to respond. Maybe it hadn't struck because the wheels of the can were facing sideways, so one of the wheels was blocking me from a direct lunge. But even so, "Shit" sums up the tenor of my feelings as the realization sank in that twice I had been standing within a couple of feet from that rattler, blithely smashing down branches inside the can, twenty or thirty times.

I suspect it was the same rattler I saw a month and a half ago sleeping on top of the east side of the gully. See the end of my Two and a Quarter Tons post.

"I have to discourage that snake from hanging around here," I thought to myself. I picked up a small rock and threw it. I had mixed feelings. Part of me doesn't like the idea of hurting snakes. The rest of me was scared and angry. It hissed and rattled. Then I thought, "I better shut the garage door" which was about four feet from the snake. I didn't want the rattler to take refuge inside our cluttered but cozy garage.

I ran inside the front door to get to the garage. I was too frightened to use the garage door. I went around the house away from the rattler. I told Shari about the rattler as I was running back out the front door. She came out to look. She was getting too close for my comfort -- maybe twenty feet away.

Her response to the situation was much more practical than just throwing a rock. She went inside to call Rural Metro. If you pay the monthly fee,* Rural Metro provides not only fire brigade and ambulance service, they also pick up rattlers. (If you don't subscribe and need the service, you pay through the nose.)

I kept an eye on the can and the rattler as I waited for the fire department truck to show up. I could barely see the edge of the rattler's coils in the space between the two wheels.

Same species; different specimen.

It took the guy about a half of a minute and a pair of snake tongs to pick up the writhing, hissing rattler and plop it inside a plastic bucket. "Ring tailed diamondback," he declared.

Shari asked if they dumped the snakes in the Mormon graveyard down the street. We had heard local rumors about the practice.

"No", he said. "We take them to Reddington Pass." Once a week, on Wednesdays, they take their collection there; about a dozen in the summers. "We leave them at mileage marker 4. Probably a place to avoid if you are hiking around."

Good idea.

*Erratum. Rural Metro bills annually.

Rats and Telephones

We have telephone karma.

It took months to get a second line removed, two months to get a VDSL circuit installed, then the monsoon rain on September 8 took out our phone for a few days. Each such adventure involved hours on a phone wading through computer-managed questionnaires.  I've written about it critically in It-Takes-A-CenturyLink, or Para Continuar en Español, Oprime el Nueve.

Yesterday, the phone went dead. I feared either God or the phone company was getting even with me for being critical.

Today, Monday, we called repairs, waded through the computer-managed questionnaires, repeated my name, phone number, mailing address, last four digits of my SSN, and call-back number several times: once for the computer; the rest for the nice young female voice on the other end of the wireless line, probably in Manila.

The repair man came out early this afternoon.  Hey, that ain't bad.  That's pretty quick. The phone company truck pulled into our driveway and we eagerly met him at the door. Turned out he'd already fixed it. He showed us a broken telephone wire. A packrat had gotten into the phone company's box down the street and chewed through wiring.

So maybe it wasn't God's or the phone company's retribution. Maybe it was that big packrat I evicted from behind the storage box in our tower. Or maybe it was all of the above.

Swimming with Critters

Swimming, sort of

Scorpions and flies do not swim very well. Either that, or they can't climb out of a swimming pool very well. Or maybe the ones around the desert never learned how to swim. In any case, this scorpion drowned and it's the time of year when flies get stuck in the pool.

We've been keeping the pool covered, especially overnight when the temperatures drop. Sometimes there's a little surprise when we uncover.

Usually it's a horde of flies. The silly critters like to drink; odd, eh? Trouble is, once they dip, they're stuck. I wonder if they ever figure out about surface tension.

Oh well. No need to mourn too many of them. Once they are skimmed out with my trusty swimming pool skimmer-net, they revive in a few tens of minutes. Happy, but none the smarter.

Drying out, sort of

Couple of mornings ago, we had a nice surprise. Well, it was a lot less nice for the scorpion on the bottom of the pool. Looks like it gave up the ghost while in a ready-to-sting posture. Dead. Defunct.

So far I've seen two kinds of scorpions around here. This is the big, kinda orange colored. The other kind is small and dark. They say it's the sting of the small ones that are more nasty. I don't have the experiences to compare, but the sting I got from one of the small guys was only a nuisance.

This guy was about three inches long. I can't be sure because it was stuck in the ready-to-sting position. It may have been defunct, but I didn't want to unwind its tail.

Good thing we shocked the pool a couple three weeks ago. ("Shock" in the world of swimming pool maintenance means overdosing on chlorine.) Our water is nice and clear. I can spot a small pebble on the deep bottom. So it's not like there is any risk of swimming with critters.

When monsoon season comes, we'll be fishing frogs out of the pool. Meanwhile, Shari has taken to swimming in the cool mornings when the water is only 92 degrees.

.

Mr. Owl

The first clue was a couple of days ago. There was fresh owl scat on the brick walkway under the big gum (eucalyptus) tree. Then very early this morning, in the dark, the hoot of an owl.

Around sunrise this morning, I heard an odd, repeated cry. I went in back and two birds flew out of the pine tree. One appeared to be an oversized dove. It was the one making the noise. The other was a large owl.

Both settled in the gum tree, the large dove warning its fellows about the predator. The owl settled on a hidden branch, exactly above the spot where I had found its scat.

I hope it feeds greedily on the little nocturnal rodents. But I wish it would attend to its nature elsewhere.

Monsoon Frogs & Turtle

If two incidents can make a pattern, we have one. Two years in a row we have had a Noah's flood monsoon storm pass through the Foothills on the Fourth of July. Do we know how to celebrate the Fourth or what?

It's not just the wind and water. The Wet brings out critters you otherwise never see. Our Fourth of July gathering is blessed with frogs -- one tiger striped little fellow found its way into the kitchen where a guest, familiar with these things, pronounced it an endangered striped Chiricahua frog and gently took it outside.

The down side is the croaking. These frogs make a lot of noise -- all night. They are looking for mates and they don't have a lot of time. The sound is not as pleasant as frogs on Whidbey. It's more like the wailing of something in great pain. Lovesick, I suppose.

So frogs have become a staple for our Fourth of July parties. No, we don't eat them. We just look at them with flashlights. Then the following morning we net them out of the cement pond -- easily a dozen or two.

But the tortoise yesterday was a first. We had a big pour yesterday. Monsoon rain can be very local. A quarter mile can make a huge difference. Lately most of the rain has hit downtown and south. Yesterday it hit the Foothills, up to two or more inches depending on location.

When the rain gets that heavy, I am out in the back sweeping water away from the back doors. As I often complain, people here don't think about rain when they build houses. Without the wood dams that I have caulked down by the thresholds, sheets of water would be oozing into the TV room and kitchen. Not good. The concern is enough that I sweep the water away. It's a fun way to get exercise and really get into the Wet.

So I'm out there sweeping water and there is this tortoise by the side of the house. I have no idea where these guys live 51 weeks out of the year, but it's astonishing what shows up in the Wet. Bugs the size of pigeons. I can hardly wait for the tarantulas.

Bobcats

One of two bobcats whose snarling and howling yesterday
got me out of my office grabbing my camera.

We've had a lot of bobcat sightings the last month or so. Different bobcats have been walking through yards and driveways. One big one was scratching its front paws on our gum tree by the house. Yesterday, a couple of young ones were wandering below our house.  Shari put out a tub of water in case they were thirsty.

"The bobcat is a medium-size cat weighing 12 to 30 pounds with an average adult length of 2 to 2.5 feet. Bobcats are timid and typically avoid human contact, but do not let their relatively small size fool you. They are tremendously strong and can bring down a small deer. They can become ferocious when challenged, so never approach a bobcat."

Last year I was trimming bush below the house when I saw a bobcat passing below me.  It didn't seem to be bothered by me. The cat was looking for food.

Photo courtesy of our neighbors, Randy & Sandy, who
write, "We have been seeing them every couple of months
and believe they were fighting outside our window last week.
Also been seeing the coyotes and javelinas a lot.
Watch out for the rattlesnakes.
They will be out soon and please don't kill them."

I have read that bobcats are more fussy eaters than, say, coyotes. Bobcats like rabbits. Over the course of several long minutes, this bobcat traversed the gully below me, then up the slope where a rabbit was munching on a cactus. I was hoping to witness a kill (sorry, Mr. Rabbit), but the rabbit disappeared and the bobcat continued traversing down the other slope on the west of our house.

Several times these past couple of months, we've been sitting in the front of our house, watching the cactus grow, when we spotted a bobcat. It's a trick to keep the dogs from barking, much less running out and tempting the gourmet sensitivities of a wild and very capable hunter.

Usually, by the time you get your camera, you get a shot of the cat's backside. In 2007, howling and snarling sounds from the back of the house were from two bobcats in the pine tree. Maybe they had slept there. I got video of them climbing down the tree.

Scorpio

Funny how modern life is oblivious to creatures that have inspired humans for millennia. People have associated creatures with knowledge, water, moods, fertility and . . . you name it. They weren't just pests; they were tied in with consciousness, including our own. Scorpions, for example, were borrowed to represent one of the twelve archetypes of the zodiac.

We saw our first scorpion in the garage not long after we first moved in. It was my very first. There are no scorpions in Puget Sound, and I don't remember any in Sydney. We killed it and worried about more. Then we found a dead scorpion in the house upon our return after summer on Whidbey. We put it in a jar as a curiosity. Then there was the time Shari blithely picked up a live scorpion in our bedroom closet, like a piece of yarn. She quickly realized her mistake. The scorpion was sluggish. We killed it. A couple of mornings ago, as I was playing solitaire in the living room, a little scorpion dashed across in front of me. I killed it.

But the biggest fellow we ever saw was in the backyard; almost five inches long. It was still alive, but clearly its best days were past. I got some video of it moving, but soon it fell over on its back and that's how it died.

They say the little ones are more poisonous. It was a little one that bit me on a small toe. I didn't realize it at the time. For about a day I thought I had a small, slightly burning sliver in my toe. Then it went away. A couple of days later I found the little scorpion in the dining room, dead. I had stepped on it in my bare feet.

So this is why we fear scorpions? If my personal experience is representative, they are on the same level as honey bees and wasps.

Spidey

We've actually had some rain this week, about a half an inch. Funny how obsessed we are with rain in the desert, the flip side of being obsessed with rain in Puget Sound.  Here it's new. There it's old.

Little critters come out with the rain. This little tarantula was hanging around the pillows of the bed/sofa in our backyard. I've also seen them working in the yard.  I was working; they were moving out of the way.

They move quite deliberately. I tried to shoo this one away by slapping pillows near it and blowing on it, but it simply climbed on the wall and hung around the window. Not even camera flashes bothered it.

Early morning light & Mexican bird of paradise flowers

They live longer than most dogs. Male tarantulas live ten to twelve years; females double that. Anything that lives so many years has to have some smarts. They eat bugs and small lizards, so they are welcome.

But spidey is not so welcome in the heap of pillows on our outside sofa. After my refreshing swim in the cement pond (86 deg.), spidey was still sitting by the window  —  quite calmly to all appearances. Time for the broom, I thought, but gently. Spidey hardly moved, then climbed aboard. Daddy took him over the wall and dropped Spidey outside. Happy ending!