Skip navigation

Tag Archives: cactus

Plants in the Granite

Being a desert area with little rain, what grows there? Turns out, lots of stuff. We were not there at the peak of the flower bloom (we missed the cactus flowers for sure) but we still saw lots of color. The reds really stand out. Red paintbrush and a red milkvetch. Most of the other plants were new to me. The purple and white low growing flowers sometimes carpeted an area of granite gravel. It was a harsh place for pretty things. We didn’t see a lot of pollinator type insects. Most of the bugs we saw were tiny no-see-ums that came out in clouds around dusk and were quite annoying.

Saguaro National Park

The magnificent saguaro is an amazing plant. They stand straight without any branches or arms until they are 70 or 80 years old! The provide food for people and wildlife. Birds create cavities in them for nesting and roosting. Even after they die, they stand for a long time, continuing to provide wildlife habitat. And there are many more kinds of cacti in and around the park. The big succulents bloom in the summer while wildflowers bloom much earlier in the year. This is a place to return to time and time again.

We traveled in style
Saguaro forest
This flower was at the visitor center
Many-armed saguaro
Howard is 91 and has been driving across the country from Maine for over 40 years to visit this region!
A saguaro snag
Jennifer and Judy worked on their not so Junior Ranger Badget

Canyon Lake

SW trip part 4

 

Jennifer and Judy have made lots of friends while touring in the SW and two of these friends invited all of us to join them for a boat tour of Canyon Lake. This lake is a reservoir on the Salt River. There are four reservoirs on the Salt River and the water is used in the Phoenix area for drinking and irrigation. At the last diversion dam, the Salt River is dry.

Canyon Lake is stunningly beautiful with high rock walls and narrow side canyons that can be explored by boat. It looks like a fun place to go kayaking. They said sometimes they see big horn sheep but we missed them. The foliage is a mix of grasses and cacti and some leafy plants too. Being February, it was a little early for wildflowers despite temperatures in the mid-80’s that day. We all used ample sun screen and wore long sleeves to protect our winter white skin!

Bald Eagles nest on those cliffs
Haunting music in the canyon
Wyatt was happy to be out and about
Wyatt’s new friend Abby
Cholla
Petrified log
Ocotillo
Saguaros
Prickly Pear
Our ride
Abby seems puzzled by that brilliant yellow reflection from the boat’s bimini
Coots
Oh, so much fun to be dogs
Dirty dogs
At lunch, Wyatt met this nice lab named Wicket. She liked him.
Wyatt even brought me a stick so she could impress Wicket with her swimming abilitiies but he didn’t seem to notice
Lichens
Jennifer and Judy performing for their ride
A tour boat
Mallards
These prickly pears are growing on that bridge!
They even let Jennifer drive!

The Desert Museum

SW trip part 2

 

On my first full day in the SW we visited the Arizona Sonora Desert Museum. This is an amazing place to learn about the plants and animals that inhabit the Sonoran Desert and it was high on my list of must-see destinations on this trip. We were there about five hours and could have easily spent two days exploring all the nooks and crannies of the place. There are exhibits of animals of various habitats – including aquatic animals, plants and how they cope with the desert climate, raptor flights, and so on. They had just started a raptor flight when we arrived so we saw a number of trained hawks and owls. I was surprised by the number of hummingbird species. They had their own aviary. I wish there’d been a docent there to help me identify all of them. I’ve tried to guess and I think I got the males right but the females, I just don’t know.

If you’re ever in the Tucson area, it’s well worth the time to see the Desert Museum.

A Great-horned Owl was part of the raptor free flight demonstration.
The Great-horned Owl looks over the visitors
I think this is a Western Screech Owl
I think this is a Western Screech Owl
American Kestrel. Falcon always have such large eyes!
This Cactus Wren was gathering nesting materials
Young desert tortise
Verdin
I think this is a female Anna’s Hummingbird
So many hummingbirds
Hummingbird nest
Broad-billed Hummingbird
So many hummingbirds
Hummingbird on a nest
That egg is smaller than your smallest fingernail
Costa’s Hummingbird
Anna’s Hummingbird
Amazing flora in the desert
Bird’s nest on a saguaro
The Greater Roadrunner. My favorite new bird on the trip.
The roadrunner has very beautiful markings
Joshua tree
So bored
Another bored animal
Beaver
Otter
Jennifer explains something
Ocotillo with new growth
Frogs
I mostly avoided the snakes
Ground squirrel
Elf Owl
Invasive House Sparrow in a saguaro cavity
Cholla. I did not touch them.
Prickly pear
I think this is an agave
What a landscape

%d bloggers like this: