In Search of Color

The desert has a powerful, fulfilling beauty, spiritual and deep.  But what it does not have is the glory of autumn leaves in the throes of their annual ritual of changing color. For those of us who have lived in parts of the country dominated by deciduous trees, where 'going to see the color' was a rite of fall, where even the drive to work took one's breath away with the stunning brilliance of the colors, there's just something missing when the days shorten and turn cool, pumpkins appear on doorsteps, Halloween arrives, and yet there are no 'colors'.

To fill this small void, I prodded my husband to drive up the Catalina Highway to Mt. Lemmon, in search of oaks, maples, aspens, sumacs in their fall colors.  It is a particularly fascinating ascent, biologically, passing through a number of life zones from saguaros and palo verdes to oaks and junipers, thence to pines, aspens, firs and spruce, from 2500' elevation to over 9000'.  The biological equivalent, they say, of driving from Mexico to Canada, in just 27 miles.

The Halloween day began prophetically with a colorful sunrise,

and a new bloom.

After a stop for breakfast, we made our way through Monday traffic across town, finally to the Catalina Highway, rising quickly above the congested valley, past the mega-houses carved into the granite hillside, and into the saguaro-studded foothills.  Before long, the vegetation became denser, the cactus giving way to yuccas, pines, oaks and grasses.  Massive rock formations and stunning views of Tucson and its surrounding mountain ranges greet the traveler at every turn.  A popular stop is Windy Vista where tourists snap photos and rock climbers test themselves on the granite outcroppings.

Crazy hoodoos look like people (well, kinda)

and I'm glad I'm not driving so I can enjoy this marvelous scenery.  Though I've seen it many times before, it never fails to inspire and entertain.  As we reached the higher elevations, a lookout offered a stark view of the mountaintop community of Summerhaven and its surrounding forests devastated by the Aspen Fire of 2003.

But color?  No there wasn't much yet. Here and there, a tantalizing touch of shining gold or yellow.

But, mainly it seemed we were a week or more too late for any big show.  Summerhaven is slowly rebuilding, and where once stood decades-old family cabins, now enormous new dwellings sit among a blackened forest of ghost trees.  Through the village we passed and on to the Marshall Gulch picnic area.  Several trails lead from this canyon area filled with deciduous hardwoods and dense lower vegetation along a small ephemeral stream.  Finally, here I was in a cathedral of color and silence.  

A carpet of maple leaves crunched under foot as I made my way along the trail.  The hammering of a woodpecker high in the canopy had me searching for the source.  Finally the movement drew my eye to a downy woodpecker, and then I could hear several of them.  Standing still, small bird sounds became louder and soon I saw movement all around.  Juncos, brown creepers and nuthatches were all busily preparing for winter.  

Shafts of sunlight made their way deep into the recesses of the canyon, lighting up the leaves, setting the colors aglow.  Small pools of water remained in the streambed, covered with a palette of orange, yellow, red leaves.

Bear with me if you see more striking colors every day out your window. I was in a momentary heaven and my camera felt the same, it just kept clicking and clicking.  The blue, blue sky above providing a magnificent backdrop to the forest.

The trail led on and I had to force myself to turn around as the light was fading and the mountain chill setting in.  

A handsome Abert's squirrel, with his pointed ears and bushy tail ran up a nearby tree to watch the passerby, carefully eyeing the black object being pointed at him.

Back on the road to Summerhaven, a white-tailed doe and buck strolled out of our way, not too concerned with the car.

At the Cookie Cabin's patio in the village, we gorged on freshly-homemade berry cobbler topped with ice cream, the biggest peanut butter cookie you've ever seen and a delicious cup of coffee.

Then it was back down the mountain.

Here's to days of beauty, peace, nature, and glorious color!

Friendship - From Virtual to Reality

In the cyberworld, we often meet people and become friends without ever meeting in person.  So when a fellow blogger recently told me she would be in Tucson and would I like to meet, I jumped at the chance.  After all, I already knew I would like her.  She leads an interesting and adventuresome life, which I admire, and she and I have so many interests in common.  Marilyn's stay in Tucson was brief as she was traveling from Texas to northern California and had only one night to stay.  So, we agreed to meet at Catalina State Park where she would be camping.  We could spend a couple of hours birding and then have breakfast before she had to be on the road again.

Before the sun even had an opportunity to rise over the Catalinas, we were on the trail.  Even before the birds, as it turns out!  We were so busy chatting and getting acquainted that we really forgot to notice how few birds were about.  It was a crisp morning, still chilly in the shadow of the mountains, but cloudless and promising to warm up soon.

As the sun rose higher and the trail climbed, it was time to shed sweaters.  Soon we were stopping to investigate bird songs and photograph those fascinating plants, not just the giant saguaros, but also cholla loaded with fruit.

A recently deceased saguaro, possibly the victim of lightning as there were some still-green parts lying among the debris, provided more photos ops.  The boots formed by the cactus to protect itself from the woodpeckers' nesting efforts were still embedded in the wooden ribs and decayed flesh.

Marilyn has great experience and knowledge of Texas flora and fauna and we enjoyed comparing the Sonoran Desert species to those with which she is more familiar.  In some cases, those species which overlap were much smaller in our drier climate.  Hackberry trees, for example, and side-oats grama grass.

Woopeckers called and flew by in their typical dipping, flap-flap-glide pattern, and we were able to recognize Gila and ladderback as well as flickers.  Many sparrows were flitting among the trees and shrubs - white-crowned, black-throated and rufous-sided.  They were joined by canyon  and green-tailed towhees.  A lovely little song made us think we might be hearing a wren, possibly a  rock wren, but we were never able to spot the singer.

Marilyn's road ahead was long and she wanted to be traveling before it got too late.  When we came to a fork in the trail, we could have gone left back to the parking lot, or right to take the 2-mile-or-so Canyon Loop trail.  Well, she said, that won't take long, let's take the loop trail.  Off we went, vowing to move faster and stop for fewer photos.  Ha!  Our intentions were good, but oh! there were just too many cool things to see.  Down by the ephemeral stream where tiny water cachements remained, the butterflies were flitting about - southern dogface, sleepy orange, queen, blues, Empress Leilia and gulf frittilaries.  Yellow composites bloomed, as well as a little purple aster (fleabane?) and some yellow primroses.  The deer grass was beautiful.

Just one more photo!

Oh, there were lizards too, scampering just out of camera view, and dragonflies.  Stop, she said, don't tell me any more.  Shorts and more water would have been in order at this point, but we were almost back to the car, weren't we?

We heard a black-tailed gnatcatcher and some Gambel's quail that refused to show their faces.  Marilyn really wanted to see the quail, and if we'd had more time, we could have found them.  These wonderful little birds are so evocative of the Sonoran Desert.  

The trail came to and end and we were off to breakfast.  Coffee and omelettes with salsa really hit the spot after our walk. It was a great morning and I'm so glad that Marilyn and I could make this connection.

 Here's to Marilyn's new adventure in a northern California wildlife refuge, and here's to friendship!

A Day in Happy Valley

 My birding group made its monthly outing yesterday, and our destination this time was Happy Valley, on the east side of the Rincon Mountains.  Seems somewhat silly to call ourselves a birding group when we look for and at so many other interesting things.  Maybe ‘naturalist’ group would be a better description.  For many miles along the dirt road we birded from the cars as Private Property signs were posted along both sides.  A juvenile Northern Harrier caught our eyes as he hunted low along the ground, many sparrows flitted among the trees, a Loggerhead shrike stood tall on the top of a mesquite tree, and Western Meadowlarks hopped from the ground to the low trees, singing their beautiful song.  That sound always takes me back to my childhood on my grandparents’ ranch in Ash Valley, California, where I would often awake to the song of meadowlarks.  A red-shafted northern flicker flew by.  As we rose in elevation, oaks and junipers joined mesquites as dominating species.  Along the ephemeral stream bed, the big cottonwoods, sycamores, willows and ash trees rose tall and offered a touch of fall color.

An unfenced area beckoned to us and there didn’t appear to be any NO TRESPASSING signs, so it was time for some exploration.  Grasshoppers were abundant here, as Buzz, our resident entomologist, had hoped, including large plains lubbers mating, beautiful red-wingeds flying, and another mating pair caught in the web of a black widow spider.  As the grasshoppers struggled to get free, the spider kept making jabs at them, but acted nervous and fearful of getting too close.  Quite the drama.  There were a few flowers blooming - morning glories, caltrops, threadleaf groundsel, scarlet creeper and some kind of vetch.  Birds included mockingbirds, red-naped sapsucker, a red-tailed hawk, a raven, yellow-rumped warblers, sparrows, Say’s phoebe and a Western wood pewee.  In the butterfly category, we saw queens, a variegated fritillary, pipevine swallowtails, sleepy oranges, cloudless sulphurs, and more.  Debbie found a very small set of antlers, long-since discarded by a white-tailed deer.  Did all that make up for the horrible stickers we  got in our shoes, socks, pants and legs??  Just as we were leaving, a woman came along and asked us to leave as we were on private property.  Fine. I couldn't wait to get out of those stickers anyway!

The caravan proceeded slowly as there seemed lots to stop and see - grasshoppers, butterflies, birds, plants, lizards.  Along the way a red-tailed hawk posed on a dead snag, frightening a large group of small birds that Gay was able to identify as lark buntings in winter plumage.  A bank of clouds advanced steadily until the sky was mostly cloudy, and looking somewhat like rain.  White-crowned and black-throated sparrows got the cars to stop for a closer look.  I could hear the white-crowned’s musical song.

Finally we arrived at Forest Service land and after a few minutes to study the maps, chose a road to Turkey Creek where we parked and had lunch at a large cleared campsite.  Up in the big trees, a chatter of small birds revealed yellow-rumped warblers.  An American robin and red-naped sapsuckers were all happily foraging in the juniper tree right over our heads.  Down the road we walked on a lovely fall day, the clouds keeping the temperature quite pleasant.  Some bird activity attracted our attention to a big sycamore tree, and Wow!  We found a bonanza!  White-breasted nuthatches, bridled titmouse, ruby-crowned kinglet, yellow-rumped warblers, all so busy.  So many fascinating little things to see, like a mantid egg case, a perfectly rounded bird nest with the entrance hole on the end, a shrine made of native rock, green cane chollas decorated with their bright yellow fruit.   Magnificent, giant trees amazed us with their huge girth and height.  One long-ago-fallen giant was like a sculpture, so lovely were its patterns and designs.  A red-tailed hawk rode a thermal, seeming to sit perfectly still on the wind.  The big leaves fell like snowflakes and crunched under our feet.  An interesting array of beetles and other small creatures hid under rocks, or so they thought!

Walking back to our cars, we felt a few raindrops, but that was the extent of the rain.  It had been a perfect day for ‘naturing’ !

For all the photos, go to  Happy Valley Birding