Desert Creatures

All I need is a grocery store and a refrigerator and I'm good to go while traveling. 

But I forgot to pack my spork. And coffee stirrers make lousy spoons. They make lousy coffee stirrers too.

Casting about my hotel room for anything remotely spoonlike, I lit upon my hairbrush. 

Washed it, removed as much hair from it as possible and it made a dandy shovel for yogurt and strawberries. Mmm, snorfle, gulp, seeya. I had an adventure to get to!

Wherever I went in Arizona I carried my long lens. I found desert wildlife photography challenging, in a different way than, say, rainforest photography. There is plenty of light in the desert. But the contrast between light and shade are harsh and hard.

Early morning, of course, is best, because the animals are out and about and the light isn't so hard.

I found this beautiful desert cottontail waiting in the hotel parking lot after my hairy yogurt breakfast. 

All rabbits are beautiful, but these big-eared pale creatures are stunning.

The big ears help the animal radiate heat. You'll see a lot of animals with oversized ears in the desert. 

Halfway up Cathedral Rock, a canyon wren popped out for a moment, then popped back into the shadows. I loved to hear its cascading laughter ringing in the canyons.

 This medium-sized lizard was sunning on a rock. He let me get close enough to see that he'd had some kind of injury to his nose. But he was still workin' his blue belly. He got up on a rock and started doing herky jerky push-ups to show it off.

Yes, you're made of awesome.

Something drew his attention several yards away: an ant, lugging some kind of dead dobsonfly lookin' thing across the rock. He hustled down off his soapbox and nabbed it!

Pizza delivery! I'll take that. Thanks. Don't know if the ant deliverygirl was part of the meal or not. You can see a hint of his turquoise blue belly in this shot.

After poring over my old reptile guide, I think he's a Southwestern earless lizard Holbrookia texana scitula. 

 Me and Russell, coming back down the rock. We didn't climb that straight up and down part. Just the flanks, thanks. Photo by Barbara Samuelson.

More typical Sedona wildlife: a blonde woman talking about something (Vortex energy? Holistic health? Meditation? Goat farming? Antihistmines?)  while beating softly on a skin drum. She was being videotaped for something or other. It was getting hotter than the hinges by the time they packed it in. Yep, all the wildlife is out in the early morning.

Up on Top of Cathedral Rock

Cathedral Rock is another vortex site in Sedona, Arizona. People say that the junipers grow in a spiral at vortex sites. They were spiraling like mad here.

I was attuned to the crazy spiralling vortex energy, but probably too excited by the prospect of climbing Cathedral Rock to fully feel it coming up through my feet the way it did at Red Rock Crossing.

These trees amaze me, the way they seem to be able to sprout living needles out of what looks like dry driftwood.

This one was situated so as to be a handhold for a steep bit of trail. 

I marveled at its smoothness, at the human hand grease that had waxed it to a fine patina.

The summit grew ever nearer. Well, "summit" is a negotiable thing. I am not the sort of person who would consider the heads of these hoodoos a "summit." For me, the summit was the first saddle in between them. High enough for Zick, you betcha. Not a crampon/piton gal.

The view got pretty dizzying in a very short time. 

It was a most rewarding climb.

Russell had told me about a mystery plant they'd seen that looked like an evergreen with tiny needles, but with white five-petaled flowers.

My first thought was that it looked like a potentilla, or a rose, with those five petals, that puff of yellow anthers.

Looking more closely, I found a seedhead that clinched its membership in the rose family. These plumy seeds are reminiscent of prairie smoke (Geum triflorum), also, surprisingly, a rose family member. 

I was unsurprised to find the "flowering evergreen" in a quick online search. Cliff Rose, Cowania mexicana.

I'd see it growing all over the South Rim of the Grand Canyon the next day!

Cowania mexicana seedhead

See the similarity? 

Prairie Smoke, Geum triflorum

Near Chase Lake, North Dakota. This photo makes me weep. 

Plant Taxonomy at Harvard taught by Carroll Williams is without a doubt the most useful course I ever took. I recall someone telling me that, while exhorting me to take the course, and I was a believer after about two classes. Plant taxonomy is not only fun to learn, it's surpassingly useful for the rest of your life.

We had been passed on the way up by a very fit older German gentleman in little shorts who said he climbs it most days. Well, that would explain his speed and thighs. He got up to the saddle  well ahead of us (see what I mean by its being high enough for me?) The view went on forever. Wow.

When Russell and I got there (Barbara was nursing a healing knee down below), this man was seated and in deep conversation with a woman with long gray hair whom he'd apparently met on the climb. He was saying something about a race of people from another planet who have been here before and will return in 2060. She said, "Oh, cool. Wow. Huh. I may not be around then."

Ya think? I started to chuckle silently, trying not to snort. I tried to imagine a conversation like that happening in Ohio, and failed.

I also tried to imagine myself climbing out on this ledge like these young people (see the red shirt?) with their selfie stick. Failed at that, too. We Ohioans are neither very imaginative nor tolerant of great heights. Speaking strictly for myself. 

But I sure enjoyed climbing Cathedral Rock with Barbara and Russell. I mean to do it again someday soon.

Thanks to my sweet friend Maria C. for the tips on where to go and what to do in Sedona!

Sedona, You Have to Stop.

The view from Sky Ranch Lodge. Ridiculous. 

Meanwhile, in the garden, an agave leaves a perfect print of the older leaf on the new unfolding leaf.

That gets me. And it's the whole reason I have an agave. Well, that and that my friend Lori sent me one, knowing I'd love it.

Seeing them in the wild is just the bomb. Even though I would never, ever want to fall into one. That could actually kill you. They are sharp as knives. Even my little baby here at home has nailed me a bunch of times. I still love her.

The light plays on them making endless kaleidescope shapes and patterns.

Take a picture of me with this massive agave, please. (On the grounds of Sky Ranch Lodge).

So Barbara Samuelson did. Now that's a decorative plant. I could use one of those in my yard in Ohio, but I'd probably have to take out a rider on our homeowner's insurance.

My friend Maria told me I had to climb Cathedral Rock. So I saved it for when Russell and Barbara could come along, knowing it would be awesome.

It was so cool to get closer and closer, and have this looming rock take shape right before us.

With an ocotillo and Opuntia tonsure. The sky couldn't have been any bluer this morning.

Looking down, some nameless pompom plantie. I wanted to take it home, but I knew it would hate Ohio.

Looking up, Russell against an impossibly blue sky. We speculated whether the sky just looked that blue by contrast with the red rock, or whether it was really that clear, that blue. 

We were going up into one of those saddles between the hoodoos, we were.

 I can't take all this beauty. 

Sedona, you have to stop.

In the Company of Ravens

So I'm hiking up out of Red Rock Crossing Park, back up to Slick Rock and the Secret Slick Rock Trail, the one that got me in this fix in the first place, because I could not resist its name, or the promise it held of finding something secret, something special. The turkey vulture has given me several close passes and some of his invisible, totemic wisdom. And then two ravens hove into view.

 

I could tell they were young birds first by their voices. I haven’t been around breeding ravens in my lifetime, having lived out of their range, but this spring in the New River Gorge area of West Virginia, I heard what had to be a young raven yelling for its parents in the mist. It was a high-pitched, bleating whoop, an adenoidal shadow of the mellow toots and deep honks the bird would make later in life.

These were yelling. A lot. They took an immediate interest in me, circling just overhead, dangling their legs, talking talking talking.

 

Well. I thought perhaps that this is something ravens do in Sedona, that they don’t do elsewhere. I wondered if people hand feed them. I still wonder that. I wonder about everything I saw in Sedona. Whatever made the ravens come and seek me out, I was bursting with joy at the simple fact that they did. “Waugh! Waugh!” they called again and again, as they circled and played in the updraft over Slick Rock.

I spoke softly to them, then louder, as it became clear they were not afraid of me in the least. I remembered lying down on a clifftop at Cape St. Mary’s in Newfoundland, maybe 33 years ago, on a fine, cool, foggy, drizzly summer day, wondering what the ravens would do if I feigned death.  I got my answer through slitted eyes as they quartered lower and lower. Finally I heard the soft plop of a raven landing on the turf just a few feet behind my head. I got an instant, primal image of that hefty black beak plunging into my eye socket and sat up flailing, a human windmill. I was doing that GET ‘EM OFF ME ROSIE thing Humphrey Bogart did in “African Queen” when he dove down to fix the prop on their leaky old boat and came up covered in great fat leeches.  Shudder!

I never knew the raven’s true intent in landing behind my head, but I wasn’t going to risk an eye by letting him show me. Why else would he land there? Curiosity, certainly. But maybe because he thought I was dead, and tasty too.

This was an altogether different thing. The energy coming off these young ravens was playful, benign, almost doglike. They wanted to see what I was up to. They wanted to know if I had anything for them. They wanted to play with me.  I was laughing at their antics, as one kept ducking his head between his dangling legs in flight.  It reminded me of a kid riding a bike hands-free, just trying to impress whomever might be watching.

I began to make a game of trying to photograph the two against good backdrops, and, as I do with all my animal and bird subjects, I talked them through it. “Ahh. Red rock. Goood. Nice one. Let’s try that again!”

“You are BEAUTIFUL! Well, after a good molt you’ll be even more beautiful. But what a start you’ve made!”

I could see the pink corners on their mouths that told me they were youngun’s. That, the dull brown matte juvenile plumage, and their high teenage voices were the tipoffs. I wondered if adult ravens would behave this way. I never got the feeling they’d been hand-raised; no, they were truly wild, just unafraid, bold. 

“This is nice, but do you think you could fly over by Cathedral Rock for me? You’d look so good against that backdrop!”

To my amazement, they turned and beat their way over to the Rock, circling against it. I don’t think they spoke English. I think they picked up on the picture I had in my head, on the pure electric communication passing between our minds. I was visualizing a picture of them against the Rock, and I think they saw it in their heads. I also believe they were enjoying my enthusiastic reaction to their antics. I think it perfectly possible that they knew I was photographing them, and wanted to put on a good show for the camera. Ravens don’t miss much. Their eyesight, the things ravens must notice, put us humans to shame, make us look like we’re moving through life with our eyes closed.

 The ravens returned from Cathedral Rock and flew at eye level and what felt like arm's length, back and forth in front of me. By now, they certainly knew I had no food for them. I barely had enough water for me. But I was headed for my car, and all would be well.

Finally they landed.

Their shadows on the rock--were they enjoying them as much as I was?

All of it. The communication we shared, the simple but obvious joy in each other's presence. 

Their finding me was like coming upon someone in the middle of nowhere, and saying Hello! Hello! How's it going? Where are you from? You'd never do that in the grocery store. But out here, meeting someone is special.

 I felt I was in the presence of someone, perhaps people I knew, in raven form. The birds' interest in me was too intense, too friendly, too joyful to be anything other than directed. By whom, I could not know. I might guess, but I'd never know.

All I knew is that I felt accompanied. 

Entertained. Loved, even.

Not alone.

If that be your only message, ravens, it was received with joy and great humility. 

What an honor this was, to be for a little while in the company of ravens.