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.

Zick Goes To Sedona!

Every once in awhile...no, every day I am reminded that I may be the luckiest person alive. 

I have two healthy kids who are sweet and considerate and smart. I live in a beautiful place that I love fiercely. Everything on me works, and nothing hurts. I can see, walk and run. 

Everything I love most is free. 

And I get to work up talks about the things I love, and go to cool places and meet awesome people and give those talks. 

When I've discharged my duties the best that I can, I allow myself to hike around looking at landscapes and wildlife.

That's not a blue jay.

That's a western scrub jay!

That's not an Eastern cottontail.

That's a desert cottontail! Lookit those giant ears! The better to radiate heat with, my dear.

Zick goes to Sedona, Arizona!! Aieee!! And this was my first Sedona sunset. I will never be the same.

 About a year ago, Ross and Beth Kingsley Hawkins of the International Hummingbird Society asked me to give a couple of talks at the Fourth Annual Sedona Hummingbird Festival, July 31-August 2, 2015. It took me about ten minutes to scrabble around my calendar and say HELL YEAH!!

I had always wanted to see the famed red rocks of Sedona.  And a hummingbird festival, there?? 

I had NO idea what I was in for. It was so much more wonderful than I could have imagined.

The blistering heat of Phoenix's low desert slowly fell away as I drove two hours north.

"Monsoon season" had arrived, and with it a bit of rain and a lot of spectacular clouds. Pardon these through the windscreen shots. Couldn't help myself. 

The mountains rose up before me, and with it my adrenaline. I was SO ready to see this area.

Highway 17's OMG moment, when you climb, then behold the Verde Valley for the first time. I actually got a little vertigo and slowed way down. Heights. Beautiful heights. 

When I got to my destination, the Summit Resort in Sedona, the monsoon skies just blew me away.

I rooted around on Yelp because I was hungry, got the drift of area restaurants (some great, some not so great, and all expensive) and hied me to the Safeway, where for $50 (less than the price of a typical dinner out) I bought a week's worth of the kind of stuff I like to eat. With a fridge and a microwave in my fabbo room, I was in business! I didn't want to waste any of my precious time waiting for a waitron to bring me a menu or forget to bring my check. I wanted to stuff my gob and get back out in the red rock desert. So that's what I did.

Then I hurried back out into the beauty that surrounded me. 

I'd been up for about 20 hours, having left home at 2:40 AM, but seeing a humble house finch against the backdrop where it evolved and so richly belongs knocked me flat.

You see this sky? This sky's in love with you...