Arizona Happy!

Iridescence on a young Anna's hummingbird: a fairly conventional fire-pink at one angle

and a bewitching emerald at another. For whatever reason, the complimentary color seems to be the reverse of many iridescent feathers; a pintail or rock pigeon's shell-pink neck feathers go sea-green at another angle; a ruby-throat's fire-engine red shows deep emerald, and so goes this Anna's gorget, shocking pink to lime green. I'm back here to edit this post, because a Facebook friend just asked, "Julie, how did you get to hold a hummingbird?" And I realized that not everyone is reading every little thing I write. Duh! In the social media world, we dip in, take a sip, and fly backwards and sideways out for another little sip somewhere else. So explanation is good. I was at a hummingbird banding demonstration, and that hand belongs to master hummingbird bander Steve Bouricius.

I took one last look at the hummingbird garden's red rock view and took off for the festival hall to give my talk. Sigh. I could stare at that all day.

My talks at the Sedona Hummingbird Festival went really well. The weeks of work it takes to build just one Keynote presentation are worth it. I've been told that I work too far too hard and for far too long on my talks. That I could totally wing it. But winging it is not how I do anything. I'm like an ox who knows exactly how big a load he can pull, who throws his weight into the yoke and gives it the power and time it takes to get that load from A to B. So when people come up to me after a talk with tears in their eyes and say that it changed their way of thinking or even changed their life, I'm less abashed and embarrassed to hear that because I feel good about the fact that I've given it all I've got. That happened in Sedona, and it was wonderful. I love being able to move people's souls. And I love how doing that takes me to magical places I'd never experience otherwise. Grateful.

On Saturday afternoon, after my talk and book signing, I had a couple of hours before I'd be attending a banquet. I'd seen what looked like a trailhead behind Yavapai Community college, very near where I was staying at Summit Resort, so I boogied up there with my boots on. I wanted to get into some of the desert I'd been ogling from the road.

A whispery, jittery flock of bushtits greeted me. These kinglet-sized birds, are members of a monotypic genus (Psaltriparus) and the only North American member of an Old World family (Aegithalidae) that includes the spectacular long-tailed tit of Eurasia. I thought about the ancient continental drift that might have brought bushtits to what would become North America, and felt very young, or at least recent. It's just cool that we have a bushtit in North America, sort of the way we have one Old World creeper (the brown creeper), from the 

Certhiidae, a family that's well-represented by a bunch of species in Eurasia.

 A Gambel's quail, waiting for his family of puffballs to follow. 

I couldn't get enough of the monsoon sky. It never rained more than a spatter on me the whole time I was there, but other areas got drenched.

I was so glad to be out there under that sky, and all I want to do is go back. 

I've never been to a place with such alluring hikes. I don't know how I'd get anything else done, living in Sedona.

Infinity Calls

As you know, I find my corner of southeastern Ohio to be an endless fount of beauty and wonder. It doesn't matter how many times I've been down a road. There will always be something new and beautiful waiting for me.

Take that appreciative spirit and put it in the Red Rock country around Sedona, Arizona, and something inside me goes haywire. An insatiable thirst for these strange and wonderful new landscapes springs up, deeper even than my body's thirst for water. 

I definitely gained a new appreciation for water on this trip. Nothing can happen without it.

All I had to do was leave my car in the Yavapai College lot, pack a couple of bottles of water, sling my big camera over my arm, put my iPhone 6 on Pano mode, and go.

I never got over the simple truth that for people who live in Sedona, this is their everyday view. The painted rocks rise up all around you, even on your way to the grocery store.

On the trail, I learned to keep turning around, because there might be a sudden peek at a sunlit peak.

On this glorious afternoon, with the monsoon clouds racing all around, I wanted to walk until dark.

With a function to attend, I couldn't, so I took in as much as I could, as quickly as I could, which  made it all that much more searing and beautiful.

Lordy Lord. A car monument, out here since who knows when.

Who knew they used wood in the frame back then? Wood. 

I don't even know what cars are made of these days, but I'm sure it never grew in a forest.

Of course, to me, the whole thing was a sculpture.

I could see desert cottontails taking shelter here, maybe a rattler, too. 

How perfect that it was once sky blue.

A target for guns, something to shoot at. 

A desert sunset painted on its rusty flank. No one could intend a more beautiful finish than time has given this old car.

The eye is cranked up and seeing it all, saving bits for later. I chase a flock of bushtits around and manage a few acceptable shots. I get a ways off the trail, but remember which way I came. 

It's in the bushtit's cold white eye.

Whatever brings me here, this is where I'm meant to be: alone but for my shadow.

Taking in this miraculous landscape, giving thanks that it is here and, as yet, and perhaps forever, without houses or shopping centers.

Rusty car flanks and bushtits aside, this is the biggest miracle of all. 

I know that landscapes like these do not come free; that people are working to set them aside so that wanderers like me can chase bushtits and desert rabbits through the brush. So there's brush for those creatures to inhabit.

In this wilderness, lofty and alone, there is intent, a realization that the earth must have its wild places to keep. I'm thankful to be here on this trail, a mute beneficiary of the set-aside.

Reluctantly, I turn around and trace my steps back up the trail. With enough water, I could walk forever out here.

Infinity calls. How could I not answer?

Smiles of Water Canyon

One of the magic birds of the West is the bushtit, Psaltriparus minimus. It's in its own family, the Aegithalidae, and is sort of allied with verdins and kinglets. I think all those micro-birdies were just kind of thrown together; bushtits aren't much like anything else. They travel in big flocks, zipping from tree to shrub to bush to tree, and they do everything together. They're incredibly difficult to get a good look at, much less a decent picture, but some kind of scale insect held their attention long enough for me to fire off a couple of hazy shots.
The southwestern form has kind of a masked look, and the females have pale yellow eyes, like this one. This is a 4 1/2" bird, a minibird. When they're all done feeding, they give lisping calls and explode from the tree in unison, flitting and dipping in lightning-fast flight, only to disappear into the foliage and twigs of the next. I would hate to do a study of social relationships in bushtits. Just getting a look at one is an event, much less reading color bands!

Water Canyon wasn't just about birds. I scored a life mammal in this cliff chipmunk, Tamias dorsalis. It's more modestly colored than our gaudy eastern chipmunk, but a charmer nonetheless. Western chipmunks are many, and maddeningly hard to separate, but this animal showed no dorsal striping, ruling out Colorado chipmunk as a contender. I'd love to hear from anyone who disagrees with my ID. The range maps in my Kaufman mammal guide show neither species occurring in Water Canyon, but it was a chipmunk and it was there, and those are the two species whose range is closest to SW New Mexico in my book. Don't miss his shadow!

The cliff chipmunk was scurrying around in the company of a juvenile rock squirrel, Spermophilus variegatus.
These husky squirrels look like bulked up tree-squirrels, and they flow over rocks and logs like water, being most comfortable near the ground. We'd seen them on the boulders along Monterey Bay, and in the tumbled rocks of the Chiricahuas in Arizona. They live in colonies, in burrows in the ground. Odd animals, ones for which I have no mental template: my favorite kinds!
Phoebe and Liam loved Water Canyon, and happily escorted our field trips on Saturday and Sunday. Liam made his own fun, fooling around with rocks and sticks and slidy slopes, hanging out with Phoebe and talking her ear off. They are such good traveling companions, turning to each other for fun and solace, hanging together like twin fawns behind their wandering mother and father.We made sure both kids got good scope looks at the birds and animals, including an Abert's squirrel--a fabulous huge tree squirrel with a silver tail, dark charcoal body and heavily tufted ears that make it look like a bunny with a fashion tail extension. I'll give you a pirated picture from New Hampshire Public Television's NatureWorks site, since ours was so distant:Looks like a boy. Got some squirrel junk. Ours was, too, I think, judging from the giant ear tufts. What a cutie!

Once we'd seen the Abert's squirrel, it was farther up the canyon to look for Williamson's sapsucker. This beautiful bird has such marked sexual dimorphism that for a long time the two sexes were thought to be distinct species! The female is coal-gray and yellowish, while the male is simply splendid. I wish I had a simply splendid picture for you, but the quiet little bird hunkered down in the armpit of a ponderosa pine and sat there for an hour or so--both days we sought him out! He had a sap well there and thought he was well-hidden, but the scope gave everyone breathtaking looks, shadows or not. I had to pump this one all the way up in brightness to get any markings on it at all; it was a silhouette in the original. Dig those crazy face stripes. He's got a ruby chin, too, and a bright yellow belly. Sigh. What a bird. I've not done him justice, but at least you can get the idea.
I was so proud of Bill of the Birds, patiently seeking this elusive bird, then sitting for at least an hour, waiting for it to come back around the side of the tree where he could line eager birders up on it. He shines in those situations--he's persistent and patient and most of all just wants others to see the bird. It was a lifer for many of our group, and he orchestrated a Life Bird Wiggle for the camera.
BOTB's hands stick up farther than anyone else's here. I'm snuggled into his side with a hat and tons of dorky gear hanging off me. Phoebe and Liam are on the ground, lower right. They thoroughly enjoy going on field trips with us, since birders are so kind to them (and pleasantly surprised when they prove to be troopers who hike willingly and stay quiet when they need to). Liam keeps hearts light with his antics and hilarious commentary. He can get dirtier than any little boy I know, faster. He seems to sit down in everything. I deserve him, since my mother despaired of keeping the seat of my pants clean. The difference is that it doesn't bother me in the least. That's what playclothes are for.

Before long, we turned back down the road out of Water Canyon. The road to Magdalena beckoned. Time to go to our favorite place on the planet. Ahhh, the magical vastness of the true American West. It's every bit as romantic and mysterious as the paperbacks and films make it out to be. Cloudshadows race across the land, chiaroscuro moods right behind them. Just back, and I miss it already.