AZ Nature In Focus

First I should say that Silly Mountain isn't a description but the actual name of the park.  Silly Mountain Park to be exact in Apache Junction, Arizona .  This is a short 30 minute or so drive from where I live so it is far enough for me to disconnect with my world for a short time and spend a pleasant morning on the trail.  This small park contains several trails for hiking or a short casual meander along the bottom of the mountain.  I combined a few trails on my morning journey and probably carved out a two-mile or so walk among the cacti and scrub brush.  My goal for this outing was to recharge for the morning and clear my head.  Lucky for me I was almost the only one on the path though there were several cars in the rather huge lot at the bottom of the hill.  As I climbed, I became more and more relaxed as the car traffic sounds died away and were replaced by the sound of my footfall on the path and the birds setting about their morning dipping among the brush and balancing o

  I am fortunate enough to live in an area that not only has plenty of parks and hiking trails but also a large riparian preserve within a short drive from home.    The Riparian Preserve at Water Ranch in Gilbert, Arizona is one of my favorite places to spend a morning or afternoon wandering the trails and discovering new friends.   I try to avoid the busy weekends when the small lot and adjoining library lot tend to overflow with people descending on the preserve for an enjoyable afternoon.  During the week and early morning are the least crowded and times during which the animals tend to be most active and not hiding. There is a multitude of animals that can be found in this area.  Living in Arizona, I am accustomed to the more unusual animal sightings on my wanderings.  Tarantulas, Gila monsters, and rattlesnakes can all be found on the hiking trails that surround the city though I have never come across any of these at the Riparian Preserve.  That doesn't mean they are not the

Several months ago, I mentioned that I have a greater appreciation for nature in my own backyard when I return from a trip.  Not seeing all the common sights around my home during a trip makes me more aware that what might be common for me, isn't common everywhere.  Since I have not been traveling much or really at all right now, it might be simple to slip back into a mindset of taking wildlife for granted if it were not for my Twitter account.  I know that many have a poor experience on social media in general but I have to say that I have experienced no issues with Twitter.  My followers and those I follow are mostly those into nature and my feed is filled with plants, animals, and landscapes from around the world.  Someone recently tweeted a photo of a bird very common to his area yet I had never seen anything like it before.  So for anyone who is not familiar with the common wildlife in Arizona, I am going to reveal the most common desert sightings. Sparrows I start with the

  A little while ago I talked about the lessons that I learn from nature during my journeys.  Patience is among the lessons that I keep trying to learn over and over again.  It is so nicely demonstrated in the steady gaze of a bird over the water just waiting for a fish to swim by.  The statue stillness of a ground squirrel when it senses my presence just hoping to blend into the surroundings.  Since learning should never stop, I have r ecently been reminded of an additional lesson that I have seen over and over again in nature. Never Give Up This one seems especially important as 2020 draws to a close.  This has been a challenging year.  I have lost many friends and relatives this year and we have all generally been challenged with a new lifestyle of "normal".  This little grebe demonstrated the lesson of perseverance so clearly during a peaceful morning I spent visiting a local lake.  He flapped mightily to fly but never achieved flight.  Grebes are not generally known as

  There is no denying that the holidays this year are very different.  Holiday parties, rushing into stores, and a long line of gifts waiting to be wrapped wasn't something that was part of my holiday this year.  I am a rather extreme optimist and so I look toward the positives of this holiday.  I envisioned a very relaxed holiday with plenty of time to just enjoy the season.  Surprisingly this holiday didn't feel less busy and it sort of snuck up on me in a way that had me putting up my tree just a week and a half ago.  My escapes into nature were limited this month but I did carve out time early one morning to explore and was met with some rather grumpy characters who made me smile. This spoon-billed duck was full of determination and while I don't think that he was swimming directly at me to get me to move, he didn't seem thrilled that I was present or perhaps he just couldn't believe that it was morning already.  I backed up some but this serious and rather grum

  Birds can be very fast and they can also be great at hiding.  The Arizona desert experienced a rather cold, by our standards anyway, and breezy few days so I headed out with my camera to find a deserted patch of nature to explore.  Whether it was due to the cool weather or the wind, the birds seemed especially difficult to spot on this particular morning and provided me with a game of sorts and lots of smiles. This guy was hiding in a tree.  He was a rather large bird and the branch didn't seem to hold him as well as he would have liked.  His head swayed back and forth as he fought to keep his balance and each time his head came forward, it was rather like a game of peek-a-boo.  This little "game" didn't last very long as he completely lost his balance in a fluff of feathers and flapping and then circled back to land next to the water.   On I ventured and heard a good deal of noise in some reeds.  The noise ended up coming from sparrows who quickly decided to fly aw

Has anyone else noticed that the lure of travel has gotten much stronger?  That pull of the open road and the freedom of stepping out of my normal life to escape for a little while has only gotten stronger over the past ten months.  Vacation and traveling, in general, allows me to get off the roller coaster of normal daily life and take a break.  A break from responsibilities and demands.  A break from routine that allows me to see the world just a little bit differently.   The holidays are busy times in general and while my family and I might sneak away in past years for a weekend to see holiday lights or experience a festive gathering, this year is very different.   Mentally I knew going into the holiday season that we wouldn't be traveling between Thanksgiving and Christmas.  I threw myself into imagining the outside lights that we would now put up to enjoy.  The indoor decorations and the cookies that I would make this year.  And then travel restrictions began to pop up and gue