Backyard Birds

Hooded Oriole, male

source link Male Hooded Oriole © 2012 Bo Mackison

enter I put two hummingbird feeders at the edge of the arroyo and attracted hummingbirds and a few other birds interested in a quick sweet treat. This male Hooded Oriole breeds in the Southwestern states and eastern Mexico. It migrates through Mexico to its winter home in southern Mexico.

https://www.saiidzeidan.com/51lbn7io It’s named for the orange hood on the male. It once nested in the desert trees in the riparian oases, but is now just as commonly seen in backyards.

Broad billed Hummingbird, male

https://osteopatiaamparoandres.com/65mhsa9us2a Broad-billed Hummingbird © 2012 Bo Mackison

Buy Valium Overseas Ah, here’s one of the 5 or 6 types of hummingbirds I saw this spring. This is the Broad-billed Hummingbird — its bill is red, turning black at the tip. The Broad-billed Hummingbird’s northern territory is in southern Arizona. It is only here for a visit. Most Broad-bills live year round in Mexico.

Anna's Hummingbird female, spread wings

https://www.mckenziesportsphysicaltherapy.com/d8navwa Female Anna's Hummingbird © 2012 Bo Mackison

https://hereisnewyorkv911.org/c7vd6ccalm This medium-sized hummingbird, still tiny compared to other birds, is never still. I thought I was lucky to catch this female in mid-landing. The male is a handsome fellow, with an iridescent bright pink throat, but he was even speedier than the female.

Acrobat

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source link And this guy, the Gila Woodpecker, is my most frequent visitor, though I’d prefer he not slurp up all the sugar-water I make for the hummingbirds. I did a search and found that woodpeckers are “tolerated” guests at hummingbird feeders from the east coast to the west. Actually, they make such an effort to get footing on the tiny rim meant for hummingbirds, that they are among the more entertaining birds. Noisy, too!

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https://valkyrieswebzine.com/nouvel/order-valium-online-europe.php Bo Mackison is a photographer and owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC, living and photographing in southern Arizona for a few more days before she migrates to her summer home in the Midwest.

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Mesquite in Bloom

Mesquite in Bloom

follow url Mesquite in Bloom © 2012 Bo Mackison

Buy Valium London Uk The more you actively look, the more the action will become intuitive and natural, subconscious and effortless. With practice your eye will be intuitively and subconsciously drawn to light and the light will be drawn to your eye. ~ Wayne Rowe

https://www.rmporrua.com/9p00jpjkp4x In Arizona, the trees stand bare branched much of the winter. As the spring warms and a bit of rain falls, the mesquite gets a few leaves, as if a film of green gauze was twisted about the branches.

enter site And then suddenly, almost as if a mystical being tapped all the trees with a magical wand, the trees burst forth in bright yellow. The flowers are almost like yellow fuzz, and when the southwestern winds start to blow, the yellow bits are blown from the branches and seem to dance along the sidewalks and streets.

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http://geoffnotkin.com/laygu/buy-diazepam-sleeping-tablets.php Bo Mackison is a photographer and owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC, living and photographing in southern Arizona . . . and enjoying the dance of the yellow mesquite.

Blossoms on a Saguaro

Three Blooms on a Saguaro

go to site Three Blooms on a Saguaro © 2012 Bo Mackison

see url The miracle is not to fly in the air, or to walk on the water, but to walk on the earth. ~ Chinese Proverb

watch These are the first blooms on a saguaro cactus I have ever seen. What a thrill!

https://thelowegroupltd.com/o6eqs598jq As I drive and walk through the Saguaro forests in the Sonoran Desert I am on the look out for saguaro blooms. I’ve seen a few cactus with their heads covered with a few buds, and a couple that have a mop of buds like the saguaro in the photograph.  But I have only seen two that actually had a flower in bloom — and this one had three!

Tramadol To Buy These three blossoms will start to shrivel and fade as evening approaches. Other blossoms will bloom in the night and those flowers will last for much of tomorrow. A saguaro flower only lives one day – but what beauty it offers in that single day!

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Bo Mackison is a photographer and owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC, living and photographing in southern Arizona until the end of April. She is so happy that the flowering season for cacti — hedgehogs, prickly pear, cholla, and finally saguaro — is showing peeks of color in the desert.

Desert Agave in Bloom

Agave with Yellow Blooms

Agave with Yellow Blooms

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This lovely agave, known as the Desert Agave, is also sometimes called the “century plant”. It may have seemed like a century between flowerings to the ones who originally named it, but in practice it flowers after 8 – 20 years. Although all the flowering plants die, the plants also send out offshoots of non-flowering rosettes that remain alive, ready to flower in another year. The leaves of the rosettes are armed with stiff terminal spines, not to be fooled with, though hummingbirds seem quite attracted to the flowers.

The Desert Agave is one of the more drought-tolerant of the more than 130 species of agave found in north America. It typically grows on gravely earth from south-eastern California and south-western Arizona to Baja, California and northern regions of the state of Sonora, Mexico.

The core of the plant was baked in rock-lined pits by desert-dwelling Indians to form a nutritious energy-rich staple food. Baked agave is still available in Mexican markets. I’d love to taste it.

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Bo Mackison is a photographer and owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC, living and photographing in southern Arizona. She is grateful for the opportunity to see the diversity and beauty of the Sonoran Desert and its amazing plants.

Return to the Chiricachuas

The first time I visited Chiricahua National Monument in southeastern Arizona, on my first visit to Arizona in 2008, I was in awe of the vast mountain spires, the chimneys and balanced rocks and imposing towers of stone. Interspersed within this wonderland of rock was a forest of many shades of green, and an immense variety of vegetation caused by the interconnection of four major habitats – the Chihuahuan Desert from the east, the Sonoran Desert from the west, the Rocky Mountains from the north and the Sierra Madre Mountains from the south.

All come together in Chiricahua, a sky island, and the combined diversity in nature was almost unimaginable. A drive from northern Canada, through the United States, and ending in northern Mexico would give you a similar experience, but add 2,000 miles to your drive.

Chiricahua

Chiricahua National Monument © 2012 Bo Mackison

When I was in Arizona last winter, I had hoped to visit the Monument again, but I ran out of time. No problem, I thought. I’ll go see the Chiricahuas when I come back. They’ll still be there. I’ll have more time to explore, and I can camp again in the delightful Bonita Springs Campground.

I returned to Chiricahua National Monument a few days ago. And I was partly wrong in my assumptions. Yes, the Chiricahuas are still there, the mountains as vast and intricate as always. But no, they are not the same. Last May, 2011, only a few weeks after my return to the Midwest, a human-caused fire started in the drought-dry Coronado National Forest many miles south of the park.

A deep freeze the February before had killed much of the annual and perennial vegetation in the area. And a regional drought had made the whole of southeastern Arizona like a tinder box. One carelessly watched campfire was all it took. Six weeks after the initial blaze, almost 223,000 acres in the Chiracahua Mountains, and 100% of Chiricahua National Monument, had burned. Buildings were saved, a few hundred acres of trees in the lower elevations and near the campground had been protected, but everything else had been damaged to some extent by the wildfire.

Last week, I finally had the chance for a proper visit. I set up my campsite, and then took the last tour of the day of the Faraway Ranch,the historical ranch that was instrumental in establishing this part of the Chiricahuas as a National Monument back in the 1920s. Then I headed up into the mountains on the eight mile long road to see the summit and assess the damage I had only heard about.

The rocks were there, but the trees I remember were burnt tree matchsticks. Entire mountains had been denuded. Here and there a few survivors showed green against the pale rock, but the damage was — perhaps I am being dramatic here, but the only word I can think of is — heartbreaking.

As I walked around I still admired the rocks. They are still spectacular. But I wondered what had happened to all the species of mammals and bats, hummingbirds and insects, the trees and the flowers, that had flourished here in such unprecedented numbers. Where had everything gone?

I saw a few birds soaring between the rocks and one lizard. I saw a few wildflowers, hugging the road. A few bushes, some scarred. A few trees.

I left my camera in the car. Even though it was late afternoon, and the time was approaching the golden hour, my enthusiasm for photography was at a low. I drove back to the campground, packed up the few things I’d piled on the picnic table, and drove back to Tucson.

Before I left, I took a couple of photographs near the Faraway Ranch where the trees were saved.

Chiricahua National Monument

Spared Chiricahuas © 2012 Bo Mackison

The monument won’t be the monument I remember falling in love with until my grandchildren’s children are old enough to hike the trails. I’ll be back before then, ready to find the beauty I know is still there, ready to take photographs of Chiricahua.

I need a little time to adjust to Chiricahua as it is now. But I’ll be back.

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Bo Mackison is a photographer and owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC, living and photographing in southern Arizona.