I was awake this morning before the birds
started singing so I heard traffic upon waking, not bird tweets/chirps/songs. I didn’t get up immediately so by the time I
stepped out of the trailer, the birds were filling the air with their music. 🐦
----------
Today started out kind of lazy. Kim was up late last night imaging and still sleeping when I quietly slipped out of bed and grabbed my camera for some bird
watching. There is a saguaro cactus by
the clubhouse that, in the past, has had a lot of bird activity. The first year we were here, I noticed birds
going in and out of a hole near the top of the cactus. Last year I paid a little more attention and
actually saw the birds carrying feathers and other nest building material into
the cactus. So this year I was
anticipating seeing more of the same…and I have not been disappointed. No feathers being carried in yet but lots of
in and out activity.
----------
 |
| Are you in there? |
This morning I walked to the clubhouse to watch the fun. As soon as we got here this year, I checked the cactus
and noticed that a pair of birds were using the hole again (research has shown
they’re probably house finches). One of
the pair will sit atop a nearby shorter saguaro and chirp in the direction of
the larger cactus, the one with the hole in it.
Sometimes the mate will appear and sometimes not. I imagine it to be calmly saying “Honey, are you in there? Do you need a break? I’m here if you need
me.” When there’s no response from
within the cactus, the first bird will hop around to face the other direction and
repeat its song. But now I imagine it to
be saying with a little more urgency, “Honey,
where are you? Are you okay? What could you possibly be doing that’s more
important than building our nest? Honey?...Honey?... Dammit, Honey! Where did you go?!”
 |
| Now where did she go?! |
And on the flip side of that, sometimes one
bird will stick its head out of the cactus hole and the mate won’t be waiting
to come in. “Honey, where are you? I need to
get out of here…I have to go to the bathroom. Come on, you know I can’t leave
the hole unattended because some other couple will just take over. Where are you? This is getting serious!! Okay, I’m just
going to go out on the porch then (nearby cactus) and wait.”
----------
The clubhouse opens at 8 a.m., and as I was
sitting on a nearby step watching the birds, I heard movement inside at the
back door. Aha! Clubhouse is open and
now’s the time to do the wash. Went back
to get the wash…Kim was awake and heading out the trailer door. He went in the clubhouse to work on his
images from last night’s telescope session and I started the wash, then joined
him with my Kindle in hand. I play
Scrabble against the computer which obviously has a much greater word base…but
sometimes I think it cheats. It won’t
let me play the word ‘Zen’ but it will play ‘GIS’ and ‘TEC’, both of which are
acronyms. What?! So I take great
pleasure in beating it…and I’ve even started playing words that I question just
to see if the game will allow them. I’ve
decided that all’s fair in love, war and Scrabble. 😏
----------
 |
| Watching over his kingdom |
 |
| Small but feisty! |
This campground also has oodles of
hummingbirds flitting around. There are
four feeders up near the clubhouse and they’re usually empty by early
afternoon. But today the two feeders in front probably lasted a little longer because there was a particular ruby
throated hummingbird who was keeping a very close watch on them. He perched
high on a branch in the vicinity of those two feeders, moving his head back and
forth like a king keeping watch on his ‘kingdom’. If any other hummingbird dared to approach
the feeder he would swoop down to run it off. What was interesting is that he wasn’t
interested in using the feeders himself, he just didn’t want others using
them. That’s why I think they probably
weren’t drained quite as quickly today. I
spent a good 15 minutes watching him run off any and all intruders in his
kingdom. He was fun to watch…and yes, this
morning was literally for the birds! 😉
----------
Because of how the morning played out, we deferred
our bicycle ride until later in the afternoon.
After leaving the clubhouse with the wash, Kim fixed a late breakfast
and by the time that was done, it was going on 11 a.m. and the temperature was
already 75o. So we took a
bike ride first…not interested in a long ride, we headed over to Toltec
Rd. That may be what the map and street
signs call it, but we have another name for it.
Last year when we were out riding Toltec Rd., we found a hawk nest on
the top of an electrical/telephone pole, hence we call it ‘Hawk Nest Road’. Rode over to see if the nest was still there. Well, not only is it
still there but it’s inhabited again, too.
Parked on the road…I zoomed my camera in and thought I saw something in
the nest but was unsure, so we walked a short distance to get a better view. As we approached, a hawk hopped on the edge
of the nest, flew off and started circling overhead. It called out and soon there were two up
there circling. A time or two I thought
I was going to get dive bombed. I sat on
the ground in the shade of a bush in an effort to minimize the perceived
threat…I was hoping one would return to the nest but the closest one of them
got was landing on a nearby electrical pole.
Walking back to the bikes we kept on eye on them. By the time we reached the bikes, they had
landed on the electrical pole again and then one ventured to the nest. My camera has good zoom, but it takes a
steady hand at that distance. I rested the camera against a telephone pole
which help stabilize it a bit more but it didn’t give me a great angle at the
nest. Not optimal but I got my picture.
----------
 |
| The Field of Glass |
Farther out along ‘Hawk Nest Road’ is the
‘Field of Glass’, although I’m sure the locals just call it the ‘dump on Toltec
Rd.’ We found it on a ride last
year. At one time it must have been a
field much like those next to it, but while the adjacent fields grow cotton,
this field has become a repository for glass.
Well, there is the odd tire and some plastic but mostly it’s glass…just
thrown out on a field. When the sun is
shining, the ground sparkles. From a
distance I thought the sparkly aspect was intriguing but when we pulled up
beside it, I was flabbergasted. My
questions then are the same today…‘Why
would anyone think throwing glass on the ground was a good idea? Who purposefully comes way out here to throw
out glass? Why? Why? Why?’ When we came upon it today, we took another
break from the bikes (the road had incredibly rough sections) and walked around
for a while. The amount of broken glass
in that field is amazing.
We watched a film yesterday at the Saguaro
National Park Visitor Center, which was narrated and close captioned. Several members of the O’odham tribe (Desert
People) contributed voice overs speaking of the reverence they have for the
desert. One man said that since we
return to the earth when we die, we must show the earth the same respect as we
would show those who have returned to it. That made sense to me. Today I tried to reconcile that thought with
what I was seeing at the Field of Glass which is on Tohono O’odham land. I’m not at all saying that the O’odham people
are responsible throwing the glass out there but somewhere along the line, it
has been tolerated.
----------
After returning to camp, we went for our
other bike ride. It was about 4:30 and
close to 80o but we were already hot from our walk around the desert
and being out on the bikes in the sun for several hours and anyway a dip in the
swimming pool was in our plans also. On
our ride today I noticed that the floor of the open desert along our route has
a fine sheen of green happening. I
didn’t notice that yesterday…maybe it was the angle of the sun. Bottom line is there’s grass growing, which
gives a bit of color to an otherwise muted, somewhat drab landscape. I’m going to pay attention to its progress on
our daily rides.
----------
Bicycle
miles today: 5.1
Bike
miles today: 69
No comments:
Post a Comment