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I sat for about 20 minutes today watching the camera live feed of the
hummingbird feeder on my phone. Watched
long enough that I killed the camera battery.
I was sitting on the other side of the trailer to see if the phone would
act as a remote with the trailer between camera and phone. It did fine although the hummers were a little
scarce. I knew it was working because I watched
a bee crawl around on the feeder trying to get a taste of nectar. This is what self-isolation can lead to.
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After looking at the wildflowers this morning I wandered over to the
saguaro I saw birds in the other day.
Wasn’t long before a pair of house sparrows and gila woodpeckers showed
themselves at different holes. This
saguaro has many nest holes and a couple are rather large...think of a regular
room versus a penthouse suite. The house
sparrows had one of the large nest holes...the woodpeckers were on another arm
using a smaller hole. Kim was watching another bird on the other
side of the cactus.
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Most of my pictures are flowers, birds and cacti with the occasional
selfie of Kim, Mom and myself. Not a
wide range of photographic opportunities during this time of closures and
self-isolation. However, the kids in the
campground do present some good Kodak moments.
Today, while Hailey and Riley, two 8 year old girls, were at the site
across the street doing each other’s hair, Ozias and John were strutting their
stuff as Flash Gordon and Bumblebee of Transformer fame. Later Ozias traded his Flash Gordon costume
for Spiderman...although he pointed out the curl on the side of his forehead was
really more Superman than Spiderman. Being a super hero these days has got to
be a hot job...those costumes looked like they weren’t made for warm Arizona
days.
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Ate an early lunch then took a bike ride. Headed over for the Florence-Kelvin Highway
to see what we could see. It was a
decent riding road with a few cattle guards thrown in to keep the speed
down. What we saw was another crested
saguaro and an area with some HUGE boulders.
It seemed a popular spot to ride ATVs, dirt bikes, and quads. I searched online to find information about
the boulders but could find nothing except mention that there are some big
boulders at a certain point along the road.
There has to be some history about this field of boulders that is mixed
in with the desert landscape. They didn’t
just fall from the sky...was there a mountain out there many years ago? The boulders are not standard lava
rock....just huge boulders of regular rock material.
While we intended to ride it north all the way to Hwy 177 we reconsidered
because we encountered some gravel road.
It appeared hard packed and it may have turned back to pavement around
the curve but neither of us wanted to chance it. So it was turn around and go back to the Tom
Mix Highway.
I got my chance at another picture of the crested saguaro from
yesterday. Stopped and got a picture on
approach...not a straight on shot but from what I could see the crest was one
of the largest yet. Was also able to get
a picture of a hawk on saguaro surveying the desert for perhaps a little mid-afternoon
snack.
Took Park Link back to camp and declared it was a good ride.
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I’ve seen a crow up on the nest on Park Link the last two times we rode
by. Back at camp I enlisted Kim’s help
to tape our walking sticks together, he contributed the phone holder off his
bike and just that quick I was ready to go take a peek in the nest. My mom was skeptical that it would work but I
was anxious to put it to the test, hoping my blue-tooth selfie stick would get
charged enough on the way out.
Just as we got out to the saguaro I got a message from 6 year old Grady
that said “I love you guys! Are you doing anything silly?” Didn’t take the time to respond right then
but thought You have no idea, child, how
silly this might be. Took a few test
pictures on the ground...Yes, the selfie
stick is working! Then extended the
walking sticks...Yes, it’s long enough to
reach! Then I get it in position hoping like crazy
that my phone wouldn’t pop out of the holder into the nest and took several
pictures. Brought it down to look at
them...Hey, why are they all pictures of
the sky? What’s the prob....Oh, I know,
my camera has to be in selfie mode. There...now
I’ll try again. Took another few
pictures, brought it down to look at them...OMGoodness! Look, Mom, there’s 3 eggs! Awesome!!! This is just too cool! 😃 Excited to get back to camp and show Kim.
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I’ve thought all these years that this was a hawk nest taken over by
crows. Didn’t seem that crows would
build a nest that was that big or sturdy using sticks instead of twigs. Back at
camp I googled crows and discovered that the birds using this nest are either
Common or Chihuahuan ravens not crows. From
what I read ravens are capable of building the type and size of nest found in
the saguaro. So maybe it wasn’t stolen
from the hawks.
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Observation from the road:
*When cows want to cross the road it’s
best to stop and let them cross.
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Bike miles today: 129
Total miles: 1685
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