It was a sunny but cool start to the day. Overnight temp was down in the
40’s…first time we turned on the camper furnace. We have a small space heater
that we’ve used but last night we needed a bit more.
Still wore shorts despite the coolness of the morning. Jeans are for riding the bike. Also put on a sweatshirt, which felt good in camp
but turned out to be a little too much on our walk. Luckily, I had a short-sleeved
shirt on underneath, so I was able to take the sweatshirt off when the breeze
was no longer enough to counteract the heat.
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We walked to Nutt Rd and then over to the cell camera. Only action on cell cam has been a desert
cottontail and that was probably the first night. Camera has popped off many times but not for
any good reason that we were able to see. We’ve been talking about moving it
but haven’t acted on that talk. Today
was the day.
Kim walked further down the fence line and found a big hole in the fence
with four or five trails leading from it.
Snuggled the camera in a nearby tree for plenty of cover and now we wait
to see what critters come through the hole.
It’s big enough for a person to walk through hunched over, but since
there are no footprints near the fence, that’s not the kind of critter we’re
expecting to see.
Also put a second camera in the same vicinity that we had one a couple
of years ago. Last couple of years, the
ditch had too much water to be an active trail but this year, the ditch is dry
and a trail looks established. Hoping
for a sighting of something.
**Update: As of 9 p.m., a coyote
showed up on the Nutt Rd. camera. Yay!
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Just sat in the yard and watched the birds when I got back from my walk.
The hummingbirds were flitting around in big numbers…ten or twelve chasing each
other around, on the feeder or resting in the tree. The purple sequined visor I
was wearing attracted their attention also; it was a little unnerving to have a
hummingbirds zooming at me only to do an about face about a foot away. Great photo op if a person was fast enough…which
I wasn’t.
The antics of hummers, sparrows, wrens, towhees and cardinals kept me
amused for an hour or so.
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A male cardinal made his way to
the seed ring, then I saw a female hanging around down on the ground. This
struck me as strange as I see the cardinals come in separately. Then the male
flitted down by the female and fed her a seed…it looked like they were kissing.
How cute!! The behavior happened two
more times over the course of 10 minutes or so.
I’d never seen two equals engage in this feeding behavior…I’ve always
seen an adult feeding their young. So, I
turned to Google and found this on the site highparknaturecentre.com:
After reading this, I wondered if these two
were a little late to the mating game.
Through the years, I’ve seen birds that were already nesting at this
point and these two are still in the ‘getting to know you’ stage. Cardinal pairs have been known to raise one
to three broods during the summer, depending on what region they live in. For some reason, southern cardinals mate more
than their northern cousins do. Anyway,
mating season usually doesn’t begin until mid- to late March. So, it would appear that these two are right
on time in terms of courtship and mating.
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We went for a drive down Houser Rd. to look at saguaro cactuses. Did a little
geocaching along the way. Found two rather easy ones. And also spotted two active
saguaro nests. Both are occupied by hawks but unsure of what kind.
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Clear day = clear night sky!! Kim
is imaging the Spider Nebula again tonight. Since the Spider Nebula is very faint, he’s
going to combine the data from Tuesday night with the data from tonight to see
if there’s enough to get a good image.
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