Not a Unicorn

The first time I saw this mule deer in my yard, I thought he was a unicorn. I asked him where his other antler was, and he just glared at me. Then I got a better look at him a few months later when he was at my wildlife bubbler, and I realized that his left horn is growing out of the side of his head. His black forehead is also unusual. 

Usually, the deer come to my bubbler in a small herd of three to eight deer. He is always by himself. I wonder if he prefers it that way, or if the other deer have ostracized him like poor Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. 
 

Spotted Fawn Season

The nights are getting cooler, and the spotted fawns are on the loose. Life is good. 

Staying Cool When It's 107

When you have to wear a fur coat all summer, you look for any opportunity to cool off. 

Bees in the Trees

I noticed a swarm of bees in my mesquite tree yesterday. Their old hive became too crowded, so they crowned a new queen and escorted the old queen to my tree. They are guarding the old queen inside this swarm while they look for a new home. I am honored to host royalty in my yard. I hope they find a great location that isn't my attic. 

Milkweed is Caterpillar Food

We should all plant milkweed so the butterflies, especially the endangered Monarchs, have food for their larvae. I bought a pine leaf milkweed at Desert Survivors and was enchanted to see that it came with a Queen butterfly caterpillar. I watched it chomp on the leaves for five days, but now I can't find it. Maybe a bird got it, or maybe it has made a cocoon that I haven't located. 

Nature Lover's Oasis

 

Welcome to your sweet desert paradise. An extraordinarily beautiful 0.37 acre of mature trees and exotic cactus specimens. 

The sellers have spent almost 30 years lovingly cultivating a bird sanctuary and exotic cactus garden, so all you need to do is settle into a chair on the porch or at your dining room table and watch the fascinating nature show.

Three bedrooms and two baths.

So much character in the open beam ceilings, stone fireplace, antiqued kitchen cabinets, Saltillo and talavera tile.

300 square foot bonus room, shown as Activity Room in the floor plan, has wall AC and is not included in 1,560 square feet of house.

The floor plan is here.

What could you do with a 1,000 square foot shed? Shown as Stables in the floor plan, it has a concrete floor, and lots of partitioned areas. The previous owner raised birds here! The two car garage is a rare treat in Tucson.

So much privacy behind the mature trees in your fully fenced yard. Close to hiking and biking in the wild and wonderful Tucson Mountain Park. Sold to a happy family for $142,340 on April 26, 2017.

Vegetarian Suet

I think commercial suet is disgusting to handle because of the beef fat. What bird eats beef, anyway? Besides, if it's made in China, it's likely to be toxic. Here's my recipe for Vegetarian Suet.

Microwave for one minute

1 c instant oatmeal

1 c water.

Grind in food processor

4 c peanuts.

Put the ground peanuts in a large bowl with the cooked oatmeal.

Grind in food processor

1/2 c raisins.

Add to raisins and continue mixing in food processor

1/2 water.

Add raisin slurry to peanuts and oatmeal in the large bowl. Mix well and stir in

1/2 c sunflower seeds (optional).

Line 8" x 8" pan with foil or parchment paper. A plastic pan with a lid that seals tightly is ideal. Press the suet into the pan.

Cut the suet into four 4" x 4" sections to make it easier to break off a quarter of the suet after it is frozen.

Cover with plastic or the sealing lid and store in freezer until needed. Break off a 4" x 4" section for the suet cage.

Creatures in the House

One of my friends Back East is starting to think about moving some place where the winters aren't so harsh and the taxes aren't so high. She asked about the aggression of the fauna in Tucson, particularly the spiders.

Once I answered the spider question, I was on a roll with describing my experiences with wildlife that found its way into my house. Steve said this was really mean and I went overboard. Being the personality type that I am, I of course think if what I say is true, why would anyone be offended? I don't remember the name of the personality type, but that's me. Here's what I said.

We have loads of spiders, and they do bite. In the summer, I usually have a few bumps or red marks I can't identify. I have two right now. They disappear, usually painlessly, in a day or two. Some spiders, like the black widow, which I have found in my house more than once, are poisonous even to people who aren't allergic, but usually not fatal. I have also had very startling encounters with wolf spiders, which are about three inches in diameter, and love to hang out on top of doors. They fall on you when you open the door. Otherwise they are harmless, as are tarantulas, which are about five inches in diameter. I have never seen a tarantulas inside the house, but armies of them can be seen crossing dirt roads during mating season. Charming, isn't it?

I have not yet been stung by a scorpion, but I have killed plenty of them in my desert house. This is more of a problem in the desert than it is in town. I never saw scorpions inside the house in town. A scorpion sting won't kill a person, but it will make life pretty miserable for several hours. This is a scorpion I caught in my kitchen. I put it under a glass bowl on my table so I could photograph it before its demise.

We have had snakes inside the house in town, though. That is always exciting. I think they came in through a hole in the doggie door, because we haven't had any in the house since we discovered and closed the hole. The kind that have come in the house were not poisonous, and we were able to capture them and put them outside. See my blog post, The Snake Chronicles. We like to have them outside because they eat the pack rats. I don't know anyone who has been bitten by a snake. We have encountered rattlers on our hikes and I occasionally see one curled up on a porch or under a pool filter when I'm showing a house, but snakes want to be left alone. They are typically not aggressive and if they bite, the skin may necrotize, but the person probably won't die, although I understand that for a while he may wish he would. The typical snake-bitten person is a drunken male in his 20s who was handling or provoking the snake.

This snake was not in the house. We met him when we were hiking in the Tucson Mountains. He was next to the trail, and I had just passed him without noticing. I heard a cough behind me and turned around to see what it was. I thought it was a javelina, but it was this snake, slithering away toward his hole. 

We have had pack rats in the attic, which I tolerated for a while until one of them died inside the pantry wall and made a huge stink. Then I had the attic cleaned out and I repaired the screens on all the attic ventilation holes that the rats were using for ingress and we haven't had pack rats since.

We also had a skunk in the hall furnace closet in our house in town. It came in through the fresh air vent in the foundation. We've screened that off, too, and I don't think he has any wildlife in there these days.

It does take a certain type of person to love the desert. There is an article on my blog called Bedouins and Gods that explains it. There is magic in the air here. 

I think I may have blown any chance of getting my friend to visit Tucson or consider moving here. 

Holy Moly and Holey Dove, Batman!

A couple weeks ago my birding pal Alison and I left Tucson at 4:30 AM to participant in the Tucson Audubon Society's Elegant Trogon Survey in Madera Canyon. We did this last year, but I think because we were rookies TAS assigned us to an unproductive section of the lower canyon. This time Alison requested and got a better assignment for us, and it paid off in this sighting of the object of our search. He was absolutely magnificent, stunning, thrilling and elegant.

Closer to home but no less fascinating is this White Winged Dove with a hole in his chest. When he drinks from my wildlife bubbler, water comes out of his chest. I saw him several times over the course of about ten days, but this sighting on May 27 might have been my last.

Lazuli Bunting

 If the Cactus Wren didn't already have the job, I would nominate the Lazuli Bunting for Arizona's state bird. Look how perfect he is: chrysocolla head and tail, and copper chest.

I am always impressed by how brave Mourning Doves are when they are on their nests. This one stays perfectly still whenever I go out on my back porch, and will not budge.

Mulie Family

Less than a minute after I went back into Desert's Edge through the back door, seven mule deer tip-toed down the hill to my fountain. Four adults and three fawns. Their coats are shinier, darker and more speckled than they were during the summer.

Every day is Thanksgiving Day at the Desert's Edge.

Cat on a Elastomeric Roof

Our little orange tabby, Sunbeam, loves to go outside, especially when she can help her body guard, Steve, do yard work. When she doesn't want to go out, it's a cinch that there's bobcat in the yard. Sure enough, Steve went out and nearly stepped on this sleeping bobcat. The bobcat's reaction was much closer to the annoyed range of the scale than frightened. He slowly ambled away, jumped on the five-foot wall, and glared over his shoulder at Steve. He jumped down behind the wall, but soon re-appeared on the roof of the carport and resumed his cat nap. Even when I pulled a chair out into the yard to stand on it and take photos from 20 feet away, he continued his snooze. This all happened at our house near Ft Lowell and Campbell.

Horny Toad

I walked up Tumamoc Hill this morning and was rewarded with the sighting of this Desert Horned Lizard. At least I think that's his species. Check out that spiky collar! I think he'd be a scratchy snack for a coyote or bobcat.

He was very patient and brave, allowing me to inch closer and closer until my camera was less than a foot from him. I sat down, and we probably would have stared at each other all morning, but I offered him some of my water. That was too much interaction for him, and he trundled away.

I have been told that Tumamoc means Horny Toad in Tohono O'odham.

Every day I find another reason to be grateful that I live in Tucson.

Red Spotted Toad

My water fountain has attracted a most amazing desert creature. I heard the trill of the Red Spotted Toad before I saw him. He was sitting on the edge of my fountain, calling for a mate. Amazingly enough, another toad answered the call from a few houses away. Where does he go during the day? Where has he been until now? How did he get across the desert to my fountain? Will wonders never cease?

The video is dark, but the audio sounds like the New England woods, not the Sonoran Desert.

Another Foreclosure Casualty: Desert Tortoise

I was showing a vacant foreclosed house in South Tucson a few weeks ago when my client noticed a tiny little desert tortoise on the concrete patio. The yard was surrounded by chain link fence, and any part that wasn't covered with the house, shed or patio had been paved. Every square inch. The former owners of this house really didn't want to do any yard work. This left no food and no burrowing opportunity for the poor tortoise.

It takes at least a month after a house is foreclosed before it goes on the market, so this tortoise had been abandoned and trapped with no food or water for at least that long, probably longer. I live in the desert, and thought I would be doing this captive tortoise a favor if I released her in my yard. That was when I was as ignorant as the people who had imprisoned and abandoned her.

I had proclaimed her a female because she had a flat belly, and I knew males have a concave belly. I took her home and released her in the shady north side of my house. She went down a pack rat hole as far as she could. I could still see the back fourth of her. I did some internet research and found that captive tortoises eat shredded carrots, kale and spinach, among other things, but those were the veggies I happened to have, so I put them outside the hole with a flower pot saucer of water buried below grade. Then I left.

I couldn't stop thinking about her, though. I named her Ophelia, after my favorite song by The Band. I checked to see whether she had eaten anything, and it didn't seem she had. The veggies were drying within minutes in the 0% humidity. I pulled her out of her hole and put her in the water dish. She seemed to drink. Then I put her in front of the food. She ate some of the carrots, so I went away again.

Next time I checked, she was back in the hole. I pulled her out again, and excavated the hole. As I was doing this, I realized I was lucky not to encounter a scorpion, snake or rat. I let her go back in.

Next time I checked, she was so far in the hole, I needed a flashlight to see her. I knew I was bothering her, so I left more food and decided she was on her own.

By now, I had checked the Arizona Game and Fish site and realized I was in way over my head. For one, it is illegal to release a captive tortoise. I know of two couples who adopted tortoises (Panzer and Helmut) legally from the Arizona Sonoran Desert Museum, and it isn't simple. The caretakers needed to acknowledge that they are making a 100 year commitment to the care of their tortoise. Then they had to provide an enclosure with walls a foot below grade so the tortoise can't dig his way out. A burrow must be built. Preferably there should be separate burrows designed for staying cool in summer and warm during the winter hibernation. A patch of grass must be provided, along with a crop of native flowers, a wading and drinking dish, and daily vegetable diet supplements. This is much more responsibility than I wanted to take on.

I thought it was cruel to keep a tortoise by itself, but learned that the Desert Museum only allows one tortoise per household because tortoises are loners, fighters, and breeders. There are already 300 to 400 captive tortoises needing adoption in Arizona, so more tortoise are not needed.

Unfortunately, I talked to many people who knew of people who had breeding tortoises. They blithely allow the tortoises to roam around their yard breeding and eating what they can find. The people throw some low-nutrition lettuce to the tortoises when they think of it, and give the baby tortoises away to friends. Ophelia was probably the result of one of these thoughtless breeders.

I hadn't seen Ophelia for a few days and was feeling guilty. I could no longer see her by shining a flash light down her hole. I didn't know if she or the rabbits were eating some of the food I provided, but for the most part, it just seemed to dry up and get wasted.

The Saturday before last, we had a glorious thunder storm in the Tucson Mountains. I thought Ophelia might come back from wherever she had gone and seek refuge in the pack rat hole. Much to my surprise, I found her emerging from the partially collapsed hole, covered with mud. Apparently she had been hiding in there the whole time.

I realized I had to give her up. I wasn't planning on making a 100 year commitment when I "rescued" her. I called the Desert Museum to ask about bringing her to them. I got no answer on Sunday. I called again on Monday, and got call back from a volunteer. She said the Desert Museum, the only official tortoise adoption program in Tucson, probably couldn't take her because they have so many tortoises already. She assumed I had removed this tortoise from the desert, and said I should take it back where I found it. I said returning it to an abandoned house wasn't an option. She said she might be able to get a tortoise program in Phoenix to take her. Oh my gosh, what have I gotten myself into? But Ophelia was my responsibility now.

Fortunately for Ophelia and me, the Desert Museum was sympathetic to my misguided actions, and agreed to take her. Steve and I took her to the Desert Museum and gave her to Renee, the herpetologist. When I told Renee over the phone that Ophelia's shell was four inches long, Renee said she was a baby. However, when she saw Ophelia, and counted the growth rings on the hexagons on Ophelia's shell, she said Ophelia was eight to ten years old, but severely malnourished. I had noticed that the hexagons on Ophelia's shell were raised, not flat like the photos of desert tortoises I had seen. She said those bumps are called pyramiding, and they are the result of a poor diet. How sad! It's also possible she is a he, because the males don't get their concave bellies until they are about eight to ten inches long.

I hope Ophelia is learning to eat alfalfa and other healthy foods. The Desert Museum will keep her until she is large enough that she won't easily get stepped on. Then they will try to find her a home with responsible caretakers. I will call in a few months to see how she is doing.

Javelina

Caught a pair of peccaries snorfling around on the hill behind Desert's Edge.

Roadrunner, The Coyote's After You

Can anyone spot a Correcaminos and resist the urge to say Beep Beep?

Turning Heads

The Gambel's Quail is a handsome fellow, no doubt about it. But even he did a double-take when a Hooded Oriole appeared at the fountain behind Desert's Edge.
This was a first for my bird life list. A few days later, I thought the Hooded was back, but it turns out it's another lifer, the Bullock's Oriole.
Notice that the Hooded has an orange hood the color of butternut squash, and a black face and bib. The Bullock's, which is the Western version of the Baltimore Oriole, is yellow, with a black cap and black line through his eye.

Now the test. What is this?

Eluding Capture

This cottontail saw a bobcat on the hill behind Desert's Edge and managed to flatten himself and not look behind him to see whether the bobcat noticed him. It worked, even though he had the additional distraction of me taking his photo through the living room window a few feet away.

Bobcat

A breath-taking wildlife sighting through my living room window.