Desert flowers and other vegetation.....

Globemallow

Desert Lupine

I saw more desert flowers on this trip then ever before. There had been a small amount of rain the week before we arrived. The Brittlebush is there all the time, but there seemed to be a lot of it in bloom while we were there. Between Sedona and Phoenix there were areas where the Brittlebush and orange Globemallow lined both sides of the road and the median very heavily. Beautiful to look at, hard to photograph while driving. Globemallow comes in other colors, too......pale purple, white, pink.
The trees were starting to bloom also. The Acacia Trees were fascinating with their little yellow fuzzy ball flowers.

The Hedgehog Cactus and the Pincusion Cactus were the only ones that I saw with blooms starting to open.
I'm ready to switch my mind back to Indiana and the birds and plants here, so I probably won't post any more desert stuff except maybe one more bird post.

Ground Squirrel and other misc. Sabino Canyon pics.....

I saw this cute little Round-tail Ground Squirrel at Sabino Canyon.......same place as the rattlesnakes, but much friendlier :-)

These were some unexpected wildflowers growing among the cacti. Taking pictures of the various plants was how I almost stepped on the rattlesnakes.....but I became a lot more careful after my close encounter!.

Happy Birthday Mike!

You didn't think that I would ignore you in my blog, just because we are barely back from vacation, did you? This is a birthday tribute for my husband. The picture above says a lot :-) I married a "car nut". A 35 year member of the Sports Car Club of America.....avid autocrosser, one-time rallier, lover of Formula 1 races. This is a man who gives birthday parties for his favorite car.....his beloved Datsun 240Z. Really.....I'm not kidding. Here is a picture of the "birthday boy " on its 30th birthday, with its party hat and party favor and some of the "guests" who attended. (After all his friends are "car nuts" also, so it seemed perfectly normal to them)

I don't think that Mike will mind me concentrating on his cars for this post. They are his "babies". It all started in our married life with the Datsun, but when he got tired of autocrossing in stock classes, he decided to get into the mod classes and we gained first a Lotus and then a March for him to drive. For the uninitiated, an autocross is a timed run on a course laid out on parking lots or airports or available race tracks. It is against the clock, not head-to-head against other cars. It is refered to as a Solo II event in the Sports Car Club of America.

This picture was one year at the National Solo II runoffs in Topeka, Kansas. Mike drives for the fun of driving. It is his relaxation from the stress of work. He has finally gotten rid of the race cars.....too much work......and gone back to stock class in his VW GTI. He loves his GTI, but I know he misses the exhileration of the race cars :-) The Datsun is still with us but we didn't get to celebrate its 40th birthday due to other concerns....but I'm sure it will be around for a lot more birthdays :-)

......and so will its driver! Happy Birthday, Mike! I won't mention how OLD you are, because you still think young.

Oh my gosh......!

Some pictures are better not pursued in nature.

This first picture is approximately how far I jumped when I realized that I was almost standing on.........

........These! This is why telephoto lenses were created! Maybe it's a good thing I'm going back to Indiana tomorrow :-) I haven't identified for sure which type of rattlesnake this is....but who cares! All I know is I thank God that I did not step on them!!!

Montezuma's Well and singing wren

We decided to check out Montezuma's Well, which is a natural spring about 40 feet straight down. There are some ruins of Indian dwellings in the wall of the well. The Indians lived there for 500 years. This is a hot springs. The Indian's considered it sacred.

At the top of the well, we walked past a tree where a wren was sitting and singing it's little heart out. Here are a couple pictures as well as the video above. It had more of a repertoire than I captured. Very pretty to watch and listen to.

Sedona...red rock country!

We drove to Sedona on Wednesday and spent the night and didn't come back until today. I have so many images of so many things, I never know where to start! As we neared Sedona, my sister kept telling us the scenery was going to change fairly abruptly, but I still was surprised when suddenly we were in "red rock" country! From rolling hills with scrub and cacti, we suddenly had red rocks and huge formations!

This is Mitten Ridge.....part of the Schnebley Hill formations. We "bounced" down a very rocky bumpy road into this canyon for about 2 miles (seemed like 10 with the bumps!) Found lots of places to stop and take pictures around us.

There was very little water in the river bed running through this canyon, but we did find one little trickle of water falling over the rocks.

I saw one mockingbird on a tree, but missed the shot. However on the way to Sedona at a gas station, I saw this lovely pair of Great-tailed Grackles (I think) at a trickle of water in the ditch. I'll take my birds wherever I find them! They were huge birds! (male...18", female...15")

(lots more to post, but my family is calling me to come do something!)

Coconino National Forest..

In this first shot he is looking backwards, which gives him a weird appearance.

OK....all you hawk identifiers....which one is this?? We were driving into Coconino National Forest trying to get to some water areas to look for bird activity and the first bird I saw was this hawk up in a tree. No idea what kind.

Great water here, lined with Sycamore trees and Cottonwoods. I love the white bark of Sycamores and looking at their branches against the blue of the sky.
The coolest thing we saw here were these spiders in their holes in the ground, all lined with web and covered over on the outside....with the spiders lurking and waiting. I love the spiral appearance of the web in the hole!

This hawk was circling over-head, but again, I have no idea what kind.

High up in one tree, I saw a bird going in and out of a sort of vertical hole in the tree. I never could get a real good picture, but it sure looked like a Titmouse of some sort to me.

We decided to go where there was a smaller calmer stream and look for birds there. I was rewarded with 2 different birds. One was a Ruby Crowned Kinglet.....I saw the red on his head....but my shots are not great because he kept hiding in the limbs. Then I saw another bird, which from pictures we think is a Black Phoebe. It posed nicely, but I'm just not familiar with western birds!

More later. I'm running out of days here in Tucson. Only one full day left and travel all day on Saturday.