Falling In Love Again

Today I noticed that the white-winged doves have gone.  They've headed south for the season--to Mexico and Central America-- where they will remain until next April, synchronizing their return with the flowering of saguaro.  I'll miss the doves' lovely, melodic "who cooks for you."

My gopher snake.  It has lived near us for several years.

Yesterday, I saved a gopher snake's life.  We returned home to find the large, muscular snake with its head stuck onto an insect trap.  I spritzed olive oil around the snake's head and soon it was free again, moving off quickly and quietly and not looking back.  I felt so happy to have helped the hapless reptile.  It will be heading to its winter burrow soon.

Common sootywing.

West coast lady.

The bats are draining my hummingbird feeders every night.  When I get up, there are usually hummers hovering around the empty nectar bottles looking forlornly into the kitchen window at me.  The bats are lapping up about a gallon and a quarter of my homemade hummingbird Jolt@ every three nights.  That's a lot of sugar water!  I cheerfully refill my feeders, cherishing the charms of hummingbirds converging for their morning pick-me-up.  Many of the tiny birds are juveniles who are showing just enough color to identify them as either Rufus, black-chinned, Anna's, Costa's, broad-billed or broad-tailed.  I see a whirl of pearlescent violet, purple, pink, green, and copper as the hummers jockey for position at the feeder ports.

The Cooper's Hawk has been picking off rock and mourning doves.  I seem to find a new set of plucked feathers every morning when I go out to refill the bird watering bowls.  Just yesterday I saw the young raptor, its corn-yellow legs knee deep in water, drinking and watching, while its striped white and auburn feathers ruffled softly in a breeze from a passing thermal.

The coyotes are more vocal and active, and have begun to settle into a nightly serenade which will continue now through early summer of next year.  The pups are still growing but becoming more independent every day.  They will likely stick with the pack for several years. 



Gulf fritillary

Giant swallowtail.

Katydids have replaced the cicadas, joining crickets and desert clicker grasshoppers in a cacophony of nocturnal orthopteran music.  Horse lubber grasshoppers are everywhere.  I don't remember seeing so many last year.  These hoppers are large and colorful, with black bodies lined in yellow and white, lacy lime-green outer-wings and dark red under-wings.  They are handsome insects, but their colorful garb isn't for aesthetics.  It serves as a warning to predators that they taste really, really bad.

A Horse Lubbers grasshopper.

Ocotillo leaves, golden due to a paucity of rain in the last month, are dropping, creating yellow pools at the plant's base.  Grasses are sporting feathery spires of seedpods, relished by quail and sparrows.  Alkali goldenbush, turpentine broom, and tansy aster are covered with butterflies.  This year, I've seen both higher numbers and species of butterflies than previously.  My garden is alive with queens, cloudless sulfurs, marine blues, pipevine and giant swallowtails, as well as red admirals and west coast ladies.

It is a beautiful time of year--a time all desert denizens love.  Fall is in the air, even in the Sonoran Desert.  The days are getting shorter and the temperatures are beginning to drop, ever so slightly.  We're throwing open our windows to enjoy the sweet, fresh fragrance of the desert.  And I am falling in love with this fiercely beautiful place all over again.



Variable checkerspot.