Dark Morph Red-tailed Hawk with the Gallery Gang

Because of a chain of sad events in our close family plus some serious wind damage to our house, I had no real drive to write blog posts lately. But life goes on and most of it is good. Like a visit of my photographer friends from the Gallery Gang plus artist friend Mary Lee who all came to see our famous 'Dark Female'. They all stopped by on May 6 early in the morning. A spectacular Red Tail Hawk has been raising her brood not far from our house for nearly 10 years now.

I checked the previous day - the chicks had grown quite a bit but were still sitting quietly high on top of the nest. Mom was vigilantly screaming from her favorite saguaro perch nearby.

But when the 'Gang' walked out early on Friday morning, the hawk chose an aerial display instead. My friends had exactly the right cameras for the occasion and the sound of so may rapid-fire motor drives sounded a little ominous.

From my friends' photos, I gained a completely new very personal view of  'our Dark Female' whom I've now watched for nearly 10 years.  Ned, who specializes in Raptor photography and has contributed his work to several books on that topic called her the most magnificent dark morph RT hawk that he has seen.

Ned and Tom with their heavy duty 'guns'

Tom and Lois in action. Doris' photo even brings the Tortollitas and Catalinas close

Her beauty was slightly marred by a broken tail feather. Incubation and rearing two fast growing chicks takes a lot out of a bird.

The kids are very close to fledgling now. We believe that this time, one of them has inherited mom's rare coloration. The one on the right is definitely much darker than its sibling. The left one shows already a pattern similar to that of the male (who never showed up during our visit).

Kestrels, Night Hawks and Desert Iguanas had also been high on everyone's wish list, but they all did not show themselves to my friends. Of course a day before our photo excursion and the very next morning when it was just me and the dogs, all of them posed very nicely.

The resident Kestrel pair has fledglings to guard, too. Their sississississi calls betray their location, but the young ones are already acrobatic flyers and can avoid most danger (as long as they stay away from the Chainfruit Chollas

Lesser Night Hawks are very active at dusk and dawn. Their purring sound can be heard from our patio and mated pairs glide close to the ground and loop through the ironwoods along the washes

This big Desert Iguana was around a day before and right after the visit of the photographers. They would have loved him! (Her?)

5 days after our group visit, the Dark Female had shifted the center of her attention about two thirds of a mile westwards. When Randy and I inspected the empty nest she still dutifully came over to screech, but soon flew back to where the chicks were probably resting from one of their first flights.

Around the nesting saguaro, big swatches of white wash on the ground still told the story of the fledged former occupants. In other years, I have seen RT hawk chicks come back to the nest to spend the night for a couple of weeks. The parents will still be around their keening offspring for a couple of months. It's a very stressful, hot and dry time in the desert. It will be a hard test for the survival skills of the young hawks. Some birds migrate to cooler mountains for the summer, but I have seen our Dark Female around at any time of the year. And next year hopefully at the nest again!

For the photos of the Hawk in flight and the close-ups of the chicks I thank Doris, Lois, Tom, and Ned!

Mid April in Picture Rocks

Since my last blog I took a great trip to the Californian Desert over Easter and there will be a write-up about that later. Since then I've been through one of the more difficult times I can remember and the last three days of trying to finish our taxes in time in spite of everything were the most easy and pleasant part.

Desert Iguana,

But now I'm taking a deep breath, of course outside with dogs, looking at flowers, birds and bugs. It's early morning, and big Desert Iguanas are only half out of their burrows, basking and warming up their sluggish bodies. Their favored environmental temps are above those of Spiny, Side-blotched and Zebra-tail lizards.  Over the last 10 years, the numbers of the Iguanas seemed to go up while the others declined.

Ornate Tree Lizards also used to be much more common, but today I find one that is fascinated by a bunch of male Leaf-cutter Bees dancing around  a tree hole where virgin females must be ready to emerge.

Red Tail Hawks and Common Ravens

Right at the border between our land and the State Trust Land, long before we have entered the usual sensitive area around the Red-tail nest, I hear the scream of the Dark Female. Above us rages an aerial battle. Both hawks and three Common Ravens, also residents that have been around for years, are dive bombing and chasing each other high above our heads. I can't tell if the ravens are closer to the camera than the hawks or if they are actually as big or bigger than even the female. At least the male hawk has shown up for this - I rarely get to see him.

Red Tail Hawk Chicks 2016

 By the time we reach the nesting saguaro, Dark Female has shaken the company and is screeching at me by herself, as usual. I have stayed at a save distance from the nest while she was sitting on eggs and small chicks, but now that she is usually up hunting I go close enough to finally get a glimpse. At least 2 chicks, already changing out of their fluffy down stage.

We are very lucky to have these hawks here: they have been using 2 nests in neighboring saguaros at least since 2010. The female is such a rare dark morph that she is easily and individually recognizable. She has raised 2 or three chicks to the fledgling stage every spring. For months afterwards we can even follow the young hawks around while their activity radius grows wider and wider.

I'm heading for some blooming Cat-claw Acacias now but the dogs are getting adamant: they are hot and thirsty and hide in the shade whenever I stop. So soon we had back for the bathtub on our patio.

Aaahhhh!

Rare encounter: A Mojave Rattler

We live in the Bajada of the west side of the Tucson Mountains. Yesterday morning my husband Randy, our dog Cody, and I went to the eastern part of our property to check out the blooming chollas. A Desert Iguana Dipsosaurus dorsalis was bobbing his head in a territorial display. They aren't very common here and I'd found one of them dead this spring, so we were very happy to see this one.

Then the short dry grass right behind the big lizard moved and a snake slithered by, not two feet from him. The very straight movement identified it as a rattler, other snakes move in a more undulating manner. Where lacy Creosote shadows and its own markings made it nearly invisible, it flattened itself to the ground. Snakes, who have no sternum, actually spread their ribs to do so. This pose allows them to absorb a maximum amount of heat from the warm sand and from the radiation of the sun. It eliminates most of the cast shadow which hides the snake even better.
This snake turned out to be a female Mojave Rattler, Crotalus scutulatus. Thanks, Brendan O'Connor, for verifying my identification which was based only on the wide white /narrow dark bands of the tail. More reliable diagnostic markers are the facial scales and the band that runs from the eyes to the corners of the mouth. I didn't want to get close enough to record those with my 50 mm Macro lens.

We left the rattler alone - with trepidations. Rattlesnake venom is mostly haemotoxic, extremely painful but rarely deadly to larger animals and humans. But with squirrels becoming more and more immune to it, Mojave Rattlers co-evolved by producing a neurotoxic venom component known as Mojave Type A toxin- which puts them in the same class as the deadly Cobras.
This snake had a very small rattle for her 2.5 foot body length. A rattler adds a section to its rattle each time it sheds its skin which happens several times per year. This one must have broken off parts of it. She also never bothered to rattle even though I was very close.



Cody was strolling around but never noticed her. He is snake trained (the hard way) and he flinches even from black and white ribbons, curved branches, or the smell of my snake stick. Occasionally he's fooled by a Gopher Snake. He has a clearly recognizable, rhythmic 'snake bark' that will alert me from my deepest dreams. Rolling out of bed, grabbing some shoes, the snake stick and a flash light, then locating and holding the snake until Randy arrives with a container, has become the routine of hot summer nights when the snakes seem to follow the walls of our house right to the patio and the dog beds. The following morning we carry the captive out to the adjacent State Land for photo shoot and release. From May to September last year we had to move 14 Diamondbacks from patio and dog-run. Elsewhere on our property we leave the snakes alone and appreciate them with the rest of 'our' wildlife.
Western Diamondbacked Rattler
Crotalus atrox