There are many types of desert. I think of the type of desert around Phoenix as the classic and one of the most beautiful kinds, with lots of sand and spiny cactus, brutally hot summers, and very little water. Aesthetically, it’s a pleasing contrast of stark and smoky, very different than pine, maple or oak forests. It also feels fundamentally inhospitable. That humans have chosen to congregate so numerously in such a place is a little bizarre to me. But, we dig wells, dam the entire Salt River back into a series of reservoirs and canals such that the the riverbed below the Granite Reef Diversion Dam is nearly always completely dry, and lay down a 336 mile/$3.6 billion canal across Arizona and call it an oasis.
It is nothing new that humans mold their environment to their wishes. It’s just sometimes to the detriment of their descendants. The cities in the Phoenix metropolitan area tout their excellent water access, while the reservoirs they depend on hover near drought restriction triggers.
This is all to get to a lovely park, Red Mountain Park, in the middle of Mesa, with an artificial lake, regularly re-stocked with fish, which draws all kinds of wildlife, both desert-adapted and those you can see all across the country.
I believe this is a zebra tailed lizard, one of many darting around.
I’m not sure of the flower, but the butterfly is a Sleepy Orange Sulphur.
Many of the older saguaros, the iconic cactus of the area, were also blooming. Saguaros are slow growing and long lived, taking “up to 75 years to develop a side arm.” However, “the spines on saguaro having a height less than 2 meters grow rapidly, up to a millimeter per day,” which would seem an important investment when you may be the only moisture supply around.
The major pollinators are bats, primarily the lesser long-nosed bat, feeding on the nectar from the night-blooming flowers, which often remain open in the morning. There are a number of floral characteristics geared toward bat pollination: nocturnal opening of the flowers, nocturnal maturation of pollen, very rich nectar, position high above the ground, durable blooms that can withstand a bat’s weight, and fragrance emitted at night. One additional evidence is that the amino acids in the pollen appear to help sustain lactation in bats. The flowers remain open into the daylight hours and continue to produce nectar after sunrise. Doves and bees appear to be the primary daytime pollinators.
The lake attracted domestic and Canadian geese, hummingbirds, pied-billed grebes, mallards, coots, cormorants and an assortment of flitty birds that don’t sit still for pictures.
Most of the wildlife seems pretty indifferent to nearby humans.
The afternoon after our last Alligator Lake Park visit, we tried a new park, San Felasco Hammock State Park. It’s the most understated Florida state park that I’ve been to — there’s maybe space for ten vehicles in the dirt parking area, and just a metal tube to leave your entrance fee in. Maybe the other entrance for the horse and bike trails gets more traffic, which is the way we prefer it anyway. We took the loop trail to the south of Millhopper road.
This is an eastern fence lizard. It was kind enough to hang out on the same log long enough for me to dig out the camera. The moment after this shot, it darted after a bug. It caught two while we were watching.
The three mile walk, taking the longest loop option, takes you through several ecosystems. The first part of the trail, where the eastern fence lizard was hunting, was dryer with mostly grasses and pines. Dropping a few feet of elevation, we entered hardwood.
And then we descended a few feet more to reach the creek. There was barely any water flowing during our visit. Under the dense canopy we found ebony jewelwings. We’ve seen these beautiful damselflies in Little Manatee River State Park in similar habitat, where it is dark enough to make it difficult to handhold shots. I gave up trying and Mike took these.
The male, above, is a brilliant iridescent green. The female, below, is duller, but has bright white spots on the tips of her wings. They both agreeable spend fairly long periods resting on leaves, occasionally spreading their wings in a motion that looks like a flower opening in time lapse.
Moving on, we watched some small, brown, fast birds hover-gleaning above us. They seemed mostly indifferent to our presence, but never sat still for more than a moment.
Farther along, a snapping turtle was wading in the stream, as it was far too large to actually submerge in what little water was flowing.
It’s been and will continue to be a busy month, but we hopped on up to Alligator Lake Park two weekends ago, while it wasn’t too hot. We finally saw the ostriches, but they seemed to be in their own pasture, between the road and the park. When we arrived and while I was still gathering up our things, Mike noticed some birds on the power lines and I handed him the camera. It was a pair of ducks, but not a species we’d seen before, and perhaps they were a bit confused, tottering on the power lines as they were. We think they were black bellied whistling ducks, whose normal range is southern Texas, down the Central American coasts to South America; not really anywhere close by.
The deer were still munching in the early light. The flowers in the foreground should be pickerel, which is a water plant, so I’m guessing the deer were trudging around on pretty mucky ground, but they were still getting around just fine.
We tried growing our own passionflowers, and had pretty poor luck at it. We knew they grow wild here, but had never seen noticed them before. On this trip, they were blooming all along the trail.
This is a gulf fritillary caterpillar busily chomping down a passionflower leaf.
After two turtle carcases earlier on the trail, this live one, a cooter I think, pulled in and waited for us to pass.
Male Eastern Pondhawk on blackberries. In the most exposed areas, there were a few ripe blackberries.
It’s difficult to tell the size from the photo, but this is one of the largest dragonflies I’ve seen. We think it is a swamp darner, which can be 4″ long. And such fantastic eyes.
In the beginning of March we planted seeds. When deciding to rent this place, we thought the south facing balcony would make a good place for herbs, forgetting that this is the land of too much heat and sun. Both of our chives almost died, and the basil we picked up from the farmer’s market immediately bolted. Now, we’ve moved all the plants down to the north facing deck, which everything seems to greatly prefer. Perhaps in winter, we’ll move back up to the balcony. If we can keep them going for long enough, it would be great to get more of those sweet-purple basil crosses.
This trip had fantastic light. With it getting into the summer heat, we’re trying to time our adventures for early morning, which is also when more creatures are about, and the mist is rising to meet the soft light.
This trip was also two days after a huge rainstorm, the first summer storm. Our local airport recorded 3.79 inches on Thursday, bringing the Withlacoochee River up over the canoe dock.
This is what the cypress are made for. The Florida Trail we walked follows the narrow band of pine between the cyprus, which experiences regular flooding, and the reliably dry oak. Only twice did we need to detour, and then only briefly, though frequently the flood waters were only yards away. Though with such sandy soil, even places that had standing water a day ago were drained and firm for walking.
Like the snake at Alligator Lake, this turtle was minding its business, preferring we not stop to look.
These spiders were numerous. Probably a member of dolomedes, a fishing spider.
There were numerous caterpillars, this, a tussock moth caterpillar, was the most frequent. The female moths have no wings and the adults live only a few days.
