It’s alive.
Many harbor the belief that the desert is bereft of life; it’s just cacti and the occasional bug. Not so at all. My wife and I live in the middle of the Sonoran Desert in Tucson, Arizona and we have found that to be far from accurate. The picture changes with the seasons but there is always activity. When driving or walking in our neighborhood we routinely see a variety of desert critters.
There is a variety of birds including the raptors that soar up into the sky on the thermals, doves, cardinals, and many others. Our favorite is the Gambel’s quail shown above. They fly only occasionally, seeming to prefer to scuttle along the ground. When they spot us they seem to remember an overdue appointment and hightail it away as fast as possible. Hummingbirds are the smallest of the lot. Two actually constructed an amazing nest in an artificial tree we have on our front porch. It resembles an egg cup.
Chipmunks are everywhere, busily digging holes (apparently looking for insects and/or buried nuts or roots). They are constantly on the move, bounding rapidly from rock to rock. There are also squirrels that also spend most of their day on the ground rather than in trees as I was familiar with growing up in Georgia. They seem to make their living just as the chipmunks do.
Javelinas look like boars but are of the peccary family and are not related to pigs or rodents. We see families of two or more at least once a month. Louise and I also often hear them at night rooting around in the yard eating cacti and anything they can catch. They have a distinct, and unpleasant, odor that is detectable at night when they are just outside our open bedroom door. This smell is hard to distinguish from the skunks that come out at night.
Rabbits and coyote are here. We see rabbits daily and coyotes occasionally. Since the coyotes eat rabbits, their numbers fluctuate in opposite directions during the year. The bobcats also do their part with keeping the rabbit population down.
Of course there are plenty of lizards of all dimensions and sizes. It’s eye catching when they do the push-up maneuver that apparently helps them pinpoint insects. Most impressive and beautiful are the Gila Monsters that slowly trudge across the landscape. They are quite muscular. I suspect steroids.
