"Black Friday" hike...

Far, far from the madding crowds of malls, today...
the day after Thanksgiving is a day for me to avoid the crowds of consumers...
(at least, this year, so far, I've not heard of anyone dying in a Wal-Mart stampede...)

So, like last year, today, a hike...

...into Pontatoc canyon and then up the ridge, in the middle of the southern face of the Santa Catalina range, Tucson's 'backyard.'


After parking at a trailhead parking lot in the shadow of ritzy desert-'palaces', you hike behind the backyards of those privileged foothills-homeowners, and then, officially behind the 'wilderness line,' you descend into the canyon, looking up at distinctive Finger Rock...


...you crisscross the boulders of the seasonal-creek-bed, then begin to climb the backside of the ridge to reach the sunny southern side, from where all of Tucson spreads out, (surprisingly green), below:

...A couple of miles and a couple of thousand feet later, you reach the end of the trail, about 5000' high.

Much quieter than the mall-parking-lot on this last Friday in November...

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Last weekend, an out-of-town friend came to stay with us...so, of course, we went to the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum, where 'raptor free-flights' are currently going on; this Harris' hawk hadn't yet had time to adjust its wings upon landing:


Truly impressive--one of the only birds that hunts collectively in family groups.

And Harris' hawks (native to South America, originally) are actually relative newcomers to the Sonoran desert--about a century ago, they began following ranchers, since they have water tanks for their livestock. With those reliable water supplies, they were able to 'settle' in the desert, then finding riparian environments with other water sources, learning to hunt the local prey--reminds me of the now ubiquitous (but no less beautiful) cattle egrets--successful avian 'colonizers'.

The mountain-lion habitat is always one of the most popular sights; these cougars must be the most-photographed cats of their kind:

...gotta love that face, eh?

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...and a semi-random quote I came across the other day, by Albert Camus:
L'automne est un deuxième printemps où chaque feuille est une fleur.
(Autumn is a second spring when each leaf is a flower.)

Joli, non?

Coatimundi!...after San Diego, another local canyon...

"Coatimundi?" you ask? Yes, "coatimundi," as in the tropical racoon-relative.
(Click here for more info.)

But first, closer to home:

Ouch! Poor birdie...from the 'wingprint', I think it was a desert white-winged dove. As you can see, it's not as if our living-room window is even particularly clean...I wonder where the bird wanted to go...I found no carcass, so I think the dove recovered and flew away...

More birds, different time of day, outside the same window:

...for the past couple of weeks now, early to mid-morning, we've been having what my wife calls 'quail parties;' we've taken to throwing Paquito's 'leftovers' out the back door when we feed him each morning, and sure enough, a couple of hours later, local Gambel's quails show up to breakfast on parrotlet-seed-rejects in the mesquite shade...

...Far from home, now:
...Last weekend we drove over to San Diego--seven hours across the occasionally interesting and often booo-ring desert through Yuma, AZ and El Centro, CA...a quick trip to see some friends, and to wake up for a beach-run...ahh, the salt air...

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And now, to a decidedly ocean-free locale--Pima Canyon, just a few miles from where we live in Tucson:

In the over-two-years that we've lived here, I've driven by this canyon so many times, but from the main road you just don't notice the entrance...and since we live, now, near to Sabino Canyon, I'd never thought about going to the 'trouble' of driving a few miles to the western end of the Santa Catalina range, especially since it juts out between the built-up Catalina foothills and the suburbanly-sprawling Northwest side, where the towns of Oro valley and Marana continue to grow...

But yesterday, having the day off from work, I thought I'd check it out, and it turned out to be a great day-hike--once you drive up through the neo-Tuscan-'palaces' of the foothills and then hike between their 'no trespassing' signs protecting their infinity-edge pools, you finally end up in designated wilderness and the sounds of traffic disappear as the desert blends into riparian habitat. For southern Arizona, the canyon is 'lush,' thick with jojoba, cottonwoods, and unusually tall mesquite-trees...

And there is where I saw, for the first time in the wild in Arizona, a pair of coatimundis!

Forgive the boring photos; I was on my way out of the canyon and not expecting to see substantial wildlife...I turned a corner on the trail and heard a couple of 'squeets,' thinking it was birds in the creosote, when these guys trotted in front of me and up into some shrubby rocks. By the time I fumbled and got my camera ready, face-shots were impossible...but still! coatimundis! It made my morning...

(Here's a slightly better view of a coati:

This was my first coati-sighting ever, when my wife and I were in Tikal National Park in Guatemala a few years ago...)

Back to Pima Canyon. The seasonal creek has been dry for a couple of months now, but the cottonwoods are substantial--proof that enough groundwater exists in the canyon year-round, even if it doesn't flow on the surface.

If we get good snows this winter, the snowmelt will make the creek flow for a few weeks or months again...

Before I spotted the coatis, I saw this:

Amazing color, eh? This dried-out seed-pod contains 'desert coral beans,' poisonous but pretty...

Another fascinating seedpod is the doubly-wicked 'devil's claw:'

...and there are even signs of pre-columbian human habitation in Pima Canyon: about three miles in are these grinding-holes, metates, in the stones: They were probably started by the Hohokam people, up to 1300 years ago--they most likely harvested mesquite pods in the canyon, and used the local stone to process the legumes into flour on site...

Coatis, seedpods, metates...a nice change of pace...

On the way back out, heading back to the trailhead parking lot in mid-afternoon--looking off to the suburban west; you can make out a golf course in the middle distance:

...and one of the uncommon 'cristate' crested saguaros--this one looks vaguely like it's doing a gang-hand-sign, no? (Maybe I spend too much time around urban teenagers at work...)

...and that's the latest...