Las Aventuras: mule deer Tucson

Wednesday, February 1, 2012

My Private Little Walk

Welcome to the most perfect day to hike. It's the reason why we all live here. Last month, the State Park System of Arizona had a no charge entrance day.....and I went! Today's hike is in Sabino Canyon.

As you can imagine, there were A LOT of people walking around the park. And if you're doing photography, you don't want people around you. So I took the path least followed, and you'll be surprised at what I saw!

I finally got a great stock photo of the Desert Mistletoe. But a curious thing happened. During my studies on Desert Mistletoe, I remember a bird in the same pic next to this parasitic plant. In fact this bird is very territorial and will protect a patch of Desert Mistletoe from others of its' kind. This bird is called the Phainopepla.

Phainopepla

It will stand on a perch overlooking areas. The more I moved up the dirt trail, the more I noticed the peculiar habit of this bird. And the more I walked; the more I noticed a different bird for each "sector" of desert land. The darker colors indicate the male while the greyer tones indicate female. And what's interesting is that both of these living organisms need each other to survive. The bird eats the berries and the berries move through the bird's digestive tract eventually being deposited onto other trees. In December, I wrote about the Cecropia tree and how it also has a symbiotic relationship in nature with the sloth and ants that live in the tree.

So I kept moving......and I noticed a slight movement. I almost missed it.....

.....and discovered that someone was looking at me. She was beautiful. Mule deer live in our Tucson desert. That may be shocking for some:)

But what was shocking for me was that after the doe moved out of the way, a buck stood up in the same area. Talk about exciting!

I slowly moved around the deer and enjoyed these creatures surrounded by cactus and other plants native to the Sonoran desert. Had I been on the road, I would have never seen any of this. Had I been talking, I wouldn't have seen any of this. Lesson. You can go your own way:) It's better.

It was around 74 degrees that day and a much needed break from the cold temps of Wisconsin. I love National Park Day. This film shoot was actually done on January 7th of this year.