Petey gets a Pleistocene moment in some man made wetlands near his home.
Sandhill Cranes have only been wintering over in the Sulphur Springs Valley for around 60 years, so we won’t be finding any million year old fossil remains as found in Nebraska near the Platte.
Ironically, the cranes winter over in the valley because of the intense agriculture giving them fields to glean during the day. Also, it helps to have the White Water Draw wetlands and the Willcox Playa giving them shallow water for loafing and roosting. Otherwise, they would certainly fly on by to another more exotic location.
The flat agricultural lands of the Sulphur Springs Valley hardly qualify as exotic, but those Sandhill cranes make them look quite beautiful.
The photos are mine and of the plant Pseudognaphalium leucocephalum. It sure is nice to have some white flowers mixed in with the oceans...
I wrote this song about Lycium fremontii when I was managing the native plant nursery of Desert Survivors on West Starr Pass in Tucson....
What a fun discovery in the desert east of Douglas, Arizona. There is just something about these large spinescent shrubs in the buckthorn family,...
