Soaring Birds and Snake Cotton

Autumn is the season of migration for many avian species and in the borderlands of southern Arizona hummingbirds are passing through, sparrows are arriving northern harriers too, and sandhill cranes soon will appear in the agricultural fields of the Sulphur Springs Valley. Oh there are so many things happening, but I find the hawks arriving or passing through pretty darned exciting. To look up into our immense and open sky and watch hundreds of hawks soaring, diving and swirling by almost all day long is simply magical.

Not having my camera in my truck is bad, but to not have my binoculars in my truck, well that’s a cardinal sin. I had gotten very lackadaisical and when I finally had them beside me I counted on my naked eye for an identification. Ha! A photo of a golden eagle on a road kill would have been a nice shot.

Snake Cotton (Froelichia  arizonica) is nothing to write home about I guess. I mean you’re not going to find it a nursery and why would you look, right? But there is something nice about learning all the plants and critters we encounter out in the wild. It’s fun to be a nature geek don’t you think? Yeah it is.

A couple notes: the photos are mine. You can see the snake cotton sitting in a sea of blue grama (Bouteloua gracilis), but in the close up, that is sideoats grama (Bouteloua curtipendula) in the background. Beautiful.