Cactus wrens were one of the first Sonoran Desert birds I learned when I arrived in Tucson to go to the University of Arizona....
There are a dozen species of Melampodium and I wonder which one Linnaeus was looking at when he honored Melampus with the genus name....
One of my favorite forests of chain-fruit cholla, also called jumping cholla, was in the desert on the north end of the Tortolita Mountains....