Yay! So glad you got a chance to visit this special place. It was a treat to read your description of the Sonoran’s shapes, textures, and colors. (All the orange stood out to me too!) It does feel unhurried here. It feels similar to Mexico in that way to me. I’ll be checking out a few of those desert authors - thank you!
Your photos are wonderful! They are like being in the desert herself. The colors of the desert are some of my favorite landscape colors. I can look at them forever. And your words...satisfying, image-full and connecting to read. A big "Yay!" is that you read Terri Windling. The Wood Wife is one of my all time favorite books.
Yes! The Wood Wife is such a strange, hallucinatory tale, so much a part of its landscape of desert and mountains. I've followed Terri's blog Myth & Moor for years, and her newsletter is now on Substack. I hope when she is ready to resume her publication she chooses to move to this platform. Thanks for the kind words, too. xo
You are welcome! I, too, have followed Myth & Moore for years and am looking forward to The Moon Wife, the next book Terri is working on loosely connected to The Wood Wife. She is also on Patreon, besides Substack, and has a list of books at Bumblehill Press. Book books books❤️📖!
Lovely piece--thank you for sharing the magic of Tucson and the Sonoran Desert. I especially loved your video of the hummingbird gathering senita cactus "beard hairs" for her nest! One tiny correction though, ruby-throated hummingbirds are the hummers of the Midwest and eastern US. The one in your video would likely have been a black-chinned hummingbird by her shape--long and slender. They are also the earliest nesting hummers in the Sonoran Desert. (I've written about the desert's hummingbirds in several of my books, including Seasons in the Desert, A Naturalist's Notebook.)
I am grateful for your comment and that correction, Susan. I thought this hummer was a winter migrant, since our hummingbirds do leave for southern climes in the fall -- but if that were so, she would not nest there, but here, of course. I love reading your writings. What riches, I am adding "Seasons in the Desert" to my nature writing reading list.
Bird migration is an interesting phenomenon, and a general rule is that eastern birds generally stay east (or in the midwest) as they migrate, and western birds stay in the west. So when Ruby-throats migrate south in winter, they stay east of the Great Plains unless blown off-course in storms, while the western species of hummers stick to west of the Great Plains. (The most common western hummer species include black-chinned, rufous, broad-tailed, Anna's, calliope, Allen's and Costa's. There are others in the far Southwest, but those are the main ones you might see. Hummingbirds are far more diverse in western North America than in eastern NA.)
Yay! So glad you got a chance to visit this special place. It was a treat to read your description of the Sonoran’s shapes, textures, and colors. (All the orange stood out to me too!) It does feel unhurried here. It feels similar to Mexico in that way to me. I’ll be checking out a few of those desert authors - thank you!
Thank you, Lydia. I only saw a little but it made an impact.
These are such thrilling scenes! The saguaros, especially. I think your ARE a dryad.
Thank you so much, Diane, the ultimate compliment as far as I'm concerned. xo
Your photos are wonderful! They are like being in the desert herself. The colors of the desert are some of my favorite landscape colors. I can look at them forever. And your words...satisfying, image-full and connecting to read. A big "Yay!" is that you read Terri Windling. The Wood Wife is one of my all time favorite books.
Yes! The Wood Wife is such a strange, hallucinatory tale, so much a part of its landscape of desert and mountains. I've followed Terri's blog Myth & Moor for years, and her newsletter is now on Substack. I hope when she is ready to resume her publication she chooses to move to this platform. Thanks for the kind words, too. xo
You are welcome! I, too, have followed Myth & Moore for years and am looking forward to The Moon Wife, the next book Terri is working on loosely connected to The Wood Wife. She is also on Patreon, besides Substack, and has a list of books at Bumblehill Press. Book books books❤️📖!
These are wonderful photos. Thank you for this lovely display of cactus green and earthen orange.
Thanks! I had even more orange examples but thought I had made my point. ☺️
You made everyone who read this want to go to Tucson immediately (especially me). Glorious!
Thank you kindly, Rebecca, the saguaros are waiting for you.
Beautiful description of the desert ecosystem in Tucson.
Thank you, Rob. I know it doesn’t do it justice but glad it isn’t completely off-base!
P.S. got your beautiful backyard mountain in there. Thanks for the whirlwind tour.
Lovely piece--thank you for sharing the magic of Tucson and the Sonoran Desert. I especially loved your video of the hummingbird gathering senita cactus "beard hairs" for her nest! One tiny correction though, ruby-throated hummingbirds are the hummers of the Midwest and eastern US. The one in your video would likely have been a black-chinned hummingbird by her shape--long and slender. They are also the earliest nesting hummers in the Sonoran Desert. (I've written about the desert's hummingbirds in several of my books, including Seasons in the Desert, A Naturalist's Notebook.)
I am grateful for your comment and that correction, Susan. I thought this hummer was a winter migrant, since our hummingbirds do leave for southern climes in the fall -- but if that were so, she would not nest there, but here, of course. I love reading your writings. What riches, I am adding "Seasons in the Desert" to my nature writing reading list.
Bird migration is an interesting phenomenon, and a general rule is that eastern birds generally stay east (or in the midwest) as they migrate, and western birds stay in the west. So when Ruby-throats migrate south in winter, they stay east of the Great Plains unless blown off-course in storms, while the western species of hummers stick to west of the Great Plains. (The most common western hummer species include black-chinned, rufous, broad-tailed, Anna's, calliope, Allen's and Costa's. There are others in the far Southwest, but those are the main ones you might see. Hummingbirds are far more diverse in western North America than in eastern NA.)
Fascinating. So many wonders to learn about in this life. xo