Cap'n Bob & the Damsel

Critters

Spring Equinox 20 March 2025

Happy first day of Spring (northern hemisphere)! We’re off to a good start with daytime temperatures in the mid 70s and forecast to become in the mid 90’s in a week or so.

Greeting me on the first day of spring were these two critters — a cactus wren on the block feeder and an antelope ground squirrel foraging in the west side of the yard:

We always get a lot of comfort and enjoyment when the creatures which abound in our little corner of the desert show themselves to us and our cameras.

Both images were taken with the Canon EOS Rebel SL3 and an EF 55-250 lens at 250mm. Click on either image to view enlarged.

20 Mar 2025 by Arizona Critters Culture Notions Photography 0

Spring Song

This 10 second video is of a Curve-Billed Thrasher singing what sounds like a mating call. It’s not the usual loud “weee-weet-tweet” that we hear during other times of the year. Could it be that we’re getting an early spring about four weeks ahead of schedule? The forecast for our part of Arizona calls for 80° temperatures by the weekend.

AS you can see from the video, holding the camera steady at 250mm zoom is difficult without a bi- or tripod. I made this video today with my Canon EOS Rebel SL3 and the EF 55-250mm lens. I am still experimenting with and getting used to making videos with the Canon camera.

19 Feb 2025 by Arizona Critters Notions Photography Technobabble

Finches

This is a photo of one of the Nyjer Seed feeders in the back yard intended to attract Finches. You can see it was doing its job this morning when I snapped the photo.

On the left side of the feeder (stage right) is a House Finch, the male of the species. House Finches are commonly seen throughout the U.S. and Mexico, with some excursions north of the U.S. border.

The smaller Lesser Goldfinches are seen on the right and bottom of the feeder. This variety of Goldfinch ranges across much of the Southwest U.S. and Mexico. They seem to be permanent residents here in the Sonoran Deserts of Arizona.

Both species of finch like to snack on the Nyjer seeds. The oily content of the seeds seems to be nutritious for the birds. We buy Nyjer seeds for the Finches and a mixed seed variety for the other birds that hang out here. Nyjer is quite a bit more expensive than the other seed mixes, but we think it is worth the investment in order to keep the finches coming around.

Click on the image to enlarge in the viewer.

10 Feb 2025 by Arizona Critters Photography

Cardinalis Cardinalis

I took my Canon EOS Rebel SL3 camera with me on my morning walk, when this Cardinal lit atop the anti-squirrel cone on the bird feeder crook. Zoom lens set to 250mm in the camera’s “program” mode, which is the setting for automatically adjusting aperture, shutter speed and ISO speed. Clickable image.

It is a nice, sunny morning here with temperatures in the 50s F. The forecast is for possible rain over night and for the next few days. We need it.

UPDATE: [02/05/25] In the interest of being fair and balanced, I took an image of the Female of the Cardinalis species in a mesquite tree out back near the birdfeeders. Click to open the image viewer.

26 Jan 2025 by Arizona Critters Environment Home & Garden Notions Photography

New Camera Working Well

This won’t be a very long post about the new camera in use here, but I wanted to display this photo of a Gila Woodpecker that perched on a backyard Mesquite tree this morning; the new camera seems to be doing an excellent job of delivering crisp and graphic photos of our fauna and flora, as well as astronomical objects, people and so forth.

Gila Woodpecker in Mesquite tree. Click to open the Image Viewer.

There will be more images down the blog as time and energy permit.

22 Jan 2025 by Arizona Critters Photography

Second Spring

The weather outlook in our little patch of Arizona looks to be cooling off somewhat; that is, high temps of less than 100°F. In our experience, this indicates not autumn, but our “second spring” for the next few weeks. As you can see in the image above, cactus flowers are now appearing on our “Devil’s Tongue” (ferocactus latispinus).

My camera caught some other interesting things as seen below . . .

This is a Black Hawk which soared above our place yesterday. They look similar to turkey buzzards, but they lack the bright red head the buzzards are known to have.

And, as fall advances, the fruit on our lemon tree are beginning to ripen. We will be making Limoncello around year’s end.

Some of the most commonly seen birds in the area are doves. This Mourning Dove perched in the mesquite tree where we place bird feeders year around.

Click on any image to enlarge.

14 Sep 2024 by Arizona Critters Environment Flowers

Mesquite Tree Bean Pods

This morning, while walking the dogs, I photographed them inspecting the myriad of bean pods recently fallen from the Mesquite tree in front of our house. You can get an idea of how numerous the pods are under this and other trees in the area from the (clickable) image above.

During the spring and summer months, the Mesquites produce these pods, which are said to have been a staple food source among the native Indians and this area’s early settlers.

From American Outdoor:

The yellow pods were once used by all the indigenous inhabitants of the desert regions, usually ground into a flour and eaten. The ripe pods are sweet, and when ground into flour, can be used to make a variety of tasty and nutritious dishes.

This shrub, or one of its close relatives, can be found throughout the deserts of Southern California, southern Nevada, parts of Utah, in Arizona along the full lengths of both the Colorado and Gila Rivers, southwestern New Mexico, and even east to Texas along the Rio Grande River.

There is no point in attempting to clean up the pods since the desert critters and other conditions do it eventually for us. Moreover, it is too warm to be handling a rake in the 105+ degree daytime temperatures here.

By the way, Cabela (on the right above) will celebrate her SIXTEENTH birthday tomorrow. Other than partial blindness due to cataracts, she is still going strong. We expect that she’ll be with us for quite a while longer.

02 Aug 2024 by Critters Home & Garden Notions Photography

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