Queen butterflies have been visiting my milkweed vine garden for a few weeks now. Recently, there’s been a few episodes of metamorphosis like the one I filmed here:
Little Bear cools off
It’s been a pretty dry monsoon season so far here in the Sonoran Desert. The main waterholes used by local wildlife in my area are drying up due to sparse rains. The low water level at what we’ve been calling Little Bear Pool didn’t stop this black bear from taking a soak to cool down. Thankfully, more rain is forecasted for this week.
Bighorn Sheep in Arizona
It was a really nice surprise to check this trail cam and see bighorn sheep drinking from the seep. These are likely progeny of the original bighorn sheep that were released into this mountain range around a decade ago.
Backyard Mountain Lion
It was an exciting thing to see a mountain lion had passed through the yard on July 10th. In the 11 years I’ve lived at this location, my cameras have caught only one other mountain lion in the backyard. I believe this is the same young male mountain lion that was trapped at Tucson Medical Center two days later. Game and Fish radio collared the lion and released him. I’m hoping one of my wild trail cams will catch him again at some point.
Last night’s backyard Wildlife
It was a busy time in the backyard last night. A bobcat, coyote, and raccoon came through as well as smaller critters including a packrat, cottontail, and the screech owl fledglings. All four screech owlets appear in the last clip of this video. It’s good to see they are doing well in life after the nestbox.
Bear wallow heaven
This bear takes some serious down time to relax in his private pool…
Owlet nestbox action
There are a few interesting things going on in this video: gular fluttering, nictitating membranes, and head bobbing. Owls and other birds use gular fluttering to stay cool when the temps are high. Owls nictitating membranes (essentially a second eyelid) help protect their eyes when attacking prey. Lastly, head bobbing (motion parallax) helps owls triangulate their sight on a given subject since their eyes are fixed in their skull and cannot move on their own.
Puma Concolor
Mountain lion, cougar, or puma, this big cat is pretty stunning in her physique and lifestyle. All muscle and articulate movement when moving through her environment searching for prey and water. This particular cat showed that she also has habits of sorts, like us, in that she pretty much mirrored her visit to the waterhole two days apart. One visit during the day, and one during the night.
A Sonoran Desert Mountain Lion
When the temperatures start to rise as summer comes to the Sonoran Desert, any water source becomes a critical lifeline for all the desert critters. Birds, reptiles, insects, and mammals large and small regularly visit these waterholes. In this case, over the course of a month, a mountain lion stopped by only once on her rounds through her territory. The water at this spot has since dried up, so hopefully there are more water sources to be found deeper in the canyon.
Common sonoran desert mammals
Javelinas, raccoons, ringtails, coatis, gray foxes, coyotes, bobcats, black bears, and mountain lions are regular, year around residents of the Sonoran desert region. The animals in the following video were captured on my trail cams in my yard and in Sky Island mountain ranges in SE Arizona.
My Earth 