Spring in Arizona

I know that I have posted pictures in the past showing our (I do feel a little possessive about these owls) the Great Horned Owls nesting in a saguaro cactus and I was so happy and overjoyed to see them again this year!  I was thinking we would miss them because we were a month earlier than last year...however, we only saw the momma sitting in the nest... the little ones were not hatched yet!

Truth be told, I don't really know if this is the 'momma' or daddy...sure looks like he/she is keeping a good lookout for predators, doesn't it?  This was a transplanted cactus and it is right off the road...between the road and a side walk....and you can imagine all the "lookers" that stop and take pictures.  In fact when Scott left one morning to go play golf at the club, there were quite a few lookers below the cactus...and then one older man was riding a bike and he was so intent on looking up at the owl, that he went off the sidewalk and into the gravel and the cactus (we have bark dust in our part of the country...but in AZ, the bark dust is all 1/4 minus rock (gravel!!).  So Scott called me on the phone to tell me about it because he knew I was heading out on my bike for a little 10 mile ride...his words to me:  "just stop before you look up at the owl"....he knows me so well!!  I, too, could be getting up close and personal to those rocks!!  ha! (true story!!)

 

I can't help but "stop and smell the roses" while on my bike ride....this was a cactus in the neighborhood with all these buds

The same cactus the very next day...isn't it just amazing?  The beauty and splendor of this place in the desert is at times just breathtaking ... I am so in awe of the colors and size of the flowers of such little prickly plants!

I am not sure, but this looks like a "mutant" cactus arm to me...an interesting fact about saguaros and what makes this one so amazing is that it can take up to 75 years to develop ONE side arm...now how does one explain these numerous arms coming out?  

A ten year old saguaro might be only 1.5 inches high!  They can grow to be 40 to 60 feet tall.  When rain is plentiful and the saguaro is fully hydrated, it can weigh between 3400 and 4800 pounds!

These blooms will only last a day or two and then they start to dry up...so you have to be quick about taking that photo...

Do you remember last year I told you about all the "Cactus Cell Towers" they were putting in the neighborhood? (You can go here to read about it and see the pictures:  http://rememberthe4ws-colleen.blogspot.com/2010/05/there-are-cactus-and-then-there-are.html) Well, one is near our driveway..in the dessert, not near a house and it looks so real.  Apparently many of the home owners were up in arms about this "cactus"...don't know what all the fuss was about because really you can't tell by just looking...and apparently neither can the gilded flicker...because one morning when Scott and I were leaving the house, there was this flicker just 'beaking' away at the cactus...I sure hope it is smart enough to figure out not to come back a second time!!  They live in the saguaro cactus...they all look like they have had golf balls hit into them...nice round holes and all compliments of the gilded flicker!  And actually, these man made cactus do have holes in them...just trying to keep it real!!

Lots of bunnies on the Mirabel golf course!  One evening about 5 pm I joined Scott in the golf cart as he played about 6 holes of golf...some of them seem to be quite tame and let you come right up to them...kind of "up close and personal"!

Whoops, hit the bunker...happens to the best of 'em, right?  Just wanted to show you the view as I sat in the golf cart...such a magnificent site...I can see why he likes to golf...he does enjoy the beauty...and it really doesn't matter what course he is playing...he looks at it as "God's Country"...always comes home to tell me about the wild life (like the 6 foot rattlesnake that was across the cart path!  yikes!!) or coyotes...or the time he met a bobcat...yes, he does have stories to tell...but then he also shares the cardinals he has seen, or an unusual flower or plant...me?  I would rather be on the bike and enjoying those sites then hitting a ball and trying to get it into a little hole!  But that is just me!!