Vulture Displaying - March 2024 I had decided that I had posted enough images of vultures for this trip. Any new images, however nice, were to be put in the folder for possible future use. Then this turkey vulture gave me this unbelievable display. There were several other turkey vultures flying nearby so this may have been some sort of mating display, but for whatever reason it was awesome. The first image is actually the last of the series and is repeated at the end. It started with the vulture gliding low overhead in a somewhat tight circle. His (or her) wings were held out very level and the white feathers were more prominent than normal. Then it landed on one of the light poles, but didn’t immediately fold its wings. Instead it remained in a pose with its wings uplifted. I rode slowly under it and it pulled its wings in. Then it held out its wings as if drying them in the slight breeze. I rode back under it and got the final image of it from the front with its wings fully extended. After a few moments, it flew off to join the other vultures in a wide spiral over a thermal lift so it could rise high in the sky and go hunting. MWM

Porky Pet - March 2024 It is not uncommon to see people walking their pets at Fiesta Grande RV Park. I have even seen several cats who walk without struggling on a leash. This was the first time, however, that I saw someone walking a Potbellied Pig. She said that it spends most of the time in her back yard, but occasionally comes into the house. MWM

Fresh Shorn Sheep - March 2023 We actually saw this flock of sheep out in a field on our way to church. After a noon meal I rode back out on my bicycle to get some pictures. The first image is about half of the flock. The second image clearly shows the shearing marks on one of the sheep. The third image is of two sheep resting on the ground. And the last image is the second half of the flock. MWM

Pink Cactus Flower This Pink Cactus Flower is also in Fiesta Grande RV Park. It is also some form of Prickly Pear Cactus but all of the flowers– at least all that had begun to bloom– were this cotton candy pink. MWM

Yellow Cactus Flower - March 2023 Prickly Pear Cactus are a rather common yard plant here at Fiesta Grande RV Park. These plants receive just the right amount of water and bloom very well every year. This Yellow Cactus Flower caught my attention for its beauty and for the fact that the same plant was bearing pure yellow flowers as well as an almost orange flower. I’ve seen both colors before, but not on the same cactus. MWM

April 28, 8:00 am Fence Lizard - March 2024 I was coming home from the store and had just gotten out of the car when I spotted this little Fence Lizard. I didn’t have my regular cameras on me, but used my phone for a couple of quick images. The Plateau Fence Lizard is called that because it tends to be found on fence posts, etc. In this case it was on the block and rail fence between my site and the permanent park unit next door. The second image is to give a better perspective of this little lizard’s size. MWM

Ant Hill - March 2024 You have to be really careful approaching large ant hills because there are several varieties of fire ants in Arizona. I took a couple of long lens images before approaching the nest. Image two shows how big this ant hill actually is. I was also able to zoom in enough to see that these were small black ants, which are safe. Image three is a closeup of the entrance showing the black ants. It is impressive to realize that each of the grains of rock and sand is bigger than the ant which carried it up to the surface and helped slowly build this massive ant hill. MWM

Crop Duster - March 202 I ran out of our RV a bunch of times over the past few weeks trying to catch an image of this Crop Duster landing or taking off from the local airport. Unfortunately, he moves a lot faster than I do. While I was riding my bike out to Casa Grande Mountain, however, I had stopped to take pictures of a huge anthill when he flew over. I had the camera ready and was able to get several good images of him (or her) as they flew over. I chose this image because it most clearly shows the cockpit. These planes are a big engine, then a big tank to hold chemicals, then a cockpit. I had one Crop Duster pilot in Illinois tell me “You don’t meet too many old Crop Dusters.” He later died when he hit a train while dusting crops in a tight field. MWM

Casa Grande Mountain - March 2024 Almost every mountain in the Southwest has big initials on it representing the nearby town. Casa Grande Mountain is no different. The CG is very visible in the close up. Many people think these bright white initials were to help guide pilots as they flew over the desert, and many early pilots did use them for that. But the primary reason they exist is that local high schools put them up there to support their football teams. Several different high schools claim to have been the first one to do that, but the letters predate regular aviation so they weren’t put there for pilots. They still make neat photos, though. MWM

April 24, 8:00 am Sweet Acacia Tree - March 2024 This beautiful Sweet Acacia Tree (Acacia farnesiana) grows in a deep swail on the Northwest corner of Fiesta Grande RV Park. The swail is behind a row of park models and isn’t visible unless you go down the dead-end road to the maintenance building. I hadn’t noticed the tree earlier because it sort of blended in to everythiung else down there. But then it began to blossom. The yellow, puffy blossoms are really eye catching and there is a slight, sweet frangrance near the tree. Judging from the number of buds visible in the second image, the tree should be blossoming for quite a while. The third image is of the top of one of the branches. Since it is in sunlight, more of the buds have blossomed. MWM

Round-tailed Ground Squirrel - March 2024 The Round-tailed Ground Squirrel (Xerospermophilus tereticaudus) is relatively common around Casa Grande, but you don’t see them very often. They are very fast. They hide their burrow openings. And they can remain totally motionless for rather long periods of time. The second image is actually the first one I took of this ground squirrel. I saw him and he saw me as I approached on my bicycle. I got a quick snap image and saw that he ran to his burrow opening. Then I lost him. I took about a dozen images of what might have been a log laying on the ground and then tried to get a little closer. As soon as I moved toward him, he dove into his hole and I knew that I hadn’t been taking pictures of a piece of wood. The third image is one where he has turned his head slightly more toward me just before he dove into his hole. They are rather cute little critters. Some people think they are miniature prairie dogs, but they are a whole different species. MWM

Texas Mountain Laurel - March 2024

I was riding my bicycle at Fiesta Grade RV Park when I saw this tree with beautiful, but weird, purple flowers. I took several images of it and finally found it on the internet. It is a Texas Mountain Laurel (Dermatophyllum secundiflorum), and the weird, flat, waxy flowers are called Grape Bubblegum Flowers. There was a slight smell of grape near the tree, so the name must be more than just appearance. MWM

Turkey Vulture - March 2024 This is another image of the turkey vulture which hangs around the Mission Valley bike path. Normally I wouldn’t post a second image so soon of the same bird in the same area, but the second image was just too good to resist. Friar Road just ends after crossing the flood control channels and there is nothing past there but sand and desert plants. The Interstate and the mountains are in the distance as the turkey vulture watches over his domain. MWM

Black-chinned Hummingbird - March 2024 I have only seen hummingbirds “in the wild” a couple of times and never when I had a chance to get a picture of them. I have gotten images at hummingbird feeders, but not on a tree alongside a bike path. It was a really gray day and I had to shoot at maximum zoom, so the image is less that I would like, but this is a hummingbird sitting on a small tree next to the bike path in Mission Valley. I’ve seen it once since then, but it flew away before I could get an image. MWM

Brittlebush - March 2024 Brittlebush is one of the great survivors of the desert. It needs very little water and most of the water that it uses is kept down in its roots. The result is that the plant itself is very dry and brittle, thus the name, Brittlebush. Brittlebush grow almost anywhere and if there is any moisture at all in February, there will be beautiful yellow flowers all over the bush. MWM

Very Prickly Prickly Pear - March 2024 I don’t know if it was the cooler weather or the lack of wild flowers, but the Prickly Pear at Picacho Peak had really big spines this year. Maybe they somehow know that there will be less other food and they had better protect themselves more than usual. For whatever reason it looked really neat. MWM

Bristly Fiddleneck - March 2024 One wild flower at Picacho Peak that the cooler weather seemed to have favored was Bristly Fiddleneck (Amsinckia tessellata). The small flowers growing together at the top of the stalk causes a curvature very similar to the curvature on the top of a fiddle neck. The bristles are very obvious in the image. MWM