Birds, Cacti and Rocks

    My favorite thing to do at Patagonia Lake State Park in southern Arizona is stand around on the

birding trail, binoculars raised on a movement in a nearby tree or shrub or fallen limb in Sonoita Creek, and get all giddy when the movement turns out to be a black-throated gray warbler, or a bridled titmouse, or a green kingfisher. And since Arizona is a free range state, birders share the Patagonia trail at times with local cows. This year there were several calves that followed their mothers down to the lake for a drink.  Between birding, doing laundry and grocery shopping in Nogales, and just sitting back to watch each day's sunset, our week at the park went by all too quickly.

We left on a rainy day and drove west to Organ Pipe National Park, 4 miles north of Lukeville, AZ. Lukeville is a border town. It was rainy at Organ Pipe, too, and the thing about a February rainy day in the desert is that it isn't very rainy at all. In Michigan we call that kind of precipitation a mist or a drizzle. What I learned is that cactus wrens warble even in the rain, but I didn't get to hear their morning sun's up song.

Organ Pipe National Park

And from Organ Pipe we drove to another favorite desert spot - Joshua Tree in southern CA. With the long President's Day weekend almost at hand, nearby LA'ers were flocking from the big city to the no-cell-service-no-flush-toilets-get-away-from-it-all campground and we were happy to find a vacant campsite that fit our rig. Piles of rocks, dark night skies, the quiet of the desert....for many, a respite from southern California 8-lane urban craziness.

Joshua Tree National Park