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Tuesday, June 10, 2014

Critters of the Desert

One of Becca's favorite shade Yuccas
On our morning hike I saw Becca chase after the Horned Lizard before I caught a glimpse of the critter.  If it hadn't moved a bit I wouldn't have seen it because of the camouflage.  Back home at the hacienda I photographed Papa Quail and his huge family near the waterhole.  (Unfortunately I shot the images through a window so the quality isn't good.)  I actually saw the babies swimming in the dog bowl, and I worried briefly that some might drown.  Fortunately, they all emerged from their dip in fine shape.
How's this for camouflage?

You can see why they're called "Horned Lizards"

Dusty from a desert lie down

Soaptree Yucca and Tortugas Mountain

Why?

Papa Quail and babies at the waterhole

Papa and chicklets

Obviously Papa's "boys" could swim
Female Pyrrhuloxia (Northern Cardinal)
Feeding her baby in our backyard
Peekaboo
The male Pyrrhuloxia is bright red

A passel of quailettes




6 comments:

packrat said...

The images of the female Pyrrhuloxia and offspring were taken through the back patio doors in low-light conditions, so they're pretty awful. Hoping I can get some daylight shots of them in the near future.

Dr. K said...

It's really neat to see so many critters in one post, Packrat.

Scott said...

I agree with Dr. K: Great critter-filled post (even if you're not completely satisfied with all the images)!

I've only ever seen one Horned Lizard during my peregrinations through the Southwest (a really tiny one in Canyonlands National Park), so I definitely appreciated your image.

I know what you're talking about related to the bathing quailettes. Our organization picks up road-killed deer around our preserve so that we can collect biological information about the deer herd. We also get more unusual "deer death" calls, too. Last week, a nearby resident called to say that there was a dead deer in her back yard. When we investigated, we found a fawn that had drowned in a koi pond--one of our more unusual, but not necessarily most unusual--deer deaths.

packrat said...

Thank you, Scott. It would be truly heartbreaking to find a drowned fawn like that. It's sad when these kinds of tragedies happen to helpless critters.

Liz Tipping said...

Just catching up on your blog- love the quail chicks!

Liz Tipping said...

I'm glad they didn't drown in the dog bowl!

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