Today was a good day to hike. Ed and I decided to go up to Turkey Run in the Catalina Mountains even though we knew that many of the flowering species have completed their blooming season. The mountain air was fresh and cool. We soon came across old friends, lemmon hawkweed, Richardson’s geranium, Western sneezeweed and others. We stopped to look at the gentian flower stalk – 7 feet tall, but bent over and drying up. There we met a couple. They were walking with their adorable Italian greyhound and had stopped to look down a pipe where they had seen animals get trapped. Once it was a mouse. Today it was a baby skunk with beautiful white and black markings,curled up at the bottom of the pipe. The pipe is more than a foot in diameter and at least three feet deep. The little skunk showed no signs of life. The couple placed a branch in the pipe so that any other animal that fell in might have a means of escape.

After we left them we found a group of bog orchids, many still in full and glorious bloom.

Ed and I continued up the trail and sat to snack on a log at the edge of a clearing. We then continued a short distance up the Aspen Draw trail. As we walked my mind went back four months to a time when I was hiking this trail alone. Our spiritual growth group had the task of being still, so part of the reason for going alone was to practice stillness in the beauty of the forest. I looked to my left, and just about 20 feet below me was a deer. I held still and looked at it. The deer looked back. We held eye contact for several minutes. The deer then turned to graze, and I continued on my way up the trail. I did not go very far and turned around only to see the deer crossing the trail going up the steep hill. In a few minutes the deer was about 20 feet above me. Again I stopped and we made eye contact. I was very content to stay in stillness with the deer indefinitely. Several times the deer looked away from me, and grazed a little. Then she turned to look at me again. We continued in communion for about ten minutes and then the deer slowly made her way up the slope and out of my sight.

I told Ed about this encounter (which happened back in May), and soon we turned around to retrace our steps back to the car. We have a tradition that we must find at least one plant in bloom on the return trip that we did not see on the outward trip. It wasn’t long before I noticed two strawberry plants in bloom. Later we saw another shown in this picture. Just then I looked ahead and saw two deer, one crossing the trail in front of us. We held still and watched as the the second deer crossed the trail and they made their way toward us, apparently unaware of us or unconcerned about our presence. This picture shows how the deer were mostly in the shade. They passed us walking in the woods about three yards away from us on our right. One went on ahead and disappeared into the forest. The other, evidently a young male, started rubbing his six inch antlers against a tree. After several minutes he finally turned to follow his friend up the hill. It was one of those special moments on the trail.

September 23, 2013
On Saturday, September 21, I had the pleasure of speaking at the beautiful Western National Parks Association facility in Oro Valley. I gave the lecture twice – at noon and again at 2 pm. I estimate the total attendance at the two talks was close to a hundred people.

In the lecture I mentioned the young scientist, William Gambel. My facts were not all correct, so I decided to get better information. This is what I learned about this remarkable young man.

He was born in June of 1823, over 190 years ago, near Philadelphia. When he was 15, he was taken under the wing of the famous British ornithologist and naturalist, Thomas Nuttall (1786-1859), who was thirty-seven years older than he was.  Together they traveled the east coast of the United States from North Carolina to Maine. From 1841 to 1843 Gambel traveled to the west, especially New Mexico and California, doing nature research. By 1845 he was back in Philadelphia where he obtained a degree and became a doctor of medicine. He also married. He and his wife left Philadelphia in April of 1849, traveled to California, going over the mountain passes of the Sierras late in the year. This was just after the beginning of the great California gold rush. He caught Typhoid and died on December the 13th, not yet 27 years old. (He did not die in a gambling fight, as I thought I once heard.)

He had made quite a mark in the scientific world, and now has the Gambel oak, Gambel’s quail, the mountain chickadee and a lizard named after him. The oak is the only one in southern Arizona that has a fall color display.   Here is a picture of the oak on Incinerator ridge in the Catalina Mountains.

ALLIGATOR LIZARD
Ed and I were hiking the Sunset Trail, and our eyes caught a glimpse of a rapidly wiggling small lizard. I got out the camera, but not really in time to get a good picture. Neither of us had seen this particular lizard before. It had distinctive alternating bands of black and white the whole length of its body (about 4 inches). The next day I was hiking with a nature group about 6 miles west of Sunset Trail, and someone in the party spotted the same species of lizard. Fortunately one of our group recognized it and had an excellent book about Arizona Lizards. He said it was a juvenile Madrean Alligator Lizard, Elgaria kingii to be exact. It was strange after never having noticed the species before, to see two in less than twenty-four hours. I have read that the Alligator Lizard is largely active at night or in the early dawn or late evening. When it matures its appearance changes to something less dramatic. Very likely I have seen an adult Arizona Lizard before, but never a juvenile.