This morning I saw three young American badgers. I did the best I could taking pictures from the road, not wanting to move any closer and possibly scare them, and not knowing if their mother was nearby.
The badgers were under the shaggy mesquite tree on the left:
Two badgers were tumbling around playing with each other and one was digging, maybe foraging for small animals such as ground squirrels.
What a morning! In addition to the badgers I also saw javelinas, deer, a jack rabbit and a large snake all before 7:00 am.
Saguaros keep on giving. After the cactus is done blooming, the fruit starts to look like tiny watermelons. Then the fruit splits open into flower or heart shapes depending on how you look at them.
Sometimes the entrance to a bird nest in a saguaro appears heart shaped.
Here's a random heart on a decaying saguaro boot. A saguaro boot is the
woody plant tissue of the saguaro nest cavity which remains long after
the cactus dies.
It's hard to see, but after I uploaded the picture, I saw a tiny heart above the heart shaped cutout on the edge of the boot.
It's fun to discover random hearts! See more hearts at Clytie's Random Hearts.
After three sky entries in a row on this blog, here are some things found on the desert floor. These pictures were not all taken the same day, they are from several different short nature walks over the past two weeks.
The barrel cactus is slowly falling to the ground...
Western Whiptail Lizard
Zebra-tailed Lizard
Desert Spiny
Desert Cottontail
Harris' Antelope Ground Squirrel
Round-tailed Ground Squirrel
Roadrunner
Gambel's Quail
Marine Blue Butterfly - female
The remains of a fallen Saguaro cactus fruit...
This last one is from our garden, oleander leaves and blossoms covering the pathway before being raked:
