Firefly Forest Blog

Firefly Forest Blog 

Photographs, stories, and information on Tucson, Arizona wildflowers, plants, natural life, and other related (and random) things. 

Stink Bug

Stink Bugs (Stinkbugs) or Shield Bugs are members of the Stink Bug Family (Pentatomidae). I found this one on a window inside my house, and it had no problem walking around on the glass.

Staghorn Cholla Fruit 

The green or yellowish soil grown foods on Staghorn Cholla (Opuntia versicolor) desert plants frequently tackle a red or purple tinge in the fall and winter. These foods grown from the ground are not yet ready in light of the fact that they are still uneven and secured in conspicuous tubercles. Staghorn Cholla products of the soil develops and swells as it ages, in the long run getting to be smooth and adjusted. Staghorn Cholla products of the soil is not noxious, yet it is not generally consumed as it truly is more like extreme prickly plant stem than sweet tree grown foods. Flying creatures and creatures will typically overlook these apples and oranges for the sweeter and more delicious Prickly Pear soil grown foods. Staghorn Cholla foods grown from the ground is for the most part cowardly, however it has some little glochids (micro-spines) which are far more regrettable than the bigger spines on the grounds that they are exceptionally hard to uproot and wonderfully tormenting to the touch. I utilize sticky tape to get the vast majority of them off, yet a couple of glochids will oblige an exceptionally sensitive tweezer extraction to abstain from severing them under the skin. Glochids might be not kidding inconvenience in the event that they get in the eyes or on the tongue, which gratefully has never befallen me. 

The Forest of Antennas 

The 8550 foot (2606 m) summit of Mt. Bigelow in the Santa Catalina Mountains close Tucson is secured in a woods of reception apparatuses and correspondence towers. The tallest towers like this one are finished with blazing red flying deterrent lights that I can see from my home in the valley beneath. Tucson can scarcely be seen sprawled out there in this dim perspective from the highest point of Mt. Bigelow. Microwave reception apparatuses have grown up here like goliath mushrooms, and they not just blanket towers... They likewise grow from practically every building. The numerous recieving wires are joined by a blaze perception tower, which shockingly has just grown a couple of spindly reception apparatuses. The perspective from this perception tower would have been unnerving amid the Aspen Fire of 2003 on the grounds that the blazes verged on devouring this towering woodland of radio wires, which would have thumped out numerous Tucson correspondence administrations including a few neighborhood TV channels. 

Pineywoods Geranium 

As would be normal given their regular name, I found this Pineywoods Geranium or Wild (Geranium caespitosum) developing in the piney woods, particularly the Ponderosa Pine woods in the Santa Catalina Mountains this last October. As should be obvious in the photograph, it started raining that day, which was a complete astound that I was truly caught off guard for. Without precedent for my life, I was really thankful to a delinquent when I discovered an unfilled plastic basic need pack to wrap my Polaroid in. With the Polaroid ensured between shots, I continued shooting regardless of the discontinuous rain and caught this fuchsia hued Pineywoods Geranium bloom and also other fall wildflowers. 

Pineywoods Geraniums have a few subspecies, and their blooms are somewhat variable, with 5 round-tipped to indented petals that go in color from white (bizarre) to pale pink to lavender to red, and the petals may be faintly to strikingly streaked in darker colors. The leaves are dim green and have 5 flaps. 

Their class name, Geranium, is from the Greek "geranos", which means crane and alludes to their seed units which look like a crane's bill. This plant and others in the variety Geranium are genuine geraniums, dissimilar to the arrangement geranium which is really in the class Pelargonium, albeit both are really parts of the Geranium Family (Geraniaceae). 

These local perennials are decently normal in mountain gulleys here in Arizona, and they blossom at whatever time from May to October. 

I and the Bird #12: The Canterbirdy Tales is presently up at Search and Serendipity for your perusing delight. 

Western Diamondback Rattlesnakes 

My canines are ordinarily well and done with their doggy entryway for the duration of the day, yet one day last September the pooches all of a sudden declined to utilize it. My canine Bounder was rather whimpering and pawing at everybody, attempting to get them to tail him to go see something, and my pooch Sammy continued staying his head out of the doggy entryway fold, taking a gander at something and afterward pulling his head over inside. It turns out what the puppies had seen and shrewdly dodged were two mating Western Diamondback Rattlesnakes (Crotalus atrox) writhing around only outside of the doggy entryway. My yard is fenced with fine-work metal screen at the entryways and steel allotments of the wall to keep the snakes out, yet either my puppies or the squirrels had torn a snake-sized opening in the screen and these two vast and clearly sexually develop rattlers had discovered their route in. Continuously enthusiastic to utilize his new snake grabber shaft, my father caught the two affectionate poisonous snakes, who were very incensed at being hindered in so personal a minute, and threw them into a substantial container. My father then took the now dismal snakes out of my yard and let them go in the desert where they had a place. 

Western Diamondback Rattlesnakes are very venomous and are one of the more fractious and forceful types of poisonous snake. They are exceptionally basic here in Tucson, and I have had many them expelled from my yard, generally by the flame office, since I've existed here. 

I would not be horrendously shocked to be chomped by a rattler some time or another in light of the fact that I have as of now had various close experiences with them. Appreciatively, they typically shake their tails to caution you of their vicinity before striking, so I've generally had the capacity to rapidly escape from their strike extend before being nibbled. 

posted by T. Beth | 12/07/2005 | 5 remarks | Links to this post 

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 06, 2005 

Petunia and Seaside Petunia 

Petunias (Petunia × atkinsiana, previously Petunia × hybrida) are probably the most widely recognized and bright enclosure bloom

Arizona

Arizona is a state located in the southwestern region of the United States. Arizona is also part of the Western United States and of the Mountain West states. Arizona is the sixth most extensive and the 15th most populous of the 50 states. Its capital and largest city is Phoenix. The second largest city is Tucson, followed in population by eight cities of the Phoenix metropolitan area: Mesa, Chandler, Glendale, Scottsdale, Gilbert, Tempe, Peoria, and Surprise.

Arizona is the 48th state and last of the contiguous states to be admitted to the Union, and it achieved statehood on February 14, 1912. Arizona is noted for its desert climate in its southern half, where there are very hot summers and quite mild winters. The northern half of Arizona also features forests of pine, Douglas fir, and spruce trees, a very large, high plateau (the Colorado Plateau) and some mountain ranges—such as the San Francisco Mountains—as well as large, deep canyons, where there is much more moderate weather for three seasons of the year, plus significant snowfalls. There are ski resorts in the areas of Flagstaff and Alpine.

Arizona is one of the Four Corners states. Arizona has borders with New Mexico, Utah, Nevada, California, and Mexico, and it has one point in common with the southwestern corner of Colorado. Arizona has a 389-mile (626 km)-long international border with the Mexican states of Sonora and Baja California.

Arizona is the most populous landlocked state of the United States, assuming that coastline on the Great Lakes counts against being landlocked. In addition to the Grand Canyon National Park, several national forests, national parks, and national monuments are located in Arizona. About one-quarter of Arizona is federal land that serves as the home of the Navajo Nation, the Hopi tribe, the Tohono O'odham, the Apache tribe, the Yavapai people, the Yaqui people, the Zuni people, the Pima people, the Hia C-eḍ O'odham and various Yuman tribes, such as the Yavapai people, the Quechan people, the Mojave people, the Cocopah people, the Paiute people the Havasupai people and the Hualapai people.

Forest Lakes, Arizona

Forest lakes is located within ZIP Code 85931. The ZIP Code is primarily unsettled, rural forest lands with the exception of Forest Lakes.

As of the census of 2000, there were 266 people, 136 households, and 97 families residing in the ZCTA for ZIP Code 85931. There were 916 housing units. The racial makeup of the ZCTA was 99.20% White, 0.40% Native American, and 0.40% Asian. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 6.61% of the population.
There were 136 households out of which 7.4% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 69.1% were married couples living together, 1.5% had a female householder with no husband present, and 28.7% were non-families. 25.0% of all households were made up of individuals and 10.3% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 1.96 and the average family size was 2.29.

In the ZCTA the population was spread out with 7.1% under the age of 18, 0.8% from 18 to 24, 12.8% from 25 to 44, 42.1% from 45 to 64, and 36.1% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 60.5 years. For every 100 females there were 110.4 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 107.6 males.

The median income for a household in the ZCTA was $34,773, and the median income for a family was $34,219. The per capita income for the ZCTA was $21,981. About 9.2% of families and 12.4% of the population were below the poverty line, including 20.0% of those under age 18 and 4.8% of those age 65 or over.

Gila Woodpecker House

According to my bird books, Gila Woodpeckers (Melanerpes uropygialis) don't like to nest in birdhouses. They usually nest in Saguaros, but I discovered how to get them to use birdhouses (the few Saguaros in my neighborhood look like Swiss cheese and all the holes are taken, so birdhouses are sorely needed). I use a standard woodpecker house with nothing inside but bare wood and mount it sideways under an overhanging roof about 7 feet above the ground. A baby Gila Woodpecker can be seen below sticking it's head out of a sideways woodpecker birdhouse.

I place a thin strip of wood with a 3/4 inch (1.9 cm) hole in it across the larger entrance hole. Gila Woodpeckers like to excavate their own holes, and because the 3/4 inch (1.9 cm) hole is too small, they will happily enlarge it to the proper size themselves. This fools them into thinking that they made the house themselves. You have to put a hole in the wood strip covering the hole so the Gila Woodpeckers know where to start chipping away the wood, otherwise they will tap on the birdhouse, hear that it sounds hollow, and then begin making a hole, often on the wrong side of the birdhouse such as the bottom. Gila Woodpeckers love to excavate the bottom side of birdhouses for some reason, but it is not a good place for an entrance hole because the eggs and babies would just fall out.

Gila Woodpeckers are fascinated by any small hole into a larger wooden cavity, and so the hole in the wood strip will quickly attract a curious Gila Woodpecker. The woodpecker will look with one eye into the hole, then look with the other eye, and then compulsively chip away at the hole until it is finally large enough for it to look inside with both eyes and solve the mystery of what's inside. If Gila Woodpeckers are damaging exterior wood on your home, putting up a birdhouse or two for them will help divert them from their more ill-conceived and costly excavations.

Flesh Fly

Flesh Fly
Flesh Flies are members of the worldwide family Sarcophagidae. They are called Flesh Flies because the larva (maggots) of some of the species eat flesh, either in open wounds or on corpses. Other members of this family are parasites of other insects. The adult Flesh Flies feed not on flesh, but on sweet fluids like flower nectar. Flesh Flies can be recognized by their red eyes and the three, broad, black lines along the top of the thorax.



Flies have adhesive pads on their feet that allow them to stick to slick surfaces like window glass and to easily walk around on ceilings.