A Prickly Perch

We are in the heart of December and it’s busier than Santa’s workshop here at Intrigued. We have family Christmas gatherings to attend, staff performance reviews to administer, year end house/lot tasks to perform, RV prep and the most dreaded of all..packing for our migration south. We have about a week left to get all these items checked off our list. Now, the good news is we did have our Intrigued family holiday gathering and that went amazingly well – no law enforcement or ambulances needed this year which is a huge relief from the past. We probably owe that to Brad’s brilliant idea to move our performance reviews until AFTER the party hehehe. I probably was not supposed to reveal the source of that idea! In no small part to still being lamed up, I was able to chip away at my well-storied backlog of field excursions. Through a daily regiment in the digital darkroom, both the March 2023 trip through Alabama/Florida and the trip through New Mexico/Arizona/Nevada this last January are now completely processed. This provides plenty of fodder for posts while we are down south. Couple that with all the stories from Brad and Jan’s assignments, we are in very good shape to keep you entertained during the coming year. To give you just a taste of the new finds from Arizona, thought I would bring you a primary target going into that trip.

For those not familiar with the Sonoran Desert landscape, that impressive structure you see is a Saguaros Cactus. Hit the jump and we’ll provide a few more details about this cactus before getting to the real reason we were focused so much on this Arizona state plant.

First off, I find Saguaro incredibly hard to spell. I’ve mastered the Phainopepla (link here) and even the incredibly daunting Pyrrhuloxia (link here). Ask me to spell the name of this cactus and it turns into the final round of the Scripps National Spelling Bee. If you are curious, and you know you are now, the 2023 spelling competition was won by a 14 year old from Florida who managed to correctly spell psammophile. Quite fitting as I was aware it means “an organism that prefers or thrives in sandy soils or areas”. Yes, that is a lie, I had zero clue what the hell that word meant and the fact it was relevant to this post shocked the pants off me hehehe.

Bear with me while I put my clothes back on. Okay, so a little bit of saguaro background per Wikipedia. These cacti can grow over 40 feet tall with a routine lifespan between 150 to 200 years. As an age indicator, they may grow arms in the 75-100 year range. What is not clear to me is whether that means all the arms start growing at that time or what the gap, if any, there is between additional arms. Is scientific journalism a dead art these days!?! The saguaro at the top of this article was one of the most expansive ones I saw the entire trip. There is a handy chart on the Wikipedia site that does provide a rough aging method – .5′-9yrs, 1′ 13yrs, 5′-27yrs, 10′-41yrs, 20′-83yrs, 25′-107yrs, 30′-131yrs and 35′-157yrs. Wait, my OCD immediately noticed the anomaly in this chart, see the end of this post for a quick analysis. The largest living saguaro is in Maricopa County with dimensions of 45’3″ high, and 10’2″ wide coming in at an estimated 200 years old.

Closing the backstory out, their ability to absorb rainwater and judicious use thereof provides sustenance to a large variety of desert animal life. The towering structures can also provide severely needed shelter from the sun to both humans and critters seeking relief from the blistering summer sun….but this is the exact opposite reason I was keeping a constant eye on these cacti.

I was more interested to what likes to sit on top of them! From my pre-trip research there were several birds I had on my target list. One of those birds was the Gilded Flicker. This is a southwest specialty living year-round in the southern Arizona, slight expansion into southern California and down into Baja and Central America. Based on all the reference images I could find, they liked the advantage point provided by the giant saguaros.

What I didn’t realize is there are a LOT of birds that like this high perch. Two of which I found out were also on my target list – as a tease, going to keep those for future posts! I can sum up a large portion of my Arizona birding to snapping small, far off objects, looking at the LCD and exclaiming DAMMIT or SHIT-FARTS. I heard Linda secretly telling nearby birders I had Tourette’s Syndrome. Of course, the desert birds always chose the cactus the furthermost away, quickly flying to a new taunt location should I get into naked eye ID range.

This continued day in and day out until Ron and I visited Catalina State Park at the foot of the Santa Catalina Mountains outside Tucson (link here). This turned out to be our favorite birding location the entire trip, complete with stunning landscapes and several lifers. This post is getting a bit lengthy, so will leave the location details for subsequent posts. Having done the Birding Trail loop we were exploring the Romero Canyon Trail when I spotted a small shape on top of a distant saguaro. Could it be. Snap some shots, prepped to let out a string of expletives and checked the LCD. Whoa, ladies and gentlemen, we have contact. Then it was a matter of foot zooming in a desperate attempt to get something respectable in the tin. Thanks to the unfamiliarity with the sizes of these cacti, had a bit of the “Vegas Warp Effect” going on, more commonly the antithesis of “Things in the mirror or closer than they appear”. That casino down the strip may appear close until you decide to walk to it. Not sure we every really “made” it to that godforsaken pincushion, but did get within digital zoom distance to give you a good look at the Gilded Flicker sitting on top of it.

Nothing I would ever print out, but basically the best looks any of us got the entire trip. More importantly, good enough to eliminate any doubt and officially check it off the life list for both Ron and I.

A few things about this particular species. First off, they do look rather similar to the more pervasive cousin, the Northern Flicker (link here). This happens to be a female as indicated by its lack of a red malar (mustache) on the side of the head. What you can’t tell from these shots is the underside of the wing feathering is bright yellow – somewhat liken to the Yellow-Shafted Northerns – Gilded do not have red on the back of their neck. I find the best indicator is the much wider, almost half-oval black bib the Gilded have vs the thinner collar of the flickers. Add to that the more dominant tan feathering on the crown/nape and you should be able to distinguish the two species (the Red-Shafted can be easily separated by the red underwings vs the yellow, so really it is separating them from the Yellow-Shafted variety).

I hope you enjoyed this “taste” from our Arizona birding spoils. Will definitely be bringing you more from that excursion interspersed with the recently processed Alabama/Florida finds from last year.

Take care and don’t let the hustle and bustle of the holiday shopping grind get you down – in the end it is more about the time spent with family and friends than any material exchange.

Okay, now for my OCD triggers when it comes to charts – feel free to pass if you are normal!

Linda will confirm it is practically impossible for me to pass a tilted picture – the classic, it’s me, not you excuse, but I’m gonna straighten it regardless. To quantize, I’ve made my dentist stop drilling more than once in order to jump up and straighten a three paned wall composite fixed in my field of view. Drill all you want, but subjecting me to crooked pictures is certifiable torture. This “normalcy” as I refer to it has many side benefits and served me well in my corporate career. Charts/graphs are one of those areas. If it agitates me on first look, there is usually a good reason – something is off. You may have also noticed it in the age chart. My brain went immediately to the gaps between the ages looking for an easier formula (say every 1 foot takes x years). Programmers prefer repeatable formulas versus chart (array) lookups. They have a slow start but looking at ~14 years for .5 feet, then another 14 each for 4, 5 and 10 feet. Later aging in the 24 year range for the five year intervals between 20 and 35. The blaring red light was the gap of 42 years in the middle. Took me a few minutes to notice the chart made an unexpected shift in units, doubling to 10 ft. Why would anyone do that!! In research and corporate media I jump immediately to deception, but this was a stupid table about a tall pincushion. Found the reference at the bottom of the Wikipedia page, but that required a library login to review – stymied. Not going to pursue this anymore, but if you cut the 42 year span evenly across the two intervals you get 21 years per foot. My internal estimating model is now 14 years for first foot and double that for 5 and 10 feet. Every 5 feet interval after is 23 years.