Welcome to March everyone! Brad is currently between trips having recently returned from the field out east before he heads out west later in the month. In the meantime we are getting ready to make our spring migration south to Texas in a week or so. Busy, busy, busy here at Intrigued making sure we have plenty of material to keep our readers entertained through the rest of the year (and likely beyond at this rate). I hit you pretty hard with Texas posts through most of February and it is time for Brad to jump in and mix it up a bit. I was going through his queue and noticed one on a bird I just recently saw for the first time during our January trip to Arizona. Luckily Brad …and Jan are much more on the ball than I am and won’t make you wait until next year to learn about their encounter (honestly, I am trying to get better hehehe). I am going to head off and try to recover from this morning’s brutal training run (14 mile, 2,800′ ascent) and let Brad kick it back into gear.
Take it away Brad…
As most of you know Jan and I took a trip West last summer to see a few National Parks. Near the end of the trip, we met Allyson in Las Vegas to spend a few nights seeing the sights and do a little people watching. During one of our full days, we all took a Pink Jeep tour to the West Rim of the Grand Canyon. The Intrigued Legal department require me to mention that no endorsement was received for the mention of Pink Jeep tours. However, if Pink Jeep wanted to sponsor Wildlife Intrigued, please contact our Legal department. Our first stop at the West Rim was the overlook next to the visitor center. Actually, the overlook was in a side canyon off the Grand Canyon. Our tour guide pointed out that as we looked across the chasm at the wall of rock on the far side there is a dip in the rock structure. Once we stared at it for a little while, being birders, we saw the formation the rock is named after.
We had been looking out over the canyon at Eagle Rock (can you see it in the photo?) when a busload of tourists arrived.
Knowing hordes of people would flood the visitor center, Jan and I decided to walk around on a scenic path through the desert to avoid the crowds. I think everyone on the bus wanted to see the suspended walkway which lets visitors stand 4000 feet over the canyon floor with nothing but a bit of glass between you and Isaac Newton’s best discovery: gravity. I knew that the Intrigued accountants probably wouldn’t let me expense the glass walkway experience, we took a pass.
At the furthest point on the path, away from the most people, Jan spotted a tiny brown bird perched atop a cactus. The sun was very bright, and the scenery was a bit washed out, even with the red rocks all around. It felt like we were on a movie set filming a show about Mars. No poop-grown potatoes around, thankfully.
At first, the bird looked like just another branch segment on a Whipple Cholla cactus (Cylindropuntia whipplei). I threw in a little botany lesson for free. I know Brian, I know . . . back to the birds. Upon closer inspection, she found this little wren sitting on the cactus.
Hit the jump to learn more about this rather well named bird!
Continue reading No Fear…by Brad Marks
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