Fort Huachuca – Dithyramb

White-nosed coati

(Nasua narica) hiking with me up Garden Canyon Road at Fort Huachuca, in Cochise County, Arizona.

Canyon rubyspot damselfly (Hetaerina

vulnerata), at Garden Canyon, Fort Huachuca, Arizona.

Please click photo for an enlarged view.

Untitled.

Garden Canyon pictographs at Fort Huachuca in Cochise County, Arizona. These raptor images were made by Apache people sometime around 1700. The pictograph panel is on the underside of a soot-blackened rock shelf and comprises about 40 figures, of which soaring birds are the most recognizable feature.

Untitled.

A gray day, but the colors were bright. On Garden Canyon Road at Fort Huachuca, Cochise County, Arizona.

What? Did you think it was all saguaros and Gila monsters here?

Arizona gray squirrel (Sciurus arizonensis).

At Garden Canyon, Fort Huachuca, Cochise County, Arizona.

Arizona gray squirrel

(Sciurus arizonensis), at Garden Canyon, Fort Huachuca, Cochise County, Arizona.

Despite their resemblance to eastern gray squirrels in appearance and behavior, Arizona grays are more closely related to fox squirrels. I have a long history of animosity toward gray squirrels, a feud fueled by their careless destruction of my garden back in Virginia, especially their depredations of my tomato plants and tulips. Maybe I’m softening as I grow older, but I actually find these Arizona fellows funny and cute.

As with so many of the creatures we share this world with, Arizona gray squirrel populations are threatened by habitat loss in their already restrictive range. When will we ever learn?

Q: Why did the tarantula* cross the road?

A: Sex. The answer is always sex.

Sky island tarantula (Aphonopelma madera), at Garden Canyon, Fort Huachuca, Cochise County, Arizona, with apologies to @charlesreeza.

*Substitute the name of just about any motile organism here. Still works.