Greater Earless Lizard III

And another example of my favorite lizard species! I like their colourful skin and the fact that they are not shy at all. In fact, most of them seam to be quite interested in what those strange humans are up to and observe us and the camera suspiciously.

cactus hug

Who would beleive THIS at home: I love the desert!

die Wueste lebt!

Immer wieder bin ich erstaunt darueber, wie schoen es in der Wueste sein kann. Trotz des extremen Klimas herrscht eine enorme Biodiversitaet und hinter jedem Busch bewegt sich etwas. Bei dem wunderbaren Anblick schmilzt selbst ein alter Kaeltefan wie ich dahin...

Hilary made it!

When we arrived at the "seven falls" there was no water in the creeks, so we spent some time with rock-climbing and posing:)But we'll definitely come back here to take a bath when the summer monsoon season has started!

dove on saguaro

What a comfortable home...

Greater earless lizards (Cophosaurus texanus)

These pretty reptiles belong to the family of Fringe-toed lizards. All of these lizards are insectivorous, though some may also eat small lizards. They breed from spring to summer laying between 1 to 15 eggs, with the fringe-toed lizard usually laying fewer eggs than the other species. Eggs take 60 to 75 days to hatch.
Females of several lizard species exhibit color changes during breeding season. The “sand”lizards, for instance, develop bright orange or red areas on the different parts of the body. In some species this indicates readiness for breeding, while in others it is a signal to males that the female has already mated and is gravid (pregnant).

Sonoran Whipsnake (Masticophis bilineatus)

What a beauty!
This gorgeous snake waited patiently until I managed to get a good shot of it. My camera was just 20cm away from its head! "Today's desert hiking guide" say the following about this species:
Sonoran whipsnakes are found in southeastern to west-central Arizona as well as northern Mexico. They live in semiarid lower mountain slopes in rocky stream courses at elevations up to 7500 feet. It is equally at home on the ground or climbing in low, shrubby vegetation and trees. When hunting, the Sonoran whipsnake may elevate its head off the ground and scan the surrounding area for possible prey such as birds, small mammals, lizards, other snakes and frogs. The female snake lays a clutch of 4-13 eggs in June and July.

Prickly Pear (Opuntia)

The pads ("Nopales") as well as the fruits ("tuna") of the Prickly Pear cactus are edible. We tried to eat some of the fruit, which turned out to be quite difficult - the prickles are extremly fragile, sting the skin very quickly and are hard to pull out again.

Greater Earless Lizard I

Lizards, lizards and more lizards wherever you go! This one is pretty much posing for me on its little rock - isn't it cute?

birthday-hike (Santa Catalina mountains)

Last Saturday my new roommate Hilary and I went on a long hike in the Santa Catalina mountains (northeast Tucson). Although we did the "seven falls hike" there was barely any water. But the landscape is absolutely amazing - we just had to make sure to take enough water with us. Physical exercise in this dry heat can very quickly lead to sunstroke and dehydration.

4th of July - fireworks

We also attended the fireworks sitting on the roof. I't quite hard to capture it, but here you can get a bit of an impression how beautiful it was.

sunset-watching II

Das Warten auf dem Dach hat sich also gelohnt! Der Himmel erglueht in allen nur erdenklichen Rot- und Gelbtoenen, bricht auf, beginnt zu rumoren und grummeln. Ploetzlich faengt der Wind wie irre an zu wehen, es riecht nach Sand und die Luft wird schwuel. Kurze Zeit spaeter entlaedt sich ein gigantisches Gewitterspektakel und endlich, endlich erreichen die ersten Regentropfen den ausgedoerrten Wuestenboden.

sunset-watching on the roof

This is one of the biggest advantages of my new home: you can climb up the roof in the evenings and watch the amazing sunsets, thunderstorms and rainfalls. This is life!

July 4th - sugarshock

Bloss keinen Schreck bekommen, Mamita! ICH ess bestimmt keine blauen Toertchen:)

Adobe style house

Just wanted to show you how traditional southwestern houses look like.

That's what Wikipedia says about Adobe:
Adobe is a natural building material mixed from sand, clay, and straw, dung, or other fibrous materials, which is shaped into bricks using frames and dried in the sun. Adobe structures are extremely durable and account for the oldest extant buildings on the planet. Adobe buildings also offer significant advantages in hot, dry climates; they remain cooler as adobe stores and releases heat very slowly. The word Adobe has come down to us over some 4000 years with astonishingly little change in either pronunciation or meaning: the word can be traced from the Middle Egyptian (c. 2000 BC) word dj-b-t "mud [i.e., sun-dried] brick."

one night the moon

One night the moon came sailing by
on a big boat right across the night sky
one night the moon came sailing by
called all the dreamers to come for a ride

One night the moon came galloping by
on a big horse right across the night sky
one night the moon came galloping by
called all the dreamers to come for a ride

(from the movie "One night the moon" by Rachel Perkins)

Smug Alert!

Hab diesen Wagen in der 4th Avenue gesehen & musste spontan an mein herzallerliebstes Bluederlein und die Folge von South Park denken, in der Kyles Vater ein Hybridauto kauft und seine Sippe ins Hippieparadies nach San Francisco schleift, um unter seinesgleichen (spich: eingebildeten Alternativen) zu weilen, waehrend Stan mittels eines selbstgeschriebenen Pro-Hybrid-Songs die Bewohner von South Park dazu bewegt, sich ebenfalls Hybridautos anzuschaffen, um Kyles Sippe zur Rueckkehr in die Heimat zu bewegen. Die Aktion fuehrt zwar zwischenzeitlich eine Umweltkatastrophe aus, doch am Ende rettet Cartman die Welt, Kyle kommt zurueck nach South Park und alle sind gluecklich mit ihren Benzienern. Chakkah.

Come on People now, People Now; People now, Come on People now.Got to drive hybrids people now, people now, people now, people nowHybrids are for people now, people now, Good for people driving people now, get a hybrid be good people now

Also: allerbeste Gruesse an Mac:)

Raja & Simba

I proudly present: my new roommates, Raja (front) and Simba (back). They are Himalayans and therefore royalty. That's at least what they seem to beleive:)

Tucson's proud

no comments...

Das Buch zur Serie!

Found this cute little book at Bookman's. It is the first field giude to roadkill I've ever seen. The descriptions of the flattened animals are slightly morbid, but very exact. The author really made an effort to copy the silhouette of every dead animal he happened to see. Isn't it a great contribution to my "dead of the week"?

Dead of the week 5 - Gila Woodpecker

This is an unlucky example of a female Gila Woodpecker (you pronounce it "Hila") which was most likely hit by a car. I saw it on my way to Reid Park. You can tell that it's a female because it is lacking the red spot on its head which is characteristic for the males. Gila Woodpeckers are indigenous to southern Arizona and the Sonoran part of Mexico. They build their nests in Saguaro (pronounced "Suaro") cacti or Mesquite trees and hence is a true desert inhabitant.
Cause of death: car accident

Old Main Building

This is the old main building of the University of Arizona. It is located on a green "island" in the middle of University Boulevard. The lawn you can see in front of the building is actually one of the greenest ones I've seen in Tucson - it is VERY expensive to keep grass green over here.

Student Union Memorial Center

Nobody I asked really knows why this building is called "memorial center", but anyway: the student unions are places where students can meet to study, eat, get books for their classes or just hang out. In this union you'll find tons of restaurants & cafes, a post office, the office for student housing and a book store that also sells Arizona Wildcats clothing as well as giant microbes and other nice, but not really necessary stuff.

tadaa: itt az uj haziallatom: Charles, a hoercsoeg

Voila: mein neues Haustier. Stinkt nicht, beisst nicht und laesst sich freiwillig mit Erdbeeren fuettern - (ohne Backentaschen- abszessgefahr!) wenn das mal nichts is! Ich hoffe, dass Nois beste Tina-Freundin die Seite jetzt spannender findet:). Und Schmagges: wenn Du auf Charles klickst & ihn mit der Maus in das Rad schiebst, dann dreht er extra fuer Dich seine Runden in dem fuer Hamsterorthopaeden sicherlich fuer verwerflich befundenen Rad. Remelem, tetszik?

Dead of the week 4 - beetle

This time I found a small, but quite nice looking dead - a beetle which seems to serve as a feast for dozens of little ants.

Habitat: Tucson Botanical Gardens

Cause of death: age or murder

Apache dancer

Originally I wanted to put a video of an Apache boy performing a pow wow dance at this place, but somehow I can't upload videos to this blog. To still give you an impression of the Native American dances, I insert a photo of another Apache who's dancing the eagle dance. Since he was moving really quickly, the picture is a bit wiggly. Another member of his family was singing and playing the drums at the same time.

Mittsommernacht

These firedancers were performing a pretty cool show on the multicultural solistice event that was going on in front of the Arizona State Museum on Saturday night. Some of the dancers (they call themselves "Flam Chen") were walking on stilts and some were on the ground swinging around burning sticks and chains. They were accompanied by a really good Dembe Drum group.

Tucson "ring" meteroite

This is a bronze replicate of a meteroite that hit a place in the Santa Rita mountains a few hundred years ago. Unfortunately nobody knows the exact spot where it fell down; there might probably be more meterorite pieces undetectedly lying around.
The original meteorite can actually be visited at the Smithsonian museum in Washington.

sundial at the planetarium

There's a sundial in front of the Flandrau Science Center's Planetarium - if you step on the actual date (the month and days are marked on a loop in the middle of the sundial) your shadow will point at the actual time. Neat, isn't it?
As you can see I was there at 6:30pm.

Dead of the week 3 - rat

Dieses seltene Exemplar von Wasserleiche habe ich im Reid Park Zoo entdeckt. Selten deshalb, weil Wasser hier ausgesprochen rar ist (naja, das haben Wuesten nun mal so an sich). Ich hoffe, der pietaetvolle Rahmen nicht allzu sehr vom schaurigen Schicksal dieses Individuums als Reptilienfutter ablenkt.
Fundort: Krokodilgehege
vermutete Todesursache: Tierpfleger

flying fruit

Grins :)
Nur gut, dass unsere Nachbarn in Giessen da kulanter waren und ueber fliegende Eier und Aepfel hinweggesehen haben...

Harris's Antelope Ground Squirrel

These agile little squirrels populate the mountains of the Sonoran desert. They are extremly quick, so it's hard to catch them in a motionless position. Isn't it cute though?

notorious "A"

Das ist also das beruehmt-beruechtigte A auf dem "A" mountain. Wer genau damit angefangen hat, weiss ich nicht. Sicher ist nur, dass sowohl Phoenix und Tucson stolze Besitzer eines "A" mountains sind und sich die Studis dieser beiden Uni-Staedte seit jeher ganze Naechte um die Ohren schlagen, um das jeweil feindliche "A" in den Farben IHRER Uni zu streichen. Der Sinn dahinter bleibt mir zwar groesstenteils verborgen, erinnert mich aber dunkel an die bescheuerten Fahnen-Klau-Aktionen auf diversen Naju-Veranstaltungen...

radeldiho

Hier ist exklusiv und einmalig mein frisch getuntes Rad zu bewundern - man beachte die formschoenen einklappbaren Gepaeckkoerbe sowie die nicht wirklich sichtbaren, aber extra haltbaren kaktusstachelresistenten Schlaeuche. Jetzt fehlen nur noch pinke Alufelgen und man koennte meinen, ich haette bei "pimp my ride" mitgemacht.

view of Tucson from the top of "A" mountain

On Saturday I decided to abandon my inner couch potato and mutate to what I would call a real Tucsonian. That means basically you get up in the middle of the night (which is 5 o'clock a.m. in my case), exhaust yourself by riding your bike to the top of the next available mountain and realize that you're by far not the first person who had this great idea. The others are allready heading down while you scramble upwards, sweating and gasping for air. Then, on the top, you sware to yourself that next time you'll get up two hours earlier, because it's allready so hot outside, that even rolling down makes appears to be too heavy exercise. Back at home you drink 3 liters of cold water, take a shower and feel ready to go back to bed again...

you are beautiful

found this on North Campbell Avenue :)

hummingbird babies

Hier sieht man beide Kolibri-Babies. Da das Nest recht weit oben im Baum haengt, konnte ich die Zwerge nicht von oben ablichten. Ausserdem haben sie staendig ihre Schaebel in Richtung meiner Kamera gestreckt; vielleicht in der Hoffnung, dass Futter im Anmarsch ist. Wenn Kolibris aus dem Ei schluepfen, sind ihre Schnaebel noch ganz kurz. Sie wachsen erst im Laufe der naechsten Wochen in die Laenge. Naja, ist eigentlich ziemlich logisch - mit den sperrigen Schnaebeln wuerden sie garantiert nicht in die winzigen Eier (ca. 0,3g) passen. Das Bild ist fuer Dich, Tina!

hummingbird nest

See who's hiding between the branches? It's a tiny little nest (about 3-4 cm in diameter) with 2 hungry little hummingbird babies in it, waiting for their parents to feed them.
Hummingbird nests are actually made out of plant material that's held together with spider webs.

herb garden

And another image of my favorite place in town - the Tucson Botanical Gardens.

Tucson Rodeo

Die Rodeo-Fotoserie soll einen lokalen Bezug zu den im Nebenraum ausgestellten Stierkampf-Radierungen von Goya darstellen.
Habe also diesen ungluecklichen Cowboy gesehen und natuerlich sofort an den einzigen mir bekannten Westernheldenbegeisterten gedacht - howdy, Mr. Barber, das Bild ist fuer Dich!

muzeumi erdoe

Az erdoe mindenuett talalhato - meg a muzeumban is! Ezaltal mar mindjart odahaza erzem magam:)

Dead of the week 2 - bird

I found this dead bird on my way to Reid Park Zoo. I think it is a victim of a car accident, but I don't know for sure. May it rest in peace until some starving raptor grabs it.

Palo Verde

Yesterday I learned that Palo Verde (they're called "verde" because of their bright green bark) trees are not really trees, but bushes. With their green beans they provide food for ground squirrels and a lot of other desert animals. This Palo Verde is located not far from my department.

Hahnemann in Mexico

Na sieh mal einer an - diese Homoeo- pathen scheinen sich wirklich ueberall rumzutreiben! Leider hatte die Apotheke geschlossen, sonst haett ich dem AK doch glatt ein Souvenir mitgebracht. Tod C200 oder so.

La Aldea

That's my current home on the campus - a bit too fancy (and boring) for me, so I'm moving by the end of the month.

no beer on the streets

Warum darf man hier seelenruhig mit ner geladenen Knarre durch die Gegend spazieren, aber noch nicht mal auf ner Bank sitzen und friedlich sein Bier trinken?

butterflies

Saguaros and Yucca

Giant Saguaro cacti grow extremely slow. Their first branch appears when they are around 100 years old. Saguaros and are indigenous only to the Sonoran desert and they are protected by federal law, so you can't just take one from the desert and plant it in your garden.
In addition, many birds use these cacti as well-tempered, safe homes - see the nestsholes in the cactus on the right side of the picture? If you zoom in the 3rd hole from the top of the cactus, you'll recognize a little bird poking out of its nest.

Mexican backyard garden

This is the most colourful place in the gardens - and the one with the most shade.

my favorite bench

Viele der Baenke im Botanischen Garten sind mit bunten Mosaiken verziert - diese hier ist meine Lieblingsbank. Man kann stundenlang da sitzen und beobachten, wie Kolibris Nektar trinken, sich jagen und sogar rueckwaerts fliegen. Das sind doch wahrhaft paradiesische Zustaende!

Desert Spiny Lizard (Sceloporus magister)

It's seeking the shade, just like me!