Categories
Birding Flowers and Plants Herps

Back at Granite Gap

I left Ajo on Wednesday and drove directly to Granite Gap. Ajo is getting hot, but here it is still very pleasant. This is a quiet location. I’ve been here three days and haven’t seen anyone. Not sure how long I will be here but at least a few more days. There are still quite a few flowers blooming and birding is good. The numbers of Tiger Whiptails are amazing and I’ve seen two Long-nosed Leopard Lizards.

The night before I left Ajo, I went herping with Danny and Rekha Martin. We got this Glossy Snake, a lifer for me! We also saw two Sidewinders.
Here is one of the Sidewinders.
One of two Long-nosed Leopard Lizards I’ve seen since arriving at Granite Gap.
A cooperative Scott’s Oriole from this morning.
Fallugia paradoxa, Apache Plume, is in flower now. A member of the Rose family, this is the only species in the genus Fallugia.
One of my favorite desert flowers, Rock Hibiscus. I usually run across some of these in the Ajo area but not this spring. I only found one yesterday morning on my hike at Granite Gap.
A Red-tailed Hawk carrying a Harris’s Antelope Ground Squirrel.

2 replies on “Back at Granite Gap”

Your Red-Tailed Hawk photo was the topic of discussion at coffee this morning. Bruce Coonrod had it on his phone and everyone thought it was pretty cool.
How big are the Rock hibiscus? I’ve had hibiscus that were large but thought maybe the desert variety doesn’t get so big.
The herps and the oriole are very good. I didn’t know sidewinders had “horns”.

The flowers aren’t as big as the Ajo Lily, but bigger than many of the desert flowers. The book says about 1.5 inches across.

Comments are closed.