The Hilton Bosque

It's lovely being here in Tucson.

So lovely, that I become lax on everything. I haven't been posting to the blog (as you've undoubtedly noticed). I only answer some emails (a BIG stretch for me, compulsive email-checker that I am). I haven't even been reading much.

I've been watching quail. Gambel's quail, for those not in the know. At my folks' place in Tucson, the quail come streaming along -- they've got this amazing run where their legs move in a blur, but their bodies and heads remain still, so they move like ballerinas across the stage -- spilling over the low wall into the patio. They drop like so many pieces of ripe fruit, cherry head-feathers bobbing. Lemon-drop finches cluster on the thistle-sock. A flicker sings a piercing whistle and hits the heavy seed feeder. The air is redolent with orange blossoms, which are in turn heavy with the hive-buzz of bees. They look identical to us, characteristic of commercial bees, and my stepfather threatens to have them followed, to exact his share of their product.

We visited Catalina State Park, and dutifully read the signs on the birding trail. Three habitats: riparian, desert scrub and mesquite bosque. The last is pronounced BOS-kay, from the Spanish for forest. We learned that our neighborhood flicker is an gila woodpecker (I linked it, just so you can see how pretty he is). The mesquite bosque surprised us with long, lush grass beneath the denuded shrubs. The sun heated my skin, welcome fire after the cold of winter.

This morning, we walked through the neighborhood. Past the patio homes surrounding Hilton's El Conquistador resort. Here, off the roads, off the paved golf-cart paths and in my folks' golf course-boardering patio home, we see all the birds and more. Vermillion flycatchers. A cactus wren or three. A roadrunner poised on a hillside fencepost. Bunnies and javelinas. David dubs it the fourth habitat: the Hilton bosque. Thoureau said travel was unnecessary; that everything could be witnessed in one's own backyard.

So, I lie in the lounge chair on the patio. Watching the world come to me.