D. August Baertlein - Writer & Ruminator
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The Magnificent Horned Lizard

8/28/2019

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     I'm a lizard fan in general, but Horned Lizards are my absolute favorite. As a kid growing up in the desert outside Tucson, I loved catching and playing with them, even taking one to preschool for show-and-tell once. It was a hit with all my little desert rat friends, and thankfully it survived to be released the next day.

     As a kid we called them horny toads, but that is no longer acceptable terminology. Times change. Aside from sexual innuendo, they're not toads at all. They're super-special, fat, spiky lizards. Note the thorny Elizabethan collar and devil horns.

     Nowadays I try to keep my hands off the Horned Lizards, let them be free, but oh my fingers itch to hold one whenever I spot it. They're slower than your average lizard, relying on thorny edges to deter most predators. The slowness and the fact that they're so darned cute makes them attractive to preschoolers and old farts alike. Well, at least this one.

     I have a confession. Horned Lizards were the thing that clinched the deal on our cabin in the Coulter Pine and chaparral outside Lake Hughes, California. When two or three of them wandered across our path as we walked the property the day we first saw the place, I turned to my husband and said, "This feels like home." And it was, for 14 wonderful years!
      Now, outside Prescott, Horned Lizards are my neighbors again. This one (above left) was barely an inch long, spotted a few days ago. Another baby crossed our path a few days later. (Oh, my itchy fingers!) August and September seem to be baby time around here.

     The story is, if you harass them, they'll spit blood from their eyes, but I've never seen it in all my harassing. The Arizona Sonora Desert Museum confirms, though, that "several species can rupture small capillaries around their eyes and squirt a bloody solution at would-be predators," so it must be true.

     If you're wandering the desert or chaparral be sure to keep your eyes open for these little cuties. They're hard to spot, generally so still and camouflaged. And you sure don't want to step on one!

     Happy hiking!
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The Glorious Gray Fox

8/19/2019

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     It's been a critter-filled summer here on the ranch near Prescott, Arizona, and my husband keeps pushing me to share my pictures with the world. It's a wonderful idea. I love my critters and desperately need to revive this poor blog.


     So, today's photos are of beautiful Gray Foxes. At least two come by regularly to get a drink from the bird bath, sniff out bugs and worms, or scamper catlike up and down our trees. It's incredible to watch!

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​     The little fella below was comfortable enough to take a nap under a manzanita bush.
     And What Does the Fox Say? Not any of the things the goofy song proclaims.  

     When I first heard a fox call, in the deep dark of our Coulter Pine forest near Lake Hughes, California, I was a bit freaked out. It sounded like something was dying a slow and painful death by dismemberment. But no, that scream is what a fox really says. I've not yet heard it here, though. These foxes are pretty stealthy.

     Has anybody else out there seen or heard a fox lately?
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    Author

    I made a career of writing software by day while scribbling stories by night, a combo made even odder by the fact that I started my adult life as a marine biologist/geneticist. 

    I got my Ph.D. ever so long ago, but I still love science, especially the biological variety. Now I write SciFi and Fantasy that's full of it.  Science, I mean.


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Photos used under Creative Commons from dedhed1950, ScottM70, peru, lili eta marije, erin_everlasting, timparkinson, allspice1