Wild Life

Technorati Tags: spadefoot toads,toads,animals,wildlife
My husband Richard and I sat in our backyard one summer evening, watching a violet-black thundercloud drift downhill, trailing dense curtains of rain. Brilliant stabs of lightning punctuated the early darkness. As the storm drew closer, a distant sound, like sheep bleating, began to insinuate itself through the banging thunder and the [...]

Technorati Tags: river otters,otters,animals,wildlife
“Splash!” A sleek, chocolate brown form slides down a slippery mud bank into a southwestern stream. “Splash!” Another sleek form belly-flops on the mudslide and follows the first into the water. The two river otters chase one another underwater, looping and turning and tumbling.
River otters are the Southwest’s water acrobats. These graceful [...]

Technorati Tags: rattlesnakes,snakes,wildlife,animals

The biggest rattlesnake that I’ve ever seen was also the first one that I remember. Years ago, my brother and I nearly stumbled over a huge rattler, a grandmother of snakes, sunning herself on a patch of bare sandstone. Her heavy body was as big around as my forearm and looked to be [...]

Technorati Tags: Wildlife,animals,prairie dogs

Have you ever explored a cave? No matter what the conditions above ground, inside a cave the air remains a constant temperature – never too hot, never too cold, never too dry. No wonder then, that so many animals in the Southwest – from ants to black bears, spadefoot toads to rattlesnakes [...]