If I had to pick one thing I liked about Tucson, I would probably say it’s the dry air. But there is something else that’s pretty amazing. And that would be the wildlife. Life and death are literally in your face here. Mourning doves make nests and other birds attack and try to get the eggs. Right in your own backyard. We had a roadrunner in our front yard eating a bird they way they do, ie, taking it in it’s beak and slamming it on a rock in hopes a chunk will come off that can be swallowed whole.
I see coyotes, bobcats and javelina’s on my walks. We get families of quail in our backyard, where the 10 to 15 chicks are so small they look like they couldn’t be more than a week old. And we watch those quail as they grow up and the family dwindles down to maybe 3 or 4 chicks.
Charlie, a friend of mine who moved here (like I did) from Dallas, brought his tom cat with him. This cat was one of those cats that like to roam around at night, watching the territory, so to speak. Well, when Charlie brought the cat to Tucson, the cat refused to leave the safety of the house. I guess it sensed something was a bit different here. I’ve heard from many people whose small pets have just disappeared.
This story, I’ve told a few times, happened when we were in our rent house. We were just trying the city out for size, back in those days. Seeing if we liked it here. Quentin and I were in the backyard messing around, and I noticed a baby mourning dove under some rose bushes. I said, “Hey, Q, come over here and look at the baby!” Big mistake. When Q and I walked over to it, (it was on the ground,) we forced it to leave the safety of the rose bush. It “flew” over the fence to the neighbors yard. I say flew in quotes because it wasn’t flying, it was more like making big hops.
In any event, once it flew over the fence, out of the sky, a big red tailed hawk descended and landed on the fence. I knew immediately what we had just done, and I told Quentin, “Let’s go scare the hawk away!” So we ran over to the fence and started shouting and jumping and waving our hands. Not only did this have no effect on the hawk, but it wouldn’t even look at us. It was totally focused. Less than a minute later, it took off, swooped down, grabbed the baby, and flew a short distance away, where we could both see it eating it’s catch.
It’s was quite a lesson for both of us. I just asked Q if he remembered this and he said “Yes!”
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