This is an environment dominated by cacti. The tallest plants around are saguaro. Other species of cacti and many shrubs are sparsely scattered about. If you are careful, you can walk almost anywhere, but it’s difficult to avoid getting stuck on a prickle, or stabbed by a thorn. The rule is: don’t let anything touch you!
Wikepedia informs me that saguaro grow about one inch a year, so these tall ones with multiple arms are old - as much as 200 years. At this time of year, each branch is topped with an Easter bonnet of white flowers whose nectar attracts birds, bats, insects and small rodents. Bats are the major pollinators. Later, 3 inch oval fruits will split to reveal a bright red pulp which is equally attractive to desert creatures.
At dawn, the white winged doves were cooing, some perched atop organ pipe cacti, others scavenging on the ground. Although this was a dry year for the desert, the organ pipe cacti had many flower buds emerging along the “pipes”. Individual flowers opened at night and by early morning were already quite bedraggled and not very photogenic. The saguaro flowers were showy and attractive at all times. [See Day 11]
Cactus wrens were dipping into saguaro blossoms.
They rarely drink water, getting enough liquid from the insects and other foods they consume. It was easy to follow wren couples to their nests in cane or buckhorn cacti as they delivered breakfast to their babies.
The gila woodpeckers were the most interesting to observe as they brought food to their young in nesting holes in the saguaro. The pair drill out a hole, use if for the season, then abandon it to other birds, lizards or insects. Like the cactus wren and dove, the gila woodpecker eats insects, saguaro flowers and fruits, and mistletoe berries.
In Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument campground, the common housefinch was also feeding on saguaro flowers and regaling us with morning song.
