I love my adopted “home town”.  I see these beautiful mountains up close from many rooms in my house and our patios. In perusing the internet I came upon our town website which inspired this blog.  I’m not sure who wrote it but I underlined and commented on a couple of things that I find amusing.

 “Close to everything. A world apart.

Oro Valley is a planned community cradled in the shadows of the magnificent Santa Catalina Mountains with hiking trails through Catalina State Park, hiking and bicycle trails throughout the Town, world class golf courses, horseback riding and a long valued cultural tradition, vibrant for over a thousand years*.  *(Comment: Who was documenting the vibrancy of our cultural traditions, golf courses, horseback riding, parks and hiking trails a thousand years ago?)

The Town has been given many accolades through the years, and is proud to be part of the lists below:

     Playful City USA

     Best Places to Live in Arizona

     Best Towns for Families

     Best Places in America to Live and Launch a Small Business

The town is located in the high Sonoran Desert with average high temperatures of 83.4 degrees and average lows of 53.8 degrees and breathtaking beauty. Located just miles north of the Tucson city limits, services like the University of Arizona and Tucson International Airport are just steps away *. *(Comment: It is a 30 to 40 minute drive to either of these services and those would be extremely LONG steps.)

Our schools are the finest in Southern Arizona. Our wild animals are some of the friendliest anywhere*.”  *(Comment:  Yes, indeed, I can attest to our friendly wildlife.  Bobcats regularly stroll through our fenced backyard, hopping over the fence at will.  On one recent morning, a bobcat stopped on the mat outside our sliding glass door and peered in to look at Babbity Bowster who was frozen to his spot inside the door. People are cautioned here to have only “inside” cats.  Cats who roam are tender fodder for the carnivorous critters in our Sonoran Desert.  Babbity Bowster is now seven and he is an “inside-outside” cat who survived a coyote attack on the golf course.  He weathered attacks by a Crips-like gang of Great-tailed Grackles when he had the temerity to intrude on their nesting area. He suffered pecks on the head that bloodied him.  Every time he went outside they swooped down en mass to attack and he soon became very wary of stepping out the door.  After a few weeks they retreated.  He recovered his confidence and continues to prowl the underbrush of the wash and golf course.  He looks quickly about when he hears the call of the grackle but maintains his ground. He brings us gifts of mice, lizards and sometimes baby bunnies or quail all spring and summer. He tries to keep them alive for us to enjoy. He releases them in the family room, kitchen, even bedroom. Occasionally they are not willing to play nice and he holds them too hard in his teeth and can only deliver limp bodies. 

     One spring morning we watched from the front patio as a bobcat ambled through the front yard and stopped to look back at us when we called his name “hi, bobby”.  He wagged his little bobbed tail before continuing down into the wash area east of our house. Last fall, as my grandson and I were exploring in the wash, a bobcat uncurled and stretched from his nap about two yards from the path we were on.  He was completely camouflaged in his napping place in the dappled light under an ironwood tree until we walked that close.  If he hadn’t moved we would have passed right by him without noticing. 

     Coyotes, singly and in groups, trot down the street routinely on their way to hunting expeditions in the desert. They are so common they are hardly noteworthy anymore.  They hunt the thriving families of rabbits.  I’ve yet to see a hungry coyote. I have experienced the blood chilling scream of a rabbit that becomes a coyote’s dinner. I always thought rabbits were mute.

      Javelinas make regular visits to the neighborhood, usually on the night before trash pickup to scavenge through unsecured trash cans. But then we have a lady in the neighborhood who picks through the recycle bins with latex gloves before they are picked up every week too and I’m not sure she qualifies as wildlife.  Javelinas used to raid the trash cans on the tee box of the golf course behind our house until the maintenance crew wised up and emptied them every night.

     Hawks live in the trees on the golf course and circle the skies looking for food. I watched a Harris Hawk and a mockingbird one morning at the local park.  At first I thought the mockingbird was harassing the hawk, screeching and diving at the hawk; flying slowly and entreating the hawk to follow her.  Then I noticed a nest on a branch just below the hawk.  He patiently poised above her nest, until, exhausted, she flew to a nearby tree.  The hawk then helped himself to her offspring.  I heard the frantic peep peep calls of the babies as he tore into them one by one.  Soft tiny gray feathers floated to the ground and finally there were no more peeps.  The entire drama lasted about 30 minutes.

     The Mexican free-tail bats are our companions every evening from early spring through October. We observe them swooping and diving for the insects in the air as we watch the sun compose vibrant colored abstracts against the Catalina Mountains at sunset.

      Brown bunnies and Gamble Quail are in our yard several times a day.  Our flowering bushes are host to a myriad of tiny iridescent hummingbirds that we watch morning and afternoon.  Audacious comical Cactus Wrens, our state bird, have actually hopped into our house several times through an open door or window to help themselves to Babbity Bowster’s cat food. We have big beautiful tarantulas, scary scorpions, insistent roadrunners and skittish jackrabbits on a more occasional basis.  Last summer a roadrunner joined Rutherford B and I on the patio for lunch, clacking his beak requesting to join us.  He would not be shooed away until he had some of our grilled cheese sandwich. Roadrunners also visit the patio diners at the golf club and claim their share of the golfer’s lunches. I’ve written about our resident Great Horned Owl in another post. A couple of times a year we host a snake.  They are most often King snakes but we have had a couple of rattlers. 

     I would definitely concur that we have extremely friendly wild animals in our neighborhood.  We have encroached into their natural living space and I consider them to be very tolerant and good neighbors.  Awareness and respect are most important qualities for living in the desert.