Arizona Roundup

The campground is filling up with vintage and teardrops trailers this weekend, a group called the Arizona Roundup. The first one to show up was this custom Ford pickup and teardrop owned by “Bud” the 80 year old organizer shown in the upper photo.  The second photo displays a 1937 customized Ford sedan with nicely matching teardrop.   The last photo is a restored 1962 Shasta. This is an annual event here at Buckskin and growing in numbers each year. They are a gregarious group and love to show off their trailers, and being an older group, my guess is they will be much quieter than our Thanksgiving crowd.

 

 

 

Peace and Quiet

After my rant yesterday - - - I thought I owed it to my readers to report that peace and quiet have settled back along our lovely stretch of the Lower Colorado River today.  The roar of the speed boats are no longer ricocheting off of Echo Rock, (the appropriately named rock in the back ground). The Ring-billed Gulls have returned to perch on the wading area buoys (shown in the foreground). The campground is almost empty save for a few old folks. Life is good.

I'm Thankfull- - - that Thanksgiving is Over

Apparently it’s a holiday tradition for the populace of L.A. and Phoenix to gather on the Lower Colorado, in this case, Buckskin Mountain State Park, to celebrate the four day Thanksgiving weekend. They come with their ski-dos, ski boats, and unmuffled supercharged speed boats. They race up and down the river all day long their deafening roar drowning out the peace and quiet of the campground. Ducks, Coots, and various water fowl flee in fright.  Motor cycles, quads, ATV’s and Jeeps add to the commotion, the dust visible miles away. From the California side of the river, gun fire from target practice goes on during the day, replaced at night with fireworks and amped up bar music. All this is fueled by alcohol consumption that individually exceeds the average annual rainfall for the entire county. Sirens on the highway attest to busy police and ambulance services. No law enforcement patrols the river; noise and speed are entirely unregulated. Today the revelers are packing up their toys and going home. Yes, I am thankful that Thanksgiving is over.  

Wild Burros

We took a drive today on the other side of the river, the California side.  It’s a popular drive because of the opportunity to see Wild Burros.  We were alarmed at the increase in numbers, whereas 2 years ago we felt lucky to see 2 or 3 burros, today we easily saw over 50!  It's BLM land, so I’m guessing the government in its infinite wisdom evidently felt the need to install burro restrooms.  A burro is shown here patiently waiting his or her turn to use the restroom.

 

Apparently he or she, as the case may be, did not appreciate having a photo taken while waiting for the restroom, so sauntered over to have a word with us.

 

Buster, never one to allow anyone to get in the last word, got involved in the conversation too, --- it got rather ugly.

 

 

The Great Attraction

I have been puzzled as to why we have so many butterflies flittering around in the trees here at Buckskin State Park.  Today I put some of the pieces of the puzzle together and think I have a clearer picture of what is going on.  One of the things I have noticed is that the butterflies seem to prefer certain trees.  Today I made an effort to learn more about the trees they were hanging out in and I learned that they were Willow Acacia trees, which are from Australia, and most interesting is that they bloom from fall until spring.  Which explains why they are blooming now and that is what is providing nectar for the butterflies. If you look closely at this photo of this Monarch Butterfly you will see between the two antennas at the top and two right side legs, the single long proboscis that is buried deep into the flowering puff.

Painted Lady

Yesterday afternoon I went back out to see if I could find and photograph some butterflies.  I got lucky and got a good number of photos of the same species of butterfly that the Say’s Phoebe was eating as shown in the former post.  It’s a Painted Lady, which at a 2” wing span is half the size of the 4” wing span of the better known Monarch. This is apparently migration time for butterflies in this area as we seem to have an abnormal amount fluttering around. I think I need to start paying additional attention to the “ladies”.

Birds or Butterflies

Sometimes it’s hard to decide who to root for, birds or butterflies.  While leading my guided bird walk for Buckskin Mountain State Park this morning we saw this bird gulping down this butterfly.  The bird is a Say’s Phoebe, a relatively small Flycatcher.  I think the butterfly is, or I should say was, a Painted Lady.