A Facebook compadre in the Sonoran Desert Wildlife group took these photos in the Bradshaw Mountains several weeks ago.
He said, “the lower peaks all had huge colonies of ladybugs on the north side of every rock!”
Awesome ladybug photos!!!
– mambug
Look the photo I found on the internet!
Ladybug attended the Arizona Get Outdoor Expo last year with Mamabug and Papabug, and is now on their home page. We love the Outdoor Expo – it’s a great way to find out about outdoor activities and opportunities all over Arizona. There are tons of fun activities for kids and adults, including a catch and release fishing pond (as shown in the photo), a rock climbing wall, live wildlife from various agencies around the state, archery, boat displays and so many camping and RV displays you can lose count.
So if you are looking for something to do in Arizona this weekend, stop by and check it out. Here is the information from their website:
Join us in Scottsdale, where we bring the outdoors, indoors in 300,000 sq ft of Air Conditioned space inside WestWorld of Scottsdale!
Saturday: July 15, 2017 10am-4pm
Sunday: July 16, 2017 11am-3pm
$8 (online advance purchase only, plus tax & fees)
Children 12 & under FREE
Military & First Responders FREE
Have a great weekend and enjoy the outdoors by staying inside!
– mambug
Ladybug wishes all Americans a wonderful celebration of independence!
Celebrate the beauty of our land and our people today and embrace what it truly means to be American.
Be brave and be free!
– mambug
I walked outside Saturday afternoon and glanced up to see a giant Turkey Vulture sitting on the wall of our backyard! Apparently our yard has become a sanctuary for large birds of prey.
We still get nightly visits from our Great Horned Owl friends (aka, Athena and Apollo), but this guy came to say hello in the middle of a 115 degree afternoon. Since the Turkey Vulture is one of the few birds to locate food using its sense of smell, it makes me a little nervous for our resident squirrel population.
Visit these websites for more information about Turkey Vultures:
– mambug
A wonderful day for a ballgame! It’s hot outside, but cool inside Chase Field. A great afternoon for beer and baseball.
Happy Birthday, Papabug!
– mambug
Two Great Horned Owls have started visiting our back yard every evening. They like to hang out by the pool. Ladybug lives next door to a mountain, so many of our mountainside neighbors visit our little pool oasis in the extreme Phoenix heat, during the summer.
We hope they keep stopping by!
– mambug
Here are links to some fantastic sites that focus on the legend of Route 66 and the sights to see along the road:
Happy travels!
– mambug
When we start seeing balloons in the sky after super windy monsoon winds, dust storms and extremely hot summer temperatures, Phoenicians know that fall must be lurking right around the corner!
As one local ballooning company put it:
Hot air balloon flights require ideal weather conditions, which luckily are present most days out of the average year in Phoenix. However, just because it’s a beautiful sunny day, understand that it may not necessarily be a perfect day to go hot air ballooning. The wind speed should be less than 7 to 10 miles per hour, and there must be no thunderstorm activity within 50-100 miles. Balloons don’t fly in the rain. Even if it has stopped raining recently before flight time, there may be more bad weather on the way. – Apex Balloons
Interested in a balloon ride? Here are a few places we found and are planning to look into (in no particular order):
Every night we read books. Ladybug loves anything funny, silly or cute (think baby animals), but she really leans toward anything to do with science or nature. Her choice last night was “Animals, a visual encyclopedia,” by DK Publishing.
Ladybug was very excited about the book, explaining that this one has mammals, insects, babies, frogs, under the sea and best of all – eggs.
“Eggs is my favorite one. It says it on that page, but we’re gonna go through the whole book. Here’s the under the sea, but let’s look at mammals. Lookit, awwwww, there’s dogs. It shows you where all of the animals live in here. That’s cool. Here’s one with babies and that’s its skeleton. It shows you inside of them.
“And these are animals and monkeys, and these are the ones with the funny butts. The funny red butts. I have one of the little ones that has a red butt, but the big one doesn’t have a red butt. I don’t know why.” Ladybug has boxes of little plastic toy animals – mammals, bugs, lizards, snakes, dinosaurs and sea creatures. She dumps the box and decides which group is going to play that day – big cats, monkeys, butterflies, horses, snakes, lizards, spiders – the list goes on. Sometimes they are all at school, sometimes they’re going to a dance. Sometimes they are princesses who have become butterflies or dogs.
Her favorite page, the one that shows all of the eggs, was very exciting. “Here it is! These are all the eggs. Which one is this?” We read through every egg so she can see it’s name. “What’s this one called?” The rose-winged parakeet. “What’s this one called?” The domestic chicken. “What’s this one called?” Peregrin Falcon. “What’s this one called?” Common Oyster-catcher. “What’s this one called?” Richard’s Pitpit. “What?” Richard’s Pitpit. “What is this one called?” Great Snipe. “What is this one called?” Richard’s Pitpit. “What is this one called?” Richard’s Pitpit. This continues for a few minutes. Uncontrollable giggles ensue.
Richard’s Pitpit – the grand winner of the silliest bird name ever.
