As we are exploring Friday evening what to do this weekend an email from our junk folder jumps out to us. Is it real? Will there really be a bioblitz on Saturday and the email was sent on Thursday and it went directly to our Junk folder? The answer we find out soon is yes, there is an event with many different smaller trips to choose from. Now we are in a hurry as we need to choose something and decide on a night trip from 6PM to 11PM that promises to use an IR camera, something we always wanted to do.
On Saturday we make our way to White Tanks Regional Park where the meeting site is. At the entrance we are encouraged as they know what the Bioblitz is but they do not find our name. We enter it on the list in the end and do not pay the entrance fee and then make our way to the starting point.
We are about two minutes late so after check in it is time to leave and make our way towards Sun Valley Parkway, the area we will explore. It will be a drive along the highway both spotlighting and using the IR camera to find live animals while the driver keeps an eye out for roadkill. And soon we find the highlight of our outing a kit fox unintimidated by us as he really wants to take the roadkill that he was eating away with him.
The IR camera was quite interesting to use and the AZGFD rangers were quite permissive allowing us to use it almost the whole time. We learn that saguaros and barrel cacti are emitting quite a bit of heat, who knew. And we also find a few animals including a coyote on the highway and a mule deer in a subdivision.
Unfortunately there are also quite a few roadkill, mostly snakes, spotted by our eagle eyed driver. However we see at least one live snake, a beautiful long-nosed snake, and a black tailed jackrabbit that runs like crazy into the bushes as soon as he is spotted.
Some of the more unexpected things we observe are toads, even the rangers from AZGFD are surprised. And not one or two but quite a few of them and also multiple species. We also enjoy seeing our first Western Banded Geckos, they are quite common according to the rangers but we never saw one before. And then we are back at the parking lot after a great outing, fun contributing to the Bioblitz and also seeing the nature diversity of Arizona!
