Kit and Carol on the Road

I have been volunteering in the desert for many years now but still have so much to learn. Last Saturday I was leading my cholla walk. One woman in the group kept asking about birds--a subject about which I know next to nothing. She pointed out an unusual bird and thought it looked like a mockingbird. I didn't even know we had mockingbirds. Then she also spotted the most unusual thing --a grasshopper (bright green) skewered on a cholla thorn. Stupid me for not taking a photo. I found out too late to tell her--that the bird was likely a loggerhead shrike and they will stick prey on a thorn or a barbed wire fence to either save it for later or hold it while they eat it .

Carol Harma--from my iPad