Desert provides quite a show each night

CAREFREE, Ariz. -- In the early-morning or late-evening hours, if one sits quietly alongside one of the roads here, it's almost a safe bet that the wilderness will come marching or slithering by.

My wife and I came here to the Arizona desert to celebrate our granddaughter's birthday in North Scottsdale. I also figured I would get in some fishing at Lake Pleasant. That little side trip was not in the cards.

So I sat here on a deserted road waiting for nature's hunting parties to do their thing.

Back home in the Northwest suburbs we have become very edgy when we hear reports or actually see a bundle of gray or brown fur moving from one property to another looking for defenseless dogs and cats.

I'm referring to an ever-growing presence of coyotes that have become commonplace in northern Illinois. But out here in the vast, semi-populated areas of desert, coyotes are as common as rush-hour traffic on the Dan Ryan Expressway.

I wasn't disappointed.

Three rabbits hustled their cottontails across the road a mere 30 feet in front of my vehicle. Ten seconds elapsed when six coyotes raced after them. The predators circled a stand of giant saguaro cactus (pronounced sah-wah-roh), keeping the rabbits in the middle.

It was over in a matter of seconds. It was breakfast time for the coyotes and part of the life-cycle environment in a land where both water and food are very precious.

Those who have built their homes on the rock and sand here have the same problems we do back home. They have to carefully watch their pets for fear of losing them to the roving packs of coyotes, not to mention poisonous snakes.

Friend Richard Kessler came to North Scottsdale nine years ago and purchased a beautiful 2½-acre piece of real estate. Once the house was completed, Kessler walked around the property and discovered he shared the land with quite a few rattlesnakes.

"I walked slowly and carried a very long stick," he reported, "and I subsequently was able to move some of the snakes off the property to another chunk of ground."

As the sun went down one evening I pulled onto a road not far from my daughter's house and waited. It was a balmy 95 degrees with a slight breeze blowing in from the west. I noticed movement on the pavement and sure enough, the motion turned into a "snake migration."

Two medium-sized rattlers slithered across the road, apparently looking for lodging for the night. Unlike the huge Texas diamondbacks, these locals were about 4 feet long.

I admit that snakes and I don't get along. I've had some bad run-ins with both rattlers and copperheads in the wilds, so I was glad to be encapsulated in my vehicle, far enough away to be a happy spectator.

Because the Phoenix area continues to experience severe drought conditions, it's not uncommon for wild animals, including snakes, to pay visits to the various homes equipped with swimming pools. One local told me he found four coyotes and several rattlesnakes in his back yard, sampling the pool's water.

One can fish here, but it's a haul to get to some of the more popular areas, like Roosevelt Lake and Lake Pleasant.

Over the years, the bass acclimated themselves to the overly hot water conditions that prevail in most of the waterways here.

From my personal experiences fishing here, one would need to be completely lathered in sunscreen and have at least a couple of gallons of water in the boat to stay hydrated. You adapt or turn into a stewed tomato.

For me, I'll just be happy to watch the parade of wild animals looking for their meals and leave the fishing for my trips back home.