Click, Click, Click

I’m currently sharing a room with a click beetle. The only reason I know it’s a click beetle is because our naturalist friend, Wendy, told me about click beetles a couple years ago. Now I can impress others with my vast knowledge of insects. I thought those clicky things in the night were frogs of some sort. Not so.
Click, click, click
Now, I’ve never seen a click beetle and this one is no exception. I should look up his picture on the Web so I know what I’m dealing with here.
How he (I assume it’s a he because it’s sneaky and noisy) got into my hotel room I know not. It’s okay. He has stayed in the same spot for three days now, moving back and forth someplace in the drapery track. It’s a friendly sound. Makes me feel like I’m out of doors.
As luck would have it, I’m in Phoenix where it’s so hot you can not go outside. You live in the air conditioned bubble and bitch about the heat with other people who don’t go outside, either. So bringing in a bit of the outside is welcome.
I’ve managed to get out a do a bit of birding in the early mornings when things cooled to 90 degrees (click, click, click) and the birds head for water spots.
It’s interesting that I’m back in Arizona at the near-end of the south-bound migration. In May we were out here for the north-bound birds. I’m probably seeing the kids of the adults I saw four short months ago.
Not much action. A few Black-chinned Hummingbirds moving through have been a treat. Plenty of Verdins around, a bird we did not see in the spring.
Probably the highlight of the week has been the largest covey of Gamble’s Quail I’ve ever seen. There are easily 50 birds in this group, ranging in size from golf-balls with toothpick legs, on up to full adult. They scamper ahead of me as I walk (against the rules I proudly add) the golf cart paths at this luxury resort in Scottsdale.
They remind me of characters in silent movies that never have the smarts to get off the tracks as a train is bearing down on them. Of course, if the quail, like the guy in the silent movie, did scamper to the side and into the bushes, it would take a lot of drama out of my life.
Click, click, click.