Adapted from Desert Hiking by Dave Ganci

The night-blooming cereus flowers are closing shop for the day, while soft-winged moths are starting to fold up and cling to the undersides of the cereus leaves to wait out the day in the shade.

You are getting warm already, and you take off the wool sweater. You look at your watch. It is 7:00 a.m. and the heat is climbing quickly. The business of life on the desert will soon slow down to a crawl. But the birds will remain active all day. Flight keeps them cool and most of them have body temperatures between 104 degrees and 108 degrees anyway.

Swoosh! Shriek! A gila woodpecker flashes by and lands on a saguaro. You recognize him by his red cap and his black-and-white wings. He begins pecking holes in the cactus. He is feeding himself on insect larvae while cleaning the cactus of destructive parasites and carving holes big enough for nesting places. Sparrow hawks, screech owls, gilded flickers, flycatchers, and other hole-nesting animals will avail themselves of these free apartments.

This interrelationship among birds, plants, and insects is a good example of the vital connections of all living things to one another. By satisfying its own needs, and no more than that, each animal performs services for other animals and plants. The life chain is perpetuated.

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