The saguaro fruit is ripe!

The white flowers that showed up on the crowns of saguaro cactuses in Tucson this spring have yielded to sweet red fruit bursting with juice and seeds. The birds, like this white-winged dove, are feasting!

 

The birds aren't the only desert dwellers eating the fruit. People of the  Tohono O'odham nation, to the west of Tucson, harvest the fruit by knocking it down with saguaro ribs from dead saguaros, like this one below. They use the fruit and seeds to make a variety of food products, including ceremonial wine that's used in their harvest ceremony.

Two or three of the ribs are lashed together to reach the tops of tall saguaros.

I took all of these pictures this week at Tohono Chul Park in Tucson. Besides the doves feasting on the fruit, here are some other desert creatures that I saw:

Northern Cardinal on an agave stalk

Dragonfly in the wildflower garden

Lizard camouflaged on rocks

And me, always with my water bottle!

Have a colorful day