Customer Reviews

Southern Arizona Nature Almanac

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Someone recommended this book to me when I first moved to Tucson after living "up north" all my life. I had relocated to Arizona for a job and was in somewhat of a state of culture shock at the lack of green grass, no four seasons, etc. This book was a real god-send for me. It breaks the year into 12 months and describes what is happening in the environment in terms of climate, wildlife, plant life, and the constellations. It is filled with fun-facts and things to do and watch for, so adults and children alike will find this book fun and interesting to read. It is fascinating learning about the unique-ness of the Sonoran desert and it made me really appreciate how incredible and diverse it really is! I now recommend this book to everyone (native or newcomer) and buy it regularly as a "welcome" gift to my colleagues that relocate here from other parts of the country. I highly recommend it.

I spent five years in Pima County, while I attended the University of Arizona. During that time I roamed over much of the area, as well as the surrounding counties, looking for beetles and arachnids, bird watching, and during one very productive spring, making a plant collection for a course in systematic botany. The huge county (9000 square miles - almost nine Rhode Islands!) varies from low desert at the start of the Camino del Diablo near Ajo to high mountain forests up to over 9,000 feet elevation in the Santa Catalina Mountains above Tucson and covered with Douglas fir, ponderosa pine, bigtooth and Rocky Mountain maples, and aspen. It does indeed deserve its own book.

Roseann Beggy Hanson and Jonathan Hanson have published just such book and I hardily recommend their "Southern Arizona Nature Almanac" to anyone living in or visiting the area. The book cover all sorts of subjects, many not found in other books on the areas involved. My only gripe is their lack of coverage for the Arachnida, as they seem to barely mention scorpions and spiders (mostly as food for vertebrates), while discussing rattlesnakes, lighting safety, rabies in bats, Africanized bees, and other safety issues. As an arachnologist I'm a bit prejudiced, but I do think that visitors should be warned about avoiding scorpions, violin spiders and black widows! Still this is more a personalized almanac than exactly a guidebook. Fortunately there are several excellent volumes for the Sonoran Desert (which makes up much of the county) to consult. In any case the book has a large amount of information in it on the flora, fauna and night skies of locations, such as the Buenos Aires and Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuges, Baboquivari, the Rincon Mountains, the Quinlan Mountains, and Rose Canyon Lake,among others, with which I am very familiar.

Such a book is to be read and savored as a taste of places and organisms that can be seen in this remarkable county. Buy this book to get the flavor of the area and pick up a few guides (such as the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum's "A Natural History of the Sonoran Desert") and you will be well served.