Melissa Crytzer Fry
LightNews LightNews
banner
crytzerfry.bsky.social
Melissa Crytzer Fry
@crytzerfry.bsky.social
2.1K followers 420 following 1.6K posts
Writer, citizen scientist, conservationist, naturalist. Sharing a love of nature & the Sonoran Desert thru photos, camera traps. Married to an awesome man. Board Chair, Lower San Pedro Watershed Alliance. Fighting to save the Galiuros from copper mining.
Posts Replies Media Videos
Pinned
crytzerfry.bsky.social
Melissa Crytzer Fry @crytzerfry.bsky.social · Aug 4
Fighting to save H20 & wildlife in AZ’s Sky Islands (my home). On June 30, BLM approved 67 exploratory drill sites for Canadian Faraday Copper.

Please help! By Aug. 18, 2025, email state and Safford BLM offices. Find easy copy/paste suggestions here: tinyurl.com/3ene6wa6.

What's at stake:
Collage includes images of an ornate tree lizard (turquoise belly); a ringtail (of the raccoon family with a striped tail, but looking like a small cat); the Copper Creek Valley filled with mature cottonwoods, saguaro and ocotillo; a mountain lion walking through lush grass at Copper Creek; a red-tailed hawk landing on a saguaro; a night-blooming cereus; a Lucy's warbler eating from burst, bright-red saguaro fruit; a young hooded skunk, tail erect; and the life-sustaining Copper Creek drainage basin of green foliage among an otherwise brown setting.
crytzerfry.bsky.social
@mdbell79.bsky.social Made it over here last year and figured you might already be here. Happy 2026.
January 4, 2026 at 5:36 PM
crytzerfry.bsky.social
Caught on #cameratrap at the watering hole recently!

Sorry to break it to you, but #3 is not a #Jackalope!
One collared peccary (javelina) runs through the mud, creating a splash, while the other (right) lies down to wallow in it. A young buck stands left of center, after drinking from the shallow pond. His antlers are small and really skinny at the tops. A jackrabbit runs to the left of the frame. He has a seriously split ear that makes it look like he has antlers. A coyote runs to the right of the photo.
January 4, 2026 at 5:12 PM
crytzerfry.bsky.social
It's #Caturday.

Proof that toilet paper rolls make great toys for boys like Squeezy (and his Dad).
January 3, 2026 at 4:02 PM
crytzerfry.bsky.social
As we head into 2026, a reminder: You CAN do the hard things, friends.

(Just like Mr. #Woodrat, who tried to accomplish the impossible).

Happy New Year!
January 1, 2026 at 2:04 PM
crytzerfry.bsky.social
Hooded #skunk tails rock (as long as you're not directly behind one).

Caught on #cameratrap in the Galiuro Mountains.
Back end, in black and white, of a hooded skunk with a very looong tail that is white and frosted at the tips in black/gray. Back end, in black and white, of a DIFFERENT hooded skunk with a very looong tail that is mostly black with hints of white at the roots (someone needs to touch up the roots!)
December 30, 2025 at 3:29 PM
crytzerfry.bsky.social
I call this crested #saguaro "the catcher's mitt," because when I discovered it in 2010, it looked like a small mitt. I wasn't sure it would crest, but I confirmed my suspicions were right, yesterday!

It's been YEARS since I checked and I was delighted to see how it's evolved.
The arms of this saguaro are all columnar, except one that has a "hand" on it with 8 fingers." This one has morphed into a catcher's mitt.
December 29, 2025 at 2:44 PM
crytzerfry.bsky.social
The beauty that is southern #Arizona...

Got the camera out during our Christmas #camping visit To Colossal Cave Park near Tucson/Vail.
A majestic and old, gnarled mesquite hugged the camp road. I knew I had to get the sun peeking from behind, making a gorgeous glowing star. The almost-geology major in me just loves geologic structures like this: a red formation in foreground, studded with saguaros, and a light, volcanic-looking formation in the background. The cloud = an added touch! I confess to not knowing what this is... a small tree or vine -- in a riparian desert wash. The colors were arresting! These gorgeous yellow flowers spotted the riparian wash. I think this is paperflower (Psilostrophe cooperi).
December 28, 2025 at 5:20 PM
crytzerfry.bsky.social
Belated holiday greetings, friends. We took Squeezy camping for Christmas and mostly had the park to ourselves! #caturday

He did so great. 10 mos. old.
Squeezy sits upon the back of the couch, draped in fluffy blankies, and a beautiful red geologic outcropping is in the background outside the window. Squeezy sits on his cat hammock, body partially hidden behind four Christmas packages on the RV dinette table. Squeezy illustrates just how comfortable he is in the RV: spotted belly to the cam, looking right at me with his back legs hysterically in a jumping-jack "V" position. I was preparing Christmas dinner in the kitchen only to turned around to see this. He is SO good about not screwing around the food prep, etc. He normally is looking more like an adult cat, but his kitten face is still visible here.
December 27, 2025 at 6:30 PM
crytzerfry.bsky.social
How many Harris's antelope #squirrels do you see?
A rock pile with desert tobacco plants wildly growing from them provide great refuge for little Harris's Antelope squirrels that look like chipmunks. One is positioned middle of pic below the middle rock. The other is above it. But at total of four were running all over the place.
December 22, 2025 at 5:47 PM
crytzerfry.bsky.social
On Wed., I went to the east side of #AravaipaCanyon to learn about desert #water conservation techniques (Zuni bowl pictured).

Added bonus: nine #bighorn #sheep (last pic). I only had my iPhone, but look at this gorgeous area, which also will be impacted if #mining occurs.
This is the other side of "my" mountains on the east. A landscape view of endless rolling mountain folds and peaks, with a valley (Aravaipa Creek) at the base. In the foreground: a drainage creek is filled with large, green trees, and a prickly pear cactus in lower right of picture. A Zuni bowl is an area of hand-placed rocks designed to stop erosional cuts. During a single monsoonal event, this area - eroded by water movement - could move backwards and continue cutting for 100 feet or more. Water gains momentum and doesn't seep into the ground or water tables. Lower on this channel are volunteer-built "one-rock dams" that aid in slowing sedimentation and widening floodplains to allow for more water seeping into the the ground for recharge. Cottonwood and sycamore leaves float on the water of Aravaipa Creek, and a blue sky can be seen behind the mostly leafless giant trees. Nealry impossible to see, since this was taken with my cell, but middle of the picture where the green foliage is, you can see a bunch of little white dots. Those are bighorn sheep butts! There were 9, and two males fought one another, their curled horns crashing together.
December 21, 2025 at 3:54 PM
crytzerfry.bsky.social
Squeezy has developed a new method of drinking. It's called the paw-dip-and-sip. He's quite talented. #Caturday

[Pretend you don't see what a wreck my office is!]
December 20, 2025 at 3:46 PM
crytzerfry.bsky.social
Our state mammal, the #ringtail caught on #cameratrap.

Sadly, we just discovered this camera was stolen by some @$& 🤬 ... It was one of my best cams for capturing short video clips.
December 19, 2025 at 4:02 PM
crytzerfry.bsky.social
I will NEVER tire of sunsets in the #SonoranDesert.
A desert mesquite stands in silhouette to gorgeous streaks of red, yellow, pink and gray that peek over Arizona's mountainous landscape.
December 18, 2025 at 4:39 PM
crytzerfry.bsky.social
Look! A beautiful pecker-head flying by. 😆

I couldn't resist... If any of you have ever HEARD a Gila #woodpecker, you can attest to how screechy (and sometimes ear-piercingly annoying) they can be.

This one's a beauty, though. I do love them. #cameratrap
Trail cam captures a Gila woodpecker flying tot he right, black-and-white striped and speckled wings spread like fans on a downbeat.
December 17, 2025 at 1:24 PM
crytzerfry.bsky.social
Just some lil reds who are no longer little, nor red, having a drink from mama #javelina outside my window. #TeamJavelina
A mama javelina stands, butt to the camera, as two of her not-so-little babies suckle from behind.
December 16, 2025 at 4:30 PM
crytzerfry.bsky.social
More pics from the Pennsylvania Pond cam (home of Denni Moore the beaver, who was absent when my sis checked this round).

But, we have some ice- and water-walkers (plus a swimmer)! #opossum #Fox #deer #Raccoon
An opposum tie-toes across an icy pond covered with slushy snow. The same icy pond, in black and white, sports a red-tailed fox in the upper left, next to a stand of catttails, tail pointed like a tracking dog as it looks intently to the left. In this shot, a white-tailed deer emerges from the cattails in the center of the picture (on a day when the pond is not frozen). Cattail fronds frame the lower portion of the image and are a lush background where the deer emerges from a parting of the plants. This is a dark shot, but you can make out something swimming in the opening of the pond. It's not a beaver this time. It's a raccoon.
December 15, 2025 at 2:38 PM
crytzerfry.bsky.social
Sunset on public land in the Galiuro Mountains last night during the #Geminid meteor showers (no meteors pictured - just a gorgeous sky).

Photo 3: illustrates light pollution and habitat destruction from the current exploratory #mining in the area
A gorgeous swirl of pinks and purples light up the sky before sunset - from the opposite direction of my photos. This time FROM the mountains looking toward our little town. This sunset photo is more muted, with wispy vegetation in the lower left corner, and layers and layers of mountains (at least 5) as a gray-peach sky fills the upper third of the image. This would be an utterly gorgeous photo if not for the big orb of light on the side of a mountain whose base ends in Copper Creek. To the left you can see stair-step mining from a past (failed) attempt to find copper. In the upper right you can see at least 3 drill sites, plus the one in the foreground. While there are no meteors photographed, we saw at least a dozen -- and two that seemed to be chasing one another with a good length of visibility!
December 14, 2025 at 4:50 PM
crytzerfry.bsky.social
Y'all.. I HAD to know Squeezy's DNA. I had Bengals B4 & thought I was seeing them or Savannah, then with ear tufts, thought Maine coon. While he's mostly American Domestic, the Highlander & Oriental Longhair are what I see in him, physically. Lovebug temperament 💯! #Caturday
Squeezy's DNA panel shows he's 72% American Domestic Cat (which includes Maine Coon and a gazillion others); 12% Highlander; 11% Oriental Longhair; and 5% Siamese and Oriental shorthair. These are two drawings of the Highlander and Oriental Longhair. Highlander has spots/stripes, a bobbed tail and big feet. Oriental longhair has a poofy tail, spots and srtipes and the same oblong shaped head as Squeezy). I see his physical characteristics in both of these with coloration, stature and combined body shapes.
December 13, 2025 at 3:00 PM
crytzerfry.bsky.social
#Mammals of Mammoth around the pond, caught on #cameratrap.

Name those #Arizona critters!
Four javelina come to the shallow pond to drink - at that beautiful light right when the camera switches to black and white. A young, but healthy, mule-deer buck stands in the pond, facing left, his head to the water, drinking. A hooked skunk - with a wide, all-white back and LONG feather-duster tail, moves past the pond to the right of the cam. A coyote with glowing eyes looks to the right of the camera, head lowered and stopped in its tracks, not yet approaching the pond.
December 12, 2025 at 3:47 PM
crytzerfry.bsky.social
That glorious, glorious tail. Hooded #skunk of #Arizona caught on #cameratrap.

🔊up as he eats mealworms leftover from the birds.
December 11, 2025 at 3:54 PM
crytzerfry.bsky.social
Don't blink! I will always be amazed at the speed #raptors can achieve.

Caught on #cameratrap: Cooper's #hawk after mourning #doves. Wait for final loop.
December 10, 2025 at 1:32 PM
crytzerfry.bsky.social
You guys! Ever since we put up this #saguaro skeleton platform with the quail block (bird seed), I have been wanting THIS to happen.

Volume up... and wait for it!

PS My thoughts: "young."
December 9, 2025 at 3:51 PM
crytzerfry.bsky.social
What an incredible time completing #beaver surveys along the Lower San Pedro River with Watershed Management Group this weekend.

THIS - perennial flow and gorgeous #riparian desert habitat - is what is what we WILL lose if copper #mining comes to the San Pedro Valley.
Riparian habitats constitute only .04% of the Arizona landscape. Here the San Pedro flows, supported by a healthy canopy of willows and cottonwoods.
December 8, 2025 at 5:29 PM
crytzerfry.bsky.social
Gorgeous #coyote on #trailcam. Good to see them looking so healthy.
A golden-furred coyote with liquid-gold eyes looks directly into the camera while it stands in a dry desert wash.
December 7, 2025 at 6:31 PM
Reposted by Melissa Crytzer Fry
markmarley.bsky.social
I had the pleasure of meeting fellow bobcat camera trap enthusiast @crytzerfry.bsky.social in person today and hear about her beloved Galiuro Mountains. I think her bobcat vibes summoned this visitor to our water station today.
Camera trap view of a bobcat.
December 6, 2025 at 12:57 AM