Melissa Crytzer Fry
LightNews LightNews
banner
crytzerfry.bsky.social
Melissa Crytzer Fry
@crytzerfry.bsky.social
2.2K followers 420 following 1.7K 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
The condensation on the lens turned our mule #deer buck with the little antlers into something spectral! #cameratrap
A young mule deer buck looks toward the camera, but his entire body is shrouded in a spooky haze, with glowing eyes most visible.
January 20, 2026 at 2:56 PM
crytzerfry.bsky.social
Inspired by @pitbool.com's way better shots of aurora borealis up the road from us, some iPhone shots from the roof.
So many stars in the sky they look like sugar crystals - and faint burgundy of Northern Lights in the background. Saguaro silhouettes reach to the stars. A passing car lit up this shot, but it ended up pretty cool! More wine coloration in the sky!
January 20, 2026 at 4:06 AM
crytzerfry.bsky.social
Faint? That's GORGEOUS!
pitbool.com pitbool Ⓥ @pitbool.com · 1d
A faint #aurora in southeastern #Arizona around 830pm local time 💜 continuing to watch for anything more dramatic but always amazing to see anything this far south.

#astrophotography
#darkskies
January 20, 2026 at 3:40 AM
crytzerfry.bsky.social
Look at that sunrise!

Let's keep this mountain chain intact. No #mining of the Sky Island's Galiuro Mountains in southern Arizona.
The sun rising behind the mountains lights up the clouds with a huge swath of lemon-yellow and grapefruit-pink skies.
January 19, 2026 at 4:57 PM
crytzerfry.bsky.social
Supreme FLOOF! Love these hooded #skunks in AZ. Caught on #cameratrap!
A skunks gives us a butt-first view of a gorgeous white tail - erect- and with its long tail fur overflowing like a waterfall. Black legs showing and a black head profile looking left of the photo.
January 18, 2026 at 4:06 PM
crytzerfry.bsky.social
My husband is always joking that our rescue kitty, Squeezy, is a sissy, due to his exuberant affection (which - don't let hubs kid you - he loves).

So he couldn't resist doing some image tweaking ... #Caturday
Squeezy sits in my lap, held like a baby, wearing an "I'm a Sissy" shirt.
January 17, 2026 at 4:46 PM
crytzerfry.bsky.social
My bobcat kitty got no love today on Bluesky. 😿
crytzerfry.bsky.social Melissa Crytzer Fry @crytzerfry.bsky.social · 5d
It's #FelidFriday!

Get rid of this mound o'silt from monsoonal run-off in the chute, or just leave it as the #bobcat litter box it seems destined to have become? 😹

This may be the same young cat from the saguaro bird-seed stand. Jiggly bits (balls) or no? I can't tell.
January 16, 2026 at 11:58 PM
crytzerfry.bsky.social
It's #FelidFriday!

Get rid of this mound o'silt from monsoonal run-off in the chute, or just leave it as the #bobcat litter box it seems destined to have become? 😹

This may be the same young cat from the saguaro bird-seed stand. Jiggly bits (balls) or no? I can't tell.
January 16, 2026 at 5:25 PM
crytzerfry.bsky.social
Fantastic example of the size difference between dessert #cottonails and black-tailed #jackrabbits.

At the #cameratrap pond.
A desert cottontail sits to left and a black-tailed jackrabbit to right - both hunched up and eating small shoots from the ground. In this picture, both have their long ears up and are facing the camera, giving a good size difference in overall height and ear length.
January 15, 2026 at 5:17 PM
crytzerfry.bsky.social
@oceanhoptimism.org Rick - I just read your piece in The Relevator about hope. Utterly amazing. Beautifully written. So absolutely true - all of it. I am sharing it with our entire board. I cried while reading... tears, of course, of hope. Thank you for your words.
January 15, 2026 at 5:11 PM
crytzerfry.bsky.social
Some friends who live in the wash that runs through our property. The young #jackrabbit's ears perked right up after it saw me ("Phew - just her.") The #phainopepla makes such a melodic little sound (nothing like a chirp).
A teenaged black-tailed jackrabbit faces the camera, russet-reddish eyes gleaming, ears tilted back, under a palo verde tree. Phainopepla have similar red-colored eyes. This is a male (black) on a branch, even though the sun reflecting its breast (as it looks over its shoulder), making it look more like a gray female.
January 14, 2026 at 3:11 PM
Reposted by Melissa Crytzer Fry
langurlover.bsky.social
I'm starting to think about a job again. Just something I can do at home or at a local conservation non-profit. If anyone knows of anything let me know. I have a B.A. in Anthropology & M.A. in Biology (Conservation Education). Don't have very much job experience though but I am willing to learn!
January 13, 2026 at 5:40 PM
crytzerfry.bsky.social
Javvies just wanna have fun! #TeamJavelina caught on #cameratrap.

The pond was less a water source, and a more a playground for the younger javelina.
A javelina bucks like a bronco in the shallow pond, wiry fur twirling everywhere. This playful young javelina moves from right of screen in a blurry bound through the water. Another javelina runs by in a blur, its butt and back legs up in the air, poised to splash down into the pond. The javelina crew arrives, walking toward the pond - five at least. They look like a bad-ass gang ready to rumble.
January 13, 2026 at 3:30 PM
crytzerfry.bsky.social
The beauty and rarity of #riparian areas in Arizona - which make up only 0.4% of the landscape...

#CopperCreek, which feeds the last free-flowing river in the southwest, will be gone if exploratory #copper drilling continues in the Galiuro Mountains.
The section of Copper Creek (yes, there is water!) will be completely blown out by open-pit mines if Faraday's exploration turns into a full mine. These hills and hills of protected mature saguaros will be replaced with explosives facilities and giant, open pits. Protected, to mining, simply means paying a negligible fee for each saguaro destroyed. This part of Copper Creek will become home to a "primary crusher." Image of creek bed filled with rocks, and to the left a gorgeous red outcropping surrounded by saguaros. On the right and at the end of the streambed are cottonwoods. Water in Copper Creek - a lifeline for so much wildlife. Here a cottonwood leaf - now rust colored - floats in the water.
January 12, 2026 at 9:50 PM
crytzerfry.bsky.social
WOW! My 'neighbor's' place 'right down the road'!
pitbool.com pitbool Ⓥ @pitbool.com · 12d
Super intense #rainbow on the front edge of a winter #thunderstorm just now 🌵 🌈 🌧️

#desert
#weather
#landscape
#photography
#ReneeNicoleGood
A double rainbow in front of Brandenburg Mountain. A rainbow in front of a saguaro-studded mountain in the Sonoran Desert.
January 12, 2026 at 3:01 AM
crytzerfry.bsky.social
Dec. and Jan. turned out to be an interestingly humid couple months in the Sonoran Desert, which has led to some breathtaking views of our Sky Island range, the Galiuro Mountains!
Two saguaros just out from a hilltop and beyond them, the river is covered in clouds. Sombrero Butte is toped with fluffy clouds, and the sun peeking through is sending beams of light to the foothills. Magical!
January 11, 2026 at 2:34 PM
crytzerfry.bsky.social
It's #Caturday, and Squeezy is making biscuits for us.

The end, when he looks up, is freaking adorable!
January 10, 2026 at 5:45 PM
crytzerfry.bsky.social
It's #FelidFriday, and I've got some #bobcat antics for you. Love our #SonoranDesert bobs!

🔊 for first part of video

(Sorry so choppy. To meet size req. on BS, had to chop the original that is over on X).
January 9, 2026 at 2:37 PM
crytzerfry.bsky.social
Squeeeee! I had some ornithologists confirm an #owl calling (audio only) last year as long-eared. Me: "No way! We don't have them."

But, LOOK! Yes. We. Do. #birds So excited to capture this looker on #cameratrap. (Edited ... it was here quite a while)
January 8, 2026 at 3:42 PM
crytzerfry.bsky.social
The Harris's #hawk family appears to be staying put. It's on the same #saguaro where chicks were raised last year.
A Harris's hawk sits atop a saguaro. They resemble American bald eagles with their yellow, curved beaks. They have dark brown bodies, bright chestnut shoulders, thighs, and wing patches - and also a long tail with white at the base and tip. they also sport yellow stockings to match their beaks.
January 7, 2026 at 1:58 PM
crytzerfry.bsky.social
#CopperCreek, which feeds the San Pedro River, and the Galiuro Mountains are worth saving from foreign #mining. These pics recently!
View of rolling green desert hills. A few saguaros are in the lower left foreground, and the mountains stretch endlessly, capping off in gorgeous cumulus clouds with some baby blue skies peeking through. This is the riparian area known as Copper Creek. The cottonwoods are losing their leaves for winter, but still have some yellow. Right foreground of photo shows what looks like a dead, spindly bush, but it's a very healthy ocotillo (succulent). This area pictures running water in Copper Creek, where a waterfall emerges from steep rocks. It will be replaced by an open-pit. This is a photo of hills COVERED in mature saguaros - some of them upwards of 500 years in age. Though they are protected, mining companies can pay negligible fees to mow them down. These will become the site of explosives facilities and open pit mining sites.
January 6, 2026 at 11:58 PM
crytzerfry.bsky.social
I was honored to have been interviewed by Voyage Phoenix about my #conservation work in protecting the southwest's last free-flowing river.

voyagephoenix.com/interview/hi...
The San Pedro River flows at a good clip during monsoonal activity in 2025. Galiuro Mountains and puffy white clouds in the background.
January 5, 2026 at 2:42 PM
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