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Melissa Crytzer Fry

@crytzerfry.bsky.social

1.8K followers 380 following 1.2K 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.

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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.

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Melissa Crytzer Fry @crytzerfry.bsky.social · 3h

100%!!!

Melissa Crytzer Fry @crytzerfry.bsky.social · 4h

I'm trying to decide if this is my dad's message to me...

I've been a big champion (in AZ) of beaver restoration for watersheds -- you might say, obsessed. Did my dad summon this beaver as a message to "Keep on going. Keep fighting for your desert? Stick with the beavers"...

I'm going with it.

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Melissa Crytzer Fry @crytzerfry.bsky.social · 4h

This is SUPER exciting. My dad had this pond built at my childhood home in NW PA 5 years ago...

It appears a #beaver has moved in! Dad, who passed Sept. 6, would have been SO thrilled at this development! My sis just put camera traps up to see if we can get images. 🤞

A small tree that was taken down near the woods, with gnaw marks along it, and lots of beaver "saw dust" and "chips" in the grass!

This appears to the entrance to the beaver's hidey hole/house -- and in this image, a freshly chewed log/stick appers!

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Melissa Crytzer Fry @crytzerfry.bsky.social · 1d

Various views and signs of life along the Sonoran Desert's gorgeous #SanPedroRiver Valley.

View of the churning San Pedro River with "the Saddle" of the Galiuros in the background -- a mesa eroded into a U on the mountain chain.

Tiny little foot prints in the oozy mud along the San Pedro. These were only 1/5" big. Skunk?

Perennial water along the northern reach of the San Pedro.

Melissa Crytzer Fry @crytzerfry.bsky.social · 2d

Happy #sunrise and #saguaro Monday! Enlarge to full-size for full effect!

The Galiuro Mountains rise majestically into a sea of puffy clouds, lit pink-orange with sunrise.

It's rare to see stately saguaros with cloudy backdrops - but here they are: two giant saguaros set against the blue, gray, and white of a cloud blanket.

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Melissa Crytzer Fry @crytzerfry.bsky.social · 3d

Wow. Such wise words. I wish BlSk had a boomark function. This WOULD be bookmarked.

Melissa Crytzer Fry @crytzerfry.bsky.social · 3d

Said SO WELL. TYfor reposting. Got some more shitty news ... Faraday was in DC having "meetings" with the Permitting Council, who - 3 days later - listed this as a Fast-41 Transparency project. They'll spin it that they're being 'transparent with permitting,' but this put a target on our mts/river.

Melissa Crytzer Fry @crytzerfry.bsky.social · 3d

Oh, yes. And he uses it often!

Melissa Crytzer Fry @crytzerfry.bsky.social · 3d

Wow - that's a lot for dog mom to juggle. I hope all goes well!!!

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Melissa Crytzer Fry @crytzerfry.bsky.social · 3d

And the little stinker knows it!

Melissa Crytzer Fry @crytzerfry.bsky.social · 3d

When you mine out there in the mountains, you imperil the southwest's last free-flowing river down here. First you steal from the San Pedro's tributary, #CopperCreek. Then you'll steal subsurface H20 from the river. And you, foreign #mining company, get our precious H20 for free.

The San Pedro River flows in the foreground after monsoonal rain last week. In the background are the majestic Galiuro Mountains and gorgeous cumulus clouds against a blue sky. This part of the range has a visible "saddle" that carves out an impressive, flat-topped mesa. Doesn't get any more 'southwest' than this.

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Melissa Crytzer Fry @crytzerfry.bsky.social · 4d

Really cool. I've only seen Swainson's hawks here on a few occasions.

Melissa Crytzer Fry @crytzerfry.bsky.social · 4d

But still - it sounds like lots of hawks!!!

Melissa Crytzer Fry @crytzerfry.bsky.social · 4d

Yes, it is. Ha ha ha.

Melissa Crytzer Fry @crytzerfry.bsky.social · 4d

It was chosen by his foster parents (their 11-year-old son), and we kept it! It fits!

Melissa Crytzer Fry @crytzerfry.bsky.social · 4d

How is your crew of four-leggeds?

Melissa Crytzer Fry @crytzerfry.bsky.social · 4d

OOh. That would have been a perfect caption!

Melissa Crytzer Fry @crytzerfry.bsky.social · 4d

Squeezy is just so SQUEEZABLE. Look at this little boy. Picture-perfect for #Caturday.

My brown tabby rescue kitty (who looks suspiciously like a Bengal) is sitting in his cat tree hammock, butt into the round depression, back legs kicked out to the front, belly exposed. That look... "What? I know I'm cute."

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Melissa Crytzer Fry @crytzerfry.bsky.social · 4d

Oh, to see that many migrating Harris's would be SO COOL.

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Melissa Crytzer Fry @crytzerfry.bsky.social · 4d

Things got worse today with Fast-41 approval.

Melissa Crytzer Fry @crytzerfry.bsky.social · 4d

OMG. That was hilarious. Yes, the end... SO FUNNY. Accurate, too!

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Melissa Crytzer Fry @crytzerfry.bsky.social · 5d

It's not often we get two #ringtails in frame on a #cameratrap. These lovelies were photographed in the Galiuro Mountains, another fantastic Sky Island of Arizona.

In this mountain cameratrap images (black and white) - the most visible sights is striped tail and eye shine. A close look shows a smaller, repeat replica behind -- a baby ringtail, a tiny half-cat, half-racoon-looking critter.

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Melissa Crytzer Fry @crytzerfry.bsky.social · 6d

Look at these five cuties! So excited the fawn made it. Her mom showed up with tiny baby in tow, then not for a month+. #Muledeer on #cameratrap

x.com/CrytzerFry/s...

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Melissa Crytzer Fry @crytzerfry.bsky.social · 6d

Found this: "Monsoon rains encourage sphinx moth caterpillar activity by promoting growth of host plants, which provide abundant food. Rain also allows large #s of caterpillars to grow & enter their wandering phase to pupate, leading to their more visible presence."

Melissa Crytzer Fry @crytzerfry.bsky.social · 6d

Yep.