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"LUCKY SHOT."

The words, spoken softly and to no one in particular, came from the woman standing next to us. She was reacting to a large color photograph hanging on the wall of the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum in Tucson. The photo, a night shot, showed a diminutive elf owl returning to its hole in a saguaro cactus and carrying an insect snack for its hungry babies.

I bit my lip and whispered, "Thank you."

"Oh, is that your picture?" she asked. "It's a very lucky shot." She left. Shirley just looked at me and smiled.

Our "lucky shot" involved four scouting trips during which we climbed a steep canyon wall for 1.5 miles, each time closing in on the owl's soft mating call. We finally located the nest.

A few weeks later, the adult owls would hunt from dusk until the early morning, returning every few minutes with insects for the always-hungry nestlings.

At this point, Shirley and I made the first of 18 more night trips up the canyon, carrying 60 pounds of lights and camera equipment.

During one of the excursions, I turned on my flashlight to find a large western diamondback rattlesnake coiled among the legs of my tripod.

Finally, after all this, and more than 40 rolls of film shot, processed and analyzed to fine-tune our technique, at 1 A.M. on a beautiful June night we got "lucky." We left the canyon with a dozen sharply focused images of the adults coming to and launching from the nest hole.

Animal photography involves getting to know your subjects.

We once worked with a herd of javelinas, photographing them in the early morning until they bedded down, then returning in the evening for more photos. After three days, we could wander freely among the herd and, on the fourth day, one of them actually rubbed his scent on my leg as Shirley watched in amazement. Now, we even "talk" to the animals. They don't understand our words, but they do seem to understand that we "come in peace," so to speak.

Occasionally, we even ask the animals for a particular pose, and sometimes they comply. It's probably simple coincidence, but it happens. And we just smile, keep shooting and enjoy the moment. Lucky us.

Wild West

(LEFT) Arizona's most adaptable predator, the coyote ranges from desert to mountain, from city to wilderness, its plaintive call a symbol of the Wild West. (RIGHT) The opportunistic raccoon lives near permanent water sources throughout the state, feeding on almost anything it can catch or steal, often to the backcountry camper's chagrin. (BELOW) A collared peccary announces its presence. Most often called javelina in the Southwest, the piglike critter forages along desert washes and arroyos for prickly pear cactus, its favorite food.

Pugnacious and feisty, the colorful collared lizard will bite when provoked, and like a miniature dinosaur, rear up and run away on its hind legs when threatened.

(ABOVE) A desert cottontail contemplates a prickly pear cactus flower breakfast. (RIGHT) Well-adapted to desert living, the cactus mouse needs less water and can tolerate higher temperatures than others of its species. (OPPOSITE PAGE) The majority of living spaces in saguaro cactuses are the handiwork of the Gila woodpecker. Once abandoned by their maker, the woodpecker's holes provide nesting sites popular with many other birds.

(LEFT) More sociable than most raptors, the Harris' hawk may even hunt in tandem, two or more of them working together to corner their prey. (ABOVE) A well-fed black-tailed prairie dog barks a warning. Because they compete with cattle for space in the open grasslands, black-tailed prairie dogs were once the bane of ranchers in southeastern Arizona.