Sunset Crater

 

Just north of Flagstaff is the Sunset Crater Volcano – Sometime between 1040 and 1100, a series of eruptions—the only eruptions in the Southwest indisputably witnessed by local peoples — brought the dormant San Francisco Volcanic Field back to life.

Cave-like lava tubes and cracks in the lava flows serve the needs of insects, spiders, lizards, and rodents. Bats also inhabit some of these spaces, flying out at night to feed. Birds, given their ability to fly freely between nesting and feeding sites, can be seen – and heard – throughout the monument. Among them are Steller’s jays, pinyon jays, black-chinned hummingbirds, white-breasted nuthatches, ravens, and crows. Golden eagles and several species of hawks watch from above. But the monument is surrounded by pine forests which provide foraging habitat for mule deer, elk, pronghorn, bobcat, and coyote, and are home to a variety of small mammals, including the Abert squirrel, cottontail rabbit, and porcupine.