OUTBACK ALMANAC: Local wilderness duo extraordinaire Roseann and Jonathon Hanson sign copies of their Southern Arizona Nature Almanac at the Summit Hut. The book dishes up a trove of valuable information on how and where to spot blooming plants, active wildlife migrating birds, snakes and even bugs from month-to-month, season-to-season. Currently resident naturalists for the Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge south of Tucson, the couple obviously know their stuff when it comes to our region's panoply of non-human inhabitants. The signing runs from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday, December 21, at the Summit Hut, 5045 E. Speedway. Call 325-1554 for information. JOLLY GOOD SHOW: The Tanque Verde Singers tend to be a happy bunch, and they've been sharing that cheer with city residents for 10 years now. This month they again rev up the chords for their annual holiday concert, featuring standard Christmas fare and a few new twists, says spokeswoman Linda Hubbell. "It's going to be a combination of Christmas carols that everybody knows, some Hanukkah songs, and then ones we haven't done before, like 'Sing We of Hanukkah,' which is pretty dramatic, and a beautiful little song called 'Sleep Little King.' " The holiday show is part of the group's ongoing outreach to the community, including nursing homes, Hubbell says. "We build up heading towards Christmas," she says. "This is just another part of it." And that's not to mention the homemade cookies and cider following the show. Performance is at 7 p.m. Sunday, December 22, in the Tanque Verde Lutheran Church, 8625 E. Tanque Verde Road. Tickets are $2, free for kids under age 12. Call 749-0092 for information. RAPTOR FAMILY VALUES: Harris hawks aren't only cool to look at, they're also a tightly knit crowd, according to Rich Dulaney, interpretive naturalist with the Arizona Sonora Desert Museum. "They're really an intriguing bird," he says, "and they're found all the way from here to tropical areas in Mexico. In Arizona, they inhabit upland areas marked by palo verde trees and saguaros." He calls them an extremely social species that often hunts in packs and tends to turn the noble saguaro into high-rise raptor condominiums. "It's typical for a family unit to stick together," Dulaney says. "There's a hierarchy to it, with the dominant bird on the top, but a lot of times they're stacked atop each other." They have city homes as well, he says, "and it's common to see them in Tucson. We'll have a live bird that we've hand-raised here that visitors can see. Then they'll be able to identify hawks when they return to town." Docents offer Harris hawk interpretitve lectures daily from10 a.m. to noon at the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum, 2021 S. Kinney Road. Regular museum hours are 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. through February. Interpretive lectures are included with admission, $8.95 for adults, $1.75 for kids ages six through 12. For information, call 883-2702.

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