Bipolar weather

Southeastern Arizona's dry season is usually locked in by late May, but the heat arrived a little early this year. Last week, Tucson was setting records with temperatures over 100° F., and even high, cool Bisbee was sweltering in the high 80s and low 90s. Then a high-pressure system settled in over the Four Corners - the typical "monsoon"pattern that draws moisture inland from the Gulf of Mexico. Clouds gathered, providing a welcome break from the almost-summer sun, but a few light sprinkles yesterday weren't much more than a tease.

Imagine my surprise walking out the door early this morning into drizzling rain and temperatures in the 50s. It rained off and on all morning in Miller Canyon, so I spent much of the morning's walk drying lenses on my binoculars and the spotting scope (I didn't even bother bringing the camera), but my small group and I were rewarded for our perseverance with views of several Red-faced Warblers, Painted Redstarts, singing male Hepatic Tanager and Black-headed Grosbeak, a Greater Pewee, and a pair of Spotted Owls.

Back home after the walk, I dried myself off, dug around in the closet for my fleece jacket and the fuzzy cap I crocheted this winter, and heated up a can of French onion soup and a cup of Mayan chocolate instant coffee—none of which would I have imagined doing in late May in southeastern Arizona.

Committing to the future

Nesting female Vermilion Flycatcher
on the San Pedro Riparian National Conservation Area
digiscoped from approximately 30 feet away

After the economic and emotional roller coaster of the last few months, it does wonders for my morale to see neotropical migrants settling in for a new nesting season. They didn't spend the winter worrying whether bulldozers spared their nesting habitat for another year, whether there had been enough rain to provide food for them and their families, whether some evolving pathogen to which they have no immunity is waiting for them with the next mosquito bite. Even if they were wired for worry like us humans, there'd be nothing they could do about it. There's a lesson in that.

Take time this spring to lose yourself in the hormone-fueled passion of a singing male or the serenity of a broody female, reacquainting yourself with the essence of life and putting in perspective all the petty complications of human existence. --SW

Bad crown days

With so many other birds in their breeding finery, who could blame the Gambel's White-crowned Sparrows for feeling a little self-conscious? Their crowns are full of pinfeathers now, but those skunk-skin caps should be sleek and gorgeous again by the time they reach their nesting grounds in the Great White North. —SW

Off duty

A Mexican Spotted Owl snoozes in an oak in Scheelite Canyon. —SW

Golden spurs

The Golden Columbines (Aquilegia chrysantha) are just beginning to bloom in upper Miller Canyon, but this beauty was blooming in mid-March among palms and organ pipe cacti in a canyon on Rancho Los Baños, about 60 miles south of Douglas in northeastern Sonora. —SW

Caterpillars on the march

Southwestern tent caterpillars (Malacosoma incurvum) are maturing and dropping out of the trees along the San Pedro River, providing a boon for northbound migrants. As Tom likes to say, these fuzzy eating machines are nature's way of turning cottonwood leaves into warblers. As unpleasant as it can be to have creepy crawlers and their poop raining down on you on a bird walk, it's peculiarly satisfying to watch a tiny Wilson's Warbler slamming a python-sized caterpillar against the ground to subdue and tenderize it before squishing out the good parts like toothpaste from a fur-covered tube.

Not everyone is as appreciative of southwestern tent caterpillars as we and the migrating birds are, though. When they emerge in spring and start stripping the cottonwoods and willows of their tender new leaves, some people freak out. We've gotten panicked calls asking why someone isn't doing something to halt the destruction before the caterpillars kill the trees. Well, the trees are in danger, but it's not from the caterpillars. The defoliation happens every spring, and healthy trees can recover quickly once the cats stop eating and go into the pupal stage. Stressed trees whose water supply is being sapped away may not be able to recover, though, and the annual caterpillar invasion may push more and more trees beyond the point of no return as more and more residential wells drain the aquifers that feed the San Pedro River. —SW