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Wednesday, March 31, 2010 - Bosque Birdwatchers RV Park, San Antonio NM

Acequia Soup, Bosque Birdwatchers RV Park, San Antonio NM, March 4, 2010
Acequia Soup, Bosque Birdwatchers RV Park, San Antonio NM, March 4, 2010

In the soup

I was going through some older pictures today and came across this shot. A month or so ago the irrigation canal along NM Route 1 in front of the Bosque Birdwatchers RV Park was put in service for the season. It had been dry all winter and suddenly started flowing vigorously. I shot this picture of winter debris bobbing on the current before it washed away. Some of those seed pods remind me of sea creatures.

Mini heat wave

It was forecast to reach 80 degrees or so here yesterday but the 89 degrees and astonishingly low 3 percent RH (with a dew point of -2 degrees!) it reached about 4:30 in the afternoon was a bit of a surprise. This area of the Rio Grande valley seems to enjoy lower lows and higher highs than its neighbors. I wonder why that is. Here's a {link} to the local National Weather Service Mesonet Observations.

Night camp

Site 16 - Bosque Bird Watcher's RV Park, San Antonio NM

Listening

As the poet Gary Snyder said so well, "Beyond all this studying and managing and calculating, there's another level to nature. You can go about learning the names of things and doing inventories of trees, bushes, and flowers. But nature often just flits by and is not easily seen in a hard, clear light. Our actual experience of many birds and wildlife is chancy and quick. Wildlife is known as a call, a cough in the dark, a shadow in the shrubs. You can watch a cougar on a wildlife video for hours, but the real cougar shows herself only once or twice in a lifetime. One must be tuned to hints and nuances." After more than thirty years of living in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada and spending a great deal of that time out-of-doors, Snyder has seen the mountain lion on just a few occasions. One of these sightings was most unusual. Gary had been visiting a neighbor and was walking down from the nearby ridge to his home when he observed a cougar sitting near one of the windows of the house. The animal appeared to be listening intently as one of Snyder's stepdaughters practiced the piano.

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