Wednesday, March 31, 2010 - Bosque Birdwatchers RV Park, San Antonio NM
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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
- This is a basic, small Mom & Pop RV Park with full hookups.
- Verizon cell phone and Broadband service are available here with a strong signal.
- Locate Bosque Bird Watcher's RV Park on my Night Camps map
- Click for Google street view
- Check the weather in San Antonio NM
Five Trillion Spiders
Spiders begin their hunting with a few handicaps. They're often smaller and weaker than their prey, and they have no wings to give chase in the air. Some species extend their legs by hydraulic pressure, using the same liquid that carries oxygen from their lungs, so they have a hard time running and breathing at the same time. Even their poison may be no match for their victim's: a crab spider's bite is to a honeybee's sting as "an air-gun compared with an elephant rifle," John Crompton wrote. Yet spiders kill at an astonishing pace. One Dutch researcher estimates that there are some five trillion spiders in the Netherlands alone, each of which consumes about a tenth of a gram of meat a day. Were their victims people instead of insects, they would need only three days to eat all sixteen and a half million Dutchmen.
From Spider Woman by Burkhard Bilger, The New Yorker magazine, March 5, 2007, page 69