Road is a work in progress

My road is always going to be a work in progress. This morning I went to fix where I thought water had run around my curb. But after I looked more closely, I could see that water hadn't run around it but had run down the road from higher up the hill. So I made another curb farther up.

Here is an Ash-throated Flycatcher carrying something to her nest hole. She got tired of waiting me out and discarded the stuff. It looked like some sort of nesting material, but I couldn't tell for sure, as I was quite a ways back hoping she'd go to the nest with me watching, but she didn't, so I left.

Anisacanthus is finally blooming. Chance of rain in the forecast. Gotta get some. It's getting dire here.

A good day with some frustrations

I had a computer problem that took up most of the afternoon. (Some Arabic speaker hacked into my blog. I've reset my password.) My son in Alpine walked me through the fix. Somehow the time and date got unset so I couldn't access email, facebook, and some other sites. In the midst of all this, and triple-digit temperatures, I spied an Elf Owl roosting in the courtyard. That so rarely happens that I quit everything I was doing to photograph it. Then I hastened to the oasis where a bird photographer was set up. He hadn't ever photographed an Elf Owl before, so we hurried back to the courtyard with all his cumbersome equipment. No owl.......anywhere.

Also saw a pair of Scaled Quail with 4 chicks. I love to see baby chicks. They were way across the tank, but I took what I could get, and even at that, I only got a couple of quick shots.

I've always favored precocial young to atricial hatchlings. In other words, those that are born more able to care for themselves as far as running, swimming, feeding, etc. goes. Like, I really love baby ducklings too. Naked and helpless is adorable on human babies, but not so much with birds.

Last, but not least, I saw, and photographed, my first "Mormon Metalmark complex" butterfly today. Brian had seen that species here before, but I hadn't. My Kaufman butterfly guide (2003) shows it as Mexican Metalmark (Apodemia duryi) in West Texas, and barely shows the Mormon Metalmark (A. mormo) in Texas at all. Further, Ro Wauer, a butterfly expert for Big Bend National Park, called it the Dury's Metalmark (A. duryi) in his 2006 butterfly checklist for the park, and made no mention of Mormon Metalmark in BBNP. But in earlier publications he did call it Mormon Metalmark (A. mormo).*  Brian, my own personal expert, considers Apodemia duryi as a subspecies of Mormon Metalmark (Apodemia mormo). Whichever it is, it's a new species for me.

* It appears to me that circa 2002-2003 Kaufman called it Mexican Metalmark (A. duryi), and Wauer called it Mormon Metalmark (A. mormo), but by 2006 Wauer had adopted Kaufman's classification, and referred to it as a Dury's (A. duryi). A bit confusing. And Brian tells me that the Fatal Metalmark used to be called Mexican Metalmark, so I think I'll stick with calling it Dury's form of Mormon Metalmark. Something like "Mormon Metalmark (Apodemia mormo duryi)." Works for me. I've learned with plants that if someone publishes a name incorrectly it can really be hard to get it all straightened out, especially when the latin names are wrong.

Slim pickin's

Today is my last day in town for a few days, so I determined to find some butterflies and dragonflies to photograph. Not much out there. This is the best dragonfly I got. I think it's a Desert Whitetail, but I get confused between it and the Common Whitetail. It's pretty though, and was fun to photograph. I didn't think it would ever land, but it eventually did.

I really didn't find any butterflies that I hadn't already had better photos of. Maybe when I get back to CMO there'll be some there.

Diving dabblers

The ducklings are making my blog's news again. They can't read and don't know that they're dabbling ducks. Dabbling ducks don't dive. Online I found this info: "While a few dabblers may occasionally dive to feed or to escape predators, typically they skim food from the surface or feed in the shallows by tipping forward to submerge their heads and necks." My babies seemed to just be playing. They weren't feeding and they weren't trying to escape predators.

Bottoms up

Completely submerged

They didn't learn this trick from the adults because I've never seen the adults dive. No diving ducks have visited the pond since they've been born. Maybe it's the chicken scratch I bought them. They love it. Might have caused a species identity crisis. Maybe when they become adults they won't be able to submerge themselves, but they did it repeatedly today.

CMO banding day

Kelly and I came down from Alpine for a morning of hummingbird banding. We started at CMO, where we caught 16 Lucifers and 13 Black-chinneds. The weather was lovely and nothing was screaming to be watered. A real treat!

This one female Black-chinned fascinated me because she had so much of a gorget. That's quite unusual on a female BCHU. So I got Kelly to pose with her while I took her photo. She is a recaptured bird that was first banded 5 years ago. How about that!

Also today, Kelly recaptured his first 6 year old Lucifer Hummingbird ever.

Old age and treachery prevailed again

Before I went to Alpine I patched and coated what I could humanly get to on the west wall. Only slid down it into the mud once. But it was a killer and I'm wiped out. Probably won't do any more on it this year.

before

after patching

Then I coated what I had patched with Drylok until, thankfully, I ran out of Drylok.

Looking west

Back in town, all is ducky with the duckies.

A surprise rainstorm

It was awesome, even if no water ran into the tanks. It all soaked into the parched thirsty ground. So needed. I ended up with .64." And I don't have to water tomorrow before I go to town. All good.

The above is just a random shot I took of water puddled on the ground.  Even after it was over, there were some ominous looking clouds to the south.

I saw the storm approaching from the SW, even though the forecast said 0% chance of rain. I decided to do a little patching on the tank so at least I'd end up with either rain, or work accomplished. I barely got through when it started to rain, so I figured the wet cement would all wash out, but for the most part, it stayed. Then I got about a third of an inch and it stopped, another cell came from the NE, bringing another third of an inch.

Things cooled way down too. It wouldn't surprise me if my tanks all fill up tomorrow. That's the way it goes sometimes.

On the above photo, the gap between the strips of white coating is where I had just stuccoed before the rain. It's on the SW corner of the pond. Tomorrow morning I hope to finish patching the west side, so if it does rain, I'll feel better about the tank walls not deteriorating as fast. The problem is, the west wall is the steepest. No way I'll be able to do it probably, even standing in the water. The walls are 9 feet tall, so I can't reach up to where it needs to be stuccoed. I'll do what I can though. Whatever I get done is a plus. Every year I stucco, and every year it gets water under it and comes off. So this year I'm coating the new stucco with Drylok. If water gets in behind the tank at least it should hold up better. Also I'm mixing the stucco with way more cement and concrete adhesive than I usually do. I tried a gallon of that $15 concrete patch from town and it only did 2 square feet. That seemed ridiculous, so I decided to try harder to get it to stick. And even if I had used that expensive stuff, it might not have worked any better. The mixture and coating I'm doing now should do better than ever before. That's the plan, anyway.

Saddlebags & flycatchers

I managed to photograph a Red Saddlebags this morning. Caught a couple of them perching briefly.

Meanwhile, as I was patching in the tank, a pair of Scissortail Flycatchers showed up. I first thought this Scissortail might be hybridized with a Russet-crowned Motmot, but upon consulting a guide, I see their ranges don't overlap. Inset is a photo I took years ago with point & shoot camera in San Blas, Mexico, of a Russet-crowned Motmot. (I'm learning how to do insets)

Looking back a year

Last June we had already had 2 nice rains by this time resulting in temperatures about 10° cooler. Got up to 104° today. Ugh! Not getting a whole lot done. A little tank patching and a little silt removed. Tomorrow, a little coating the patched area, and maybe a little more silt removal. While I want to get as much of the tank cleaned as I can before it rains, I'm not pressured to, because I think the pond weed keeps the water cooler, therefore, evaporating slower. Just my theory. Can't find anything to substantiate it.

Here's a photo I took of my Standing Cypress yesterday. This it the best I've ever had. I didn't plant it last year (it only blooms the second year), but a few years ago I planted some and this is probably a result of that.

This Lucifer Hummingbird checking out the Standing Cypress was moving too fast, but maybe a blurry photo is better than none. Or not!

Every day is precious

I try to make the best of every day, whether I'm in town or at CMO, and whether it's over 100° or not. So I braved the heat searching for a new butterfly species until I found one. New for me, anyway. Maybe all the hard work creating the habitat around the ponds here in town will pay off, because that's where I found my lifer Acmon Blue. With so many Reakirt's and Marine Blues around, it's not easy to sort everything out.

On Mexican Hat flower

Of course, I would have liked to have gotten a better photo, but that's pretty much my standing mantra with every species.

I saw this lovely Twelve-spotted Skimmer over the ponds. Not a new species for me, but wondrous, nevertheless.

On Willow tree overhanging pond

And that was about all the excitement I could squeeze into a day in town. Of course, I marveled at how much the ducklings have grown, but not so much they need to have another photo posted so soon after yesterday.