Oasis good - me bad

I'm so very disgusted with myself. Monday after banding I came to town and left a water hose on. I had checked that everything was off, then decided to quickly add water to the water feature so turned the hose on full blast to make it go fast so I couldn't forget. But forget, I did. It cost over one foot of water from the stucco tank. That equals one month's watering, or 2 weeks of leakage, however you want to look at it. Sure hope it rains one more time this fall, enough to top the tanks off. Thank goodness I was only in town two days. It could have been much worse. A few trees should be very happy. I've had a lot going on lately, but that's no excuse. Even though I have a ton of things to remember when I'm packing up to leave, those 3 faucets must have priority over everything else. Of course, I turned off the faucet before snapping this photo, so the waterfall that was going over the rocks can't be seen on it.

I wasn't able to spend much time at CMO today, but there was good bird activity. I finally got a photo of the Virginia's Warbler that's been hanging around. I guess they all loved the running stream I accidentally created for two days. The Virginia's Warbler was flitting around in the trees. I knew I couldn't get it in my viewfinder and focus before it would have moved, so I decided to just find it and click and hope for the best. Imagine my surprise when one of the resulting shots was halfway decent.

I'm amazed how things are blooming as if it's spring. Goldenball Leadtree, Mexican Redbud, etc.

And along Highway 118 there are lovely stands of Standing Cypress. I don't remember seeing that before.