Here and there

 During the night the oasis got a bit over half an inch of rain, the first since late June. It was a slow soaking rain, no runoff for my tanks, but the ground desperately needed it. Now if we'll just get a good monsoon in this next week, I'll be a happy camper. Chances are about 50-50.

Meanwhile, my son left Austin, driving during the night to beat the rain, with an open trailer loaded with furniture. He covered it good with tarps but you know how that goes. They shredded somewhere along the way. Naturally, he drove through two monsoonal storms and probably ruined his furniture. Oh well, not important in the scheme of things. His mobile home in Alpine is coming along nicely, but not done yet.

The oasis isn't the only place that was saturated with migrants ahead of this first cold front. Our ponds in Alpine were too. While I was at the oasis watering several days ago, some birders at our ponds in town reported a Costa's Hummingbird there. I came to town as soon as I could but haven't seen it. And if one was here, I would have seen it.  I think it's the same individual that was here in August 2018 for a week, as a juvenile. On both photos I noticed how flat his head is. Surely, that isn't a coincidence. I don't think Costa's as a species are that flat-headed. Note that gorget colors are variable depending on the lighting. I have photos of the 2018 bird with the gorget purple but this one is closest to the angle of the head for comparison purposes.

Photo by Greg Duncan

August 2018