The oasis got a couple of soaking rains that filled the settling pond and upper dirt tank each half full. So yesterday around noon I arrived to harvest what water I could. Wrestling with the heavy pumps was a killer, the same amount of work if the tanks had been full. But I take what I can get.
So after I got the water from the upper dirt tank to the lower dirt tank, the next step was to get it to the stucco pond. All went well at first, the big hard-to-start pump started up and was rapidly moving water. Then, for whatever reason, I've yet to learn, it started racing, but stopped picking up water. By then it was after 5 PM and I was exhausted, but I set up a smaller, slower electric pump, which took all night to pump. Very little sleep for me, as I had to keep checking it. And once I'm up, it's almost impossible to get back to sleep. I ended up adding 2" to the big concrete tank and a little over a foot to the stucco tank. The former now lacks a foot from being full, and the latter lacks about 2½ feet from capacity. For sure seems like a lot of agony for such a small amount of water, but it could be vital next year, especially if it doesn't rain. It's at least a month's supply.
So I didn't have time to watch birds, not that there were any to watch, but I did see a couple of Lucifers still around. If I'm not too tired when daylight arrives, I'll watch birds before heading back to town. I did see and photograph one amberwings, which I believe is a Mexican Amberwing.
Lots of California Spreadwings around too.
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