Oasis looking lovely!

I pushed myself to go water and service feeders yesterday, even though I end up getting sick when I do it. At daylight, when I stopped by the bear-proof shed to retrieve the watering hoses, I smelled something dead. I sniffed inside the shed and was relieved to not smell it inside. Put the hoses inside the bed of my pickup and headed to water. Just before dark as I was putting the hoses back into the shed, I was watching for snakes and noticed a dead and very smelly carcass four feet from the shed door. Turned out to be a bobcat. (I suspect it died giving birth.) Don't know how I missed it earlier. I guess in the cool morning twilight, snakes weren't on my mind. 

Thankfully, that freeze on March 15th didn't do much damage. A few persimmon trees had frozen leaves on them, and some new growth on live oaks got zapped, but, surprisingly, the Huisache trees were fine. And they were what I thought would be damaged first. Sorry, no photos. Too exhausted to carry a camera around while watering in the 96° heat.

I think this spring migration is going to be great! We're going into a wetter El Niño pattern also. It won't arrive until summer, but I have plenty of water until then, and a dry spring concentrates migrants to the oasis. I just have to hang tough!

In town recovering. Habitat here is greening up nicely, and the Black Locust trees are in bloom.

Why I hate March

It's bad enough that March is the windiest month of the year, but on top of that, almost every single Feb-Mar everything leafs out, only to be zapped by a freeze in March. Yesterday, I watered at the oasis. Green and lovely, stuff blooming everywhere. The Huisache trees were becoming loaded with leaves and blooms. It was over 90.°

Huisache is very frost tender, so I can only imagine how they look today after last night's freeze. Here in town, I tried to protect the apricot tree that was loaded with fruit and lush leaves. At 5 AM, as the temperature reached freezing, I turned on a sprinkler below it. Here it is at daylight. All I can do now is hope some of the fruit survives.

A visitor took this Lucifer Hummingbird photo at the oasis yesterday. I think it has a damaged bill.

Photo by Sharon McCanahan

Spring indeed!

I finally got to the oasis on the 6th of March. Lucifers didn't disappoint! I observed nest material gathering, but couldn't get a decent photo. Today Kim Morse got these photos of it, which I really love! Thank you, Kim!

I am concerned about the material though. It's some kind of man-made strapping, like nylon, that may seem like spider webs, but doesn't have the requisite stretch that their nests need as the nestlings grow. When I get back down there I'm going to replace that strap with wire.

The Mountain Laurel is blooming beautifully. This one is 7 feet tall and I never water it.

I'm finally feeling better, almost recovered from my winter illnesses (bronchitis earlier and recent UTI). Winters are so hard on me.