No mosquitoes yet

I know they're coming any day, probably tomorrow when the workshop photographers start arriving. Bad timing. Anyway, I spent all afternoon out by the ponds enjoying the lack of one single mosquito. Great temperature too, between 80-88.°

Of course there'll be a better assortment of dragonflies when there are mosquitoes for them to feast on. Today I just photographed the same old common species. Here is a Variegated Meadowhawk and Thornbush Dasher.

And here's an Elf Owl hiding in a mesquite.

And in the butterfly department, here's a very worn Goatweed Leafwing. There are very few butterflies around but once things start blooming from all the rain I expect it to pick up. Nothing blooming now.

This morning I killed myself working on the trail. All the dirt is washed out and it's tough walking. I made it to the corner above the lower and upper landings, but I'm in pain. As bad as it is, it's still easier to take the trail, now "primitive" trail, than to go up without it.

And while I'm renaming the trail a "primitive trail," now that I have bunks in the guesthouse finally, I'm renaming it a bunkhouse. I never liked calling it a guesthouse. It implied something much fancier than what it is. And here is a photo I took from the trail's upper landing of the oasis.

You can easily see the big concrete tank toward the center of the photo. The stucco tank is the white strip between the rock cabins and the big tank. You can't see the water in it from this photo, but you can see the water in the lower dirt tank in front of the cabins. It looks brown in the photo. I could pump it into the stucco tank but it's supposed to rain all week so I'll just wait a while. The stucco tank isn't down enough to hold much of it anyway. I put gambusias in the dirt tank to help with the impending mosquito problem.

Good day at CMO

The only glitch in the day was having the stucco tank leak 2" a day. I just have to hope that when the water level gets lower the pressure will decrease and it won't leak so much.

The best part of the day was this photo of copulating Blue-eyed Darners. I was excited because I was sure they were Arroyo Darners. But the experts say not. I guess the only way to tell the two species apart is to get good photos of the appendages.

In case you're wondering why I thought they were Arroyo Darners and not Blue-eyed Darners, it was the blue-ish spot on S3 of the female, the width of the thoracic stripes on the female and the shape of the upper stripe on the male (not visible in the above photo). It shows better in the next shot, but the next one was taken at a far greater distance and isn't as sharp. I don't know if this is a second pair or the same one relocated.

My sister and I spent some time today trying to make the road coming into my property safer. There was one place that washed really bad during the recent monsoon. (My trail washed real bad too. Hope to get time and energy to work on that soon, but it'll never be as good as it was originally.) Here's the bad wash on Snake Road.

The rocks in the above photo are the first batch I put in the 3 foot deep hole.

Pecos River day

As we were leaving for the Pecos to find Desha a Marl Pennant my sister called that we got another half inch of rain at the oasis in the night. Then, this evening she said we got 8 tenths more. So I absolutely have to go early in the morning and redo the feeders. Since tomorrow starts the festival and photography workshop week I'll just have to stay down there for the whole week. I'm wondering how much standing water the soapberry trees in the arroyo can tolerate. It would be really ironic for them to survive the horrible droughts and record heat, just to drown.

Desha, Rita, and I went to the Pecos River where I had previously seen the Seaside Dragonlet and Marl Pennant. Almost nothing was flying; the sun barely came out for a few minutes, so after a couple of fruitless hours spent searching, we decided to go to where Highway 18 crosses the river farther downstream. Same story there. For one final attempt, we decided to go to where the water comes under the highway (1450, I think) below Imperial Reservoir. Success at last! A very cooperative male Marl Pennant perched for us for a long time until we got tired of taking photos of it.

While waiting for a Marl sighting at the first site, I entertained myself photographing the multitude of American Rubyspots there. We did see a couple of Seaside Dragonlets, but not for long enough to photograph them. (Desha had seen that species previously in East Texas.)

And now the party's over.

Shafter

It was a huge shock and disappointment to me to arrive at Shafter and find that Cibolo Creek wasn't running. That's the first time ever I've seen it not running over the road. I asked someone about that and they said Poindexter of Cibolo Creek Ranch has put in some new catchment dams in the arroyos upstream. Maybe we'll get a lot of rain and there'll be some left over for the Shafter section of the creek.

Meanwhile, it worked out good for us. There are just shallow pools here and there. The creek is usually so swift that I was afraid we shouldn't try to walk up it with our cameras. My knees aren't so reliable anymore, and Desha has physical challenges of her own. So it was much more fun and safer this way.

There were a couple of species I was hoping to see that we didn't see, such as the Serpent Ringtail and Red Rock Skimmer. But we did get the Gray Sanddragon and Painted Damsels, both lifers for Desha. She ended up getting at least six lifers today. That made up for not getting any at Lajitas yesterday.

Here's the Painted Damsel. There were lots of males, females, and juveniles.

Desha wasn't going to let the fact that she was wearing new expensive leather hiking boots stop her from getting the photos she wanted. (I was wearing plastic Crocs.)

I love the Cardinal Flowers that grow on the water's edge.

Tomorrow we're going to the Pecos River. Not going to be rushed this time. Maybe I'll get a lifer. Desha is sure to get the Marl Pennant there, which will be another lifer for her. 

Exhausted here

Trying to juggle too much and spend time odeing with Desha. Got up at 2:30 this morning and running at full speed ever since. We went to Lajitas and didn't find any interesting odes, so went back to CMO and didn't find anything interesting there either. Here's a Blue-eyed Darner from Calamity Creek north of Elephant Mountain along highway 118. I usually can't do flight shots but this one hovered for long periods of time.

Tomorrow we're going to Shafter. Hope we have better luck there.

Enough already!

August 10: Feast or famine.  From Javier the Savior to Javier Havoc. I didn't mind having to redo all 20 of my hummingbird feeders after yesterday's monsoon. I didn't mind that the road was washed bad and lots of people are expected in the next 10 days. I didn't even mind that the storm destroyed my answering machine. I did deplore that the stucco tank is leaking quite a bit. But now today it monsooned all over again.

The oasis went from about 10 dragonflies last time I was here to about a million today.

August 11: That's how far yesterday's blog got before the electricity went out until 2:30 this morning. Desha and her friend, Rita, arrived in the middle of another monsoonal downpour. Here's right after she drove through a flash flood going across the road. (In the background here.) I had to egg her on before she did it.

Then while she looked for odes I emptied and changed the solution in all the feeders again. Earlier in the day I photographed all the tanks. There was no place for the water to fill, so it raged through for nearly an hour.

Desha found this nice Spot-winged Glider.

I worked in the guesthouse all day before they arrived. Here's a picture of the bunk beds, as promised.

Rain update

I'm in Alpine today. My sister one mile north of CMO got 1.25" of rain and neighbors 3 miles south of CMO got 1.3" so I'm confident the oasis got over an inch. Normally, that amount would easily fill the tanks. However, it seems the arroyo didn't run. Without runoff that means it came slow enough to all soak into the ground. The ground desperately needed a good soaking. Remnants of Tropical Storm Javier should be dumping plenty more our way throughout the next week, so the tanks should fill. I'm going down by daylight and see if the dirt tanks caught anything that I can pump. It feels like I dodged a bullet. But have to see it for myself.

I would go tonight but I have a wooden bunk bed in the back of my pickup that I don't want getting wet. And besides, can't pump water during the night. I could if I had to, but it's a killer.

I've always wanted nice bunk beds for the guesthouse, but never found the right ones at the right price. Finally found some online for $20. The catch was that parts were missing, no steps, rails, or hardware, but hubby and I fabricated what was needed last week. I think they'll be lovely. Will take photos when I get them set up. I took the bottom bunk down last trip, and now ready to install the top one. To me, having a guesthouse with a niche for bunks without bunks is like having a formal dining room without a table.

Will update this post early tomorrow morning after I assess the situation.

I'll be having company for the next ten days so things are going to be bustling. My friend, Desha, is arriving tomorrow to go dragonflying with me for several days and after that is the week of the hummingbird festival and photography workshop. So my blog should be loaded with pictures for a while.

UPDATE: I couldn't stand it any longer so as soon as the radar showed no rain between Alpine and CMO (9 PM) I headed south. Got here to discover every tank brimful!!! I'm still in shock. It'll take a while for it to soak in (no pun intended). I got a total of 1.7." First thing in the morning I'll check to see how much the stucco tank went down. It does have a tendency to spring leaks, especially when it fills up suddenly. Got my fingers crossed. So happy to have water in the tanks for the festival. There'll be a big mosquito bloom in a week which will last until the gambusias catch up. Dragonflies will be happy though. I don't know how long it'll take them to show up, but I think pretty soon.

Rainy season missing oasis

To further rub salt in my wounds, here's what I read in the latest issue of Rio Grande Electric Coop's magazine:

"While much of RGEC's territory is suffering from drought, at least one region was pelted with storms almost every afternoon and evening during July. The Big Bend Triangle, like the Bermuda Triangle, sees some pretty strange occurrences. The weather last month was no exception. This area, bounded roughly by Alpine, Fort Stockton, and Terlingua, was seemingly targeted."  (My oasis  is within that "triangle.") Boo-hoo! I heard someone here in the Terlingua Ranch area got over 4 inches recently. Oh, well, rainy season is only half over. There's still hope.

A dastardly roadrunner was stalking hummers in the dummy trap, and almost snagged one. He must be successful there often because he was really hard to flush. I had to get right up next to the trap before he left.

And I wanted to feed the quail but with so many cowbirds hanging around I opted not to.

Pecos River odes

For a couple of months we have had a trip to Odessa scheduled for today. I went to see my eye doctor for an annual checkup. All is good. My vision is 20-25 in each eye. I have a problem with dry eyes, which we're working on.

Part of the plan was to stop at the Pecos River on the way home for me to photograph dragonflies, particularly the Seaside Dragonlet that likes the brackish water there. However, we spent more time in Odessa than anticipated so my husband was hot and tired and anxious to get home. I finally wheedled an agreement where I'd only spend 5-10 minutes there. So he parked in the shade of the bridge and mostly called to me to hurry up. (Never mind all the time I spent in the sun in the hot car in Odessa while he took care of his business.) So I snapped everything I could in that amount of time---- four species, including the Seaside Dragonlet. No lifers, but I probably wouldn't have gotten any unless I spent a great deal more time there anyway. BUT, I'll never know. I was just happy to get photos of the Seaside. I had once before, but it was an old male. I wanted photos of a fresher male and female, which I got.   

I wasn't expecting Marl Pennants there, even though I should have, so I needed help identifying them. It had been quite a while since I'd seen that species at Lajitas.

It's really fun to see something besides the same species every day.

Needed a fix

Took a few minutes out of my busy day to check out back at the ponds in Alpine for odes or butterflies. Nothing interesting so I photographed a Blue Dasher close up, and a female Hackberry Emperor. This one is fresher than my lifer one on July 22 (see post from that day).