Forgot to blog

 A few days ago I was at the oasis watering, weed-eating, servicing feeders, etc. I meant to blog and share a few photos from there, but somehow forgot. So here they are a few days late. Things are looking lovely. Here's some of the soapberry bushes that I so love.

And here's how the water drip is looking these days. Not quite as lush as I'd like it, but at least that makes the birds easier to spot. 

Newly hatched Scaled Quail were running around all over the place. I was too slow to get decent photos of them before they disappeared, but I did manage a rather blurry shot of the last one before it too disappeared. So cute!

Back in Alpine one of the neighbor's chickens seems to love my water feature.

We love the neighbor's chickens. They keep us supplied with fresh eggs. 

While checking out our ponds in town today for interesting odes or birds, the only interesting thing I found was this juvenile bird. I couldn't decide if it was a Pyrrhuloxia or Cardinal. I settled on the latter.

Hanging on by a thread

Monday I endured the worst dental pain I've ever had, and I've had a lot. Will spare you the gory details. Got the last two broken implants removed and now healing. The dentist said it'd be up to a year before I can get new, then operational, implants, so he's going to make a temporary denture (for an extra $2000, of course). I hope that gets done soon. I know a person can survive on liquids, but not maintain optimal health. Not to mention loss of appetite and all other complications that go with it.

View from Terlingua Ranch road on way to oasis early AM

We're in a heat wave, record heat, I believe, so I had to water at the oasis. Things are still looking quite lush. Even had to cut weeds and branches out of the pathways. Lots of blooms, butterflies, and dragonflies to enjoy to the extent that I can tolerate the heat. Thankfully, the mosquito plague has abated.

The best bird of the day was a Crissal Thrasher at the water drip. I know they're around, but almost never seen. When the temperature reached 110,° that did the trick.

This dragonfly was perched too high for a good photo. It took me a while to figure out it was a Gray Sanddragon. Not a new oasis species, but nice, nevertheless!

Today I'll finish watering and weed-eating, then head back to town. Hanging on.

Bear videos

Went to water and service feeders today only to discover a bear had moved the rocks we used to wedge the "bear-proof" feeder so it wouldn't jiggle. However, I saw no evidence that jiggling is how the bear gets to the seed. It appears the bear just crouches and licks it out with its tongue. Maybe if that's all the damage it does, we can just buy more seed and live with it. If it becomes a nuisance hanging around, we may have to modify the seed feeder. We'll see.

I seem to be almost well. No relapse from watering today. And my foot didn't hurt too bad today either. Mosquitoes still real bad, so I didn't linger.

I also discovered the bear won't put its weight on the unwelcome mat. Good to know!

Can't tell if the bear ate some nectar from the hummingbird feeder. The feeder was empty when I got there, but hummers may have been the reason.

I have two dozen video clips of the bear but the above ones are the ones I learned the most from, I think.

Also enjoyed seeing a Burrowing Owl along Highway 118 about 40 miles south of Alpine. My first for the year.

Sick again!

I can't believe I had a relapse. I was being so careful! Having been well for a week or so, I planned a very careful day for going to get a life bird (Thick-billed Kingbird) at the Davis Mountains Preserve. Got up at a normal time, drove to meet and ride with someone else. Dressed plenty warm, took plenty of food and water. We drove right up to the tree the bird is nest-building in. No hiking involved. But I noticed I was starting to cough more than usual since recovering from my viral infection. Then my throat started getting sore. By the time I got back home my throat hurt bad and I was very hoarse. This morning, hoarse and sore too, although not as bad as with my initial infection. Whatever it is that's going around, my oldest son had it too. We hadn't been around one another, so didn't get it that way. My husband didn't get it.

I'm just wondering if stressing about my upcoming dental surgery is weakening my immune system. Bummer, whatever.

The kingbird excursion was a lot of fun, though. Mike Gray so generously took me and another birder into the preserve where we saw lots of good birds, including a Grace's Warbler and Montezuma Quail.

Mosquito overload!

I expected the oasis to be mosquito-ridden when I got there today, but it still overwhelmed me. Couldn't enjoy odeing, or anything else. Likely, it'll be a couple of weeks before it'll be tolerable. So I serviced feeders and headed back to town.

Saw a couple of California Spreadwings before leaving, but nothing else of interest.

West Corazon peak stoked my imagination for a while today.

A week later

A week ago, I was slaving away pumping, weeding, and reclaiming the oasis after a big monsoon. When I got back to town I became really sick. Spent over a day in bed, which is way more than I did with covid. I figured I picked up a virus after overworking and running myself down.  Pretty much all better now. My son and I went to the oasis today to service feeders. He set up a gas pump and pumped most of the water out of the upper dirt tank. 

About the heat of the afternoon, odeing was getting good but we needed to get back to town. I'm well aware that I won't get another mosquito-free odeing opportunity any time in the near future, but it wasn't priority, nor should it have been.

Common Whitetail

I wish I had thought to take some photos of the oasis before leaving. It's so lush and green! Next time! 

BTW, the stucco tank is leaking about 2" per day. I wish it wasn't, but it is what it is!

Aftermath

It's great to go right from migration birding to odeing. Hasn't even been 24 hrs since the rain and the oasis is sporting lots of dragonflies. Like this California Spreadwing...

And this Russet-tipped Clubtail, which is a first for the oasis and the first I've personally seen in the Big Bend region.

Lest you think it's all fun and games here, I assure you I've had to slave away all day. First, hummingbird feeders all had to be replaced because that much rain water contaminates the solution. Then, I had to fill the seed feeders. Next, I dragged heavy pump and hoses to top off the reserve above-ground tank. About 10,000 gallons had been used from it after the stucco tank water had been used up. Too complex to explain the procedure I had to do, but it involves getting into this tank. 

Then, once the reserve tank was topped off I had to get into the tank, remove the pump and reposition it in the settling pond that loses water the fastest. The plan was to replace the 10,000 gallons I just took out.

While water was pumping, I picked up debris, raked misplaced mulch off the paths, pruned thorny branches that already were overtaking the paths, etc. It's amazing how soon after a rain the place becomes overgrown. I also got out my weedeater and cut the weeds from the paths. They literally grow like weeds. 

The Tree Tobacco bloomed, and one that I thought was dead shot up new growth.

This volunteer Retama out in the middle of the dragonfly pond was already blooming just from all the small rains we've been having. It would have probably been happier had we not got the big one.

Upper and lower dirt tanks.

Monsoonal rain!

Before the storm

My sister called me that we got over an inch and the arroyo that originates at the oasis is running higher than it has in years. That means all my tanks have to be brimful. I'll go assess the situation early in the morning. It's possible the road may not be passable. I should only be able to top off the above ground tank that I've used a foot or two from. There shouldn't be any other space to pump water into.

I was watching on radar, and midafternoon the storm heading into Alpine from the west, which was predicted to bring heavy rain and flooding to Alpine, veered southward straight toward the oasis. Not a drop in Alpine. Meanwhile, from the south a similar large patch of heavy rain moved north toward the oasis, where they converged. I've never observed that happening before, though I'm sure it must have.I can't even remember when we last got a monsoonal rain in May. Been many a year.

Details and photos tomorrow.

Christmas Mountains information

For anyone interested in the Christmas Mountains, outside the oasis, here are a few links.

https://texashighways.com/travel/outdoors/christmas-mountains-are-the-gift-that-keeps-on-giving/

I'm not sure if this next link will work, but if it doesn't. I've copied a paragraph from it that mentions me, albeit with last name misspelled. The symposium is an annual event, open to the public.

https://gato-docs.its.txst.edu/jcr:e08000f2-5e4f-4bb4-98c1-7f8ac8fc103b/Program%202023.pdf

Naturally, I'm hoping my son, Lee, will become passionate about the oasis before the responsibility for it falls to him. This tiny Elf Owl is doing its share to nurture a passion. Photo by Lee.

For the record

As I've said before, this blog is my photo-journal. I'm always looking things up in it. Great to have the search window. So when two screws in my implants broke, with the aid of this blog, I tracked down the history. My new prosthodontist (Dr. Boon) told me the only way those can break is if they're tightened too much. The two screws that broke happened to be the same two I wrote this about on December 11, 2018: 

"He really tightened them tight. I thought for sure he'd twist the implants right out of my jaw. So glad that's over!"

No coincidence! So basically, we're having to spend $20,000 to have new implants put in. Not to mention the ordeal of the procedure and being on a very soft diet for two months. But I'm grateful that I finally have an expert, and as close as Ft Stockton. I loathe the trip to Odessa. This dental surgery is scheduled to happen next week. Just trying so hard not to break the remaining two implants in the meantime. My husband is upset about the upcoming expenditure, too. 

In the early morning hours of May 15, the oasis got nearly an inch of soaking rain. No runoff. I was relieved, and glad that I hadn't watered two days prior, when I was scheduled to water. 

Today my son went to the oasis and found the hummingbird feeders empty. Apparently, the ocotillos are finally depleted of nectar. As he was hanging a feeder, my granddaughter snapped this photo of an impatient Lucifer. 

My son, and hopefully his daughters, are the future of the oasis, if it's to continue past my lifetime.

Meanwhile, in Alpine, after many months of nagging, my husband relented and had three new window panes put in my birdbath viewing room so I can take better photos. The old panes were real cloudy. 

The window has six panes.* Two were OK, three we had replaced, and the remaining one was only a little cloudy on its bottom edge. I can work around that. (It's the upper right pane in the above photos.) The lower right pane is a new one and the one I'll probably take most of my photos through. No interesting birds now that migration is over, but it won't be long before I get photos of rare birds through the new glass. Maybe rare hummers in August, for starters.

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*In case you're curious, the windows were about 50 yrs old and double-paned. When I built the birdbath, we removed the outer panes, as they were all white from water-staining through the years of having a sprinkler on them. Two of the panes remained sealed, so didn't get internal damage, but three of the others got varying amounts of damage. We scraped off what we could, but after a long time, the minerals actually embed into the glass.