Jun 26, 2023 - Sep 17, 2023
We had thought that the summer of 2020 was a challenge. Dubbed a "non-soon" by the locals, it was still an amazing introduction to summers in SE Arizona. We experienced our first chorus of spadefoot toads after a monsoon storm, the river ran gang busters occasionally, we navigated around lumps of Sonoran Desert toads in the road, millipedes crawled all over the desert uplands looking for well dead food, new kinds of snakes to observe... So many new things to experience when the desert woke up. Yet, the heat was oppressive and went on and on.
In 2021 we decided to travel back to the Pacific Northwest to escape the heat, only to find ourselves under a massive heat dome up there while a true monsoon enveloped SE Arizona and was actually cooler.
During the summer of 2022, we experienced a full and true monsoon as we spent our second summer in SE Arizona. Monsoon brings plenty of challenges, especially with ten inches or more of rain. With the main dirt road washing out regularly and the river running for six weeks straight, you don't plan events, you express an intention and then see what the afternoon brings. But the life that emerged was amazing. We knew we were being spoiled given current trends, but it was something to behold in the moment.
This summer, a bit of reality set in. To say it was challenging for me is to put it very mildly. There was virtually no measurable rain worth speaking of between mid-May and the end of August except a couple of quarter inch days. For an ecosystem that relies on two rainy seasons, summer monsoon season being one of them, this year was very harsh. By mid-June we were hitting triple digits regularly and that would last into September with the occasional break. There was the occasional thunderstorm that would cool us off a bit in the afternoon, but I could watch them on the radar as they did the limbo and passed to the south of us, avoiding dropping any significant precipitation. Wind damage and dry lightning were concerns. Our Internet modem was fried during one storm, and it isn't even hooked to the grid.
The lack of insects was another significant change. This area is generally quite buggy during the summer. The gnats that try to get in your ears were virtually non-existent relative to other years, though more present in September. Our trailer wasn't full of an innumerable variety of insects species as we crawled under our bug net. While it was nice not having to deal with them AND the oppressive heat at the same time, we know we were being spoiled again and it was likely quite a challenge for insect-eating birds. Lizards seem to do ok, though.
Finally, August 31st and September 1st we saw some real rainfall that added an inch or more and had a minor amount of actual runoff. Most significantly, though, the river didn't run here until mid-September. Rain events to the south, likely near the Mexican border and beyond (yes, this river runs north), eventually filled the river enough to flow past us and wash away some of the tracks from illegal vehicle use in the river bottom. A benefit to a moderate flow here is that it doesn't have enough force to wash out the sand delta that formed at the entrance to Paige Canyon last winter. Therefore, a nice long lake, possibly seven to eight feet deep, built up behind it as if there was a beaver dam, providing water for wildlife, bugs for birds, and a chance to recharge subsurface water in that area. This did not occur last fall due to the intense flow through the river, washing away all impediments. Further downstream from the confluence of Paige, I've not yet seen evidence of subsurface recharge enough to leave water above the surface once it had passed.
For the most part, the desert wrote off this summer and stayed asleep. I've dubbed this season an "un-soon", seemingly having undone most of the gains from the previous wet year.
All of that and a few weeks of poor health made it an anemic photography season. Even so, the life is out there if you are patient.
The nights have cooled off again and the rock wrens are back. Change is in the air.
Summer Vignettes
An intact ecosystem
The quality that makes the Middle San Pedro Valley Watershed in SE Arizona important to me is that it is one of the few remaining relatively intact ecosystems left in the West. That doesn't mean it hasn't undergone dramatic change in the past and is very different than it was two hundred years ago, but it has been generally allowed to find a balance that is not present in most areas that humanity occupies. Change is inevitable, balance is crucial. It doesn't have the overpopulation of deer that occurs when the majority of apex predators are eliminated. Riparian flora is diverse and the overlap of Sonoran and Chihuahuan desert flora and fauna make it even more so. It is a system that has been allowed to become resilient so it can endure decades-long droughts. Whether it can withstand the pressures that the future will bring is the question that challenges the hearts of those that live here.
Life finds a way
As resilient as this ecosystem is, it can be very hard on individuals. When monsoon doesn't awaken the desert, food and water are extremely hard to find. Every coyote I have seen this summer is skinny and hungry. The one bear I have had the opportunity to exchange photons with in the valley looked like it had a shag carpet thrown over its trim physique when it walked. An industrious coyote family was able to dig three to four feet down to water in the river bottom where water had flowed last spring, but even that eventually dried up. The one flow of the river filled the pit up with sand and you couldn't find it again.
Much of the desert can stay asleep until the next rainy season, but not everyone. At least the mesquite trees ended up with a large bean crop on their second try of the season. It was clear what the bear was surviving on based on the contents of its scat. Coyotes are well accustomed to using the mesquite pods as sustenance and the javelina clearly have been enjoying the prickly pear fruit while it is available and they don't have to resort to chomping on the spikey prickly pear pads.
Loss
The scarcity of native food makes it more likely that well-fed, imported domestic animals become targets for survival. Unfortunately, one of the cute goat kids that was born this May in our fledgling community goat herd was killed. It was a bitter pill to swallow considering all the hopes folks have put on growing the herd. Lots of rethinking about how we protect those that we have taken responsibility for without allowing emotions to overrule our core values.
The main core value that keeps me here in the valley is that wildlife comes first. Back when wildlife greatly outnumbered humans and their domesticated animals, you could understand the protective strategies that included killing predators that threaten one's life or livelihood. Sterilizing the land of predators was never a good thing, though. Now that the total biomass of humanity, including their domestic animals, completely dwarfs what is left of wildlife on this planet, those strategies are no longer viable for a balanced ecosystem. We can no longer hold native predators as second or third priority, in which we only allow them as long as they behave and don't bother us. Wild prey animals are able to find protection by using the landscape or their numbers to thwart predators. Rarely can a predator wipe out a herd. But in many domestic animal scenarios, we take away the ability for them to protect themselves. In these cases, it is our duty to protect those that we care for by creating safe scenarios that predators are unable to penetrate. Killing predators to create safe scenarios for our imported animals is no longer an option for a resilient ecosystem.
"I don't know why she swallowed the fly..."
The craziest event of the summer was the arrival of the tamarisk leaf beetle. I am no fan of invasive tamarisk that settlers brought to the west as an ornamental tree and to help prevent soil erosion. It has now invaded all desert river riparian areas in the southwest and can choke out native species. They create thickets along the river that are only less annoying than acacia (cat claw) mixed with pencil cactus just up from the floodplain. Yet, by now a sort of balance has been created and the endangered southwest willow flycatcher has adapted to nest in it due to the dying off of willow trees along the river.
In 2001, the tamarisk leaf beetle was released in Colorado to knock back the tamarisk and allow for native species to recover. It was not released in Arizona because it was thought that they couldn't survive here and to protect the Southwest Willow Flycatcher, a clear misunderstanding of the species, and nature itself.
A fuller account can be found in the article: Introducing the Beetles
Within a week or two of their arrival, almost all of the tamarisk turned brown along the river. It was like a wave of destruction. Walking down to the river was a surreal experience. Voracious tiny beetles were zipping from "frond" to "frond", sucking the life out of each branch's "leaves". All I could think of was: "What have we done?"
After the initial wave, greenery is returning to some of the tamarisk. Apparently, that is expected. But over time they should begin to die off in areas. Many look forward to this process. Only time will tell what kind of balance is regained after such a chaotic variable has been introduced. My main fear is that someone will convince the powers that be that the release of the beetles was a mistake and releasing a new biological or chemical weapon upon the environment is the appropriate response.
"I knew an old lady who swallowed a horse..."
Ambition
It is difficult to keep a positive perspective when directly confronted with the effects of our ever increasing demand for energy. The resource requirements for the hardware used to support the advancement of "artificial intelligence" (only half of that phrase is accurate) will likely nullify many of the gains from "clean" energy infrastructure projects, especially, those projects locating power generation great distances from their users instead of creating a resilient system of distributed power generation. We continue to create systems that users are abstracted away from and have no sense of what the impact of their use is. And we create monopolies to manage them and promote the increased use of resources in order to increase investment. So we build power lines to transfer wind energy from Wyoming and New Mexico to California and run them through pristine agricultural and wild lands, requiring new mines in the same areas to supply the copper. We call those that recognize the value of lands not fully enveloped in industrialization NIMBYs because they stand in the way of ambition.
Ambition has been a very successful trait for conquering the natural world, but what do you do when the natural world has already been conquered and only remnants remain? When do you adjust and adapt to a world that is already saturated? Is it too late?
The march of ambition has already begun to affect the Middle San Pedro Valley, as convoys of large trucks have started to use the dirt road that runs north to south along the river in order to work on laydown yards for the coming destruction. The initial lawsuit challenging the legitimacy of the permits for this project was found in favor of the granting agency, but that was apparently expected based on the court that was hearing the case. An appeal is being prepared and the appellate court is supposed to be less biased towards agency recommendations. You can read about the ongoing efforts on the new site: https://protectthesanpedro.net/.
Thanks for all of your support so far.