Summer's Eve

One last big hurrah for the monsoon.  As September nears the end so does the monsoon season....officially.  During this hike storm clouds quickly built up around me.  And all of it during sunset. 

These pics were taken from downtown Tucson along the Santa Cruz wash.

When I look at an Arizona sky, I many times lose myself within the clouds.

This year for me, it's a happy/sad thing.  I'm glad the heat is going away but I'll also miss all the summer visitors we get during our hot days.   But I won't miss the mosquito bites.

Juvenile Hummer

This has been a spectacular year for butterflies.  September is the high month for all of these beautiful insects.

I'll continue my Chuparosa challenge into next year or whenever a new species presents themselves again.   And it could be here or elsewhere in the Americas through travel.

So for now, I'm enjoying visits from the butterflies around our gardens here at El Presidio.  And I think I'm ready for October:)

Pipevine Swallowtail Butterfly

PS.  Sorry if you thought I'd talk about the female product known as Summer's Eve.  We won't do that here at Las Aventuras.  That deserves its own blog:) I'll be back again today reading everyone's blogs.  I was with Kathie birding yesterday with some of the most epic finds and we had a blast.  Unfortuneatly I didn't get home until late and therefore wasn't able to get any blogging done.  More tomorrow...

A Dedication To Bob Ross

Today I'm linking up with the sky and Bob Ross.  It's not your normal link because Bob is dead.  But when I look at our skies, I think of him often.

I really miss him.  Grew up watching his show on PBS....."The Joys of Painting".   Can't paint myself but his voice then and now always puts me at ease....and sometimes to sleep.  He went too early.  Died in the mid 90's at the young age of 52.  Has it been that long?

But when I look at the skies and watch the clouds roll by, I think of him.  His hair was out of control but his voice and paintings were always inspiring. 

These Buffalo Gourds grow wild in our deserts.  The first time I saw them, I was shocked. And the question everyone asks, "Are they edible?"  No.  However, archeological investigations show that Native Americans used the seeds as food.  They also used the green fruit and roots as a detergent and the dried fruits as a rattle.  Although javelinas dig up and eat the bitter root and coyotes, porcupines and humans eat the seeds, apparently no one eats the fruits.

But they're still cool to see around our desert landscape.  And I'm sure Bob would have painted them onto the canvas.   While writing this post, I listened to him speak and paint his skies and mountains.  These pictures are the closest I'll ever get to painting something by hand:)  Although he has stated in the past that it's easy....um....it's not.  I needed help the first time I did one.  It turned out well but I had an artist show me the steps to get there:) "We don't make mistakes; we just make happy accidents."  I'm glad my mother enjoyed my happy accident on Mother's Day:)

Arizona has some of the best sky shows in the world.  I walked the paths as the storm cloud began to build.  As things got darker, I moved quicker to the trailhead. 

The rain began to poor down onto the grasslands.

But it was like a little piece of heaven here.  And since everyone has mentioned that I should use my short lens more.....I thought this was the perfect time to do it.  Glad I did:)

But I miss you Bob Ross.  I really really do. At night, on PBS, I watch your show and every night, you teach me something new about landscape.  Your positive words make me smile as I fall quickly to sleep to the sound of your voice. You are the best.

And so I dedicate this post to you Bob for some wonderful childhood memories that continue today to inspire my photography. "Build a Happy Little Cloud."

Blown Off Course

There is no doubt in my mind that we live in the desert.  Many of you see green in a lot of my pics with our Sonoran desert and you may think that unusual for deserts.  Well it is.  The Sonoran desert is considered the greenest desert of the world.  If you've been here,  you know it is very brown and dry at times. But what makes the Sonoran desert unusual is that we get regular rain(monsoon), sometimes on a daily basis, during our summer months.  Today check out what happens when storms happen on Part 2 of this monsoon series.

This monsoonal weather pattern can cause chaos around here:)  We still have those hot hot temps which spark the moisture in the atmosphere and BOOM!!!  Some of the best lightning shows begin. 

Shorebirds from Mexico and California are thrown off course and end up around our watering holes in Tucson.  During the time of this shoot, it was reported that several Brown Pelicans were spotted at several of our parks.  So I jumped in my car to get these fun shots.

About three large blocks away, I found the Brown Pelican immediately.  Even better were the sightings of the Cormorants(both Double Crested and Neotropic!).  Oh it was hot, moist and very tropical this day, but I didn't have to walk very far to find this guy:)

So you may ask, "What happens when these ocean birds end up in the desert?"  Sometimes, several have to be rescued right away as they are in poor condition, but during this last storm, 6 were healthy happy and feeding on the fish from our "lakes". These guys are rounded up and then taken over to San Diego where they are released back into the wild.  

Brown Pelicans are interesting birds but I liked these shots the most because they show something different.  Pelicans do a lot of funny things with their beaks.  Observing this particular behavior, I would imagine that this guy was cooling himself off:)

I also found out that a group of Pelicans are called a Pod. Fun! The bonus of finding a Pelican also means that there will probably be some colorful characters around the area as well....like the 3 stooges above.  The Cormorants kept the area interesting.  Sometimes the Pelican would smack them on the head and they didn't seem to mind:)  More tomorrow...

Living in their rightful airspace of Mexico.

Feel The Fury of the Storm!

In August, I have plenty to film from my home.  Our monsoon is still very active.  In a special two part series about monsoon today and tomorrow, you'll get to see what happens here in the desert:) and why this time of year is just amazing.

All of these shots today were taken from around El Presidio gardens.  It was a good thing because this guy has zero dinero right now to go on birding/wildlife trips.  This may surprise some but I have a lot more exploration to do around Arizona AND especially Southern Arizona. 

I'm still working on my lightning shots but I'm pretty happy with these.  They seem to turn out better at night.

I love this shot of El Presidio from above.  It's raining in the dark with lovely hues of blues and pinks flashing all around the property.

Some people, like myself, actually will enjoy the lighting while others don't even realize what's going on outside.  Their loss.  It's a pretty spectacular show.  The best part?  Our storms are so powerful here sometimes they create massive dust storms known as "haboobs" that push into the city known as Phoenix.  Here in Tucson, we think that is okay;)

Of course, I have to make sure the lightning is just far enough off before actually walking around the property to snap shots.  Too many people get struck in the desert and die.  Some of you may even smile at the idea and I understand. I think everyone laughs at the idea until someone is hit and then it goes into, "That sucks!"  But it happens.  And yes, a golfer last year lifted his pole into the air and bit the dust when a random bolt hit him out of nowhere.  And so the saying goes, "At least he died loving what he was doing."  I'm not so sure his family would agree with that statement today.

In several of the pics, you'll see lightning flash inside of what we term "storm cells".  These "cells" can grow or shrink in isolated pockets. And sometimes they can join together and create one massive cell.  That is explosive and dangerous at times.  The ones everyone tries to avoid are the "microbursts".  That is just a free fall of all the rain down on one spot.  It can cause a roof to cave in or pull trees out of the ground.  Dangerous stuff.

These storms cannot really be predicted as they just happen when they happen.  Individual cells can and do move as they will throughout the night sky.  But on this particular night, the storms were "training" over Tucson.  This means that it would continue to rain over the same areas and storms would continue to rain without sunshine for a power up.

As a special post, a first for Las Aventuras on lightning, I put together a video showing off nature's fireworks here from midtown Tucson. It was picked up by an internet weather station to be shown at a later date.  You'll be able to see it now:) Until next tomorrow....