July 11, 2021
This bird had been reported off-and-on for while. So I trekked up to The El Rio Open Space Preserve near Marana this morning. It was pretty warm by 8am, so I camped out in the shade of a salt cedar. An early Western Tanager appeared, and then in the same spot, the bunting.
Yesterday morning the weather authorities predicted ~.35″ of rain to begin about 6pm. As the day wore on the predictions of rain varied wildly, until at 6pm the rain predicted had dropped to 0. So a few minutes later I noticed a looming red dust cloud on the horizon to the east and heard loud roaring. When it arrived the wind that propelled the dust was quite strong ~40mph? – in a few minutes the rain began to pour along with spectacular lightening – we got another 0.80″. I tried to capture some lightening pics, but my camera would not cooperate. I’ll be more prepared by Tuesday/Wednesday when a series of thunder storms is scheduled to drop 1.10″.
