A different kind of backyard bird. We live on a small urban lake in Glendale Arizona. I call it “Lake Effluent” because it’s part of the golf course water system.
Every night at dusk small bats begin to swoop up skybugs just over our heads. The bats are smallish, maybe 5 inches in body length or less, flying lazy arcing zig zags low in the sky. Sometimes they skim the water.
Last night I was out trying to snap flash pics of them to post here. Nothing good to show yet but I’ll keep trying.
So we’ve wondered where the little scamps roost during the daylight hours. No caves nearby that we’re aware of. Do they live in attics like back home in Detroit? Not too many attics around our neighborhood. Turns out that many bats live in palm trees, and are disrupted or even killed during trimming.
They also live in other trees, we’ve got quite large neighboring mexican fan palms, Sissoo, and Ficus. I suspect the Ficus and the Sissoos as the homes of these bats because the palms are trimmed regularly (and they seem to almost fly out of the semi deciduous trees).
Southern Yellow Bats? Not sure but I’m thinking most likely.
Whatever, these little bundles of flying fur are amazing.

I cannot believe that I’ve been living without music for so long..
Being the 50 yr old fart that I am, I had strayed away from being plugged into music constantly in one way or another. Used to play guitar - for years. Used to keep tabs on who was doing what. Used to browse the racks hoping to discover something new and wonderful.

And then a number of years ago I stopped. Maybe 8 or so? Silence became so refreshing. Music all seemed to suck. I bought maybe 3 CDs per year, a concert DVD once in a while, and was content to periodically search the internet for musical nuggets remembered. Picked up a guitar maybe once a quarter. I even quit listening to music in my car except for longer road trips, preferring the grumble rumble pop of my MINI’s Magnaflow exhaust system.

Last night after having dinner out - I bought an iPod.
I’d been resistant. Didn’t imagine myself using one much.
But… been traveling a lot, might be nice on the plane (could use the headphones for the in-flight movie?), and it does tickle the primal subconsious craving for gadgets that real men get. And then my sweetie enabled me by saying “I can’t believe you don’t have one of those yet”.

So I grabbed a 20 gb iPod (a compromise of silly reasoning, for a hundred more I could triple the space).
The thing was charged right out of the box. Loaded the software (iTunes), plugged it in and within what seemed like an incredibly short time all of my mp3s were on the iPod with a handful of CDs.
I can’t believe it.
It’s too cool.
Valerie wanted to kick me out of bed because I couldn’t stop listening and she could hear it a bit - so I wandered around the dark house dancing like those iPod commercials where all you can see is the headphone wires.

After she fell asleep I laid in bed and the iPod played the following at random.

John Lee Hooker - Boogie Man - entire album never sounded so good
Mott the hoople - One of the Boys
The Count Five - Psychotic Reaction
Jeff Beck - Becks Boogie
The Rockets - Taking it Back
Jeff Beck - Beck’s Bolero
Enya - Orinoco Flow
Delbert McClinton -Day Drinkin
John Hiatt - Until his Penis Came Between Us

Now I would never have thought to select those songs in that order… never.
It was fantastic. You might look at that list and think I’m smoking crack, but the point is that having so much of ones own music available to shuffle is wonderful.

Now to load a boatload of those old CDs. Mondays flight should be great! I’m totally sold. myPod has become a must-have.
The music is back!

It’s July.
It’s summer.
It’s Phoenix.

The cicadas are out, signaling that the monsoon rains aren’t more than 30 days off.

Thunderbird park isn’t the botanical garden it was a few short months ago.
Spring:

Summer:

Spring:

Summer:

Notice the black ground? A largish chunk of park burned a few days ago, likely courtesy of a butt tosser. It’s mostly a flash through the fine grasses and dried wildflowers/shrubs. Wonder what the ground squirrels thought of the situation… I did see a few cotton tails, some big rock squirrels, and a ton of lizards today.
Anyhoo, winds were calm when the fire happened, as evidenced by the curious pattern of areas that weren’t touched.

This sign suddenly becomes seriously accurate:

And now the trash is easier to find and pick up…

We may see more fires when the monsoon lightning hits. I’ll be in Minneapolis for the next month or so but hope to catch some good weather photos when I’m home on the weekends. Guess I should take the camera on my travels too eh

Help - I’m falling through bubbles….
After a while it oddly becomes like swimming.