Grounded!

When you open the hangar door to reveal a veritable and volatile pond beneath your aeroplane, well... it makes for the quickest pre-flight ever.   There goes 80 gallons of 100LL*. Can I just say, it's not always the Ducati that breaks down?

AvGas evaporates pretty quickly in these parts.

Day off! Let's go to Yuma! (??) There was a bit of sense to the plan. Pilot guy's friend is out there for an airshow, helping manage the smoke generators. You know, the letters in the sky? That smoke. Turns out, Pilot Guy helped design the system, based on GPS clocks, some years ago. Why not? And? There's a motocross demo to be seen!

As is the case with motorcycles, some days involving aeroplanes don't always go as planned.

The task of the day was more along the lines of siphoning 50 or 60 gallons out of the wings (who doesn't love the taste of AvGas first thing in the morning?), rather than any diagnostics. But on first glance it appears the left wing and the fuel selector valve are both leaking. Go big or go home!  (AvGas is blue, by the way.)

So we went out to eat, instead.

We've always been curious about the airport convenient, Flamingo bedazzled Sunny Daze Cafe. The  posole was pretty good!

This Sunny Daze flamingo didn't survive pre-flight, either, it seems.

And so, instead of presenting you with a photo of a motorcycle leaping through the air, here is a photo of a... horse. Because that's just kind of how the day went.**

Tucson Dressage Horse Show
Might as well, right?

*That's aviation fuel, to you and me. And about $500.
**We swung by Arizona Zipline Adventures, too, with the hopes of making today an even stranger collection of activities, but they were booked. It's a fun looking place! I'll be back. On a motorcycle.

Hope for 2017

They said it couldn't happen. Wouldn't happen. Until it did. One day, a tiny gray bird named Lucy unexpectedly made her nest in a decorative little bird house in one lucky Tucsonan's yard.  Despite her declining habitat, Lucy had, until then, steadfastly refused to rear her young in nest boxes. Lucy prefers the holes and crevices found in trees - mesquites, thank you very much - especially those of the dense stands found in riparian areas. Make no mistake: it's just these types of areas and trees that are in rapid decline.  Poor Lucy.  Consider her the next time you are tempted to buy mesquite charcoal.

Truth be told, I've become a little bit of a "crazy bird lady" recently.  I thought it was prompted by my having to cut down my old chinaberry tree/starling apartment complex this fall (both invasive, for what it's worth), but Pilot Guy reminded me of this strange day, and the haunting dream I had about both my mother and the yellow bird months later. No matter the reason, I've enjoyed watching, listening to - I'm a flutist, after all! - and photographing birds ever since.  (Here's a haphazard selection of some of my early attempts.)

So today, the Ducati and I - noses high in the air, inhaling the orange blossom and sweet acacia scented morning breezes - headed east, to volunteer for the Tucson Audubon Society's nest box project.  Our task? Install 100 nest box "replicates" to aid in determining just what sort of box, with what sort of height, and/or orientation, Miss Lucy might, if we're lucky, decide to patronize.

The boxes are almost as light and delicate as Miss Lucy herself. Until you try to push a wheelbarrow with 50 of them (and your lunch) through deep sand under an uncharacteristically hot March sun, that is.

Ducati No-Fly Zone (Yes, this is a river.  A desert river.)

Two teams installed, in random order, five different types of boxes in each of 20 sites, recording their GPS coordinates, height, arrangement, and orientation along the way.

Which one will Lucy prefer? I'll ride out for Audubon from time to time this spring, in an attempt to answer that very question.

The five "replicates," installed just in time. The migrating Lucy's Warblers are beginning to arrive in Tucson this very week.  (The first photo in this post is an extra credit box in the mesquite in my back yard. I'm hope, hope, hoping...)

The installation site is delightfully close to the base of Mount Lemmon, but my reward run up the mountain was slower than Sunday. The ascending traffic, a long snaking line of cars so slow it was nearly outpaced by the sweating, panting bicyclists, left me wondering if today was a holiday.  The smart rider stops for a sandwich constructed of Bosnian leftovers and enjoys the view.

Windy Point, Mount Lemmon

The return trip? I may have done a little - just a little - flying myself.

With our nation poised to leap backwards into an abyss of ecological apathy, if not downright assault, consider volunteering an hour, making a choice, planting a plant, or writing a check for a bird, bee, or tree near you.

April 24, 2017 Update!

I've checked the boxes twice, with no sign of activity, (I'm going back again tomorrow), and I don't know what other volunteers have seen (or not seen) at the other two sites, BUT...
I have a friend with a decorative bird house in her tree. Guess who moved in?

Photo courtesy of FastWinn Photography

April 17, 2019 Update!!

Guess who is in MY nestbox??

I spotted the pair making a nest about two weeks ago. Then I had to leave for 10 days, which nearly made me cry, for fear of missing the action.
Two years of testing demonstrated that Lucy prefers a larger triangular shaped box, with openings on both sides.

Update! April 15, 2019

I returned home this past Monday, and someone looks very busy sitting on eggs!
Next Audubon experiment: demonstrate whether or not LUWAs (that's fancy talk for Lucy's Warblers) prefer native mesquites, non-natives, or show no preference when foraging. I happen to have both in my yard. I have not once seen them in the non-native trees.



Update 4/21 Happy Easter!

Two chicks! (The other not seen in this short clip, but I'll resist the temptation to harass them repeatedly for the perfect video.)




Update 4/29 Happy Birthday to Me!
 

Final Count = Four!

Update May 5, 2019

I feel some empty nest syndrome coming on.

Thank you, dear Lucy, for coming into my life. I hope we see each other next year.

2020 and Look Who's Back!!!

7 April, 2020:  Little Lucy is at is again!   After a long hard day of nest building by the pair on March 24th, followed by many days of refining their work, Mrs. Lucy began laying an egg a day on April 4th. As of today, there are four eggs in the nest. 

Watch their progress in real time, as well as some interesting video clips, via an Audubon research camera here. 

29 April, 2020 A hungry quintet!

30 April, 2020  It's fledging day! (This is No. 3 taking the leap; watch for the reaction of No.s 4 and 5)

May, 2020 Surprise! 2020 Lucy Team Two in in the works! Miss Lucy is sitting on three eggs, and if they survived a recent attack by a neighbor's cat we can look forward to Hatch Day some time next week. (People! Keep your cats inside!)