Monsoon in Raptorville with owl and hawks

When it's monsoon season in raptorville, and the temperature is below 100, I go for an evening walk. First, a visit with the young great horned owl who watched my every move

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until potential dinner flew close by and turned the owl's head

As the sky began to darken, nighthawks flew above me, in numbers I've never seen before, all heading in the same direction, like the bats that fly out from under the bridge each night. There were bats flying also, but they fluttered like errant bits of confetti.

A Cooper's hawk arrived. I focused on it, but from behind me I heard a man's voice calling in a loud whisper, "Miss, oh, Miss, look here." He was pointing to a second hawk in a different tree. 

He introduced me to his dog, Gracie, her back end wagging while her front end was poised to escape. The man directed me not to make eye contact with her if I wanted her to approach me. "She's my rescue. I don't know what happened to her before I got her, but it wasn't good."

I was hoping to see Coyote, as I often do 

Coyote drawing Beth Surdut www.bethsurdut.com

but instead, I hooked up with  Maxfield Parrish, who'd come to  paint the sky.

 I walked home, watching the rain walk over the mountains.

Art of Paying Attention workshop June 4 with Nature's Notebook and Citizen Science in Tucson

Bet Surdut, Visual Storyteller in the Bisti badlands.

"Raven, Coyote and I walk here often, discussing who really created the Milky Way.

 Come. Breathe in the desert that sits in your mouth in the middle of the night, begging for water. Listen to that moment when the compass stays in your pocket and you are, like all else, a mote of dust sparkling in the sun." Beth Surdut, Visual Storyteller

Bisti sentinel by Beth Surdut

The desert has so many micro-climates. The one pictured above is the Bisti badlands in the Dinetah, Navajo land in the Four Corners area of New Mexico.
Join me, along with Phenology Education Director LoriAnne Barnett, for an introduction to Nature's Notebook, a citizen science project developed by the National  Phenology Network based at the University of  Arizona in Tucson.

Our classroom will be Agua Caliente Park, an oasis in the Sonoran desert.

Agua Caliente Park, Tucson photo by Beth  Surdut

 Learn about plant and animal life cycles and how they relate to changing environmental conditions.

Cooters and reflections at Agua Caliente Park photo by Beth Surdut

 We will provide an introduction to making observations in nature and demonstrate how to use Nature's Notebook for making and recording your observations.

Paying attention. Male mallard at Agua Caliente Park

 Learn how your data collection helps scientists answer local and national questions about species response to climate change.

Please pre-register here.

Beth Surdut, Visual Storyteller in Solitude Canyon, NM