On our tour of Biosphere 2 on Wednesday I noticed an Anna's Hummingbird in the Desert Biome. I wondered how it got there…was it brought in or did it find it’s own way in? I didn’t get an opportunity to ask anyone while we were there so, I went to the website and looked for a contact person. The staff was listed along with email addresses, so I went right to the director, who also happened to be the main narrator of the self-guided tour. Emailed him my question and this morning I received a reply saying that the hummingbird had found its way in. I followed that up with two more questions: How long has it been in there? and Has anyone tried to ‘net’ it so to remove it? He replied to that email saying it has been in for about 2 years and no, they have not tried netting it, but had left several windows and doors open in the hopes that if it wanted to leave, it would/can.
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It was a slow easy start to the day with neither
of us inclined to hit Picacho Hwy for a walk but that didn’t mean we wanted to
sit in the camper on a warm sunny day either. Hung around camp until about
11:30 which is when we came up with a plan: check out Agua Caliente Park in Tucson. I
searched for birding places in Tucson and Agua Caliente came up as one of the
results that we hadn’t been to yet. Rapunzel showed that it was just over an
hour away…nice day for a drive and a leisurely nature walk. Let’s go!
Other than it being recommended as a good
spot to walk and see birds, we knew nothing about it. Here are snippets of information
gleaned on the website friendsofaguacaliente.org:
A natural hot spring flows through faults
between gneissic rock conglomerate sediment beneath the park, the area has
probably been inhabited for thousands of years. There were originally two
springs, a “Hot Spring” and a “Cold Spring”. The two springs produced a
water flow of more than 500 gallons per minute (gpm). In the 1930s, the
springs were blasted in an effort to increase the water flow. This had
the opposite effect and reduced the water flow from 500 gpm to between 150 and
300 gpm and collapsing the two into one spring with a temperature of around
72 degrees year around. The spring was blasted again in the early 1960’s
in another attempt to increase water flow, which unfortunately cut the water
flow again down to around 100 to 125 gpm.
Throughout the years, the area has had many
different purposes, from ranching to a health spa. Most of the time the
“ranch” term did not follow our traditional idea of a ranch but denoted an agricultural
use in general. Pima County purchased the property in 1984 and Agua
Caliente was opened to the public January 1985.
Archeological
finds suggest that the property was used by hunters and gathers over 5500 years
ago and that a Hohokam village was in existence from about 1150 to 1250 AD.
This is what we learned by going there:
*Agua
Caliente is Spanish for ‘hot water’, a reference to the natural spring located
on the park grounds whose water is usually in the temperature range of 86 to 89 degrees F.
*It is
known as “an oasis in the desert”.
*Starting
in the 1870s, it was owned by a succession of men who had grand ideas of how to
capitalize on the springs and who built and improved the housing over the years
until finally it was bought by Pima County for conservation purposes.
*One
former owner added an orchard of over 3000 trees, some of which still stand
today although the trees have certainly seen better days.
*There were seven ponds on the property all fed by the spring, now there are three and a pump is currently pumping in groundwater to make sure those three ponds don’t dry up.
*In September 2022, there was fire caused by lightning that impacted 225 palm trees near the spring. Forty palm trees were removed due to safety concerns or because they were too charred to rehabilitate. The other 185 trees are being monitored and may have to be removed if they don’t improve.
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And just because we had to go through Marana
to get back to camp, we detoured to the area where the burrowing owls are just
to see if we could catch a glimpse of them.
There were two outside their burrows…snapped a quick picture and then
moved along to investigate the nearby Pinal County Airpark.
Since Marana has an active airport in another
location, the airpark was a mystery. It’s visible from I-10 and though we’ve
never seen a plane take off from that location, there are certainly a lot of
them parked there. Maybe it’s like that airpark on the other side of Tucson…maybe
it’s a place where planes go to die.
Checked it out on Google when we got back to camp. This is some of what
Wikipedia has to say about its history and current use:
History…Built in 1942 by the Sundt
and Del Webb Construction Companies and opened in March 1943,
the facility was known as Marana Army Air Field. During World
War II, the airfield was under the
command of the 389th Army Air Force Base Unit, AAF West Coast Training Center
and used as a training base, as part of the 50,000 Pilot Training Program.
Marana was closed after World War II and in 1948, after the
establishment of the U.S. Air Force as an independent service, Pinal County accepted
a deed to the property, subsequent to the Air Force's disposal of most of the
buildings, waterlines, gas lines, and electrical lines. From 1948 to 1951,
Pinal County leased the property to multiple tenants, and from 1951 to 1956,
Marana was reused as a contractor-operated USAF basic flying school, operated
by Darr Aeronautical Technical Company.
Current use…Pinal County Airpark is
a non-towered, county-owned, public-use airport. Silverbell Army Heliport is co-located
with Pinal Airpark. The heliport is a private-use military facility operated by
the Arizona Army National Guard.
Pinal Airpark's primary function is to serve as a boneyard for
civilian commercial aircraft, where the area's dry desert climate mitigates corrosion of
the aircraft. It is the largest commercial aircraft storage and heavy
maintenance facility in the world. Even so, many aircraft which are brought
here wind up being scrapped.
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40 Days of Lent opportunity: Listen to the sermon Letting Go: Jealousy. We listened to it on the way to Agua Caliente
Park and briefly discussed the topic afterward. I would wager that no one wants
to admit to jealousy or envy, but we all feel it from time to time.
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