Breezy and cool this morning, making it sweatshirt weather. The forecast for today’s high has been changing over the last couple of days. Earlier in the week, 81o was the expected high for today…last night it was mid-70’s and today it’s not expected to get out of the 60’s. So, we adjusted to cool and breezy and went about our day.
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We
decided to go to Sweetwater Wetlands Park in Tucson today for two reasons: 1. We
could get a walk in and 2. We could look for birds. Got there and I couldn’t find my camera. Man, I knew I had it in my hands at one point…must’ve
left it back in the camper. Both Kim and
I looked that truck over good but how can a camera that’s the size of a small roll of
toilet paper hide?
I was a puddle of anxiety over using my phone to take pictures, and Kim
offered to go back for my camera and even suggested buying a cheap one
somewhere. I declined, thinking that driving 40 miles back to camp to get a
camera I forgot was the very embodiment of entitlement. But my inner child was
having a meltdown: “I want my camera, I don’t want to use my phone. I
really want to go back for it, I really do…but come on, Karen, you can do this.
Make this about taking a walk with Kim, not about taking pictures of birds you’ve
seen before. Come on, take a deep
breath, you can do this.”
We’ve been to Sweetwater several times and started on our usual
route. Three people in front of us, two
with binoculars and one with a camera with a 10” lens, obviously something had caught their attention. I asked what they were
looking at, hoping it wasn't a dove. “A bittern”, was the answer
and they kindly pointed out where it was hiding in the reeds. I walked to what
I thought would be a better vantage point and took a picture. Kim was looking
through the binoculars and explaining my camera issue to the two ladies. When they reached me, I was looking at the dismal
picture I had taken and one of them asked how far it was to go back and get the
camera. “Forty miles.” She waved her hand and said, “Just do it.” Despite my earlier pep talk to myself, her encouragement
was all I needed to look at Kim apologetically and say, “I think I have to go
back to get it. Do you mind?” He was all
about it, so we headed back to the truck.
Get to camp….and we can’t find it.
What the hell? Searched everywhere twice and then went back to looking
in the truck. It has to be somewhere! We’d looked under every seat before but what
we hadn’t done was lift up the passenger side back seat. There it was, snuggled
back in the dark, beside my shoes. How it got there, neither of us knows, and while
the discovery calmed my anxiety, it also left me a bit chagrined at how the
past two hours had played out. Now,
let’s try this again.
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Continued on with our walk around the complex. The City of Tucson
website has this to say about the park: In 1996, the
Sweetwater Wetlands was constructed to refine the effluent received from Pima
County’s wastewater treatment facility and recharge it into the aquifer. In
2013, Pima County constructed Agua Nueva, a new treatment facility that could
deliver Class A water, making the wetlands obsolete. However, it is the rich
wildlife and the dedicated community that keeps Sweetwater Wetlands alive today. This reads like Sweetwater is no longer an active facility,
which would explain why the water level was low.
The reeds along the edge of the first pond showed
a lot of growth from last year, but as we walked toward the back, the reeds had
been trimmed or something because it was open. In years past, the reeds had
been thick and we could hear the waterfowl contained within but we could not
see them. Today, those reeds are mere
stubble and the birds were in full view.
Also noticed a lot of blackened trees, which
made me wonder if there’d been a fire since we’d been there last year. Googled ‘Fire in Sweetwater Wetlands’ and
found this in an article about the annual controlled burn carried out in the
fall after birds are done nesting: Along with firefighters and Tucson Water officials, wildlife managers
were on hand to deal with animals driven from the wetlands by fire. Before the
burn, biologists use drums and other noises to drive animals from the basins.
The burning of the basin removes dead vegetation that can protect aquatic mosquito larvae during their development, and the removal of the dead thatch makes the application of a low grade larvicide more effective.
The Sweetwater Wetlands burn has been conducted annually since 1999 and serves as an important part of Tucson Water’s Mosquito Abatement Program and is a critical open-area training exercise for regional wildlands firefighters, officials said. I find it interesting that this has been an annual thing for years and I’ve not noticed any evidence of it before. Too busy looking for birds and wiping sweat from my eyes, I guess.
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It was windier in Tucson than in Picacho. Sky
was very hazy in the distance when we were driving but I didn’t notice it when
we were walking around Sweetwater. Temperature in the high 60’s with a breeze
and a partly cloudy sky made an afternoon walkabout very enjoyable. No sweat in
my eyes today.
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After we left Sweetwater, Kim indulged me one more time today by driving an extra 4 miles to the La Estrella Bakery so I could buy some piggy cookies. 😋
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