Outside AZ: Thunderbird Park: A Post-Rain Buzz

This morning I hit the trail to see if there was a noticeable difference since yesterday’s .08” of rain. I was ten minutes earlier arriving to the trail than Wednesday, it was a cool 71° and the sun was in full shine. I noticed right away there were more small sparrow-like birds singing a tune, hummingbirds flitting around, bees a buzzin’ and humans wandering by. There was a definite uptick in visitors. I took the same path, in the same amount of time but saw 85 people, 5 dogs, and 2 babies compared to 50 people two days ago. Is this because Fridays are generally more crowded than mid-week? Or because it was nearly ten degrees cooler than two days prior? Or because it rained yesterday? Or because all 85 people read my blog and wanted to see me? I think the first two are the more likely choices.

With all the extra flight activity I was wondering if there would be a greener groundcover, and there really wasn’t. The biggest change was the saguaros. Wednesday I was fascinated by looking at rocks and was looking for reptile activity but today the reptiles were replaced with the many flying, flitting, buzzing creatures – at least for the first hour of my hike. The reason I think is the saguaros. I bet they opened wide last night. And by mid-morning today many were still open, attracting those straggler bees while many more buds hinted they may open soon.