“Follow the … ” mustangs! (No, not spiders; that’s Harry Potter, and we weren’t looking for a basilisk.)
Most of the coolest things I’ve found in Spring Creek Basin are a result of following the mustangs. They know all the best places.
Am I right, or am I right?! The last time I’d been to this pond was much earlier in the summer, and it was dry.
Isn’t it a divine sight, all that lovely, rippling water?
Water is gold in the West. To know that we’ve gotten enough rain now this year to fill this pond fills ME with immense joy and relief and gratitude.
The horses drank their fill and moseyed farther on to chase the green. … And speaking of green …
To my surprise (the horses weren’t phased), this mallard drake landed on the water right in front of us!
No matter how many times I see ducks on our desert ponds, I think I will never cease being surprised! And grateful that they find an oasis in the otherwise dry landscape.
The sun was fairly low on the western horizon, and fortunately, he was still lit by sunlight despite the berm/bank of the pond and a distant hill between us and that horizon. Depending on how he turned, his head feathers flashed iridescent green or nearly black. No hen landed with him, and I didn’t see one circling.
Unfortunately, the sun was sinking as fast as it does, and I had a fair walk back to the road, and when I stood up, the drake lifted off from the water into the sky.
I hope he returned to that place of safety … maybe with a hen.
As I type the draft of this post, it’s raining, which means more fresh water for the ponds, the catchments, the vegetation, even recharging the seeps …
… like this one. That’s bedrock, a layer of shale (?) in the foreground (see my toe), and you can see the layer of it around the left side in the lower wall of the arroyo. Underground water hits these rock layers and comes to the surface, and the horses make good use of that water (note the hoofprints; a band had been drinking there as I walked up to the pond). There’s at least a 2-foot drop between the rock I’m standing on and the water in the bed of the arroyo as it continues, where it runs down a slight slope, as it might (hopefully) do with this rain!
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