This handsome fellow is not the same handsome fellow from a couple of posts ago. He was near a small water source, and I happened upon him as he was walking away. Above, I *think* his attention was caught by a small band of mustangs away south and lower. He ended up turning all the way around to look at them, then watched them intently for several minutes before returning to his path away to nibble and browse.
A couple of hours later, this. 🙂
Hot, hot, hot. The temp hit 100 degrees in Spring Creek Basin yesterday. It’s not unusual as a summertime temp … but it’s still awfully miserable. There was some relief in the form of sunshine-blocking clouds, but not a drop of moisture did they produce.
By the time the moon rose, it was actually pleasant (if you don’t mention the gnats), and some little bird was singing its little heart out with a full medley of melody. I don’t know what it was, but it was a lovely serenade! 🙂
In the basin the night before last, I realized I might be able to catch the moon rising from the space between McKenna Peak and Temple Butte if I could get myself into the right position in Spring Creek Basin.
I didn’t, but it was still cool (as it always is?!) to watch the almost-full “Buck Moon” rising in the very warm (the mercury hit at least 98F) July sky last night over the basin.
We interrupt your regularly scheduled mustangs for an important news update:
WE GOT RAIN!!!!!!!
When you don’t get rain for weeks and weeks, even a little rain is newsworthy. When Mother Nature unleashes a direct hit over Spring Creek Basin, well, that’s major news, that is!
This crazy sky (please tell me the name of those clouds if you know? mammatus or something similar? I read an article about them recently, but I can’t remember the name) was AFTER the rain. Upon entering Spring Creek Basin, I had seen some silver slivers in the distance that had me very excited … but first I saw this sky, and then I saw mustangs, so I had to stop (I ran out of time and patience to choose and process any mustang pix, but they’ll be coming; nothing super exciting as they weren’t super cooperative with that sky above them, chasing the rain-fresh grass!).
Then … THIS:
SPRING CREEK!!!!!
Can you tell that straight across (left side of the pic) is the road? At far right is the curve just after the water passes through the old breached dam (I did a post about it a little while ago). The water is flowing from right to left – and it was loud and muddy and glorious. 🙂 You can see how high it was when it first ran; already it was feet lower by the time I got out there.
Many (most? all?) of the rocks in the foreground are from previous floods. That, my friends, is the power of water in the desert.
Then I rolled around back downstream to just upstream of Spring Creek canyon, through which Spring Creek runs on its way out of Spring Creek Basin. All of the basin’s arroyos feed into the big arroyo that is Spring Creek. This is looking eastish toward that iconic horizon. The canyon is right behind me:
The water flows from right to left, around the curve on downstream, through the short stretch of zigzagging canyon and on across Disappointment Valley to join Disappointment Creek, which ALSO was flowing with rainwater (the flow of the creek ended around solstice weekend), and eventually to the Dolores River way out there where the sky is particularly (and still) dark with rain.
Mammatus (also called mamma [1] or mammatocumulus, meaning “mammary cloud”) is a cellular pattern of pouches hanging underneath the base of a cloud.
People also ask
What does it mean when you see mammatus clouds?
AI Overview
Mammatus clouds, with their distinctive pouch-like or udder-like appearance, often signal the presence of severe weather, particularly thunderstorms, though they can also appear after the storm has passed. While they don’t directly cause storms, they are a visual indicator of unstable atmospheric conditions and can be associated with heavy rain, hail, lightning, or even snow in winter.
Here’s a more detailed explanation:
Formation: Mammatus clouds form when sinking air creates pouch-like structures hanging from the base of other clouds, most commonly the anvil of a cumulonimbus cloud (thunderstorm cloud).Â
Significance:
They are often seen before, during, or after a thunderstorm, indicating the turbulent and unstable air within the storm system.
Severity:
While not a direct sign of severe weather, their presence suggests the possibility of other dangerous weather conditions like lightning, hail, or strong winds.
Pilot Caution:
Pilots are often advised to avoid cumulonimbus clouds with mammatus formations due to the potential for turbulence.
Not Always Dangerous:
It’s important to note that mammatus clouds don’t always guarantee severe weather. They can also appear after a storm has weakened or dissipated.
Visual Cue:
Despite their potential association with storms, mammatus clouds are known for their striking appearance and are often photographed by weather enthusiasts and meteorologists. –> including this photographer! 🙂
Think shooting rainbows is all, well, rainbows and unicorns?
Those “unicorns” have minds of their own that don’t often consider “posing” for two-leggeds to be part of any kind of their wild plan whatsoever.
I’m still on the hunt for what I consider a *perfect* (OK, even somewhat close) mustangs-under-the-rainbow shot. 🙂
Tenaz helped a bunch. Thanks, buddy. 🙂
Oh, and although it was NOT raining over Spring Creek Basin whatsoever anywhere (it was either virga or far up-valley beyond the basin’s boundaries) when we had the rainbow (as usual, which, I know, seems odd and unusual, except here (!?!), where it’s completely and totally normal), the rain came with sunset. 😉
A closer look at Mr. Flash (yes, it’s him; I promise!), looking at my buggy recently. He spent most of the visit napping (that’s Gaia grazing in the background; the other mares mostly were napping, too), but when he woke up and noticed the buggy, all of a sudden, he realized he should be on defense. It’s a hard, exhausting job for a young stallion to keep track of all those mares, who are (only) fairly tolerant of having him tag along with them, thank you very much. 🙂
There are no mustangs in this post (crazy, I know, with a title like that), but mustangs were SEEN.
This, my friends and fans of wild things and wild places, is a burrowing owl. Possibly one of THE – I’m gonna say (type) it – *cutest* birds on the planet. You know how I adore kestrels. … I see them all the time. But burrowing owls?!?!?!?! This might be the third I’ve ever seen in Disappointment Valley.
Huge shout-out to friend Mary, who not only was driving but spotted this marvelous beauty along the road. She casually asked if I’d seen the owl – she thought it was an owl? – and obliged my horizon-gazing self by backing up to where – sure enough – this burrowing owl was standing on a burrow (possibly/likely previously the home of a prairie dog family) right alongside the road. The owl him/herself (?) obliged us by being its beautiful, gorgeous, adorable self so we could take a minute or two’s worth of photos before driving on to not disturb its … burrow guarding? We never saw another bird, and this one seemed pretty comfortable.
Who needs opposable thumbs when one has feet/talons perfectly capable of gripping dinner? (I think this might be a carpenterworm? Though it’s much earlier than I’ve ever seen them. Eat all you want, friend owl!)
Like … WOWOWOWOWOWOWOW! 🙂
And as if that weren’t enough, this was the end-of-day, sunset-lit, alien-mothership/stormcell cloud (one or the other … right?!) visible over upper Disappointment Valley just beyond (?) Spring Creek Basin:
Because … our planet Earth really is that gorgeous. 🙂
Notes: Owl pix taken with a 600mm lens from inside a vehicle. Crazy storm-cloud pic (and yes, the rest of the sky was basically blue and nearly clear) taken with my phone because a long-mustang-owl lens just could not capture the entirety of the above scene. Very last light of day. I sized the image and gave it a touch of sharpening, but otherwise, that is straight out of the camera, err, phone.
It really was a WOW kinda day. 🙂 “*Grateful*” doesn’t even begin to describe how I feel about this glorious little part of our great, wide, wild, wonderful world.
Just between Sunday and Tuesday, the number of plants I saw probably doubled (which isn’t saying much as I didn’t see many on Sunday). But they’re definitely budding and blooming and raising their blossoms (I don’t really know the nomenclature for blooming or blossoming plants?), and the bees (and ants) are taking notice.
Proudest moment about the above pic? I think I actually have a catchlight in the bee’s eye. 🙂
The bee, by the way, was huge, probably at least the size of my middle finger’s middle knuckle.
Tenaz may look surprised by the sudden snow blanketing his previously very brown world … but really, he was looking down the ridge at another stallion.
We got about an inch and a half of the good, white wet stuff before it all soaked into the ground, leaving it as brown as before … but nicely more damp. 🙂
Spring Creek Basin Mustangs 