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 It can feel like fire. It can be over 100
degrees by 9 a.m. Bob Miller wrote on CalOdes (18 July 2003) that it
"was only 105 but the humidity was killer and I'll bet the heat index
was WAY up there!!" Doug Aguillard (23 July 2003) called it "Back to
Hell."
This is mid-summer in the Imperial Valley.
It affected Paul Johnson, too. He was along an Imperial
Valley canal during the "hottest part of the day" on 23 July 2006, and
"began to hear laughing." He found that it was a White-belted
Ringtail (left or above) that was doing the laughing, and "it
was directed at me." Paul then heard the ringtail talk to him,
beginning with the words "Foolish human . . .". As I said, it can get
hot out here.
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The actual spot where Paul had his
experience with the mirthful ode was the Westside Main Canal,
at Hwy 98, west of Calexico (right). My visit was on 3 August 2007. It
was hot. Very hot. 105 degrees or more hot. And the humidity! That was
the worst of it. Even at 8:30 in the morning I was sweating with every
step. The sweat mixed with sunscreen and ran into my eyes. It was hard
enough to be uncomfortably hot — but now I could hardly see. Within a
half-hour I had to retreat to the car to get a towel to wipe away the
burning.
I suspect that the ringtails were
laughing again.
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| The lesson that the ringtail taught Paul was that
odes were sheltering on the shady sides of arrowweeds during the
hottest part of the day. You can see the line of arrowweeds along the
left side of the canal (above). They don't look that promising. But
even early in the day, if one brushed them lightly, many Powdered
Dancer (below) could be found. |
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| I was engaged it this technique, finding zillions
of the dancers and little else, when I started to notice darners and
skimmers and gomphids in rapid flight out over the canal itself. They
were hard to follow or identify, but that is what they were doing in
the morning. It was not yet "the hottest part of the day." Suddenly, a
blur of yellow shot past me from the canal, heading to low mesquite. I
had a good idea what they could be, and with luck, I found the perched
tandem of Brimstone Clubtail (below). Fire and
Brimstone! It was why I was there. |
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 To tell the truth, it eventually just got too
hot to tickle arrowweeds anymore. I just had to get out of the sun. One
clubtail down . . . the other still missing. There had been reports of
it up at the Eastside Highline Canal, at the east end of Sinclair Road,
near Niland. This was an hour's drive away but it was an hour in the
air-conditioned car! So I drove. Stopped by the headquarters of the
Sonny Bono Salton Sea NWR enroute. There, even the Red
Saddlebags (right) was hanging in the shade.
By noon I was at the Eastside Highline Canal. This is
the spot Rita & I had watched ovipositing Blue-ringed
Dancers (below) the previous fall. Today, even they were
missing. Only a nice male Roseate Skimmer was found
roosting in the salt cedars (second below).
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| It was now 1 p.m., the hottest part of the day.
It seemed best to drive an hour again to the Westside Main Canal, if
only to enjoy another hour of air-conditioning. By 2 p.m. I was back at
Paul's arrowweeds again. I remembered what the ringtail had told him. I
walked along the canal, brushing the weeds lightly, and within five
minutes . . . found the much-wanted Russet-tipped Clubtail
(below). It flushed from one plant to another, hanging again just a
foot off the ground and in the shade. Now I was the one to laugh. It
felt good. Now I could go home. |
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