After the fall

January 23, 2024 to January 24, 2024

Neither of us slept particularly well last night - me primarily because my chest seems to hurt worse when I’m lying flat and because it’s painful when I cough, which I do with some regularity throughout the night; and Rachael because she’s lying next to me and I disturb her sleep. In the middle of the night I finally give up, get up, and go sleep on the couch for the rest of the night. This works better for both of us, and I’m surprised when morning comes to find that I’ve been asleep for four hours straight. Sleeping by partly sitting up is better for both of my issues apparently.

Today was expected to be another rainout, and we’d thought we might fill some of the time by taking in another film, American Fiction. Once again though, conditions look better this morning and we’ve got what looks like about four or five hours of reasonable conditions to work with. Rachael fills the slot with a seven or eight mile ramble through the university and nearby neighborhoods, and I decide to test myself out on a short ride over to Reid Park and back. It’s a flat ten miles out and back, with the plan that at Reid I’ll make a circuit through the park with an eye out for a few recent sightings that I haven’t bagged yet this year: there are apparently a summer tanager, a Cassin’s kingbird, a greater pewee, and a night heron hanging out here somewhere, so maybe I’ll have some luck as solace for what ails me.

I ride pretty cautiously at first as I bike down busy University Boulevard and it’s complicated few blocks before campus where my narrow lane is squeezed on the left by passing cars, the streetcar and its tracks; and on the right by diagonally parked cars jutting out into the street. I’m really not sure how fit I am to be biking, especially because I’m stiff enough that it’s not quite comfortable getting on and off the bike. It’s a good thing I’m doing nothing more challenging than this today.

It rained a ton last night and into this morning, really pouring and leading to significant flooding in the roads here and there. Some of it is still draining out of the system this morning, and there’s enough rushing down Arroyo Seco that I have to leave the Treat Street route for a different crossing with an overpass (or flyover, as Andrea calls it - a new word for me in this context).

Arroyo Seco doesn’t look like a dry wash today, does it?

It’s a little sloppy at Reid Park, with soggy spots throughout the park. I make the rounds, checking out its two ponds and then slow-rolling through some of the rest of it, but don’t see anything new. I do enjoy being out though, and I like seeing a half-dozen turtles blanketing the small islet that was covered with cormorants the last time I was here.

A lesser scaup, because we should have at least one photo of a bird on what was meant to be a birding day.

I’m sitting on a picnic table just enjoying being outside when I look at the sky to the west and suddenly wonder if I’ve overstayed my break in the weather. It’s time to head home, and I keep a more disciplined pace this time as I watch the gloomy formation above the Tucson Mountains grow darker, nearer, and more menacing. I’m not really focused on anything else other than getting home dry, and it’s a relief when I come to our neighborhood and turn up our street.

The view west through the campus is ominous. I wonder how much time I’ve got until the rains arrive?

So I make it in dry, but the ride isn’t quite done yet. I’m at the corner just before our house and pulling my feet out of the pedals when a small hawk glides low across the street right in front of me and alights on top of the wooden fence less than a hundred feet from our house. A sharp-shinned hawk, I immediately think - a somewhat smaller version of a Cooper’s hawk, and one I’ve never gotten a good shot at before. I’m pretty sure that it was a sharp-shinned hawk that I saw last week returning from the San Xavier Mission, but I got no shot at all that time and wasn’t even sure of what I’d seen.

I veer over to the opposite edge of the street to give the bird more space, and then quickly stop and pull out the camera. As soon as it’s opened up I take a shot in his direction, just hoping he’s in the frame. This is something I’ve started doing with elusive birds, hoping I’ll come away with something identifiable before it disappears.

Pretty small hawk. Not much larger than a kestrel, really. And if you zoom in, there’s enough detail that I’d be comfortable with the identification. And so close to home! Our house is maybe forty feet off the frame to the left.

But he doesn’t fly off. By some miracle he just sits there - long enough for me to get seven or eight good shots of him, long enough for another couple walking down the street to stop and admire him with me.

And then he flies off, quickly disappearing; and I rush inside, excited to tell Rachael what I’ve just seen, happy to arrive dry, happy to see that she has too, happy that my camera didn’t die in the desert yesterday.

Today's ride: 10 miles (16 km)
Total: 1,343 miles (2,161 km)

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Steve Miller/GrampiesDodie here. Yes, sleeping flat with bruised ribs is not ideal. Last year in Portugal I propped my upper body on pillows and found it easier to breathe that way. It allows the lungs to more fully expand and helps prevent congestion which can lead to increased coughing. Really nice sharp shinned hawk, by the way.
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