As I write these words, rain falls in a
steady drizzle, across the expansive and flat landscape of the Chihuahuan desert. I'm glad to be inside this old stone house, with
a cup of hot tea, listening to the persistent tapping and gushing.
The desert needs rain. We have not had enough of it in recent years.
Cacti and ocotillo and agave have extraordinary abilities to sustain
themselves on low water, but even they will eventually meet their
limits. And the drought is the most likely explanation why our
numbers of bats have been lower than previously years. Carlsbad
Caverns is famous for the Brazilian free-tailed bats that rise from
the cave in a giant thunderhead, composed of hundreds of thousands of
individuals. Bat flights this year have featured only a thin, steady
stream of the flying mammals. The bats feast upon flying insects,
mostly moths and beetles. In a drought-stricken landscape, there are
fewer insects, which prompts bats to go elsewhere.
Even with the drought, some rugged
insects persist. I am familiar with this desert's diversity of ants,
as both the large and red and the tiny and black varieties scamper
through my dwelling, and leave no tiny crumb of foodstuff or minute leg of cricket uneaten. And there are the cicadas whose song fills the
air on the mid-morning hike to Slaughter Canyon cave. The desert is a fearsome,
eat-or-be-eaten world, and so many invertebrates are armed, with
stingers, fangs, or chemical defenses. On my night walks, I have
encountered tarantulas (see previous entry), scorpions, centipedes,
and millipedes. By night and by day, wasps and tarantula hawks buzz
past.
It will take more than today's rainfall
for the desert to recover from drought, but it is a beginning. We
must bring a stop to anthropogenic climate change, for it is the
cause of much of our recent spate of planetary extreme weather. In
the meantime, as a tribute to the insects, I am sharing a few drawings (above and below.)
These hornets were inspired by a nest which a friend and I found on a hike
in the forests of Oregon. But they are equally fitting to the
desert, and its panoply of insects who bite and sting for defense.
