Our first summer rains came at the refuge this week. The monsoons are a special time to call the desert home. For a short time each summer, the monotony of 110 degree days is broken up by the stormy swell of afternoon rains. From the valley we watch storm clouds build throughout the day, clouding out the distant horizon of peaks that rise above the interspersed canopy of mesquite. I wonder if the quail and coyotes learn to count the hours and the days by the timing of the rains. They occur mechanistically, arriving overhead each evening to grace the savannah with a humid shower as we call the day to an end and break for our trailers.

This year’s rains are especially exciting. With each passing summer these borderlands have dealt with less rain and longer, warmer summers. The Sonoran Desert bioregion depends on two seasonal rainfalls. The first occurs in the mid to late summer and cools the hot days. Drought deciduous plants like ocotillos put back on their coats of green, and don drooping pink caps that mimic the topknot of a Gambel’s quail. The second rains occur in winter, offering a bank of water which our desert plants use to make fast for spring. The winter rains this year were sparse and coupled with an early warm season.

The last few years have been some of the driest and warmest on record in southern Arizona. Our region is becoming more arid, our droughts more severe, and our groundwaters more depleted. While working with a restoration crew in the southern part of the refuge last week, a crewmember inquired as to what kind of rain we would need in order to see a healthy crop of native forbs and grasses arrive soon. I and the two other biologists on the crew chuckled, motivated more by frustration than comedy. We answered “biblical”.

One of our sister refuges, named San Bernadino in the southeastern part of the state has faced a new challenge alongside the increasing drought. Here, groundwater pumped during the construction of the border wall has left refugia for our region’s endangered fishes dry. These are thirsty lands, thirsty plants, and dying fish.

These summer rains are a fresh start for all of us on the refuge. For the ocotillo that put bring back their foliage and the Arizona toads that emerge to mate in ephemeral pools. The rains also bring a welcome cool few hours each day for those passing through these borderlands in search of their own new beginnings. I have happened upon more than few relict encampments of northbound travelers during my time here. With each I am reminded of the scars left on the landscape by the border wall, and the ache which it has caused not only for residents of this land, but so too for the mule deer, mountain lions, and people that use this area to traverse from one home to another, to brighter beginnings.

Agency: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

Program: Directorate Fellows Program

Location: Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge