It’s that time of year when you can’t step outside without something getting fussy. Even so harmless an act as hanging up the laundry gets the Gila Woodpeckers yelping, the Cactus Wrens grating, even the normally demure Verdins chipping. This morning the mob was  reinforced by a scolding, buzzing Black-tailed Gnatcatcher, a bird I hadn’t seen in the yard for months.

Monsoon season truly is the desert’s second spring, and the more welcome of the two, following as it does on these past few weeks of blistering heat. Traditionally, the season has been marked meteorologically, its start defined as the third consecutive day with dewpoints above 55 degrees Fahrenheit; but this year, for reasons unfathomable, the monsoon begins “officially” today, June 15.

We’ve all been joking that it had better rain this afternoon, since it’s on the calendar now, and lo and behold, the humidity is way up to 11% and there are clouds just visible across the border with Mexico, so maybe it will happen. Or maybe not. But we’ll all of us, birds and people, be grateful when the heavy rains and the cool evenings come, next week or next month, to break this summer we’ve been living through.