Life in the desert is a waiting game: waiting for rain. And in a year of drought, the stakes are especially high.
John Alcock knows the Sonoran Desert better than just about anyone
else, and in this book he tracks the changes he observes in plant and
animal life over the course of a drought year. Combining scientific
knowledge with years of exploring the desert, he describes the variety
of ways in which the wait for rain takes place—and what happens
when it finally comes..
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The
desert is a land of five seasons, featuring two summers—hot, dry
months followed by monsoon—and Alcock looks at the changes that
take place in an entire desert community over the course of all five.
He describes what he finds on hikes in the Usery Mountains near
Phoenix, where he has studied desert life over three decades and where
frequent visits have enabled him to notice effects of seasonal
variation that might escape a casual glance. |
Blending
a personal perspective with field observation, Alcock shows how desert
ecology depends entirely on rainfall. He touches on a wide range of
topics concerning the desert’s natural history, noting the
response of saguaro flowers to heat and the habits of predators,
whether soaring red-tailed hawk or tiny horned lizard. He also
describes unusual aspects of insects that few desert hikers will have
noticed, such as the disruptive color pattern of certain grasshoppers
that is more effective than most camouflage.
When the Rains Come
is brimming with new insights into the desert, from the mating
behaviors of insects to urban sprawl, and features photographs that
document changes in the landscape as drought years come and go. It
brings us the desert in the harshest of times—and shows that it
is still teeming with life..
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When the Rains Come
A Naturalist's Year in the Sonoran Desert
by John Alcock
University of Arizona Press,
2009
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a copy
Reviewed in
The Nature Pages
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