Border Crossing

Yet again, I was able to get down to the desert yesterday and tromp around for an hour. Many of the cactuses are flowering right now and there are lots of small and colourful wild flowers. Its strange however when you are wandering through the wilderness and come upon this: a pair of pants, a shirt, underwear, a backpack, 2 shaving razors and some shampoo. I half expected to find bones next.

Apparently, over 25, 000 people from Mexico cross this border every month. The border patrol is constantly driving past the station, and often will drive slowly past researchers as they are working the forests, leaning out their car windows and squinting to see what colour we are. Makes me glad Im pale, I cant imagine being a legal immigrant and having to deal with border patrol asking for your passport all the time. You will often come accross old camps with clothing and whatnot in the wilderness. Apparently the people are packed so tightly into trucks that they cannot take anything with them, so often spare clothes and backpacks are left behind.

Of course dealing with border patrol can lead to some funny stories of misunderstandings as well. Harold, the hummingbird guy was telling me a story of an ornithology field trip he was co-directing that ran into trouble with border patrol. Many birders drive around in large white vans, packed tightly in with their gear etc and tour the landscape looking for birds. Apparently in an area near here, to their surprise they came across a large wetland as they were driving towards the Mexican border. Unbeknownst to them, this wetland was only about 100m from a manned border crossing. Now finding a wetland in AZ means you will get to see an entirely new set of birds, pure joy for a birder!! The driver of the van in his excitement slams on the brakes and all 12 people get out of the van and start sprinting. What does border patrol think when 12 people get out of a van and start running hell bent for the fields? So in their cars they hop, lights flashing, guns in hand, and they start rounding up the ornithologists. The leader of the tour being the fastest runner, was so engrossed with getting out his scope and binoculars the fate of his students went unnoticed until another leader managed to explain that he had to go rescue everyone!! Of course, being a birder he was pretty stubborn about returning, who knows, he may see a Kingfisher! All turned out well however, and it makes for a good campfire story :)