Desert living: Adventures with goatbirds
I just found this is email from last summer that I want to preserve here…
August 22, 2006
Last night, we had one of those RARE AZ summer nights with our windows open because we had no a/c. Because the power went out, because we had a HUGE storm last night.
First the wind kicked up. MASSIVE winds. Blew a construction site portapotty down the street until it landed right in front of our driveway (glad it didn't hit a car!). So much dust we couldn't see houses across the street! Then the wind died down and we thought it was over. We stood at the back door admiring the towering, gigantic wall of dust as it moved off to the east. (This is a desert phenomenon. It's called a haboob.)
Little did we know it was not the end of the storm but the EYE of the storm. Suddenly: SLAM lightening, thunder, wind, rain, hail. Then the power went out. For six hours. Ugh. Also, the wind dented one of our garage doors so badly it has to be replaced. Insane. Turns out it was what they call a microburst and we had 70+ mph winds. Lots of damage in the neighborhood. Some roof tiles off another house, dozens of dented garage doors, a sizable wall made from concrete block got knocked over several lots east of us (no houses on those lots yet, so no windbreak to protect the wall.
We opened the windows to let some cool air in, but then we couldn't fall asleep with all these unaccustomed sounds: between the window shades making so many bumping noises from the breeze. And some road noise. And also the weirdest sound of all…
It sounded like a whole herd of goats got loose in the desert.
For awhile we lay there debating if there were indeed agitated goats meandering the desert. Or maybe it was birds? Andrew had asked earlier, WHAT is that NOISE? Quail? But quail usually nest at night. And it didn't sound like quail anyway.
Whatever it was, it was a cacophony. We tossed and turned. Scott finally said, ENOUGH, I'm shutting the windows. Between the shades and the goatbirds, I can't sleep. I'd rather be hot.
(Goatbirds!! Tee hee! That cracked me up.)
Now I still couldn't fall asleep wondering about these mythical, loud creatures behind our house. I started thinking about when I was growing up – we had no a/c – and the racket the tree toads would make at night. You wouldn't believe how loud those things are. They don't sound like goats or birds, though.
Scott said, well, anyway, I don't think we have tree toads or frogs here in Arizona.
I said, well, that's what you think! According to HM (our resident nature geek), however, tree frogs are the state amphibian (so there)!
I finally could bear it no more and today I googled: In fact, our goatbirds are not likely to be tree frogs, after all; tree frogs live in the woods at higher elevations in Arizona. We live in the low elevation Sonoran desert.
I did find this, though! The Sonoran green toad:
Toad and spadefoot activity is highly correlated with the monsoon season. Some species may be active as early as late spring while others will be out only after summer rains. If it is cool enough, desert amphibians may occasionally be active during the day. However, most species are primarily active at night when one often hears the strange calls of males from quite a distance. Some sound like bleating sheep, others chirp, snore, or wheeze; some make almost no sound at all.
Summer rains! Bleating sheep!
I win, I win!
August 29, 2006 postscript: Last night there was a "goatbird" in our driveway. Scott caught it for all the kids to hold and look at before releasing it into the desert.
April 28, 2007 postscript: We've not heard or seen any toads since, nor are we likely to ever again in this community. We knew it was coming – more development. We even saw the plat plan before we bought this house. Since late winter, the desert behind us has been scraped away and excavated for a new subdivision. Goodbye goatbirds, quail, roadrunners and nightly howling coyotes. We miss you already…
Mom to 4 kids and 2 stepkids, I am a writer writing in the heart of chaos. I am the co-founder and former editor of 
Aren't those dessert storms amazing? I remember working in a building downtown the summer after my first year of college (the last summer I spent in AZ) and although my office window faced east, iti faced the mirrored windows of what was then called the Valley National Bank building (it's something different now – but it's the 30+ story building right downtown).I'd watch storms rolling in off the dessert from the west by seeing their reflection in that building. Such descrete units of huge power. Once later, when I was visiting wtih my husband, we temporarily stranded near a flash flood after a downpour in Tempe with my grandmother. My mother, around Thunderbird and the freeway, hadn't had a single drop of rain.
Here and now, on these early spring nights, there are tons of spring peepers chirping near the marshes and bogs. They're deafening.
Nifer
28 Apr 07 at 7:22 pm