When the Rains Come: A Naturalist’s Year in the Sonoran Desert

by John Alcock

Life in the desert is a waiting 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.

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.

288 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2009

About the author

John Alcock (b. 1942) is an American behavioral ecologist and author. He is currently the Emeritus' Professor in the School of Life Sciences at Arizona State University. His research interests include the evolution of diversity in insect populations, studying the adaptive value of different ways in which males find mating partners. He has authored several books, including The Kookaburras' Song: Exploring Animal Behavior in Australia (1988), Sonoran Desert Summer (1990), The Triumph of Sociobiology (2003), and Animal Behavior: An Evolutionary Approach (ninth edition, 2009). He authored Sonoran Desert Spring (1994) which was illustrated by Marilyn Hoff Stewart, and also authored In a Desert Garden: Love and Death Among the Insects (1999) illustrated by Turid Forsyth.

Alcock is one of the original scientists to participate in the Ask A Biologist program and continues to participate in interviews as well as answering questions from students around the world.

Reviews

[Valerie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love everything I have read by John Alcock. By reading him, I have learned to love the Arizona Sonoran desert even more than I already do. His language is personal and poetic. The chapters are short. I normally read his books slowly however, as I like to savor each chapter. In this book, I have learned of new places, which I would like to visit. Here is a sample of writing that I enjoyed:
From even a short ways up the hillside we have a magnificent view of the vast creosote flats that
lie between us and the nearest adjacent mountain ranges several miles away to the west and south.
A broad band of blue paloverdes, mesquites, and wolfberrry shrubs snakes along the western edge
of the mountain island on which we stand. The narrow belt of thick vegetation closely tracks the
sinuous wash that must sometimes be filled with plant-sustaining water.

If you want to learn how to be in nature and learn from it, John Alcock is someone to read.