The Blonde Mariachi Singer Becomes an Amateur Scientist

Forrest M. Mims III

Meet Terri Sharp of Kerrville, Texas, who sings in Spanish and is known as the Blonde Mariachi. Terri is a classic example of how an observant citizen can observe and photograph a natural phenomenon and become an amateur scientist in the process.

On 5 January 2007, Terri saw and photographed a spectacular corona around the setting sun. At the time, she had no idea what had caused the beautiful phenomenon in the sky.

Ten days later she saw my science column in the 15 January 2007 edition of The San Antonio Express-News. That column, which appears in this issue of The Citizen Scienitst (see "Forrest Mims' World of Science") was about a rare pollen corona that had occurred around the sun over South Texas on the same day that Terri saw her corona. A pollen corona is an array of rainbow-like rings around the sun caused by clouds of pollen from juniper trees in the Texas Hill Country where Terri lives.

Terri immediately recognized the similarity of the corona in the photograph that accompanied my column and the one she had photographed. But there was a problem, for in the column I wrote that pollen coronas are visible only at or near noon in a clear, blue sky. Because Terri saw the phenomenon at sunset, how could it be a pollen corona?

So far, all the pollen coronas I have seen were observed within an hour or so of solar noon. That's why I have long been mystified about a corona around the setting sun that Neil and Pat Kibbe told me they saw in the Texas Hill Country during the winter pollen season several years ago. What they described sounded exactly like a pollen corona, but the appearance at sunset was puzzling.

For this reason, I was excited to receive an e-mail from Terri describing what she had seen. When I asked her to send a photo, she sent more than half a dozen. All clearly showed a pollen corona!

I live well east of the Texas Hill Country that is so heavily populated by juniper trees. So the pollen that drifts overhead is much less concentrated than the pollen at the source. In short, the conditions for seeing a pollen corona at sunset are much better in the Hill Country where Terri lives than far downwind at my site.

The mystery of what my friends Neil and Pat reported has been solved. They, too, saw a pollen corona at sunset. But they didn't have a camera available to record it.

I asked Terri if she would write a feature story for The Citizen Scientist about her discovery and photos, and she readily agreed. Her article appears in this installment, and I very much hope you will read it, for Terri's discovery qualifies the Blonde Mariachi as an amateur scientist. It also qualifies her as the Pollen Corona Queen, which is how she signed one of her excited e-mails when her discovery was confirmed.

Stay tuned. Terri writes that she plans to keep an eye out for more pollen coronas. I'll keep you posted if she photographs another one.

Forrest M. Mims III