Urban Wild

REMEMBERING JIM

2012-01-24T16:52:00.000-08:00

It's hard to believe that this past Sunday was the one-year anniversary of the passing of Jim Otterstrom of Big Bear, CA. I followed Jim's blog for many years and his untimely death was a real shock to me and many others. He had a big heart and a delicate soul--and the nastiness of the world just became too much for him to bear.

My thoughts and prayers are always with Peggy, his widow, and their beloved dog, Dallas. I know their lives became extra hard after his passing. I hope they have found some measure of normalcy since his passing.

If you want to see what this man was like in better days, check out some of the older entries of his blog here:

http://earthhomegarden.blogspot.com/2005_04_01_archive.html

I still miss you, Jim--and I hope you found your peace.

November 14th, 1945 - January 22nd, 2011

THE JOY OF QUIET

2012-01-04T14:43:00.000-08:00

Sometimes there comes along a person that has a beautiful insight about life; this is such a one:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/01/opinion/sunday/the-joy-of-quiet.html?pagewanted=all%3Fsrc%3Dtp&smid=fb-share

A DAY AT RANDY'S FARM - THE PEACEABLE KINGDOM

2012-01-03T11:19:00.000-08:00

On Friday, December 30 my partner and I visited Randy Nauert's ranch in the hills above Mailbu. Randy was one of the founding members of The Challengers surf band back in the 60s.

On his property he has emus, llamas, alpacas, cows, donkeys, sheep, and GOATS! It was the latter animal that sent me up there. I've loved goats since I was a kid (pun intended) and I wanted to meet Randy as well, having been a fan of his band, too. He grew up in the same area of California that I did, the South Bay, though he was a few years older than me.

I was given the task of following the goat herd up a hell to a meadow where they grazed every day. It was quite a hike, but rewarding. From up there all you could hear was the tinkling of the goat bells and the occasional call of a Wrentit. Had it been a clearer day I would have had a view all the way down to the ocean.

The highlight of the day was feeding a holding the two-week old kid goat (yet unnamed). The mother (Heidi) is a milking goat and had to interest in feeding the kids (she had three), so Randy took over the duty. Two of the kids died, but the smallest survived. For the time being he stays with Randy in the house, along with another goat, Manilla, and his two Wiemeriners.

It was a lovely warm day and a good time was had by all!

Curious Emu...

...and prehistoric feet! Randy said their toes are so sharp and legs so powerful, they could gut you with one swipe!

2-day old lamb

The herd on the graze

Sister Red (Heidi in background) - Nubian goats

Part of the herd

Little Siri Bonk--17 days old. He keeps up with the herd really well. See the video below for him up in the meadow.

Heidi (the new kid's mom)

Manilla - the house goat

New kid--getting milk randy collected from mom (Heidi)

Gee that tastes good!

A man and his goat

Thanks for the wonderful day, Randy!

LUNAR ECLIPSE - DECEMBER 10, 2011

2011-12-12T09:38:00.000-08:00

I don't really enjoy getting up early, but once I'm up, I enjoy the early morning immensely. Having gotten used to getting up at 5 AM to take the dog on his first potty walk, it wasn't much of a stretch to get up at 3:45 am to get ready to go our and watch the last lunar eclipse until 2014. I tend to get excited about astronomical events and this one had me really excited.

After showering and making a thermos of hot tea, loaded my camera and tripod, and headed for the beach. Since totality would not be visible from my neighborhood (due to hills), I knew the perfect spot to watch from.

It was beautiful at the ocean; the sky was inky blue-black and the sound of the crashing surf added a nice soundtrack. By the time I got there at 4:35, the shadow was just taking a small nip out of the top of the full moon.

For the next two hours, me and about a half-dozen other adventurous souls watched one of nature's splendors play out.

By 6:30 dawn was just starting in the east behind us and there was a lot of haze on the horizon, so the moon just kind of faded into it and disappeared from view.

During the earlier part of the eclipse I saw two meteors falling and a satellite cruising overhead. It was a 'stellar' morning!

UP IN THE FOREST AGAIN

2011-10-31T08:20:00.000-07:00

Digby and I went up to the Angeles National Forest on Saturday. I hadn't been up there since the Station Fire and thought it was about time to go up and take a look. I am glad I waited; the re-growth is coming along, though there are large swaths of ghost forest (standing burned, dead trees), there is surprising amounts of intact growth along the road in a lot of places.

How a chilly dog gets toasty.

A nice little day use area at Chilao.

Along the creekbed, willows have turned yellow.

Digby on the alert for squirrels.

Yes--we have fall in California! A pair of cottonwoods show their fall finery.

Digby chilaxin' in the the back of the truck.

My favorite day spot, Chilao, is like an island in the midst of some of the worst fire burned area--virtually untouched. Buckhorn was also left intact, which made me really happy as this is a most idyllic piece of the forest, with giant Western Red Cedar, Jeffrey and Coulter Pines. Set down in a canyon along a seasonal stream, this spot is one of the most lovely in the forest.

The narrow road into Buckhorn is quite lovely.

One of the beautiful campsites at Buckhorn.

When we got up to the 6500' level, the air became increasingly cooler, and ranged from 58-64 degrees throughout the day. (Yes, I know that seems like a heat wave to a lot of areas of the country!). Digby actually got chilled and I had to wrap in in a blanket for a while.

We had a light lunch of cheese, apple, and crackers, and I got out my Brunton Flex backpacking stove and heated some water for tea. Then went for a nice long walk. I was pleasantly surprised by how easily I could now walk up at altitude, due to all the extra walking I've been doing with the dog the past couple of months. Truly a pleasure!

After an hour we headed down to Buckhorn. We hiked a ways on the Burkhardt Trail and then continued on down the road. We drove the length of Highway 2 from La Canada to Wrightwood seeing hardly any other vehicles, which was lovely indeed.

View from about 7000' down into the San Bernardino area. Nothing but wilderness down in those canyons, where deer and bighorn sheep roam.

We drove home via the Antelope Valley, Soledad Canyon, and the 5. It was a long day--8 hours total, and we were both glad to get home.

Traveling with Digby is a lot of fun; I forgot how much fun a dog can be and what swell companions they are! Can't wait for our next adventure!

ADVENTURE WITH DIGBY

2011-10-03T09:55:00.000-07:00

A couple weeks ago my partner and I decided to add a dog to our family. We’d been talking about it for a few years, but never lived anywhere that we could have one. We were also going to wait until we retired.

But a recent medical scare for my partner helped us make up our minds. She is supposed to get a lot more exercise now and we thought walking a dog would be just the ticket. Little did I know that it would benefit me so much as well!

I haven’t had a dog for about 27 years. My last pooch, a miniature poodle named Fiamma (‘flame’ in Italian), lived to the ripe age of 17. She was a good dog and a fine travelling companion. She loved to camp, hike, swim—that dog never knew she was a poodle!

I’ve missed having a little four-legged outdoor pal, and Valerie had never had a dog before and really wanted one, so we started looking.

Our main consideration was one that would get along with our cats. A puppy was out of the question, as we don’t have the time and energy to put into the training. So we hunted for an adult dog that had been (hopefully) socialized with cats.

A couple days of online searching through some rescue groups and we found a likely candidate: Digby! A group called Tiny Loving Creatures based in Simi Valley, who usually only rescues Chihuahuas, found Digby in the Ventura County Animal Shelter and decided to rescue him, too. He was considered a ‘Beagle/Chihuahua mix’, but at 14 lbs, he was a lot larger than all the other dogs. Still, they thought they could find a home for him. He’d already been given a long extension at the shelter because he was so likable.

To cut to the chase, we went and met Digby at the Petco in Simi Valley on Saturday, September 17 and fell in love with him. He’s sweet and quite a little character. Our vet thinks he is Beagle and Bulldog, and we also think he may have some ‘Doxie” in him, too. He’ got over’ the cats pretty quickly, especially the younger one. The 10 year old took a little longer, but it was a peaceable kingdom after only a week.

Digby in his new bed-first day home

This past weekend I took him on his first trip to the mountains. It was quite an adventure for him, I’m sure. All the smells were unfamiliar. It was a long car trip for him, but he’s really mellow and just laid down and dozed in the ‘shotgun seat.’

Chillin' in back of the truck

Enjoying the forest

I’m looking forward to many more adventures with this little guy!

McGill Campground, Mt. Pinos

View down into Frazier Park from McGill

SATURDAY STORM CHASING

2011-08-01T11:01:00.000-07:00

Inspired by my love of extreme weather and one of my favorite shows ("Storm Chasers"), I headed out this past Saturday to see if I could connect with a large, monsoonal storm cell that was forecast to hit the Mojave Desert and the local Angeles National Forest near Wrightwood, CA. I was not disappointed!

I actually drove into the storm about 10 miles east of the town of Pearblossom, CA and was pelted by heavy rain, surrounded by lightning. It was magnificent! Incredible cloud-to-ground lightning as well as some beautiful cloud-to-cloud forked lightning. And LOUD thunder!

The temperature was 103 when I went through Palmdale, but by the time I was about 20 miles east and in the actual storm, the temp dropped to 77! Up in Wrightwood it was a pleasant 68-degrees.

The system was slow moving, so it stayed around the area for a long while and ultimately flooded the town of Victorville; the downtown area was hit pretty hard.

I chased from 11:00 am to almost 5:00 pm--a most satisfying day!

Looking east, towards Acton and the Angeles National Forest at 11:30 am. The cumulus congestus is beginning to form.

Same view, zoomed in.

Another view, same direction.

Taken from moving vehicle, 10 miles east of Pearblossom. Not quite in the rain yet, but can see it in the distance towards the mountains where the veils are dark and thick. Active cumulonimbus clouds.

More veils of rain.

Mount Baden Powell seen from Grassy Hollow at 2:00 pm, looking southwest. More clouds were piling up in the east and I could hear more thunder. Cumulus and strato- cumulus from the dissipating storm.

Coming down from Wrightwood, looking southwest. (taken through vehicle windshield)

Zoom detail of previous--awesome cumulonimbus formation.

Looking east from Acton at 4 pm. The clouds are forming into the typical shape of the anvil altocumulus.

Detail zoom of the previous.

This storm was fairly rare for this time of year, so I was lucky to catch it. The way the climate is changing, I will no doubt find other interesting weather like this to observe in the future!

BACKROADS OUTING

2011-06-21T13:49:00.000-07:00

Every now and then I just like to take off for a day on my own and explore new places. I sometimes scout a little with Google maps ahead of time, but I always end up making decisions along the way that add unexpected surprises.

On this particular day I headed east on Highway 138 from the 5 North and found a delightful backroad drive that started in pines and ended in prairie.

Overlooking the western Antelope Valley

The new ride

A pond along the way

View beyond the pond and into the valley below

Ghost tree forest - fire went through here one year

I only saw two cars in 20 miles

A prairie-like view to the west; mountains of Los Padres National Forest in background

FOREST FALLS - SAN BERNARDINO MOUNTAINS - PART I

2011-06-03T14:28:00.000-07:00

Spent Memorial Day weekend in Forest Falls, a small mountain community between Mentone and Big Bear, CA, elevation about 6,400'. It's a lovely, peaceful place where my partner and I hope to retire to in a few years.

We stayed at a cabin and took my partner's niece (11) and her mentee (13) and let me tell you, taking kids somewhere is an adventure. These are two very well-behaved and fun kids, but I forgot how much energy they have! It was a challenge keeping them exercised--they are like EverReady batteries.

The cabin is OLD--built in the early 1900s and though equipped with 'modern' conveniences like plumbing, stove, and fridge, it's beginning to get a little scruffy around the edges. But we made do and really enjoyed the big river rock fireplace each night; the girls found it perfect for roasting marshmallows! I had initially said 'NO TV!' But I caved and let them watch one movie per night.

The weather was on the cool side by Saturday, and by Sunday it was downright COLD. On our day trip to Big Bear there were actually snow flurries in the afternoon. Unbelievable. This was the end of May, and usually it is blazing hot in Southern California by now.

I took the girls to the day-use area at the end of the road (it dead-ends there and is also the trailhead for those hiking up to Mt. San Gorgonio. They loved throwing rocks in the stream and watching the lizards that were scurrying everywhere. On the drive back at dusk, we saw a coyote trotting down the side of the road. The girls got a big thrill out of that, alright!

Saturday night I took them out after dark to the vacant lot across the street that had a clear view of the sky to show them how many stars could be seen when they are out away from city light pollution. They were suitably impressed!

View up the canyon along Mill Creek

The girls contemplating the creek

Nice little waterfall

Aspen grove along the creek

Lilacs in bloom everywhere

Shooting Star

Clouds rolling in Saturday afternoon...

...getting windy and cold!

Stay tuned for part 2--the day trip to the Santa Ana River!

BEAR PAW RANCH - SAN BERNARDINO MOUNTAINS

2011-05-31T09:18:00.000-07:00

Memorial Day weekend my partner, her niece, her mentee, and I stayed at a cabin in the San Bernardino Mountains. Prior to the trip I checked the San Bernardino Audubon homepage to see if they had a birding checklist for the area and saw an announcement for a "Baby Bird Walk at Bear Paw Ranch" listed for Saturday. I thought it would be a great activity for the kids, so we went. It turned out to be a great activity for everyone!

The ranch is actually a bird and wildlife sanctuary, with an emphasis on providing nest boxes for cavity-nesting birds such as Western Bluebird, House Wren, Ash-throated Flycatcher, Oak Titmouse, Steller's Jay, and Mountain Chickadee. Our docent was Cin Greyraven, a local biology teacher. She guided us around the property, and as she did her nest box survey, she would show us the baby birds (or eggs) inside. It was quite a treat to be able to see this hidden world of birds.

"Bear Paw Ranch is San Bernardino Valley Audubon Society's 70 acre nature sanctuary, thanks to a generous benefactor. Bear Paw Ranch is at 38801 Valley of the Falls Drive, nestled on the north slope of scenic Mill Creek Canyon at 4,500 feet elevation, surrounded by the towering peaks of the San Bernardino National Forest. A diverse array of habitats provides excellent birding and educational opportunities. Along the creek, alluvial scrub intergrades with alders, sycamores, ash and willows. On the bluff, scrub-oak and chaparral mingle with huge old Coulter pines, black oak and incense cedar." (from San Bernardino Audubon web page)

She explained that handling the birds or eggs will not cause the parents to reject them; birds do not have a highly acute sense of smell. Though it was obvious that some of the parents were upset at us bothering their babies, we would watch them enter the nest box right after we left with food for the chicks.

There was a birdhouse near the front entrance of the ranger's house that had been taken over by a House Wren, and we saw the parents coming and going with food--mostly 1/2-inch long green worms. Around the eaves of the house were numerous hummingbird feeders filled with sugar water (4:1 ratio of water to sugar--the liquid DOES NOT need to be red, and in fact there is some recent controversy that the red dye in the commercial nectar may be harmful to hummingbirds). The feeders were attracting a large number of hummers, mostly Anna's but also a few Black-chinned hummingbirds.

And at the corner of the house was a sign that read "Rattlesnake Crossing"--and lo and behold, there was a Western Diamondback curled up in the grass right below it!

I'll let the photos tell the rest of the story...

Entrance Sign

Entrance with mountains in background

The back-end...

The business-end!

Feeding station with many customers!

Ash-throated Flycatcher eggs

Western Bluebird hatchling--only a few days old

Western Bluebird babies

Western Bluebird

Steller's Jay close to fledge (ready to leave the nest)

Nest Box used by Mountain Chickadee

Mountain Chickadee babies

Mountain Chickadee adult with lunch--a yummy spider!

It was a fun morning for the kids and a great morning of birding for me. My complete bird list for this location:

Western Bluebird

White-breasted Nuthatch

Oak Titmouse

Band-tailed Pigeon

Anna's Hummingbird

Black-chinned Hummingbird

House Wren

Steller's Jay

Scrub Jay

Western Tanager

Ash-throated Flycatcher

Common Raven

Red-tailed Hawk

Mountain Chickadee

Acorn Woodpecker

Nuttall's Woodpecker

California Quail

Wrentit

Black-headed Grosbeak

Purple Finch

House Finch

White-throated Swift

Northern Flicker

Dark-eyed Junco

That's 24 species in an hour and a half of birding!

TREE TRIMMING GUIDELINES

2011-05-02T10:49:00.000-07:00

Two years ago I worked on a project for Los Angeles Audubon to create some guidelines for tree trimming in the spring. It came about when I emailed LAA after seeing a crew trimming (decimating, actually) some neighborhood trees at the hight of nesting season. The conservation chair, Garry George, asked me if I would be interested in creating some guidelines for tree trimming that would be distributed as widely in LA County as possible. I jumped at the chance.

Almost a year later, after much research (including acquiring permissions to use certain material such as nest descriptions and imagery), input from experts, and some unfortunate petty wrangling with a few members with their own agendas, the guidelines were finally approved by the LAA Board. We posted a PDF file on the website in English and also had them translated into Spanish.

Then lo and behold, last Friday's LA Times had an article about tree and shrub pruning that cited our guidelines. It was very gratifying to me to see that they were being referenced and used!

All I ever wanted to do was save some birds and it appears that in some small way perhpas I have.

To see the article, go to:
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/home_blog/2011/04/when-to-prune-trees.html

BACKROADS TRIP

2011-04-24T19:48:00.000-07:00

The trip to the mountains did not work out for this weekend, as there was a high wind warning for all the local mountain areas (with gusts 40-50 mph). But I needed to get outside, so my partner and I headed up to Santa Barbara for lunch and some backroad adventure.

We ate at our favorite spot, the Paradise Cafe. Been eating there for almost 20 years now! Great food on a street off the main drag, that has wonderful outdoor seating. Their oak grilled salmon is to die for.

View from our table

After lunch we prowled State Street for an hour, then hit the road. Outside of town, just past Santa Barbara Mission, is Route 192, which follows along the foothills and drops down again just before Carpinteria. It then jogs again south, and winds into the foothills towards Lake Casitas and on to Ojai.

(But before we left Santa Barbara, we were treated to the Easter Dog in someone's front yard! These folks do seasonal things with this bronze dog statue, decorating and dressing it for a variety of occasions. We've been enjoying it for years.)

Lake Casitas

Just past Ojai we ate again at Boccali's Pizza & Pasta, a cute little roadside joint that makes the best pizza ever. We split a small (4-slice) pepperoni & mushroom (the shingle the meat on--no skimping!). We wanted to save room for this spot's specialty: strawberry shortcake! It's served on a fresh, warm biscuit, heaped with luscious berries, and smothered in a Matterhorn of whipped cream. We ate on the patio, which warm sun and heavenly wafts of orange blossoms on the breeze.

Ojai Valley from scenic overlook

Full, we continued down the road. It was so incredibly beautiful: blue skies, big puffy white and gray clouds, green hills and fields. It was a perfect day.

We drove through oak-covered hills and green meadows dotted with wildflowers. I pulled off near one meadow so we could watch a Red-tailed Hawk being harassed by a Common Raven; it was quite an aerial dogfight.

Ultimately we arrived in Santa Paula, and took Route 150 east to the 5 and headed home. A glorious day, filled with beautiful weather, good smells, and unforgettable sights.

EARTH DAY BIRTHDAY

2011-04-22T08:51:00.000-07:00

I thought it was cool that they made Earth Day on my birthday back in 1970. Still do. Since I have been a nature lover my whole life, it seems fitting.

Today I will be 61 and it is absolutely amazing on so many levels. I am grateful to be alive, quite frankly, after some wasted (literally) years in my 20s. I never thought I'd live to see 30 (though I think that's a common belief among most youngsters). When you're 20, you really do think you will live forever; yet you cannot conceive of living to 30, let alone 60.

So here I am, older and I do believe a lot wiser than I used to be. When they say youth is wasted on the young, they aren't kidding. I didn't really know squat when I was younger. But when you have enough life experiences under your belt, you tend to look at life in a new way, and the world becomes quite a different place.

I totally understand the cynicism of a lot of older people; I have become rather disenchanted with the way life has become in a lot of ways. And perhaps that's why older people no longer fear death. They've seen enough of the bad stuff go on to show them that life is NOT getting better as time goes on.

When I turned 60 last year something inside me changed. I suddenly felt old. And it was not a good feeling. I mean, for the first time I realized that I was getting on the back end of my life and time was short (especially the way time seems to fly by now). Watching my parents age over the years has not helped in this regard. But over the past few months I think I've made some kind of peace with it and have stopped thinking about it so much. My enthusiasm for getting outdoors, for bird watching, and for life in general has ramped way up.

So this weekend--tomorrow in fact--I plan to drive my new SUV (purchased a couple weeks ago--a 2000 Chevy Blazer) up to the mountains for the day. I've wanted an 'outdoor' vehicle for a few years now and even though gas is priced obscenely high and the Blazer gets low gas mileage, I am extremely happy to have it. I know, I know--not very eco-friendly, but that's my burden and karma to bear.

I have been wanting to get up to the mountains for a while now. There's still quite a bit of snow up in the higher elevations and it's not exactly warm yet, but I'd love to see some nuthatches and woodpeckers. And smell those piney woods!

Everyone have a wonderful Earth Day. Go out and enjoy nature wherever you can and rejoice that we still have some left to get out into!

My new truck--love it!

WHITNEY CANYON - SPRING HAS SPRUNG

2011-04-20T11:11:00.000-07:00

Oh my--I realized it's just been ages since I posted anything, so I thought I'd better get this up before too much more time passed. Actually it's been ages since I've really done anything. Caught up in life stuff, including replacing my aging car, which consumed a fair amount of a month or more.

Anyway, I did get a lovely hike in two weeks ago to Whitney Canyon near Saugus with friend Paula. Wow! Everything was so GREEN! All the rain we had this winter has resulted in gorgeous green carpeting on all the hills, along with a smattering of newly emerging wildflowers.

The first plants to bloom is always the non-native wild mustard, which covers some areas in a yellow blanket. Then there's the wild radish, with it delicate lavender and white blossoms. A few poppies here and there, too. Lupine can't be far behind.

We saw a lot of bird species that day:

Cedar Waxwing

Oak Titmouse

Yellow-rumped Warbler

House Wren (all singing beautifully--even saw one go into a tree cavity nest)

Red-tailed hawk

Red-shouldered Hawk

Merlin (2 flying together)

Northern Rough-winged Swallows

White-throated Swift
Spotted Towhee
California Towhee
Bewick's Wren
Song Sparrow
Common Raven (harassing the Red-tailed Hawk)
Acorn Woodpecker

Nuttall's Woodpecker

Seasonal pond--complete with swallow and swift air force diving and gliding everywhere!

TRUE LIFE ADVENTURE

2011-02-13T12:09:00.000-08:00

Took a day trip to the Santa Ynez Valley yesterday. Took a sweet little back road into Solvang, then on to Lake Cachuma for a couple hours of relaxing and birdwatching.

Stopped along this road when I heard nuthatches calling. There were several White-breasted Nuthatches in the oaks; also Acorn Woodpeckers, Oak Titmouse, ad Yellow-billed Magpies.

The weather was gorgeous--sunny, clear skies, and warm. Hard to believe it's February!

Set up the camp chairs in a sweet spot with a lake view, under some huge oak trees. There were a few Scrub Jays, one even so bold as to land on the picnic table right behind us! There were more Acorn Woodpeckers and Oak Titmouse, along with a small flock of Bushtits.

But the biggest surprise came when I saw something big fly into a nearby oak. I knew it wasn't a crow or a vulture (too big for a crow and vultures never land that low in a tree). I walked around to get a better view and there, to my great surprise was a juvenile Red-tailed Hawk! We had noticed a lot of California Ground Squirrels everywhere (there burrows were all over the grassy areas) and this bird was looking for lunch!

After a bit it flew to a small, bare sycamore nearby (about 50' away) and right over some burrows. It sat there for some time, then swooped down and landed in the grass. It came up empty though and went back into the tree. I kept snapping photos (with the lens zoomed out as far as it would go it was really hard to steady the camera in my excitement). Every time I focus, the camera makes a chirping noise and every time it did, the hawk would turn around and look our way.

Finally it swooped down out of the tree and headed right for us! It buzzed the chairs where we had been sitting and flew into an oak tree where we lost sight of it.

This was the coolest and most close-up sighting of a hawk I've had. A real treat. Got good looks through the binocs and some pretty good photos. I also got a short video after ti had landed in the grass (sorry for camera bounce--unavoidable zoomed out like that).

IN BLOOM NOW: Magnolia x soulangeana

2011-02-08T09:05:00.000-08:00

These "Magnolia Tulip Trees" bloom this time of year on campus. There's a few of them sprinkled around, but this specimen in one of the largest and most lovely; it is in the Sculpture Gardens at the north end of the UCLA campus. (photos taken with my Motorola Droid)

Enjoy!

A NEW FAMILY MOVED IN

2011-02-06T15:02:00.000-08:00

We discovered something really neat close to our balcony this morning; an Anna's Hummingbird has built a nest in one of the Bradford Pear trees in the parkway. What a treat! I can get real close looks with my binoculars and managed to get a few photos.

The nest is built in what appears to be a good location, somewhat protected from rain and anchored by spider webs against wind. It's also in a well-camouflaged location away from the eyes of the neighborhood crows.

It will be fun watching the progress of this new family!

Momma on her nest. We got to watch her adding material this morning and smooshing herself around in it to make it just right.

ANNA'S HUMMINGBIRD VIDEO

2011-02-02T15:57:00.000-08:00

I took this short video of an Anna's Hummiingbird one morning from my studio window. It visited this flower every day until a rainstorm knocked the blooms over. It does cruise through the breezeway and occassionally land in the tree though, and often hovers in front of the window to tease the cats.

SCIENTISTS PROVE WE ARE NOT FROM HERE!

2011-02-01T11:04:00.000-08:00

We have always assumed that the Milky Way galaxy is our home. Now scientists have proved that this is erroneous. Wow--this is really a mind-bender!
Read on:

http://viewzone2.com/milkywayx.html

Jim Otterstrom - November 14, 1945 - January 22, 2011

2011-01-31T13:43:00.000-08:00

It is with great sadness that I note the passing of Jim Otterstrom, whose blog Earth Home Garden was such an inspiration to me to start my own blog--and to start looking at the world and life in a new way.

http://earthhomegarden.blogspot.com/2011_01_01_archive.html

Thank you for all the wonderful stories, essays, and photographs that you shared with us. I will sorely miss your prescence, but I know you will always roam your beloved mountains in spirit, free and unencumbered from earthly care and pain.

BLOOMS - IN WINTER!

2011-01-31T09:27:00.000-08:00

The Bradford Pear trees outside my living room window are blooming. What an awesome winter surprise! And the added bonus are all the birds that are attracted to these trees: warblers, kinglets, and hummingbirds.

There are also a few small pear trees in the courtyard. It's so zen-lovely!

NATURE...

2010-12-24T19:41:00.000-08:00

...is everywhere.

...On the roof...

...in front of the window...

..hunkered down, trying to stay out of the rain.

AFTER THE DELUGE

2010-12-23T14:23:00.000-08:00

Six straight days of rain is finally over. It took its toll on humans and beasts alike. When I went out for a walk late yesterday afternoon, I saw this wet and bedraggled Cooper's Hawk hunched up on top of a power pole. Its tail feathers looked very wet and the puffed up breast feathers told me it was trying to warm up.

An Anna's Hummingbird was outside my workroom window everyday, roosting under the eaves of the apartment next door when it was pouring, then feeding on the succulent blossoms when it stopped. It's quite a fat little hummer, too, so I didn't worry about it too much. It seemed to know what to do pretty well!

I always wonder how birds deal with a lot of rain; the past two days gave me a little glimpse.

O'er the Wood's Brow

2010-12-15T13:32:00.000-08:00

O'er the wood's brow,
Pale, the moon stares;
In every bough
Wandering airs
Faintly suspire....

Paul Verlaine (1844-1896)

FAVORITE MOON PHOTOS

2010-12-14T09:08:00.000-08:00

The Naiad

The moon rises,

Glistening,
Naked white,
Out of her stream.
Wet marble shoulders
Shake star drops on the clouds.

Evelyn Scott (1893-1963)

[first in a series]

SOME GOT SNOW--WE GOT SUN

2010-12-13T09:40:00.000-08:00

While other parts of the country are being slowly buried in the white stuff of winter, we here in Southern California enjoyed a warm and sunny weekend. It topped out around 85-degrees yesterday, so we headed to the beach for a couple hours of shore time.

It was a lovely day at White's Point in Palos Verdes. The ocean was like glass and Catalina Island was so clear you could make out the folds in the hills. A small pod of dolphins swam by, a kayaker pulled into the the cove, and some crabmen pulled up their traps.

Wise Words for the Woods

2010-12-07T09:48:00.000-08:00

"The preservation of existing woods, and the far more costly extension of them where they have been unduly reduced, are among the most obvious of the duties this age owes to those that are to come."

--George P. Marsh (Man and Nautre, a plea for wilderness conservation written in 1885, which influenced the establishment of the 700,000 acre Adirondacks State Park.)

And I'd say these words and ideas are as important now as when written 125 years ago.

"The seas are the heart's blood of the earth"

2010-12-05T17:48:00.000-08:00

"The three great elemental sounds in nature are the sound of rain, the sound of wind in a primeval wood, and the sound of the outer ocean on a beach. I have heard them all, and of the three elemental voices, that of the ocean is the most awesome, beautiful, and varied.

Listen to the surf, really lend it your ears, and you will hear in it a world of sounds: hollow boomings and heavy roarings, great watery tumblings and tramplings, long hissing seethes, sharp, rifle-shot reports, splashes, whispers, the grinding undertone of stones, and sometimes vocal sounds that might be the half-heard talk of people in the sea.

The seas are the heart's blood of the earth. Plucked up and kneaded by the sun and moon, the tides are systole and diastole of earth's veins. The rhythm of waves beats in the sea like a pulse in living flesh. It is pure force, forever embodying itself in a succession of watery shapes which vanish on its passing.

Consider the marvel of what we see. Somewhere in ocean, perhaps a thousand miles and more from this beach, the pulse beat of earth liberates a vibration, an ocean wave."

--Henry Beston The Outermost House

[Video filmed at Montana De Oro Sate Park, CA October 2008]

HERON ON A RIVER AT EVENING

2010-12-04T18:19:00.000-08:00

I am returning to experiments in value, as well as the effects of light art various times of the day, in order to add more life to my work. The painting above (4.75" x 6.75" on Arches 140# cold pressed paper) was done entirely with Sepia. I worked from a photograph that I had altered in Photoshop from color to black and white in order to reveal the values and tones. It is not always easy or convenient to work directly from nature, so for now I am working from photos for practice.

Additionally, I have ordered a few books on watercolor technique to see if I can teach this old dog some new tricks. I would like to not only do bird portraits, which I enjoy very much, but also pictures that show birds in their natural environments, going about their business, doing what birds do. That will require that I learn to render foliage, trees, and water in a way that suggests realism without actually falling into the trap of extreme detail, which is not really my cup of tea style-wise.

I admire the work of such wildlife artists as Robert Bateman, but I will leave the technique of showing every detail to those like him that are more facile at it--and interested in doing so. I believe that style has merit and value, but I love the idea of suggesting things and still making them seem real.

Today I spent a large chunk of the day reading some books on Winslow Homer I got from the UCLA Arts Library. One in particular is very interesting and instructive: Watercolors by Winslow Homer: The Color of Light by Martha Tedeschi, et al, published by The Art Institute of Chicago. In it, they describe Homer's working methods, the colors he used, and the various techniques he used to portray his subjects so beautifully. The art experts provide technical commentaries on a range of different aspects, including paper, pigments and lightfastness, and techniques Homer used such as scraping out color, spattering, and resist.

Homer has always been one of my very favorite artists. His rendering of light, and the effects of light, in the natural world is without equal. One writer put it most eloquently:

"The wonder we feel standing in front of one of Homer's watercolors has little to do with painterly pyrotechnics, but instead come from their capacity to conjure the natural with unprecedented truth and vividness."

Homer was a keen observer of nature and an avid student of color theory and optics (the effect of light at various times of the day and different seasons). He had the

"ability to to evoke a sense of truth in watercolors--the true breath of life...the glint of actual sunshine, the smell of mother-earth. It had everything to do with his dedicated examination of the relationship between color, light, and water, the three principal ingredients of watercolor. These elements were both is medium and very often his subject matter." (Tedeschi)

With this in mind, I sign off now to go paint!

BIRDING ALONG THE L.A. RIVER

2010-12-02T09:26:00.000-08:00

My birding partner, Paula Raissner, and I birded a section of the L.A. River this past Sunday. We only covered about a quarter mile stretch, but it was pretty 'birdy.' The real treat was finding some Nutmeg Mannikins, a species native to Southeast Asia and India. Like often happens, some birds meant for the caged trade got loose years ago and now their are flocks in the wild. They are pretty little birds, around sparrow-sized. Their backs and wings are a rich brown color (like nutmeg) and the chest is white with black scalloped lines (that reminds me of chain mail). The birds are sometimes called Spice Mannikins.

Also seen were abundant numbers of Black-necked Stilt, American Widgeon, and of all things, Yellow-rumped Warblers. A few pairs of Hooded Mergansers were seen, as well as Great Blue Heron, Great Egret, Snowy Egret, an immature Black-crowned Night Heron; also the ubiquitous Mallard, American Coot, and Brewer's Blackbird.

The Yellow-rumps were flycatching on the swarms of midges that hovered in the air, as were a few Black Phoebe. One Yellow Warbler was spotted foraging in the reeds in the river area. A pair of Common Raven and a Red-tailed Hawk were spied soaring overhead.

In nearby Bette Davis Park, which was our access point, there were 4 Acorn Woodpeckers guarding a large granary in a sycamore tree.

Hooded Merganser (male & female)

Black-necked Stilt

Nutmeg Mannikin (juvenile-lacks the chest embellishment)

Nutmeg Mannikin (adult)

Later in the day we went to Lake Balboa to look for some reported Common Loon, but the only loons were the crowds of people. We did see a Ross's Goose, however, a life bird for both of us.

PAINTING BIRDS - GETTING INITMATE WITH MY FEATHERED FRIENDS

2010-12-01T14:34:00.000-08:00

During an email exchange with a friend of mine and we got into a conversation about a woman who was caught trying to smuggle rare falcons from of Russia. I mentioned to her that I rarely pay attention to the news these days as I find it terribly distressing, not to mention distracting. And those elements are not conducive to being creative. But as a birder I cannot escape the conservation and protections aspects of my chosen pastime. The grim realities, such as the smuggling story that caught my eye, are always there. I think that's one of the reasons I like to paint birds. It makes me feel closer to them and to celebrate more intimately their beauty and specialness.

After the move I finally managed find all my painting materials and to get my work area ready for some more painting. Over the holiday weekend I painted two small works, both of Royal Terns (one of my favorite birds). I am experimenting with different methods: one, a plain and fairly un-detailed approach, and two, a more colorful and expressive approach.

The results turned out pretty well, though I think I need to explore this much, much further. My goal is to paint at least one picture every day, even if it is just a small one. In addition, I will continue to do my sketching in the morning before work. Rising earlier has enabled me to have more quiet creative time at the beginning of the day when I am less tired. Discipline has never been a strong point of mine, but I am determined to improve my painting!

A COLD AND CLOUDY MORNING

2010-11-24T10:30:00.000-08:00

It was 49-degrees this morning, and with a breeze blowing out of the north, it felt even cooler. Now before you folks who live in colder climes start laughing, let me tell you that it felt cold to this native Californian with thin blood! But bundled in my new Carhartt jacket with hood, I was toasty warm. The clouds were magnificent and I went up to the roof of my building on campus to enjoy the show. (photos taken with my Droid phone)

The view to the SE--the sun was glowing there behind the clouds.

View looking West.

View to the SW. There was a flock of Cedar Waxwings circling around, but my camera could not capture them.

When I was walking to my office, I came across this sculpture near one of the buildings. In my four years here, I've never noticed it before! Looks like a bird to me!

Speaking of birds, I didn't find too many this morning. I am sure the weather put them off. Yesterday there was a pre-Thanksgiving cornucopia of birds, the most species I've seen in a single morning in a long while:

Black Phoebe

Nuttall's Woodpecker
Bushtit
Ruby-crowned Kinglet
Mountain Chickadee
Allen's Hummingbird
Yellow-rumped Warbler
California Towhee
Dark-eyed Junco
Cedar Waxwing
American Crow
Bewick's Wren
Rock Pigeon

AN ISSUE THAT FLEW IN UNDER MY RADAR

2010-11-23T08:53:00.000-08:00

I usually pride myself on being on top of environmental issues, but this one had totally escaped me. It is a truly frightening scenario, one that every person on Earth should be aware of and have some say about what is being done. Our demands on the environment for energy are oout of control.

Hidden Owls - Camouflage in Nature

2010-11-22T08:02:00.000-08:00

In this short video from Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Northern Screech Owls show how their cryptic plummage makes them nearly invisible to all but the seasoned eye.

HOT RODDIN' MERGANSERS

2010-11-17T13:50:00.000-08:00

A pair of Common Mergansers ( Mergus merganser) jet across Puddingstone Lake at Bonelli Park (San Dimas), leaving quite a wake behind them!

ERIK VAN OMMEN - DUTCH BIRD ARTIST

2010-11-16T14:22:00.000-08:00

I love, love, LOVE this artist's work!

The Singing Life of Birds

2010-11-16T10:09:00.000-08:00

I attended a workshop this past Sunday: "Describing Bird Sounds" by Sylvia Gallagher and hosted by Pasadena Audubon Society. It was held at the beautiful Eaton Canyon Nature Center in Sierra Madre. The class was well attended (about 30+ showed up) and PAS provided a lovely spread of food both in the morning and at lunch.

Of course I arrived very early, and had brought my binoculars, so I went out on the nature trail to look for birds. I heard two California Thrashers singing back and forth and finally located one of them. It was a treat to watch the bird sitting atop a bush, head back, singing its heart out. And a perfect intro to the day's workshop!

If I had any doubt that the subject would be overly-technical or hard to understand, it was dispelled immediately; Sylvia was both personable and down to earth. She made the subject easy to learn and provided good examples to help get her points across.

Her lecture relied heavily on a software program called Raven Lite, which is available free at the Cornell Ornithology Labs website. With it, one can listen to the songs and calls of birds and see them on a wavegraph and sonogram, which helps to understand how the various notes, trills, and buzzes make up the total sound. The song can be manipulated in a variety of ways, too. It can be slowed down, various sections teased out for study, and sound samples can be archived for later use.

She gave us a very good handout which outlined the course enough that very little note taking was necessary (but of course I did anyway as that's they way I learn best). In the handout was a list of words that are used to describe the various aspects of a birds song or call, which is the standardized method used to describe what one hears in the field, and also enables a betterunderstanding of the various aspects of a particular sound. (It's not just 'loud' or 'soft', 'high-pitched' or 'low-pitched'.)

I have always been fascinated by bird song and how it is that birds create such beautiful melodies and unearthly cries and calls. Their secret lies in the magical and wondrous organ called the syrinx (pronounced "cy-rinks"). This organ, located at the base of the trachea, is where bird sounds are produced. Prior to the workshop I spent some time looking through my Ornithology textbook and researching the topic online. The results of my study yielded some amazing factoids and information, though I still find it hard to read stuff that comes from the results of animal experimentation.

All in all it was a worthwhile way to spend a Sunday. I learned a lot and have already spent some time playing around with Raven Lite. I also ordered one of the recommended books, "The Singing Life of Birds: The Art and Science of Listening to Birdsong" by Donald Kroodsma, who is one of the foremost experts on bird song. The book includes a CD of birds songs, which can also be used in conjunction with Raven Lite.

I already know a lot of birds by hearing their song or call, but I still get fooled once in a while. Studying this aspect of bird observation can be very helpful in the field when ID is difficult in other ways.

THE OUTDOORS CALLING

2010-11-09T10:54:00.000-08:00

Now that the move is done, and even though I haven't quite put everything away yet, I feel an outdoor adventure calling to me. I haven't been to the mountains in so long that I'm starting to feel homesick. I hope to get up to "the high country" before the first snow falls and makes it more difficult for access (I don't own a 4-wheel drive).

One of my special places is Mt. Pinos. It's not too far from home and there are some lovely spots to set up a 'sit spot' to watch and observe birds. Not sure what birds will remain in the higher elevations this time of year, but it would be interesting to find out! I know from last year's trip in September that there are loads of nuthatches, flickers, and woodpeckers; but the nuthatches are already migrating.

It is good to get to know the mountains in its various seasons!

NOSTALGIA--ONLY A LITTLE

2010-11-07T09:37:00.000-08:00

Crows at dawn

Cooper's Hawk in Sycamore

Hairy Woodpecker

Crows in Sycamore with Crescent Moon

A selection of photos from the old homestead. You don't live in a neighborhood for 20 years and not feel a pull of sadness at leaving! It was a swell place, but we saw it change over the years, growing more congested and noisier. It never stopped the wildlife, however; there was always something wonderful to see.

LEAVING THE OLD 'HOMESTEAD' BEHIND

2010-11-06T08:21:00.000-07:00

After living in a small unincorporated city within Los Angeles County for over 20 years, circumstances necessitated a move elsewhere. Our landlords unexpectedly decided to sell the house we were renting, so finding that we were now priced out of the house rental market, we managed to find a lovely large apartment in the Westwood area. Not only do I have a five minute drive to work (which is going to turn into a 10 minute bus ride come January), we have loads of big, mature trees right out front. (As I type this I can hear the wren singing!)

I have already seen a large flock of Cedar Waxwings that are feeding on the fruit of an enormous ficus tree, but I've also seen two species of warbler (Yellow-rumped and Orange-crowned), numerous crows, and heard a Bewick's Wren singing from a nearby yard.

One thing I always loved about the old place was that there were always interesting birds to see. We lived near a wetlands area and there were many birds that showed up around our neighborhood by extension (either heard or seen flying overhead): Cooper's Hawk, Crow, warblers, owls, herons, swallows, and various shorebirds.

There was a gigantic sycamore tree in a neighbor's yard in back, and it was a favorite gathering place for crows, and hunting perch for Cooper's Hawks, and a foraging spot for the resident Nuttall's Woodpecker.

There are many things I will miss, but there are new things here that I am already enjoying. I look at it as the start of a new adventure in the urban wild!

LOOKING HEAVENWARD

2010-09-09T13:16:00.000-07:00

Anyone into amateur astronomy might want to check out this guy's blog. He gives great tips for viewing current celestial events:

http://astrobob.areavoices.com/

A NEW FAVORITE SPOT

2010-09-08T12:04:00.000-07:00

Last October my partner and I went to the San Bernardino Mountains to see what was touted as the only aspen grove in Southern California. We never found it, but what we did find was a whole new playground.
After living in So. Cal. for 60 years, you'd think I'd seen just about everything. But this area of the SBNF was completely new to me. And it has all the things I love most about forests: loads of trees, a fair amount of water, and that great 'piney' smell.

Since that trip we've been there several times more. We even stayed in a cabin over 4th of July weekend, in a small community that we are thinking of retiring to eventually.

I originally planned this blog to be a way to show people that nature can be close to home, but as I've travelled around more, I find myslef reluctant to share the whereabouts of certain places because they are not very crowded--and I'd like to keep them that way. Selfish? Most definitely!

When the Failure to Act Becomes Tragedy

2010-07-07T09:33:00.000-07:00

There was an article in yesterday's L. A. Times (July 5) entitled 'Fire spotter says he was thwarted.' It described in agonizing detail the efforts of Capt. Perri Hall, a 'veteran air attack officer for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection,' who tried in vain to get air tankers in the air to drop water on the blaze which was at the time of his initial observation on Day 2 of last summer's Station Fire, 'a mere few acres.' Capt. Hall's account then goes on to sharply contradict the assertions by the Forest Service regarding their much-delayed response to the fire.

I read this article with great sadness, for this loss of forest could have been prevented. We all knew when we saw that ugly plume of smoke billowing from or beloved forest on Day 3 that something tactically was going horribly, catastrophically wrong. The lack of response by the Forest Service--with all of their foot-dragging and excuses--allowed this blaze, which could have been easily stopped with a minimum of effort, money, and manpower to develop into the biggest and most costly fire in Los Angeles history.

The 160,000 acres of National Forest that was burned and blamed on an arsonist should also be blamed on the very department sworn to protect it from harm. I see it as a monumental failure on the part of the Forest Service to serve the public, whose land it was, to allow it to be consumed in that agonizingly long, protracted, and devastating fire. Because of their bureaucratic boondoggle, fully two-thirds of the Angeles National Forest is now lost to us. All because some person or persons in the Forest Service declined to provide the air support that could have knocked this blaze down easily on Day 2.

And now I see eerie parallels to this tragedy in the BP oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico. Again the response to this 'accident' was slow in coming. Hell, it is still slow in coming some 75 days later. And once again failure to own responsibility and the unwillingness to commit when there is a a crisis has caused an environmental disaster. There is seemingly no one in charge and has there has not been since day one. And the oil now oozes inland, without anyone or anything to stop it. Had the response been sooner and effectively coordinated, I doubt very seriously that they would be seeing tar balls in Florida, let alone Texas.

I find all of this inability to coordinate effective disaster responses greatly alarming. In my view it is symptomatic of the breakdown in our systems; we have allowed our governments and services to become so large and complex that we cannot do anything in a timely manner.

Unfortunately, whether it be a forest fire or oil spill, the first things to come out are the fingers, pointing at the other guy. Or there is a cry of 'lack of funds.' Or most appalling to me, one department refuses to cooperate with another. There is much talk about 'for the common good' in this country, yet sadly this does not apply to the much-needed coordinated response to fires and oil spills. The bureaucratic labyrinth that must be navigated to get anything done anymore is inexcusable. Like Nero, they fiddle while Rome burns--along with our forests.

PLIGHT OF THE BABY PELICANS

2010-06-29T14:15:00.000-07:00

This is an amazing story!

http://www.wwltv.com/news/gulf-oil-spill/Plightofthepelicans-97346929.html

(Sorry--I was not able to directly imbed this video.)

A HOLE IN THE WORLD - A WAY OF LIFE IN PERIL

2010-06-21T16:36:00.000-07:00

ANOTHER DAY ON MT. PINOS

2010-04-19T11:16:00.000-07:00

I had such a pleasant day up here last weekend that I decided to go up again. Went to my same sit spot and set up a little day camp. It wasn't quite as 'birdy' as last weekend, but there was plenty to make it interesting. The above view is looking towards the south--a really stunning view.

Here is a shot looking towards the canopy; there a quite a few dead and dying trees up here, most likely the victims of so many years of drought and the subsequent insect damage. But we've had over a normal year's rainfall this season, so the trees are getting a nice break.

The area in this photo shows where a lot of birds have been foraging on the ground. Not sure what they are finding, as I did not want to go down and disturb the area. But the nuthatches, chickadees, and woodpeckers all go down and pick through the duff.

There were three White-headed Woodpeckers this time--two males and a female. This is one of the males, although you cannot see his red cap in this view.

I finally got a halfway decent shot of one of the Pygmy Nuthatches--those little guys really move fast and are so small it's hard to keep them spotted. When they get up amongst the branches, the camera has a hard time resolving the image from all the foliage around the subject.

And then there were chipmunks! They were everywhere this time. Don't know if most of them were still hibernating last week or what, but there were at least ten of them in my general area. And I think my sit spot, which backs up against a boulder outcrop, is home to at least one; I nearly jumped out of my skin when one squeaked loudly right behind where I was sitting!

This photos is titled 'spot the chipmunk.'

Yes--I wasn't kidding. They were EVERYWHERE!

There is still quite a bit of snow up there. We are supposed to have more rain and snow this week, so not sure how much that will add to the remaining accumulation, but the snow levels are supposed to drop to 3500' by this Wednesday. That should translate to plenty at the higher elevations (at least .33 to .75 inches).

On the way down the hill I stopped by McGill Campground, which is still closed. I was aghast at the amount of trash people have left after using some of the sites for the day. Granted there are no trashbins yet, but jeez--can't they haul out their crap? The laziness of people and their lack of respect for the environment never ceases to amaze (and anger) me.

Down near the freeway onramp I decided to stop for a quick lunch, so went to a Jack in the Box. I was delighted to be joined by about a half dozen Common Ravens, who apparently have found out that the parking lot is a good place to look for scraps. I got good close looks at them--wow--they are HUGE birds!

Oh--and I forgot to mention the wildflowers! The rolling hills all along the Grapevine are covered with wildflowers: lupine, Califorina Poppy, and some sort of small yellow daisy. From a distance it looks like Nature has smudged colored chalk on the hills! Quite a lovely sight.

A DAY ON MT. PINOS - THE VIDEO

2010-04-14T10:55:00.000-07:00

(TURN UP YOUR SPEAKER VOLUME TO HEAR THE MOUNTAIN CHICKADEE CALLING IN THE BACKGROUND!)

A DAY ON MT. PINOS

2010-04-14T10:10:00.000-07:00

So here it was, the 10th of April, and there was still snow in the high country! This time last year it was already warm everywhere, so this was a real treat. I went up to Mt. Pinos to look for nuthatches and woodpeckers--and I was not disappointed. This is one of the best areas ever to see large numbers of these species.

As is evident from this photo, snow is indeed still abundant from around 3,000' up to the summit. (We had some more rain and snow the day after these photos were taken, so it is likely there is even deeper snow now!) The air was clean and fresh, and it was quite warm in the sun. This in turn warmed the wet needles on the forest floor and sent a delicious pine perfume wafting in the air. The breeze was strong at times, makeing music in the pines.

The sun also make lacey carpets of shadows on the snow.

I found a little pullout off the road at about 7,000' and hiked into the forest. I found a 'sit-spot' and set up an observation post for my target birds. And it didn't take long to spot them! This photo shows a White-breasted Nuthatch. Nuthatches are among my favorite species of bird. I have numerous photos and have done several watercolor paintings of them.

A different one, playing peek-a-boo with me around a tree trunk...

The little bird kept going behind the tree, then coming back out as if trying to see if I was still there.

Look closely among the branches near the trunk of the tree and you will see a White-headed Woodpecker. This one is a male, marked by a red cap at the rear of his head. They are busy birds, flying back and forth from one tree to the next, gleaning insects from between the crevices of the bark.

There were also numerous Western Bluebirds, that, like this little fellow, flew down to the snow to pick through the debris for fallen insects and small seeds.

I spent about three hours observing birds. Here is a complete list from the immediate area of my observation spot:

Western Bluebird (6)

White-breasted Nuthatch (4)

Pygmy Nuthatch (6)

White-headed Woodpecker (4)

Hairy Woodpecker (1)

Brown Creeper (1)

Dark-eyed Junco (1)

Mountain Chickadee (6)

Evening Grosbeak (1)

Stellar's Jay (1)

Common Raven (1)

I also saw a Merriam's Chipmunk--they are soo cute! Poor little think was being chased by the Pygmy Nuthatches, who were claiming a certain area on the ground for foraging. In fact, the White-headed Woodpecker, all three species of nuthatch, bluebirds, and the chickadees were foraging a lot on the ground quite a bit.

It was a wonderully relaxing and enjoyable way to spend part of the day. I plan go up there more often now, as my 'home forest' was almost completely destroyed last year by fire (Angeles National Forest). The abundant woodpeckers and nuthatches are a real draw as well!

COOL BIRD FACTS

2010-04-04T13:57:00.000-07:00

Here's some cool facts about birds I gathered while reading a manual of Ornithology:

A bird's body temperature ranges from 104-degrees to 111.2 -degrees

Birds range in size from only 2 grams (hummingbird) to 100,000 grams (ostrich).

Birds' brains and primate brains exhibit functional lateralization, with left hemispheric dominance associated with learning and innovation in vocal repertoires.

The highly developed color vision of birds reaches into the near-ultraviolet range of the spectrum.

The broad hearing range of birds encompasses infrasounds--sounds below the range of humans.

Celebration of Spring

2010-03-31T14:53:00.001-07:00

What better way to celebrate the coming of spring than with a ritual dance:

MR. PINCHY'S "NEW CLOTHES"

2010-02-24T07:57:00.000-08:00

Imagine my surprise when I looked in Mr. Pinchy's tank yesterday morning and saw this in his craw cave! It didn't register at first and I thought he was dead. Then I remembered that crawdads molt, and this is the result of shedding the rear portion of his old exoskeleton.

Yesterday evening he in the front of his tank so I could see the process a little better. He is now trying to shed the front portion, including antennae, carapace, and front claws. It looks like it's quite a struggle.

The filmy mass in front of his face is part of the molt.

You can see where the 'film' of the old carapace is coming off.

In the circled area, you can see the new claw slowly coming out of the old one (the red area).

As of this morning, he's still trying to molt the rest of the front part of his exoskeleton. I wish I had a camera that did time lapse photography so I sould see the whole process!

UPDATE: Mr. Pinchy expired a few weeks after an unsuccessful molt. I was told by some crayfish 'experts' that he might have been at the end of his lifespan and too weak to molt properly. I was really sad to see him go, as he was one of the most intersting 'pets' I've ever had!

"RAVENS" A WONDERFUL 'NATURE' EPISODE!

2010-01-21T07:42:00.000-08:00

I finally tracked down and purchased an old episode of the PBS series Nature entitled "Ravens" that I had been hunting over a year for after seeing clips from it on the PBS site. When I finally found it last week on--of all places--the NY PBS site, I bought it immediately. When I got the DVD, I saw that it was one of those 'on demand' types and worried that it would not work in my older DVD player (which happens all too often with these types fo disks). But it played fine. And the episode originally aired in 1999. They've no doubt received requests for it after posting those clips on their site.

And it was worth the wait. What a fascinating, beautifully filmed episode, complete with hautningly beautiful traditional Irish music playing in the background, including "The Raven Song" sung by Maddy Prior. The episode runs for just under an hour and I never wanted it to end.

I've always like ravens and their cousins the crows. I've read numerous books about them and found out that they are intelligent, social, playful, and long-lived birds. They say a raven can live up ot 40 years. They also mate for life. They grieve the loss of a mate or fledgling--or even a member of their flock. They remember individual humans--especially those that feed--and those that are mean to them. There is much more, but I don't want to spoil the DVD if you want to see it yourself.

This is a highly recommended DVD. You can buy a copy here:

http://www.shopthirteen.org/product/show/29446

"MOONWALKING" BIRD - FANTASTIC BIRD BEHAVIOR!

2010-01-10T08:21:00.000-08:00

My friend Paula alerted me about this video and thought I would post it here for my readers. Every time you think you've seen everything, you haven't! Especially at 500 frames a second!

CASSIN'S KINGBIRDS 1/7/10

2010-01-07T14:32:00.001-08:00

Some interesting visitors to the campus today were a pair of Cassin's Kingbirds. The male was vocalizing like crazy. It's hard to call what kingbirds do as singing; it's more like a bunch of crazy notes, buzzes, and cries.

This bird is very common in the Los Angeles area during the winter. I even have one that's taken up residence somewhere near my house because I've heard it calling in the morning for the past two months.

I also spotted a flock of Cedar Waxwings having a feeding frenzy in a Rusty-leaf Fig tree in Dickson Plaza on the upper campus. No photos--they were flitting around too much and in the shadows so the camera refused to focus.

TOWSLEY CANYON, NEWHALL, DEC. 27, 2009

2009-12-31T19:08:00.000-08:00

Entrance to the canyon.

Sycamores still have a few pretty leaves.

Thrust-up landscape from ancient earthquakes.

Spectacular cloud formations on this day.

Strange sandstone rock formation.

View from the other side.

The only bird shot I got--a Western Bluebird.

We did the 2 mi. loop trail--steep uphill one way, then steep downhill coming back. Spectacular views, albeit cold and breezy on exposed sections of the trail.

The bird list:

Dark-eyed Junco

White-crowned Sparrow

Scrub Jay

Northern Flicker

Acorn Woodpecker

Hutton's Vireo

Red-tailed Hawk

California Towhee

Spotted Towhee

California Quail

Bewick's Wren

American Kestrel

Yellow-rumped Warbler

Western Bluebird

Say's Phoebe

Black Phoebe

Common Raven

This turned out to be the last hike of 2009. We were going to return the next day to explore a side canyon we'd spotted from up on the ridge, buy the next day it rained.

I'm looking forward to going back next weekend to explore this canyon! It is quite lovely here. If you visit, please help out the parks by parking in the pay spaces instead of outside. It's still the cheapest and best entertainment to be had!

CHANTRY FLAT PICNIC

2009-11-24T11:55:00.001-08:00

Still trying to get in a bit of fall in the local mountains, this time a day trip to Chantry Flats and the Adams Pack Station in the Angeles National Forest. It is easy to get to, though be forewarned--VERY popular place and late arrivals will have to park along the road as the day progresses. We parked at the pack station for $10, which I didn't mind paying as it supports them and their business.

One of the pack mules. He was a real friendly fellow.

The Adams Pack Station has been in operation since 1936:

"Adams' Pack Station, and what makes us unique, is deliver supplies year-round to a permanent community that is only accessible by footpath. We are the life-blood of 80 antique recreational cabins plus 113-year-old Sturtevant's Camp. The pack string and the old-fashioned crank phone system are their only link to the modern world."

http://www.adamspackstation.com/history.html

This mule just wanted me to come down for a chat. They are so friendly and curious. There were also a few resident dogs, cats, and chickens.

California Gray Squirrel (sorry it's blurry). Note the magnificent bushy tail! There were dozens of them collection acorns from the surrounding trees.

A nice little portal to the sky. The clouds grew thicker, a breeze sprang up, and by 1 pm it was quite cool.

A lush canopy of oaks over the picnic area.

The picnic area was recently redone and it was developed quite nicely. Each spot has a poured slab of concrete, a picnic table, and a fire grill. They are far enough apart to give a little privacy, too.

It was a pleasant way to spend a few hours. My friend brought along a young inner-city girl she mentors and she had a great time walking the trail and petting the mules and goats at the pack station.

THE HIGH COUNTRY BECKONS

2009-11-13T09:28:00.000-08:00

I have been hoping to get up to the mountains again soon before we start getting snow, but I needn't have worried about the last storm--it dropped very little rain in the flats and wasn't cold enough to snow in the mountains. It did drop 1" - 2" in the foothills above La Canada Flintridge, though, causing a wall of mud to inundate some homes.

There is nothing like getting up to around 7500' or more, into the tall pines. This photo is from one of my favorite places, Grassy Hollow, in the Angeles National Forest, which was fortunately spared from the ravages of the last fire. Unfortunately, because of continued road closures from the valley side, one must trek up the loooong way: up the 5 to the 14, out to the Antelope Valley, past Pearblossom, then up to mountains from the back side. It adds more than an hour extra to the drive. It actually takes less time to go to Mt. Pinos or the San Bernardino Mountains now.

But it's calling me, and I may have to give in to it soon!

THOUGHT FOR TODAY

2009-11-09T08:09:00.000-08:00

MAY YOUR SEARCH THROUGH NATURE LEAD YOU TO YOURSELF

Garbage floating in Pacific exacts deadly toll on Albatrosses

2009-11-02T11:24:00.000-08:00

Dead Lysan Albatross chicks on Midway Atoll--guts filled with plastic trash fed to it by adult birds who cannot tell the difference between trash and food. (photo by Chris Jordan)

As if the whole idea of a 'garbage patch' the size of a small state is floating in the Pacific Ocean isn't alarming and sickening enough, now it appears that there are TWO of them. Birder's World Magazine had this article about it:

http://cs.birdersworld.com/brdcs/blogs/field_of_view/2009/10/27/albatrosses-at-remote-colony-ingest-more-plastic.aspx

Anyone who thinks it's okay to just toss down their bottle caps, plastic disposable lighters, and other small pieces of plastic should think again. Here is where much of it ends up:

http://chrisjordan.com/current_set2.php?id=11

This is a TRAGEDY. So many human beings are thoughtless when it comes to trash. They never think to dispose of it properly. I recently witnessed someone throwing out their fast food bag from a passing car and could not believe my eyes. I felt like following and confronting them about it. I wanted to hand them the bag and say, "How would you like it if someone threw their trash in your house? Because of thoughtless people like you, our wildlife has to live with your shit every day."

Perhaps next time I WILL do it.

FINDING FALL IN SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA

2009-10-26T11:31:00.001-07:00

Golden leaves of the California Black Oak glow like stained glass in the afternoon sun.

Canyon view along Highway 38

Oak trees amongst the pines, showing off their ability to change color in the fall.

Fall color between the pines.

Hairy Woodpecker probing bark crevices on fallen Douglas Fir.

Tracks of California Ground Squirrel in the soft dirt around the picnic table.

Tracks of...

...Steller's Jay. This fellow hung around all day, hoping we would drop some goodies for him. Although it is fun to do and even more fun to watch, I do not feed wildlife in the forest.

Cloudless Sulpher

Dark-eyed Junco--their colors blend in so well with the ground and pine needle litter that they are often hard to spot.

Shadows between the tree trunks.

Willows framed by pines in a creek bottom along Highway 38 just above Barton Flats.

Fiery willows as far as I could see.

Black Oaks showing off.

Lichen or moss striping a granite boulder.

A closer view...

A detail shot.

Black Oak stump with fall leaves.

Detail of bark.

Since most of my favorite spots in the Angeles National Forest are either burned or closed, I have been searching out new forest areas to visit that are within easy reach of Los Angeles. This past week I have been craving the air and trees of the high country, so I decided to drive up to the San Bernardino National Forest. There were reports of fall foliage, and that coupled with my desire to be among the big trees spurred me upwards.

The first thing that surprised me was how incredibly fast I got there; a drive that I thought would take two hours took a little over one to get to Redlands. Then from there it is about 45 minutes to get up to the 7400’ elevation.

This is the first time I’ve taken this route of Highway 38 and it was a very pleasant and scenic drive. It begins at the bottom point of the Santa Ana River bed, which is incredibly wide at certain points. We made a one pit stop at Thurman Flats Picnic Area. This is a nicely developed area that would be a great place for families with small children. There are picnic tables, restrooms (vault toilets but no sinks or running water, so bring hand sanitizer), and a nature trail that goes along the seasonal stream.

Here is a quote from one of the interpretive signs:

“Imagine a concert given by over a million traveling singers! They give this performance almost any Spring or Summer morning in the San Bernardino Forest. From April to October, as many as 250 migratory bird species stop here on their world tour; every Spring and Fall they take their show on the road. Traveling from as far away as the rainforests of South America, they migrate north in the Spring. With the arrival of the cold weather they return to their warmer southern homes. When looking for a place to nest, forage, and rear their young, or simply looking for a rest stop on their flight north, songbirds prefer to stop where food is abundant and life is easy. They may seek out lakes, stream banks, desert, chaparral, or meadows. All these places can be found in the San Bernardino National Forest. Imagine silence instead of songbirds. Forests in both North and South America are fast disappearing. As the forests disappear, so will the songbirds.”

Though poorly written and a bit grim-sounding at the end, it does give folks a realistic picture of what songbirds go through and are up against.

I saw two American Robins and one Acorn Woodpecker while we were there—all in the same tree, and a few Band-tailed Pigeons flying.

We continued up the road, noticing brilliant yellow foliage even at the lower elevations, with poplar and cottonwoods shimmering golden in the sun. The scenery along the road is spectacular the high you climb, with interesting geologic formations and the beginning of the pine trees. We also noticed many golden yellow trees sprinkled in amongst the pines—California Black Oak sporting their fall foliage.

Our destination for the day was Heart Bar Campground, which is a few miles about Barton Flats. The road is paved for about a quarter mile, then turns into a graded dirt road that is pretty wash-boardy. It is okay for all but the most low-slung passenger vehicles, and SUVs can clip right along on it.

There is a fork and a parking lot about a mile in; beyond here you will need a pickup, SUV or jeep to go up any further, as the road is deeply rutted and filled with large rocks that could really tear up the under chassis of a passenger vehicle.

It was a pleasant 62-degrees and we found a nice little camp spot to day camp in. I don’t know if a permit to camp was required, but we did have a forest pass. There was only one other person at a camp spot, and maybe less than a dozen vehicles passed by as they went farther up road, so it was pretty quiet there.

There weren’t as many birds as I hoped to see, but it is late in the season and already getting down into the mid 30s at night here now:

Dark-eyed Junco (6)
Steller’s Jay (1)
Chipping Sparrow (1)
Ruby-crowned Kinglet (1-male)
Red-tailed Hawk
Hairy Woodpecker
Common Raven

The light fades fast up in the mountains, and by 2 pm we had lost most of the sun at our spot. A cool breeze had risen, blowing through the treetops and sounding like the far-off whisper of surf. Rather than bundle up, we decided to strike camp.

The drive down the mountain was no less beautiful, as the sun was once again shining behind the foliage, making it glow like stained glass. We got glimpses of the lowlands, shrouded in smog, making us wish we did not have to descend. It was a most satisfying day and it left us with good memories that we can float on for a week.

Continent-size Garbage Patch Threatens Food Chain

2009-10-22T09:42:00.001-07:00

If you have been living under a rock and haven't heard about this--listen up! Some people are careless, some people don't care, but the sad fact is that if human being don't stop being pigs, we are truly doomed. Never mind world wars and economic meltdown; the amount of garbage polluting our planet, on land and sea, is going to bring a day of reckoning. Maybe not for you or me, those of a certain age whose best years are mostly behind us now, but for sure the children who will inherit the earth that we leave them.

Read this article, then please think twice before you casually toss out plastic garbage--or even buy food and products overly packaged in this vile substance. The ocean is already full of it; please to add your garbage to the problem!

Continents of garbage in the oceans are killing marine life and releasing poisons that enter the human food chain, Amanda Woods reports.

In one of the few places on Earth where people can rarely be found, the human race has well and truly made its mark. In the middle of the Pacific Ocean lies a floating garbage patch twice the size of Britain. A place where the water is filled with six times as much plastic as plankton. This plastic-plankton soup is entering the food chain and heading for your dinner table.

For hundreds of years, sailors and fisherman have known to avoid the area between the Equator and 50 degrees north latitude about halfway between California and Hawaii. As one of the ocean's deserts, the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre lacks the wind that sailors need to survive, as well as the nutrients to support large fish or the men who hunt them.

But 10 years ago, Captain Charles Moore took a short cut through the airless doldrums in his catamaran, Algulita, and caught sight of something that changed his life. As he looked out at what should have been a clear blue ocean, Moore saw a sea of plastic. As far as he could see, day after day, were bottles, wrappers and fragments of plastic in every colour.

Historically, the ocean's circular currents have led to accumulation of flotsam and jetsam in the subtropical high, where the waste has biodegraded with the help of marine micro-organisms. But since humans developed a material designed for durability, which can survive exposure to any bacteria, the gyre has been filling with a substance it can't get rid of. Rather than biodegrading, plastic photodegrades, breaking down in the sunlight into smaller and smaller pieces. But no matter how small it gets, it's still plastic, and causes havoc when it enters the stomachs of marine life.

Ian Kiernan, the Australian who founded Clean Up the World, started his environmental campaign 20 years ago after he became appalled by the amount of rubbish he saw on an around-the-world solo yacht race. He'll never forget the first time he saw the gyre.

"It was just filled with things like furniture, fridges, plastic containers, cigarette lighters, plastic bottles, light globes, televisions and fishing nets," Kiernan says.

"It's all so durable it floats. It's just a major problem."

He picks up an ashtray filled with worn-down coloured pieces of plastic. "This is the contents of a fleshy-footed shearwater's stomach," he says. "They go to the ocean to fish but there ain't no fish - there's plastic. They then regurgitate it down the necks of their fledglings and it kills them. After the birds decompose, the plastic gets washed back into the ocean where it can kill again. It's a form of ghost fishing, where it goes on and on."

With gyres in each of the oceans, connected by debris highways, the problem isn't restricted to the North Pacific Gyre. It is estimated there are more than 13,000 pieces of plastic litter on every square kilometer of the ocean surface.

The United Nations Environment Program says plastic is accountable for the deaths of more than a million seabirds and more than 100,000 marine mammals such as whales, dolphins and seals every year. A Dutch study in the North Sea of fulmar seabirds concluded 95 per cent of the birds had plastic in their stomachs. More than 1600 pieces were found in the stomach of one bird in Belgium.

Since his first encounter with the gyre in 1997, Moore has returned several times and created the Algalita Marine Research Foundation to study the problem. The Canadian filmmaker Ian Connacher joined Moore in 2005 and again last year to film the garbage patch for his documentary, I Am Plastic. After a week of sailing from Long Beach, California, Connacher was not prepared for what he saw.

"Charlie once found a mile-long trail of Taco Bell wrappers which had plastic in them. I didn't see anything like that, but that's not the point, because it's the little bits that are really making it a plastic soup," Connacher says.

"The most menacing part is those little bits of plastic start looking like food for certain animals, or the filter feeders don't have any choice, they just pick them up." Then there's the plastic that doesn't float. Greenpeace reports that about 70 per cent of the plastic that makes it to the ocean sinks to the bottom, where it can smother marine life. Greenpeace says Dutch scientists have found 600,000 tonnes of discarded plastic on the bottom of the North Sea alone.

A study by the Japanese geochemist Hideshige Takada and his colleagues at Tokyo University in 2001 found that plastic polymers act like a sponge for resilient poisons such as DDT and polychlorinated biphenyls. Takada's team found non-water-soluble toxic chemicals can be found in plastic in levels as high as a million times their concentration in water.

As small pieces of plastic are mistaken for fish eggs and other food by marine life, these toxins enter the food chain. Even without this extra toxic load, eating plastic can be hazardous to the health.

In 2002 a study of hermaphrodite fish led Canadian scientists to link estrogen in water to abnormal sex organs in fish. Several plastic additives have been found to mimic estrogen. Some experts, such as Frederick vom Saal, a professor of biological sciences at Missouri University, say declining fertility rates in humans could be linked to exposure to synthetic estrogen in plastics.

Some of the ocean's plastic arrives over the side of a ship as litter, and some is the result of containers falling into the ocean. But Greenpeace says about 80 per cent of plastic found at sea is washed out from the land.

The journal Science last year predicted seafood stocks would collapse by 2048 if overfishing and pollution continued.

Greenpeace says embracing the three Rs - reduce, re-use and recycle - would help tackle the problem. Plastic recycling is lagging well behind paper and cardboard, as people are confused about what recycling is available in their areas. There are other challenges for plastic recycling, such as the fact that it can release toxic chemicals into the atmosphere, and that it is more expensive to recycle some plastic than to create a new product from petrochemicals.

The use of bioplastics could help reduce the amount with which we are coating the planet. Traditional petrochemical-based plastics are non-degradable and non-renewable; degradable plastic breaks into smaller pieces in UV light but remains plastic; and there are two kinds of biodegradable plastic that break down in compost - one from a petrochemical resource, the other from a renewable resource such as corn or wheat, which is known as bioplastic.
Dr Katherine Dean, of the CSIRO, says corporate firms have become interested in bioplastic over the past three years.

"When oil prices soared in 2005, that changed a lot of people's perspective, because bioplastic became quite cost-competitive," she says. "All of a sudden it wasn't just about doing the right thing."

In 2001 CSIRO researchers were involved in the development of a corn-based bioplastic that would provide the foundation for the company Plantic Technologies, which developed biodegradable plastic for everything from food and beverage packaging to medical, agricultural and sporting applications.

The chief executive of Plantic, Grant Dow, says once composted, the plastic would become nothing more than carbon dioxide and water.
"For all intents and purposes, it looks like plastic and feels like plastic and does the same thing as plastic in the application," he says.

"It will only biodegrade in the presence of heat, moisture and bacteria, so it will sit in your cupboard pretty much indefinitely, but when the bacteria get to it in compost, that's it. It's gone."

While researchers continue to develop bioplastics, there's no doubt the new generation of polymers can make a difference in day-to-day living. Already supermarkets in Britain, such as Marks & Spencer, Sainsbury's and Tesco, have introduced bioplastic packaging, and food companies are embracing the concept.

Connacher believes as consumers learn more about the situation, many will respond positively. "We think products are going to be recycled, but they're not. We have become irresponsible with the way we use a lot of things, particularly disposable products."

PLEASE DON'T TREAT NATURE AS IF IT, TOO, IS DISPOSABLE.

ON MY SOAPBOX AGAIN - SAVING BOREAL HABITAT

2009-10-21T16:33:00.001-07:00

I haven't written any pleas for support of environmental causes lately, and I generally try not to get too carried away with them. But this one is too important to ignore. This is a portion of an article posted on the "Boreal Songbird Initiative" website:

Mongabay.com

500 scientists call on Quebec to keep its promise to conserve half of its boreal forest

Jeremy HanceSeptember 13, 2009

This March, the Canadian province of Quebec pledged to conserve 50 percent of its boreal forest lying north of the 49th parallel, protecting the region from industrial, mining, and energy development. On Thursday 500 scientists and conservation professionals—65 percent of whom have PhDs—sent a letter to Quebec's Premier Jean Charest calling on him to make good on his promise.

"In protecting northern Quebec’s natural environment and ensuring responsible development in the rest of the area, your government will set in motion one of the most ambitious sustainable development and nature conservation projects in North America, and one that could serve as a model for the rest of the world," the letter reads.

According to the letter, northern Quebec houses 340 million birds, more than a million caribou, and among the greatest populations of freshwater fish in North America. However, not all species are thriving: woodland caribou, the wolverine, and the golden eagle are all threatened with extinction.

A recent report in Trends in Ecology and Environment showed that the world's boreal forests (occurring mostly in wealthy countries) are greatly threatened by mining, logging, and manmade fire. They found that overall less than 10 percent of the boreal is protected and 60 percent is degraded and fragmented, while 27 percent of the species in this massive ecosystem are threatened with extinction.

The importance of the Boreal Forest is to great to ignore. There comes a time when we must just say no to greedy special interest groups that care nothing for wildlife and consider nature's creatures as expendible in their greedy pursuit of wealth.

Please consider making a donation to the Boreal Songbirds Initiative:

http://www.borealbirds.org/index.shtml

MORRO BAY CAMPING TRIP

2009-10-12T11:27:00.001-07:00

Returned to Morro Bay again this year, same month and days as last year, and camped at Morro Bay State Park. This is a view of Morro Rock taken from near the natural history museum.

Once the morning foggy overcast cleared off, the days were lovely; sunny and cool. For me this is perfect weather! This is a partial view of the MBSP boat harbor, with part of the estuary in the distance.

One of the big pines near my campsite. I don't know my tree species too well, but the convoluted bark texture on these pines was really wonderful.

The treeline as seen from my campsite.

Some rocky peaks that are the same type as Morro Rock--except inland. Taken from the small boat harbor near the campground.

The harbor in Morro Bay, with Morro Rock in the background.

Another shot of the boat harbor. I love boats, I love being out on the water--but am cursed with sever motion sickness. I've tried everything under the sun and though some medications and remedies work, the side affects aren't pleasant. Alas! I am landlocked!

Some sloops and yachts in the harbor.

A young California Sea Lion.

Rear flippers--note the toenails!

Sun bathing sea lions--some of those guys were HUGE!

One guy had the right idea...

...using a headrest!

There is a healthy population of Turkey Vultures that roost in the park. This one was spreading its wings to warm itself one morning before taking flight.

I took Friday off so I would have a long weekend. Arrived mid-afternoon, set up camp, and did a little bird walk. I was surprised to note that there weren't as many birds around here as last year at this time. There were the resident Turkey Vultures and Brewer's Blackbirds, which roost at various trees in the campground, and of course the White-crowned Sparrows; but I saw no migrating warblers this time.

A partial bird list:

Nuttall's Woodpecker

Dark-eyed Junco

Peregrine Falcon

Red-shouldered Hawk

Black Phoebe

American Crow

Various species of sea gulls

Brown Pelican

Great Egret

Great Blue Heron

cormorants

Great Horned Owls

The owls hooted during the night; on Friday night I lay awake and listened to them for almost two hours. There were three distinct birds, each with a different voice, calling back and forth. One had the typical deep whoo-WHOO-hoo-hoo-hoo; one was similar, except he had a slight catch at the second note; the third was a higher pitched song. Saturday night there was just the deep-voiced and high-pitched birds calling back and forth, using a 4-note call instead of the 5-note one of the night before.

Saturday night while eating dinner at dusk there was a hatch of flying termites, which brought out six bats hunting them. Was really neat to watch them darting around in the fading light.

One group of campers found out the hard way that you need to keep your food put away--some raccoons got into their food one night. I always put everything in the car at night and wedged the cooler under the seat on the picnic bench so they can't lift the lid. I actauly heard one rattling the handles in the middle of the night--they will try anyway!

It was a delightful trip; very relaxing and a nice getaway. There is still talk of closing a lot of california's state parks and it would be such a shame and a great loss to those of us who enjoy the outdoors to take this away from us. So many things in our state are getting cut, curtailed, and scaled back these days (not to mention the losses due to wildfires), that I am determined to get out and experience and enjoy all I can--while I can.

SAY THANK-YOU TO THE FIREFIGHTERS!

2009-10-07T11:10:00.000-07:00

Want to help the folks that fight wildfires? Here's a link to The Wildland Firefighter Foundation website:

http://www.wffoundation.org/Page.asp?NavID=94

All of us that use the mountains and other wildlands for recreation owe these people our support.

Also, there was a tragic loss to one Forest Service employee during the recent Sheep Fire in the San Bernardino/Angeles National Forests:

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2009/10/blaze-burns-forest-service-employees-home-kills-dogs-he-had-rescued.html

This poor guy has lost two homes to fire, now the dogs he rescued that were abandoned in the forest. He was also recently beaten while serving a ticket on a violator in the forest. If you want to send a donation to help this poor guy:

Bobby Wright donations: Lytle Creek Volunteer Assn. The group is located at the Lytle Creek Ranger Station, 1209 Lytle Creek Road, Lytle Creek, CA 92358. For more information, call (909) 382-2851.

Give thanks, and give generously to these hard-working, courageous folks that are out on the line trying to save our precious recreation areas!

AFTERMATH - STILL GRIEVING

2009-10-01T16:33:00.001-07:00

And through the meadows homeward went, in grave
And serious mood; but after I had seen
That spectacle, for many days, my brain
Worked with a dim and undetermined sense
Of unknown modes of being; o’er my thoughts
There hung a darkness, call it solitude
Or blank desertion. No familiar shapes
Remained, no pleasant images of trees,
Of sea or sky, no colours of green fields;
But huge and mighty forms, that do not live
Like living men, moved slowly through the mind
By day, and were a trouble to my dreams.
--William Wordsworth

I'm still grieving for the loss of the forest and its creatures. It will never be the same--and I daresay, neither will I. Over the past two years I have lost place after favorite place to wildfires, most of them human-caused. It is not an easy loss to take; to me it is like losing a loved one.

MYSTERY PRINTS

2009-09-30T17:59:00.001-07:00

Something was visiting our yard last week and tearing up the lawn and parkway...

Upon closer inspection of the culprets paw prints, I suspected a raccoon.

This morning the parkway lawn was really torn up; they were back! I went on the county animal control website and lo and behold, read this:

"Raccoons causing lawn and turf damage may be encouraged to leave by controlling the grub worms or other subsoil insects that raccoons eat. Remember the safety of your pets when dealing with chemicals on your lawn."

When I was replacing divets, I did notice a very large grub, so this is definitely what they are after. This is going to be a real challenge to deal with. I don't want to put down any chemical control for the grubs unless it's non-toxic (which isn't likely), but I don't want the lawn torn up anymore either. Thankfully the major damage is the parkway area. They only tore up two divets in the front lawn enclosed by the fence. Pesky littel devils! But kind of cool knowing there is wildlife like this in the city!

FALL

2009-09-23T10:51:00.000-07:00

The leaves don't quite look like this yet here in Southern California, but the first sign we got was the return of Santa Ana winds, which sparked 5 brush fires. It's the time of year I dread, for it seems that we lose more and more of our precious wildlands every year at this time. It seems so unfair that the south gets a deluge and we are still in a drought. But there it is. Call it global warming, call it climate shift, but whatever it is, we need to start the rain dancing here now!

Mr. Pinchy Update

2009-09-22T15:16:00.000-07:00

Mr. Pinchy, the crawdad I found about 6 weeks ago, is thriving in his new 10 gal. freshwater aquarium home. But he really goes through the plants! A lot of them he eats, but some I think he just tears up in his nighttime foraging around the tank. This photo shows the new plants I installed last night--some water wisteria, anacharis, and moneywart. I divided some of the wisteria and anacharis to spread it around a bit more. As of this morning, he'd left it alone, but I gave him 4 salmon eggs last night and I think that satisfied his appetite.

A nice close-up, showing the eye, antennae, and pincers.

Heading towards the "Craw Cave.'

A nice profile shot that shows the anatomy well.

Angus is still keeping vigil on the tank! He's fascinated by the bubbles from the airstone and the water flowing out of the filter. And when he sees Mr. Pinchy wandering around, he really gets excited.

SPECIAL NOTE: The crrawdad may have been free, but setting up and maintaining the "Craw Crib" has been pretty expensive. Like all pets, it involves time and money. If you don't have either, please don't take on a pet.

I will say that having this crawdad has been very interesting. I don't stare at him every day, but I do spend time now and then observing and photographing his behavior. Quite an education for an amateur naturalist.

STATION FIRE - ANGELES FOREST BEFORE AND AFTER

2009-09-17T11:01:00.000-07:00

Someone posted a video on YouTube taken by some Mt. Wilson personnel being escourted up to the observatory by the Highway Patrol. I searched and found a similar video taken BEFORE the fire as a comparison. It is truly hideous what has happened to our forest.

BEFORE:

AFTER:

It is way beyond words. Way beyond sad. It is a tragedy of huge proportions.

MR. PINCHY HAS A VISITOR

2009-09-15T13:53:00.000-07:00

Mr. Pinchy peeks out from behind his rock.

Angus waiting for Mr. Pinchy to make an appearance.

One of my cats, Angus, has become quite curious about the new fish tank I installed to house the crawdad I found in front of our house about a month ago (hard to believe I've had it that long now). First he was just captivated by the bubbles from the airstone, then he discovered there was running water flowing in the back from the filter. He loves water and I have had a little trouble disuading him from climbing up on top of the glass tank top and light fixture to get a better look.

Last night he was very persistant and I kept moving him down and saying, "NO!" very firmly. When I went back into the room, Angus had taken up a spot near the tank where he could keep an eye on things. He minded, and yet continued to do what he wanted. Have to admire him for that!

A FIRST-HAND LOOK AT THE AFTERMATH

2009-09-11T11:46:00.002-07:00

Observations from trip into the Angeles National Forest

By Dan Abendschein on September 9, 2009 12:01 PM Pasadena-Star News

Yesterday, I got my first chance to get deep into the Angeles Forest after the fire. Like most people who hike in the area, I'd been feeling a lot of anxiety about what might have been destroyed up there.

The news is not good. The lower end of the forest, up to the intersection with Big Tujunga Canyon Road, is absolutely devastated. There are stretches where there is almost no foliage left anywhere in sight. Guard rails are laying on the side of the road, the wooden posts that held them up burned to ashes. Without any trees left for wind break, yesterday's slight breeze felt very strong, sending up little dust devils whirling around the charred landscape.

There are few bright spots left for outdoors enthusiasts. Hiking trails off Big Tujunga Canyon Road will be useless. The trail up to Strawberry Peak that starts near Mt. Wilson is burned.
The backside of Mt. Wilson is one of the few exceptions in the area. Firefighters did an amazing job protecting the area, and hiking trails down in the canyon next to it could still be intact. Another bright spot is Switzer Falls, an extremely popular picnic area low in the park. Though the fire burned hillsides on either side of the canyon it sits in, the canyon itself is still mostly intact, especially right in the picnic area. The hiking trails in the area may not be open for a while, though, as trees and boulders have rolled down the hills into the canyon.

Further up in the forest is a different story. Firefighters are still battling the blazes up there. One side of Mt. Waterman is burning, but the fire does not appear to be out of control. Higher peaks are still outside of the burn area.

The area below Waterman is a mixed bag. In the Devil's Canyon area, where there are several popular campgrounds, there are some trees left standing, and some burn areas. It looks different around every curve up on Highway 2. There are still smoky hotspots in the area, and it is hard to tell exactly what has been preserved and what hasn't.

It's hard to say exactly what the future of the forest holds for recreational users: some areas will be reopened, some may not be, at least in the near future. But even in the best-case scenario the loss of great wilderness areas is very staggering, and a little hard to take once you see it with your own eyes.

http://www.insidesocal.com/pasadenapolitics/2009/09/observations-from-trip-into-th.html

THIS PRETTY MUCH SAYS IT ALL. ADIOS, ANGELES NATIONAL FOREST

2009-09-09T13:06:00.001-07:00

The Hazards to Urban Birds: Death and the City

2009-09-07T11:48:00.000-07:00

This Great Blue Heron died by hanging after becoming entangled in discarded fishing line.

Birds are miraculous creatures. The product of millions of years of evolution, they have survived as a species through various adaptations to changes in their environment due to natural causes. Life is harsh, but birds do thrive if left alone. But they have one huge obstacle: human activity. Humans have survival and life needs, too. But many are also selfish and self-serving, and they often do not take nature into consideration before they act.

Everyone immediately focuses on global warming now as one of the chief causes of bird declines and to some extent that is true. But what gets lost are the insidious dangers, the ones that are overlooked because they are so pervasive that most people don’t even see them anymore, let alone see them as a problem.

The earliest threats to birds were quite obvious. The ladies hat fashions at the turn of the century nearly caused the extinction of Great Blue Herons. The heron rookeries in Florida were being decimated by hunters who were killing them for their beautiful plumage, which was in turn sold to millinery operations in the North, until T. Gilbert Pearson brought it to the public’s attention (and founded the first incarnation of the Audubon movement).

Another lethal (and incredibly cruel) activity was the annual Christmas bird hunt, where shooters went out and killed every bird they could find in one day. It is hard to fathom the type of person that would find this sporting or even fun, but cruelty seems to be an unfortunate characteristic of America’s psyche.

The 1950s ushered in the age of plastics and pesticides; a lethal one-two punch that has been plaguing birds ever since. These seemingly innocuous, yet perfidious products have caused much death and near extinction of birds in modern times.

Plastic six-pack rings were one of the first really serious threats to birds, especially gulls and waterfowl, when they became ensnared and strangled in them. Since then, plastic, whether as bags or micro trash, are killing birds by the millions. National Geographic even did a feature story not long ago on how albatross are picking up everything from plastic bottle caps to disposable lighters, ingesting them and feeding them to their young. Both adults and chicks are dying from malnutrition as a result. The small careless gesture of flipping that bottle cap or empty disposable lighter into the gutter rather than the trash is wrecking havoc in the lives of birds thousands of miles offshore.

In the 1960s, the first serious urban sprawl began to claim natural habitats for human homes. Hills were graded, fences erected, cement poured—all with reckless disregard for wildlife. This continues today--with devastating results--as we have lately seen in Rossmoore, CA. Residents there badgered the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service into issuing a permit for the killing of Acorn Woodpeckers that had been using homes for granaries after the native oak trees were cut down to build a retirement community.

Another component of urban sprawl is the planting of greenscape and landscaping that is not carefully chosen. Developers often choose fast-growing, exotic trees that have problematic roots, and messy leaf and fruit fall that residents cannot live with. The result is ill-timed and careless tree and hedge trimming during the spring and summer nesting season, which results in many bird deaths and loss of suitable nesting sites. Audubon has just published its first “Guidelines for Tree and Shrub Trimming and Removal” in hopes of mitigating some of this preventable destruction.

The latest danger that has come to the attention of Los Angeles Audubon is discarded monofilament fishing line. Monofilament fishing line, though it may look harmless, is deadly to birds. It is designed to be invisible to fish, but it is also invisible to birds. Entanglements with fishing line have led to the deaths of thousands of birds, as well as the amputation of limbs of many others. Shorebirds and waterfowl are particularly susceptible to entanglement with fishing line when they forage for food. Birds may also become impaled with hooks, and if they are hooked in the neck or swallow the hook it will prevent them from feeding and they will die of starvation.

Several recent incidents have raised the awareness of this problem. The first was on March 18 and involved me personally when I found a Royal Tern along the Ballona Creek bike path. The bird was standing just off the path, shaking its head involuntarily. A woman nearby said that she and her boyfriend had removed a hook from its neck (kind, but not the smartest thing to try on your own) and some fishing line that was wound around its neck. Eleanor Osgood rescued the bird, but it died that night.

A second incident was on March 30, reported in the LA County Birds listserve. David Chadsey of Etiwanda reported seeing a “gull tied to a white buoy directly out from the little green pier. It appeared to be caught in a long loop of fishing line and was struggling to get airborne.” This lucky bird was saved by the lifeguards at the lake, who went out in their patrol boat and rescued the gull.

The third incident, reported by Judith Raskin of Echo Park, involved the near-strangulation of a Double-crested Cormorant on April 10. Barbara Jarvik found the “hapless cormorant dangling from fishing line in a eucalyptus tree.” The LAFD was called and fortunately was able to cut the bird down before it strangled to death. This bird likely survived; others are not so lucky.

Many people are surprised to hear that it takes fishing line 600 years to break down in the environment. That's six times longer than tin cans and batteries, 17 times longer than fishing nets, and 40 times longer than plastic bags. This makes fishing line a real danger that does not go away, making clean-up and recycling of this lethal waste material a critical issue.

All these hazards to birds due to human activity are preventable. With education and raising the awareness of the public, these threats to birds can be managed and even eliminated. Birds deserve as much of a chance to survive as human beings do. We at Audubon believe in being good neighbors and sharing the environment with birds rather than usurping it from them.

If you would like to become involved in our conservation efforts, we would welcome all the help we can get. These problems won’t go away on their own; it takes people to undo the problems created by people. So do something nice for the birds for a change and volunteer on one of Los Angeles Audubon’s conservation projects today!

FIRE STILL RAGING, NEW HOPE, AND SOME UNEXPECTED SIDE-EFFECTS

2009-09-07T08:38:00.000-07:00

As an addendum to this post: As of Sunday, 9/06, they've saved the McMansions in the canyons, so now they have their full resources and attention to fighting the fire. It is now approx. 51% contained. I heard a report that they were finally making an attempt to save Big Santa Anita Canyon and Chantry Flats from the fire, the area with the historical cabins from the early 1900's and the oldest and last pack station in the United States.

I was out in the San Fernando Valley yesterday and the air quality was really horrible. It's bad enough for humans, but I imagine people's pets and smaller wildlife will be suffering from the smoke as well. Another side effect of the fire that most folks rarely think about.

I live about 30 miles west of the fire and about 8 miles from the ocean. We've had ash on our cars for days and I have developed a wet cough that reminds me of what used to happen when I smoked, even though I have avoided heavy exercise outdoors. I hope I don't develop some health problems from this sometime down the line. That arsonist should be held accountable for any smoke related health problems and deaths, too.

Urban Wild

REMEMBERING JIM

THE JOY OF QUIET

A DAY AT RANDY'S FARM - THE PEACEABLE KINGDOM

LUNAR ECLIPSE - DECEMBER 10, 2011

UP IN THE FOREST AGAIN

ADVENTURE WITH DIGBY

SATURDAY STORM CHASING

BACKROADS OUTING

FOREST FALLS - SAN BERNARDINO MOUNTAINS - PART I

BEAR PAW RANCH - SAN BERNARDINO MOUNTAINS

TREE TRIMMING GUIDELINES

BACKROADS TRIP

EARTH DAY BIRTHDAY

WHITNEY CANYON - SPRING HAS SPRUNG

TRUE LIFE ADVENTURE

IN BLOOM NOW: Magnolia x soulangeana

A NEW FAMILY MOVED IN

MORE PAINTING RATHER THAN POSTING

ANNA'S HUMMINGBIRD VIDEO

SCIENTISTS PROVE WE ARE NOT FROM HERE!

Jim Otterstrom - November 14, 1945 - January 22, 2011

BLOOMS - IN WINTER!

NATURE...

AFTER THE DELUGE

O'er the Wood's Brow

FAVORITE MOON PHOTOS

SOME GOT SNOW--WE GOT SUN

Wise Words for the Woods

"The seas are the heart's blood of the earth"

HERON ON A RIVER AT EVENING

BIRDING ALONG THE L.A. RIVER

PAINTING BIRDS - GETTING INITMATE WITH MY FEATHERED FRIENDS

A COLD AND CLOUDY MORNING

AN ISSUE THAT FLEW IN UNDER MY RADAR

Hidden Owls - Camouflage in Nature

HOT RODDIN' MERGANSERS

ERIK VAN OMMEN - DUTCH BIRD ARTIST

The Singing Life of Birds

THE OUTDOORS CALLING

NOSTALGIA--ONLY A LITTLE

LEAVING THE OLD 'HOMESTEAD' BEHIND

LOOKING HEAVENWARD

A NEW FAVORITE SPOT

When the Failure to Act Becomes Tragedy

PLIGHT OF THE BABY PELICANS

A HOLE IN THE WORLD - A WAY OF LIFE IN PERIL

ANOTHER DAY ON MT. PINOS

A DAY ON MT. PINOS - THE VIDEO

A DAY ON MT. PINOS

COOL BIRD FACTS

Celebration of Spring

MR. PINCHY'S "NEW CLOTHES"

"RAVENS" A WONDERFUL 'NATURE' EPISODE!

"MOONWALKING" BIRD - FANTASTIC BIRD BEHAVIOR!

CASSIN'S KINGBIRDS 1/7/10

TOWSLEY CANYON, NEWHALL, DEC. 27, 2009

CHANTRY FLAT PICNIC

THE HIGH COUNTRY BECKONS

THOUGHT FOR TODAY

Garbage floating in Pacific exacts deadly toll on Albatrosses

FINDING FALL IN SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA

Continent-size Garbage Patch Threatens Food Chain

ON MY SOAPBOX AGAIN - SAVING BOREAL HABITAT

MORRO BAY CAMPING TRIP

SAY THANK-YOU TO THE FIREFIGHTERS!

AFTERMATH - STILL GRIEVING

MYSTERY PRINTS

FALL

Mr. Pinchy Update

STATION FIRE - ANGELES FOREST BEFORE AND AFTER

MR. PINCHY HAS A VISITOR

A FIRST-HAND LOOK AT THE AFTERMATH

THIS PRETTY MUCH SAYS IT ALL. ADIOS, ANGELES NATIONAL FOREST

The Hazards to Urban Birds: Death and the City

FIRE STILL RAGING, NEW HOPE, AND SOME UNEXPECTED SIDE-EFFECTS