Bosque del Apache

Bosque del Apache is a relatively small wildlife preserve along the Rio Grande in western New Mexico, but it is anything but small in national prestige. It is one of the most popular locations for wildlife photography in the United States, drawing photographers with its enormous wintering flocks of geese, cranes, and ducks amidst the enchanting light and landscape of New Mexico. It's one of the few places (Bolsa Chica on some occasions perhaps being the only other) that Libby and I have visited where birdwatchers are outnumbered, in this case significantly, by bird photographers.

In the morning, the big flight ponds was bristling with long lenses. Cars lined the roads and tripods sprouted like forests on the road edges and on the flight deck. Thankfully, the birds don't seem to mind the crowds. They're well adjusted to being gawked at, and allowed for close approach and great photo opportunities.

The highlight photographically at the refuge is the morning and evening commute. Every sunrise and sunset, the many thousands of birds wintering at the refuge fly in and out from the protection of their night time roost in large water impoundments to forage in specially provided fields. The result is a spectacular experience; previously serene skies fill explosively with the whirring wings, spraying water, and a pandemonium of honks and gurgles as the geese take to the sky as one. In short, it was awesome.

Snow Geese take off in the morning.

Flickr

It was also cold. There was a strong and steady wind all morning, and the already freezing temperatures were doubly compounded by the wind chill. Gloves, heavy jackets; nothing seemed to keep the chill out. Ice was built up on the water and pushed into the lee corners of the ponds. The ducks seemed comfortable, but we were not! Thankfully, it warmed nicely during the day, and we had a great time driving the auto tours, taking a couple of short hikes, and enjoying the birds. We saw lots of familiar species, and one new bird - a White-throated Sparrow that has been spending the winter with a White-crowned Sparrow flock right next to the visitor's center.

Sandhill Cranes stand in a marshy field near the end of the day.
Flickr

I can't help but compare the experience of Bosque del Apache with the other places we've been to see wintering waterfowl flocks: the Sacramento NWR complex and the Salton Sea. I wouldn't say it's better from a birding standpoint. Perhaps its best relative virtue birding-wise is the compactness of the area - it's all concentrated in one easily traveled and explored place. On the other hand, the Salton Sea has fewer numbers, but greater over-all diversity of species in an expansive landscape that can take hours of travel time getting from place to place. The Sacramento NWR complex probably has both more individual geese and ducks (though fewer cranes) and greater diversity over-all than the Bosque, but, again, the birds are spread out between several refuges with miles between them. And, of course, neither of them has the magical light of Bosque del Apache or the romantic appeal of the southwest.

Lots and lots of pictures (some of them I like very much) can be found at Flickr: Bosque del Apache set.

Carlsbad to Socorro

The morning of the 30th of December saw Libby and I decamping from our hotel, packing our car, and driving south down the same road we'd taken from El Paso. No, our destination was not Texas, but Rattlesnake Springs, a perpetual source of water that's tapped for local agriculture and Carlsbad Caverns National Park.

Rattlesnake Springs provides provides a unique westernmost winter home for a few eastern birds that we'd never seen before. So, off we went with modest hopes, back into the wide flat rolling country to which we were growing so accustomed.

Our hopes, being modest, were well fulfilled, despite its being a very quiet morning. As we wandered around the spring's large pool, stumbling quickly upon our first ever Brown Thrasher sifting through leaf litter in a dark thicket. Unfortunately we never got a complete and un-obscured view of the bird, but we were able to admire his surprisingly warm reddish-brown back and lean shape. After wandering about, enjoying Wild Turkeys, lots of sparrows, spooking a Great Horned Owl from its roost tree, and finding Northern Cardinals and Pyrrhuloxia together in their vermilion splendor, we came back to the pool and found an Eastern Phoebe had joined its western cousins - allowing us to enjoy all three Phoebe species in one place!

Wild Turkeys at Rattlesnake Springs

Flickr

We missed a lot of potential birds there, some of which would have been new (Scaled Quail and Northern Bobwhite would have been awesome), but we were far from disappointed. On our way out we dropped by some bathrooms and were surprised to see two young raccoons in a neighboring tree! And, on our way back to the highway, we found a cooperative Greater Roadrunner.

From then on, we just drove to Socorro. We drove north through flat oil country before stopping for lunch at a park in Roswell - a bigger town than I had expected and with fewer alien-themed buildings (though there were quite a few). Then we drove through flat country and some hills before arriving at Socorro around dusk. That night we ate at the Socorro Springs Brewing Company. Great food - best meal of the trip by far.

A few pictures can be found at the usual place: Carlsbad to Socorro set.

Carlsbad Caverns

Imagine a big hole in the ground. Now, imagine that the big hole is filled with rocky spikes and fantastic shapes. OK, you've now successfully imagined Carlsbad Caverns. Really! That's it!

Of course, it is a little better in person. Not that I mean any offense to your imaginations.

The basic Caverns experience involves taking the self-guided tours. The Natural Entrance tour is about a mile walk that takes you 830 feet down and then about fifty feet back up again. You go in a big hole in the ground (remember what you imagined) on a paved path with a handrail and wind your way back under that hole into the very depths of the earth. The whole time, you move through these enormous passages in the rock that are hundreds of feet wide and tall. Speleothems start to show up early on, though the most impressive formations are in the deeper areas of the caves.

Going down.
Flickr

The second element of the self-guided tour is the Big Room tour. That's another paved loop that takes you around the biggest room in the cave. Its floor space is 357,469 sq ft! And the trail is more than a mile long! This area is full of huge stalagmites, and parts of the ceiling are covered in thickets of stalactites. It's really like something out of this world. At the end of the tour, there's an elevator that whisks you back up to the surface right into the Visitor's Center.

Very, very large stalagmites.
Flickr

We did the walk in the morning, and then took the elevator back up to have lunch in the parking lot. After lunch, we took a little walk around the parking lot and down a small nature trail that begins there to see the typical birds of the area. This turned out to be sparrows - Canyon Towhees, Black-chinned Sparrows, and White-crowned Sparrows were very common. We also managed to dig up a Rufous-crowned Sparrow - a lifer for Libby! Pyrrhuloxia and Sage Thrashers were also typical parts of the area's plentiful avifauna.

Black-chinned Sparrow
Flickr

Following our walk, we took the elevator back down into the cave for our scheduled 2:00 King's Palace tour. This is really a must-see part of the caves, and it's been fairly recently restricted so that you can only see it via guided tour. The rooms you visit are smallish, but incredibly full of all kinds of amazing cave formations - draperies and stalactites and stalagmites that will just blow your mind. Naturally, I decided not to bring a camera on this part of the tour.

However, I did take a camera on the rest of the trip - and the pictures are available here: Carlsbad Caverns set. There are a few pictures from the Walnut Canyon exhibits we visited, also, on our way in and out of the park.

Green Valley, AZ to Carlsbad, NM

Day Three of our road trip was a road trip. That is to say, we spent the day on the road. This was one of our longer days driving - a 500 mile trip that Google maps says should take eight hours and forty minutes. Of course, that's without any stops. It took us something between nine or ten hours.

By now, much of it comes back as a blur of dry country and bad readers stumbling their way through David Copperfield (a Librivox recording). We still haven't finished David Copperfield, despite listening to the book almost every minute we were on the road, but the second half of the book has had much more consistent good reading than the first half. Thank heaven!

Libby and the Cracker Barrel
Flickr

We took lunch a little early in Las Cruces, New Mexico; prompted by Libby's good memories revolving around the Cracker Barrel. Back when she was in Awana's high school program, she'd take annual trips to Chicago. And, every year, she'd eat at the Cracker Barrel. It's a very large and popular chain, but there aren't any locations in California. It has very southern or midwestern fare, soI enjoyed the opportunity by trying some deep fried breaded okra with my chicken and dumplings.

Las Cruces is also the first place we saw the mighty Rio Grande! After lunch, we jumped on the road, and, next thing we knew, we were in Texas!

Libby points out our location.
Flickr

The 10 dips down into Texas right at its western tip (see above). We took the 10 into El Paso before turning off and taking a smaller freeway west and north into New Mexico. The area around El Paso is Chihuahuan desert scrub, and areas of it were very reminiscent of the Mojave. But, soon after, we dropped down into some flatlands that were basically grass and salt pans dotted with cholla. Lots of Meadowlarks flew around on the side of the road, but both species are probably present here so we never actually added the birds to our trip list.

The scenic highlight of this part of the country is definitely the Guadalupe Mountains. After hours and hours of flat country and rock-dotted rounded hills, you finally reach something with some cliffs and some height to feast your eyes upon as your drive. Especially spectacular is the southern tip of the range - where it is capped by a beautiful massif called El Capitan.

El Capitan in the Guadalupe Mountains
Flickr

Not long after passing Guadalupe Mountains National Park (not a place I'd heard of, before) we were entering New Mexico, parralleling the Guadalupe Mountains northwards as they shrunk down toward Carlsbad. And as dusk fell, we pulled into our motel for the evening, stretching our cramped legs and happily anticipating the next morning's adventures.

Pictures for the day are here: http://flickr.com/photos/rowleypics/sets/72157612325020902/

Santa Rita Mountains

Saturday morning dawned clear, if cold. A thick layer of frost coasted the windshield, and the puddles of yesterday had become mini-ice rinks. We allowed ourselves to linger in the motel a few minutes, finishing off our remaining Christmas Tree bread before hitting the road for the Santa Rita Mountains.

On the way up we stopped in the grasslands to let it warm further uphill and to cast an eye about for sparrows. Our particular target was Rufous-winged Sparrows, but that wasn't to be. Instead, we found large roaming flocks of Lark Sparrows, White-crowned Sparrows, Black-throated Sparrows and Vesper Sparrows. Fortunately, Vesper Sparrows were life birds, so we can't and don't complain.

Our next stop was Florida Canyon, where as I mentioned in an earlier post, we were fortunate enough to see three Rufous-capped Warblers. These birds are a rare stray to the United States from Mexico (they have bred north of the border).. We benefited greatly from the experience of some other birders who were there, and had a pretty amazing time in the canyon. After getting great views of the birds (twice) we headed back downhill to the car.

A Rufous-capped Warbler in Florida Canyon.
Flickr

While descending we fell in with a couple of Arizona birders who had been up in the canyon with us earlier, but had gone on ahead home. While looking with them unsuccessfully for some uncooperative Black-capped Gnatcatchers we thought we might have heard, one of them pished up a flock that included Green-tailed Towhees, Cactus Wrens, Black-chinned Sparrows (our first experience of them in winter), Lincoln Sparrows, and a Ladder-backed Woodpecker. All fun birds. And a few minutes later I picked out an unfamiliar warm colored finch-like bird in the oaks. It turned out to be a female Indigo Bunting! A new bird for us! And then a little bit further on we had a Crissal Thrasher, yet another new bird for us!

And right about the same time Mike Moore (he and his brother were the fellows we were walking with) started cursing and it turned out he'd discovered a Kentucky Warbler in a flock of Ruby-crowned Kinglets. This is an eastern bird that is even rarer in Arizona in winter than Rufous-capped Warblers! We helped them re-find it so he could document it (unfortunately our own camera's batteries had died because of the cold around this time), and got great looks at this beautiful and totally unexpected bird. Oh, and on the way down after all of this, we saw a beautiful mule deer off to the side of the trail (the first of many on this trip).

All in all the morning was a blast and pretty exhilarating.

We took our midday repast at Madera Canyon itself. There we had lunch while we watched Mexican Jays flying around in large flocks. Basically, they were behaving a lot like any kind of Jay you're familiar with - but these special birds are only found in the U.S. in Southeast Arizona, Southwest New Mexico and the Chisos Mountains of Texas. We then walked up to some nearby feeders where we were happy to see Wild Turkeys milling about along with large flocks of Pine Siskins, Acorn Woodpeckers, more Mexican Jays, and several varieties of Dark-eyed Juncos: Oregon, Pink-sided and Gray-headed. No Yellow-eyed Juncos, which are actually a different species found exclusively in Southeastern Arizona and southwards (we've seen them before in the Huachuca Mountains south of the Santa Ritas). Further exploring turned up a couple of mixed flocks of Townsend's Warblers, Bridled Titmice and Ruby-crowned Kinglets. I was hoping to dig a few Olive Warblers out of these mixed flocks, but no luck this trip.

Mexican Jay

Flickr

After that, we just walked around and enjoyed the snow (along with a horde of other people from the area). On the way back to the Motel we stopped in three spots - Proctor Road to look again for Black-capped Gnatcatchers (nothing doing - just an Empid); Florida Wash where we had more sparrows, our first Northern Harrier for the trip, and a Gray Flycatcher; and Continental School, where I'd heard it was possible to find Rufous-winged Sparrows coming to a drip. We found lots more sparrows there, too, but no Rufous-winged Sparrows. We also found a juvenile male Vermilion Flycatcher, White-winged Doves, and I had a brief look at a Northern Beardless-Tyrannulet.

And that was pretty much it. That night we ate dinner at a local diner with all the snow birds, and overheard conversations about how it was stupid to remarry if you'd lose your pension doing it. Ah, romance!

The day's pictures are up on Flickr: Southwestern Road Trip Day 2 Set.

Day One of our Road Trip Adventure

The morning of Boxing Day was dark and cold when we bundled ourselves out of our apartment and into our parents Ford Escape; very kindly lent to us for our trip. It took two or three trips to and fro to get all of our food, suitcases of clothes, laptops, optics and sundries distributed in the backseats and trunk before we were finally ready to go. The garage door raised in creaking protest, and we rolled out into the wide world. It wouldn't be until the next year that we'd see our home again.

The drive to southeast Arizona is becoming familiar, but that doesn't make it seem to go any more quickly. We got onto the I-10 in California, and it became our constant companion for the next 400 miles. We sped through the Mojave Desert - creosote and sage blurring by as we past the snow covered San Jacinto Mountains. Then you drop down into the very dry Colorado Desert, the westernmost section of the Sonora. Tall spiky Ocotillos begin to assert themselves as you pass the southern entrance to Joshua Tree National Park. Long dry sandy stretches seem to blur together before you arrive at Blythe, its agricultural fields, and the mighty Colorado River. A simple bridge crossing takes you into Arizona, and the first Saguaros promptly make ou welcome as the road wends its way through more rocky outcroppings.

Sonoran Desert from the car window
Hosted on Flickr

We didn't stop for anything but gas and food - our lunch hour confused by the time change - before we arrived at Casa Grande. This small city is at the junction of the 8 and 10 in Arizona, and the last two winters has played host to a Northern Jacana, a type of coot-like bird normally only found in Mexico and further south. Unfortunately, it was uncooperative for us, but we did see start ticking our first trip birds. Canyon Towhees, a Prairie Falcon, and Loggerhead Shrikes on the nearby telephone wires welcomed us to the delightful avifauna of the lower deserts in Arizona. A Redhead and some Ring-necked Ducks in the golf course ponds (those very ponds that were so disappointingly short of Jacanas) were the only representatives of their species that we saw on the entire trip!

The Redhead at Casa Grande

Hosted on Flickr

After a few trips back and forth between the ponds, much craning of our necks, and a good bit od waiting, we packed ourselves back into the Escape and sped off to Tucson. There we encountered some light rain, but decided to persevere despite it to stop at the Sweetwater Wetlands there. These wetlands are a series of marshy ponds that are anything but sweet, being the discharge of a nearby wastewater treatment plant. These sorts of places are great for birds, if sometimes smelly (Sweetwater is actually not bad in that regard), and a short walk around the ponds yielded some more new trip birds, and our first lifer of the trip. This latter bird came in the form of a Harris Hawk, a semi-tropical raptor resident at the ponds.

Harris Hawk
Hosted on Flickr

A group of this desert dwelling hawk was milling about in the Eucalyptus Trees lining one side of the area, and we were happy to enjoy both flight and resting views of its striking plumage. We also saw our only Yellow-headed Blackbirds, Common Ground-Doves, Gila Woodpeckers, and Anna's Hummingbirds of the trip. The ponds there held yet more ducks, but most of these we would see at Bosque del Apache in New Mexico, later.

As it grew darker, we once again made our Escape (heh) and hit the road down the 19 to Green Valley where we spent the night. It was very cold in Green Valley, and we could see the snow in the nearby mountains had come very low. That was a little troubling becuase it was our destination for the next morning, but we decided to make the best of it and sleep in a little before heading up.

A small gallery of pictures from our first day on the road trip can be seen here: http://flickr.com/photos/rowleypics/sets/72157612170157379/

Christmas Retrospect

In the hustle and bustle of the holiday itself, followed close betimes by our excusing ourselves on a lengthy trans-state journey, I've had no time to type out any words regarding our very happy Christmas celebrations.

This year we spent Christmas Eve with the Mootharts. We enjoyed the hospitality of Gabe, Emily and their boys, and the wonderful traditional cheese fondue of Libby's mother while cheering each other with presents and the Christmas story. In short - I borrow the words from Dicken's Mr. Micawber - we made very merry. Pictures can be found here: Christmas Eve 08.

Immediately following this happy time of celebration, we betook ourselves to our church to celebrate Christ's incarnation through the beautiful midnight Mass. This is always a highlight of the season and the year for me.

The next day Libby and I exchanged our humble gifts and had a hearty breakfast of blueberry muffins, eggs, bacon and orange juice! It was wonderful. Libby got me an apron so that I can cook and clean in the morning in my work clothes, and I got her a Sleeping Beauty DVD.

We then returned to our car and went to my parents' house. There we celebrated Christmas, yet again, through the exchanging of gifts and the breaking of bread together. We had ham, scalloped potatoes, and everything else you could hope in a Christmas feast; chased by traditional sweet morsels representative of the seasonal spirit. We then opened presents from and to each other. Pictures, again, are at Flickr. You can see them here: Christmas 08.

When we got home we packed all of our things and went to bed so we could get on the road early the next morning.

Travel Update

Happy New Year!

We're currently in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Tomorrow we're off to the Grand Canyon, so we're definitely working our way home at this point.

The Carlsbad Caverns were amazing! We were really in awe. It was a totally new experience for both of us; the nearest thing like it we'd ever experienced is probably Disneyland.

Today we did Bosque del Apache. The definite highlight was the morning fly-out when the geese and cranes fly out to feed in the fields. The geese make an incredible racket and fill the sky. I took some videos and pictures that will be uploaded in due time (after we get home).

Here are a couple of pictures as illustration:

Big Room, Carlsbad Cavern
It's hard to take pictures in the caves. I brought a tripod and took very long exposures, but the pictures didn't come out wonderfully. Still, this is a good idea of what it looks like.

A Sandhill Crane comes in for a landing a few hours ago at Bosque del Apache. This is uncropped; the birds at the Bosque are incredibly used to people. This is one of a group of cranes coming in to roost for the night next to the main road in the area.

Hello! From New Mexico!

What the hexico? We're in New Mexico!

I'm writing this from our hotel room in no other place than Carlsbad, New Mexico. That's 960 miles east of our happy home in Whittier, but we've already gone over 1,000.

It's been a good trip so far, and I think we'll do more detailed posts later. Our weather's been nice. We just missed rain in Tucson and snow in Green Valley, but yesterday we spent most of the day in several inches of snow in the Santa Rita Mountains.

Yesterday was a great day of birding. We saw three Rufous-capped Warblers (!), and were with Arizona birder Mike Moore when he discovered a Kentucky Warbler. Along with a female Indigo Bunting, we've had quite a few lifers.

Well, tomorrow we'll be at Carlsbad Caverns National Park. I'm gonna sign off, now.

Nice Weather

It's been an exciting last couple of days weather wise. Rain in southern California is almost always a treat, but rain that comes in the midst of a drought is the sweetest.

Libby and I have been enjoying the colder than normal weather, too. On Sunday, we stopped on top of a hill with a large view in the Coyote Hills and, before it had even rained, we could see all the way to the Santa Monica mountains - and beyond! You can often see downtown L.A. from there when it's clear, but it was pretty neat to have the skyscrapers in the foreground, so to speak. Such wide vistas on an invigoratingly cool winter morning help you feel the immensity of the world we live in.

This morning I walked to work in the rain, and it was neat to see Creek Park transformed into a soggy mess. The water got as high as its been in years, and the water was right at the base of the bridges. Near our apartment, the water filled all the dams and spilled over the tops and edges, forming a series of swirling terraced lakes. Where it passed under Imperial and La Mirada Blvd, the water was a muddy torrent - with four foot high waves in perpetual crests. Awesome!

The Bridge to Nowhere, and How We Arrived There

No, not that one in Alaska.

Libby's Dad has been wanting to do a hike with the Moothart guys for a long time, and when the opportunity to do one the day after Thanksgiving arose, they were gracious enough to include me in their plans.

Moothart guys pose at the entrance of the Sheep Mountain Wilderness.
Flickr

The idea was to go to the Bridge to Nowhere, an abandoned Depression era road project in the San Gabriel Mountains. Once upon a time, the idea was to build a road connecting Azusa with Wrightwood. To do so meant making a crossing in the San Gabriels, and they chose the canyon containing the East Fork of the San Gabriel River to do it in. But, before they were done, a large flood came down and washed away large parts of the road. The project was abandoned, stranding their recently completed concrete span in the middle of nowhere. It's now in the middle of the Sheep Mountain Wilderness. The bridge itself is located on private property - apparently owned by a bungee jumping company!

Anyway, Dad Moothart had done all his research, and we were anticipating a wet hike with many stream crossings, rugged terrain and a bit of a slog to reach the bridge. One source said it would take as many as four hours! That's just to go 4.5 miles. I was a little nervous.

A source of anxiety - the first water crossing was the most precarious.
Flickr

We got an early start, meeting up in Azusa at 7:00 am to carpool the rest of the way into the mountains to get to the trailhead. The parking lot was already crowded by the time we arrived, but there were only a few hikers on the trail ahead of us. The rest of the cars belonged to a couple of anglers and a lot of recreational gold panners. Beards and beers were well represented along the lower stretches of the river. I wonder how much you can find in a day?

The hike itself didn't live up to my anxiety. It was a moderately difficult hike, but we never got our feet wet. We only had to cross the full river twice, and had to cross a narrower arm of it two times later on. Much of the hike is over cobblestones and gravel, though, resulting in a very uneven surface and sore feet by the end of the day.

A friendly prospector gave us a good steer for getting to the river. After beginning on the east side of the river, you cross over fairly early where there's a sheer cliff on the east side of the river. Then you follow it along the west side for a stretch until you reach the second washed out bridge's remains. From there you want to find a crossing to reach the east side. Once you arrive on the east side, you just stay there and look for a somewhat inconsistent trail.

The only hiccup we faced was that the prospector said there would be a peninsula that we would have to cross and go down the other side of (so to look for ways to stay above the river on the right). Well, there are two places that fit this description, and the first one requires some hand-over-hand crawling to get down a 20' face of bedrock from the road to the river. If you skipped it, you'd probably have to cross the river a couple of times. In general, I think you can stay dry but you have to make decisions about how much exposure and scrambling you're comfortable with.

Typical trade off - scrambling versus water crossing.
Flickr

The worst exposure was actually relatively close to the bridge. You've got to go across a slide's chute with a hundred feet of exposure and only a narrow trail crossing it in soft sand that just looks like a temporary solution (the trail arches up high to stay in crossable material, and I'm guessing that it doesn't have much higher to go before it runs out of the sand). In all, this is a trail that probably changes a lot between rain storms, so I guess any description I write here will probably be out of date rather quickly.

We arrived in a little more than two hours at the bridge. From above, coming down the road, it looks pretty unimpressive and at first I didn't believe it could be the bridge. But, after you cross it and look back, it becomes a lot more impressive. Which is relieving, considering the time and effort one invests reaching it!

The bridge! To Nowhere!
Flickr

Since we got there earlier than we anticipated, we continued ahead to see if we could find the other end of the tunnel they bored through the mountain at the end of the bridge (its completely collapsed). We found something that may have been the tunnel, but it was so choked up with rocks we couldn't tell whether or not it was man made or artificial. Then we found a sunny rock by the river (it was chilly in the canyons all day) and had lunch before heading back. It seemed to take longer going back, and we finally arrived at the parking lot at 3 something, I think.

Overall, a great hike, and a fun time.

Oh! I almost forgot. Birds. I didn't see a whole lot of birds, but I saw some that I don't see very often, and one that was new. I finally saw my first Rufous-crowned Sparrow, a truly handsome bird which has been a bit of a nemesis for me. They live in the Whittier Hills, even, and I just haven't been able to find one (though I think we've heard them before). I saw a pair calling and flying from one bush to another before they disappeared, again. No pictures, though.

Other highlights were a Golden Eagle right above the bridge, a Townsend's Solitaire near the bridge, several groups of Canyon Wrens (easily our most beautifully colored North American wren), lots of Rock Wrens in the wide rocky river beds (first time I've seen them since the Sierras in July), a single Kingfisher, and lots of Black Phoebes.

Thanksgiving!

Further updates were promised, and I'm one to deliver.

Thanksgiving this year was at the Mootharts, and we had a grand old time. The morning began with preparing green bean casserole, followed by church, and then we drove out to Highland for the day.

When we arrived, the turkey was already in the deep fryer. We were pretty excited about deep-fried Turkey. The bird was submerged in an extremely hot cauldron of bubbling oil for about an hour. We had a great meal when everyone else finally arrived. Turkey, ham, stuffing, yams, green-bean casserole, home made rolls, gray, cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes and salad. Followed by pumpkin cheese cake for desert (with a sweet lemon bread/cake for those of us who are not pumpkin fans). Boy howdy it was great!

Little Thomas knows how to enjoy Thanksgiving!
Flickr link

After eating we all went down to the nearby middle school and flew Phillip's remote controlled airplane. Little Jonathan was very excited about this. Unfortunately, it took like an hour to build after we got down there, and then it only really flew four or five times before the tail broke and fell off. Still, fun was had by all who participated.

We left fairly early because the next morning I had to get up early to go hiking! A post regarding said adventure will be forthcoming. In the meantime, enjoy these pictures from Thanksgiving on Flickrr: Thanksgiving Set of pictures.

Dusky-capped Returns

There are a lot of things I'd normally consider blog-worthy going on around here, lately, but we've been so busy getting into the Christmas spirit that we haven't talked about them here, yet.

I'm sure you're very disappointed.

Nevertheless, I won't be cowed by your apparent indifference, and intend to make a stab at catching up. Let's go chronologically, shall we? Let's see...

Last week on Tuesday I went birding in Creek Park like I occasionally will do on a Tuesday, and was wandering about the eucalyptus grove there in search of birds of all sorts, when what to my wondering ears should I hear? The mournful weeping call of a Flycatcher! Here! I listened intently and heard it call several more times, but I couldn't really believe my ears. Was I really hearing what I thought I was hearing? So I started scrambling around, trying to trace the calls to their source, but they seemed to move all around me, and pretty soon I had to go to work.

You might remember how a Dusky-capped Flycatcher spent last winter in La Mirada near our apartment - I posted about it early last March. It was a pretty rare bird, then, but it's an even rarer bird, now. While many rare Arizona/Mexican birds will winter in California in subsequent years (Thick-billed Kingbirds and Painted Redstarts, especially), there is only one previous record of a Dusky-capped Flycatcher returning for a consecutive winter in California, ever. I was pretty sure it was very unlikely, before I knew that (I asked someone I thought would know) so I just had to check again. Libby and I visited the grove during lunch that day without luck, and a rain storm was coming in, so I was afraid I'd be unable to document it for awhile.

Thankfully, last Wednesday dawned partly cloudy and dry after a night of rain, so I took off early for work and slipped and waded around the grove in thick slimy muck for awhile before finally hearing the call, and subsequently, seeing the bird! It's definitely the same sort of bird as last year. Since it's much more likely it's the same bird exercising sight fidelity (like most migrants) than a totally new bird finding the exactly same 4 acres of marginal wintering habitat, it's gotta be the second record of a Dusky-capped Flycatcher wintering two years in a row. Cool!

I have to wonder what the bird's been through in between stays here. Where did it spend the summer? Did it make it back to its normal haunts? Its navigation system is obviously broken, so who knows?

It was too dark on Wednesday for photos, but I got two documentary videos that I've put up on Flickr. One is a really bad shaky one of the bird itself and one is just a video of the call (since I don't have a pure recording device). I believe the video of the call is a more helpful record for documentary purposes since the voice of this kind of flycatcher is very distinctive.

Tune in later this week for updates on Thanksgiving, and a neat hike! Adios!

Christmas Movies

Well, it's almost that time of year again. Come Thursday or Friday night, it's time for Christmas movies and specials. They are a great part of the American Christmas experience, and help us get into the Christmas spirit by focusing our attention on the season's intangibles.

So, I was thinking, which Christmas movies are indispensable to achieving that theme? After all, there must be dozens and dozens of them, many forgotten, others that ought to be forgotten, and perhaps some that we've just looked over. Since we've been married, Libby and I have been buying one film we think is a wonderful addition to the Christmas season. Here's what we have so far, is there anything else we should invest in?

1) A Charlie Brown Christmas - I think this is Charles Schultz's finest work. The simplest of art styles swells to incorporate an evocative gospel theme, as an unloved Christmas tree (and titular protagonist) is transformed via a society motivated by the Linus's beautiful reading of Luke's nativity story. It gives me goosebumps and good feelings every time I hear it.

2) It's a Wonderful Life - No season is more suited to the optimistic populism of Frank Capra than the one that begins this year on November 30th. And no actor was ever more suited to the role of George Bailey than James Stewart. Together they created a wonderful film that truly reveals the awesome value of a life well lived.

3) A Christmas Story - BB guns never seemed so enticing. The deepest charm of this movie, over and above its laughs, is the feeling of nostalgia it can evoke for the magical Christmases that we experienced as children.

This year we bought the Chuck Jones animated version of Seuss's How the Grinch Stole Christmas, but we're waiting to see it after Thanksgiving roles around. The one that we've crossed off our list so far is White Christmas, which was ok, but didn't really seem to contribute anything to the holiday mood. We're especially looking for a good version of Dicken's Christmas Carol, which is our favorite Christmas fiction.

Feel free to let us know if you have any traditional favorites that you think we're missing out on! We'd love to hear from you.

Disneyland Hijinks

Libby's sister Abbey recently bought a pass to Disneyland! So, we all got to take a trip there together this last Sunday afternoon. It turned out to be a great idea. The crowds were really thin, and we got out of the smoke by heading south. We went on most of the big rides, with only a ten minutes wait for Space Mountain (the shortest wait Libby and I have seen in the last year!).

I brought the camera, and you can see pictures here: Disneyland with Abbey. I also threw in a couple of documentary shots of how the fire impacted us in La Mirada/Whittier. For us, that meant living with the worst air quality that I've ever experienced.

Libby and I are currently contemplating whether or not to renew our Disneyland passes for the coming year. On the one hand, it's been a lot of fun, and there's a little discount for renewals. But, on the other hand, it's still a handy sum of money we could save, use to pay off school loans, or use to do something else that's also awesome (like save it for trips to Texas or New York this coming year).

Three Years

Yesterday marked three years of marriage for Jonathan and me. To celebrate this momentous occasion we took a little trip down to Sea World last weekend. We drove down to San Diego on Friday night, spent Saturday at Sea World, and then went back for a few hours on Sunday before driving back home. You see, they've got this deal going on where you buy a one-day ticket, and get a pass for a whole year. So, maybe we'll take another trip sometime in 2009. But maybe we won't. No pressure.

We got to see the shows, pet some rays, walk through the aquariums, chuckle at the penguins and marvel at the Commerson's Dolphins. We also got to feed the Bottlenose Dolphins. We enjoyed our time very much. You can see some more of our pictures from the weekend here.

Oh, and then on our actual anniversary (yesterday) we had a nice dinner at the Cat & Custard Cup, our favorite restaurant.

Yay for us! :-)

AWANA

I love AWANA. It was very influential in my life as I was growing up, so it's got a special place in my heart. Our church, Blessed Sacrament, has just started an AWANA club of its own; I'm very excited about it. Jonathan and I are in charge of the 3rd-6th graders. Doesn't he look handsome in his uniform?
And because it's only fair, here's my picture as well:
Yay AWANA!

Time flies?

Last Saturday Libby and I went to Bolsa Chica for a little early winter/ late Fall birding. We started at Harriet Weider Park and enjoyed a couple of Blue-Gray Gnatcatchers, White-crowned Sparrows and a flock of Red-winged Blackbirds before moving along. I was hoping to see some Pipits in the field there, but there weren't any Pipits or Meadowlarks anywhere to be found.

Red-winged Blackbird (male)

Right after that we headed over to the main reserve with two goals. One, to enjoy the common birds of Bolsa Chica, and two, to see if we could find a Tricolored Heron that was seen there. I'm happy to say we accomplished both goals!

Most of the ducks have arrived in small numbers, and it was especially nice to see our first Buffleheads of the season bobbing about as they disappeared from time to time to feed. The tide was really high, so most of the shorebirds we saw were either flying by or perched in the bushes and eelgrass still above water. The only terns we saw were perched on poles butting out of the water or zipping about in pursuit of prey. Not only that, but we only saw Forster's Terns in winter plumage. Brown Pelicans were feeding conspicuously both at the tide gates and at the boardwalk.

Brown Pelican

The neatest moment came on our way back to the car when we saw a Merlin swoop in, spook a shorebird flock, and come out carrying a limp-winged bird. It proceeded to perch in a distant (but viewable through our scope) snag where its early lunch sent feathers floating off in the wind.

As I said earlier, we did find the Tricolored Heron. We almost missed it, and later some other birders told us we walked right by it without seeing it (funny), but we got some ok looks at the bird through our scope for a short while before it flew off. We were able to find it again pretty easily, and had more extensive looks. The bird was backlit and further away at that point, but there really wasn't anything to complain about. Still, I didn't get any pictures.

We also saw two Reddish Egrets at Bolsa Chica on the same trip. These used to be about as rare as Tricolored Herons (which have actually bred in the past near the Salton Sea), but there have been a few of them at Bolsa Chica almost continually since we started birding. They definitely appear to be on the northward march. I got a single distant picture of one on Saturday:

Reddish Egret

After all the excitement we could do nothing better than go to Disneyland for lunch! Which we did. And then we could do nothing better than to beat the heat on Splash Mountain. We got the full experience there, sitting in the very front and getting totally soaked. We even stood in line for Peter Pan, which is one of our favorite rides, so we had a good time. Actually, I guess you could say we had a good day!

Pumpkin Carving

Every year around this time Libby and I really cut loose and take a knife to a pumpkin. What other season is so well suited towards savoring the unique pleasure of doing violence to a vegetable?

Jack O'Lantern
Flickr

Anyway, we've been carving pumpkins and taking pictures of ourselves doing it since before we were married. You might say it's at the heart of what makes our relationship tick (though you'd be wrong), and you might say that there isn't a better set of pumpkin cutters on God's green earth. You'd be right on that one.

You should know, though, that when I say we're the best at cutting pumpkins, I'm not saying that we possess the greatest skill. I'm saying that we possess the biggest hearts. After all, isn't that what really counts?

Pictures

Abortion and the Election

This is a disturbing article about Senator Obama's record and beliefs on abortion issues. Suffice to say, he favors no legal protection at all for unborn persons.

Public Discourse - Roger George on "Obama's Abortion Extremism."

Although I'm not a big fan of McCain, I could never in good conscience vote for someone with this record to be president. It's pretty depressing considering it looks like he's going to win the election.

Apple Time!

Fresh pressed apple cider is the best part of Fall. I love it! Every year, we go to Oak Glen to pick some up, and I never regret the visit. This last Saturday was our first trip to Oak Glen this year, and boy did we get some awesome cider! You just can't get cider that good away from a cider mill, so that alone is really worth the trip. We also picked up some tasty apples that you can't find in stores (Mutsu and Staymen Winesap).

Apples at Riley's Farm

It was really crowded, though. It makes it hard to find anywhere to park and can be a little overwhelming. We just take it slow and try not to be in a hurry. Another disappointment was that the little park/ one room school house we like to visit was closed. That's usually a little quieter, and let's you walk around in some oak woodland that's otherwise completely off limits in Oak Glen.

I've put up some pictures from the trip on Flickr: Oak Glen Oct 8.

Posting!

Here's a post, so the blog doesn't die. I guess nobody's felt inspired to write here for awhile.

Libby's busy in school. She's been doing a great job in her professional writing class. This is the last class she has to take at Biola. Cool, huh? On a less positive note, she fell down on our Monday run, and is now nursing a really painful scrape on her hand. So, that's a bummer. She's still teaching the children, of course. That's what she does.

Work's calmed down a bit for me. I go birding a couple of mornings a week and on weekends, if all goes well, but because of Libby's class load, she hasn't had any time to go with me. That's a bummer. I added a couple more birds to my Creek Park list last Friday when I saw an Osprey fly overhead, and found a Merlin predating a Black Phoebe in the eucalyptus grove. That brings it to 90. It's fun getting to know the birds of Creek Park so intimately. Plus, as a microcosm of the greater Los Angeles area it helps me learn a bit about the distribution of California birds as a whole (when are which migrants passing through, etc). Birdwatching one area regularly (birders call this patch birding) is fulfilling and fun!

Hopefully, we're hoping to make it up to Oak Glen for this first time this year on Saturday. It'll be a zoo, but I sure would like some fresh apple cider.

There's a new Awanas club at Blessed Sacrament that we'll be helping out with; it starts tomorrow. That should be good. We got trained by Libby's Mom!

We've seen some cool movies lately. Yesterday we watched Grumpy Old Men, which was funny. Not as good as the Odd Couple, the other Lemmon/Matthau pairing we've seen, but it made us laugh. Before that, we saw Diary of a Country Priest - a movie (in French) about the struggles of an young and ailing Catholic curate in rural France. It's by Robert Bresson, and is quite good. It's refreshing to watch a very well made movie that tackles profound issues about faith and grace in the human condition. Of course, it's a bit slow. I also saw Appaloosa with Lem and Luke last Saturday evening while Libby was doing homework. Not the best western ever, for sure. The plot just wasn't engaging - the best part was definitely the relationship between the male leads. Both Ed Harris and Viggo Mortenson do a great job, and the roles are well written and directed. Still, not enough of a reason to pay through the nose to see it in a theater.

Oh... a week ago Friday I had to serve Jury Duty in Downtown L.A. That was exciting - I took public transportation to and fro. And, Libby had her annual Pilgrim Ship field trip the same weekend. I guess a lot happened back then!

Attention!

It is very hot (101) in La Mirada right now.

Pheww!

There's also a bee swarm outside my office. I don't know what those bees are thinking being outside on a day like today.

Satuday Birding

The last weekend of September only comes once a year, ushering in Autumn and the opportunity to truly enjoy it. Unfortunately, it's also during school, so Libby was stuck in the house doing homework, leaving me to my own devices for entertainment last Saturday morning. Naturally, I went birdwatching. I decided to go to the local Whittier-Puente Hills (there's a little trail off of Colima), and I pulled in as the morning rays played on the tops of the low scrub.

The birds I found made it feel more like Winter than Fall, though. In Fall, I expect a diversity of migrant warblers and vireos, birds on their way to tropical climes for the season. Instead I found sparrows, Yellow-rumped Warblers, and Ruby-crowned Kinglets; birds that will stay the entire winter. Of course, it's always fun to enjoy these birds for the first time, and it's fun to see some of the local residents. Wrentits are especially common in this little patch of hills, and those bizarre one-of-a-kind birds are always a treat to see. Mockingbirds were outnumbered by California Thrashers, but I still managed a picture of one:

Northern Mockingbird near the parking lot at the Puente Hills habitat restoration project.
http://flickr.com/photos/rowleypics/2892735185/

I finished the short hiking loop there by 9:30, and, not wanting to get home too early and distract Libby, I headed off to Creek Park. I bird Creek Park at least once a week already on my way to and from work, but I always have to be out of the park before eight to get to work on time. Here was an opportunity to be there a little later and see what was going on. It was a little more like Fall there. A group of colorful Nashville Warblers feeding in a Eucalyptus Tree were joined by a single Western Tanager. I also found a single Wilson's Warbler, but otherwise the trees were filled with Orange-crowned Warblers. For some reason, this species was super-abundant in Creek Park on Saturday, and in the week leading up to it. It was a good time to stop and enjoy a common species.

A confiding Orange-crowned Warbler forages for insects in a tree's bark.
http://flickr.com/photos/rowleypics/2893576294/

Orange-crowned Warblers are a warbler found throughout North America, though its appearance is rather variable across this wide range. The Pacific-slope subspecies, of which the bird above is most likely a representative, is among the brightest in coloring. The eastern-most (boreal) subspecies is much grayer, with yellow sometimes confined only to the area under the tail. However, they share the same eye-pattern - a weak eye ring broken by a dark trans-ocular line. The orange crown itself isn't a very good field mark because you can rarely ever see it. I think I've seen an Orange-crowned Warblers orange crown once, ever. And I've seen a lot of Orange-crowned Warblers. Usually they keep it well covered.

See? Can't see the Orange!
http://flickr.com/photos/rowleypics/2892736369/in/photostream/

These Pacific Orange-crowned Warblers often spend all year in California. They generally winter in coastal lowlands, and move up into the local hills to breed. After breeding, they return to the lowlands to spend the winter (some migrate south to Mexico). But in Creek Park, I had a couple of birds singing on territories well into June, suggesting that some at least attempted to breed here.

Orange-crowned Warbler hops about.
http://flickr.com/photos/rowleypics/2892736815/in/photostream/

Like many warblers, the Orange-crowned Warbler forages for insects in trees and shrubs, climbing, jumping and flying from branch to branch looking for its next meal. Warblers are Libby's favorite group of birds, and many other birders' as well, not only because they are often very beautiful, but because they are fun to watch. They're full of life and energy concentrated in a tiny little feathery package. Sometimes this can also be frustrating, though, as it can be difficult to get a clear look at the whole bird as it zips from one leaf to another in dense foliage. Hence I was so happy to get his many close-up pictures of one!

After taking pictures of the warblers, I wandered back to the creek to sit and watch a flock of Bushtits and Nutmeg Mannikins pick lerps off of an infested Eucalyptus tree while a mixed trio of Downey and Nuttall's woodpeckers pounded away on some trees above my head. All very much resident birds, and all very fun and refreshing. By then it was getting quite hot, and I was getting hungry, so I jumped in the car and headed home to see Libby and have some lunch -- she'd made great progress on her homework while I was gone. Fall or Winter, there are always good birds to be seen in Southern California.

Great Basin Birds

This last weekend Libby and I went birding in Laguna Niguel Regional Park because we had to take a trip to Dana Point to pick up a box of supplies her class needs for their annual field trip to the Pilgrim with the Ocean Institute. Anyway, Laguna Niguel Regional Park is along the way, and it has one of the few local Tricolored Blackbird flocks in Southern California. I was hoping to get some pictures of the Tricolored Blackbirds, but that didn't work out because the birds were uncooperative and the camera was running out of batteries. Still, we had a pretty good time. There were some migrants moving through - Common Yellowthroats, a Warbling Vireo, Yellow Warblers, Orange-crowned Warblers and Western Tanagers made up the bulk of the flocks. But, we also had a rare bird - a Plumbeous Vireo.

Plumbeous Vireos are the Great Basin counterpart to the Pacific slope's Cassin's Vireos and to the East's Blue-headed Vireos -- a group of birds formerly considered one species. They've begun extending their range into California's mountains fairly recently, and as such, are being found more commonly in migration and winter in coastal Southern California. Still, they're still less common than Cassin's Vireos, and it was exciting to see one. Plus, we had good looks at the bird, and it was very handsome - slate gray with strong wing bars, eye-rings and a spectacles.

This morning on my way to work, I found a Virginia's Warbler. This is a Vermivora warbler that's restricted to the Great Basin like the Plumbeous Vireo, and is very similar to the Nashville Warbler of the East and Pacific Slope. It also has extended its range into California's mountains recently, and is found in small numbers along the southern California coastal plain in Fall. Unlike the Plumbeous Vireo, this was a lifer. Also unlike our recent Plumbeous Vireo, it was not very obliging. It was foraging among leaves about 50' up in a Eucalyptus and I only saw it for a little while before it flew off. So, still a bird I'd like to see more clearly, again (with Libby, hopefully!).

Fall Morning

It's still a couple of days until Fall begins, but it looked and smelled like it this morning. I'm not sure what was in the air - I can't find any notice of wildfires - but the morning light had a strong yellow cast.

But the most exciting part of my morning was the abundance of fall migrants in Creek Park. My first of season migrant Yellow, Black-throated Gray and Townsend's Warblers joined the flocks of Orange-crowned and Wilson's that have already been present since September began. On Tuesday morning I had two Nashville Warblers, also, but those appear to have moved on. It's amazing how, all three of these species showed up on the same day (as far as I could tell). With Hermits migrating early and more easterly in the Fall and MacGillivrays seeming to skip Creek Park, the only warbler species I still can expect to see this Fall in the park is the omni-present Yellow-rumped. The first of those are due any day now, though I'm not really looking forward to them. They'll be here all winter, after all.

Also, it's apparently Talk Like a Pirate Day! Thanks for the heads up, Mom.

So, Arrgh.

Les Miserables

This summer Libby and I saw a local community college version of the Les Miserables musical. It was quite good, and the story is compelling and Chrisitan. Intrigued, we biked over to Barnes and Nobles (a quick five mile jaunt) and picked up an unabridged English translation of the novel one day. We got the new Julie Rose translation because, of the two available unabridged translations, its presentation was the most readable (the other version available was a cramped little paper back with no margins).

Anyway, I finally finished Victor Hugo's mammoth book last weekend. It was not as enjoyable as the musical. The musical highlights the best plot points of the book and therefore that compelling and Christian narrative. The book's narrative is also quite gripping and fun to read, but it's interspersed with long-winded digressions that break up and diminish the narrative's power. Since the digressions are generally French Romantic Enlightenment screeds against anything impeding Mankind's Progress - a thing I doubt exists at all in the first place - they especially dim the Christian element to the plot. Hugo ended his life a deist, anyway.

Still, the novel serves as a reminder of the importance of loving and caring for the poor. This is always valuable (though I'd prefer Dickens). Also, his digression on Waterloo is very interesting and well written. It's good to read books by people with whom you disagree, and I've rarely encountered someone as enamored of the French Revolution and Napoleon Bonaparte as Hugo sometimes appears to be. After reading Tolstoy (of whom Hugo reminds me quite strongly - especially, ironically, of War and Peace) this summer and hearing how bad, bad, and hubristic the mighty Napoleon's invasion of Russia was, it was quite a shock.

Anyway, I won't read it again, I don't think, but I am glad that I read it this one time. I can understand the abridgement, too, though I'm glad the one time I read the book I did it unabridged.

Fannnntastic!

Fantastic Contraption is the most entertaining in-browser (Flash) game that I've ever played. Now that I've beaten it, I'm sharing it with you.

Have fun!

Farewell to Summer

Today's Libby's first day of school at Calvary.  Yesterday was her first day of school at Biola.  So, summer is over.

I guess it was a pretty good summer.  We spent a lot of time hiking.  Oregon was a blast.  So was Libby's first pack trip.  Speaking of which, Dad's pictures are now on-line.  You can access those here: http://picasaweb.google.com/Davendebr/BackpackTrip.

I know the weather won't change all of a sudden, and the equinox isn't for a couple of more weeks, but I will miss the longer days.  It was so pleasantly temperate here this summer, too, so I'll miss the perfect weather.  Most days it was 85 or lower in La Mirada.  We had a couple of really hot spells last Spring, but I only remember one big heat wave this summer, and that was around the beginning of July.  We'll see what happens this September, though.  It was 90 yesterday, and it's supposed to be around there today, too, so it's a little warmer than it has generally been.

Still, Fall brings migrants.  I took my first post-summer walk to school yesterday morning, and the trees were full of Orange-crowned Warblers.  There were also a few Wilson's Warblers mixed in here and there.  Black Phoebes were incredibly vocal, perhaps sorting out winter territory boundaries after fledging their young.  A few House Wrens were still singing, too, as well as a very loud Bewick's Wren - the first time I've ever had one in Creek Park.  I'm not sure what he's doing there, as I've always thought of our local Bewick's Wrens as essentially sedentary birds.  Maybe he lost his territory in the nearby Whittier Hills and wandered until he found a dense patch of shrubs in Creek Park?

Birds were mostly quiet, though.  Besides the wrens, the only bird I heard sing was a single Lesser Goldfinch.  It's a stark contrast from the Spring.  Then, Warblers, Orioles, Towhees, and Finches all fill the air with their music.

Register Wedding

I went to a friend's wedding on the first Saturday of August. Jonathan couldn't make it because he had to work, so I went by myself knowing that I could easily find people that I know: my parents would be there, my brother was a groomsman, and there would be old AWANA friends, too. What I didn't expect was seeing one of my former students and her mother (who played the piano during the ceremony!) and grandmother. That was a pleasant surprise. Anyway, I took a few pictures and put them up on Flickr. Here's one of my beautiful mom and handsome brother. You can see the rest of them here.

Virginia Lake to Lake Mary and Home

Everything comes to an end.

We got our earliest start of the trip on our last day, leaving camp before the sun hit it. The trail from Virginia drops pretty quickly to Purple Lake, and we arrived while it was still early. We paused for some photo ops and to admire a small family group of American Dippers (videos on Flickr) in the outlet stream before pressing on toward Duck Pass.

Libby and Jonathan at Purple Lake.
http://flickr.com/photos/rowleypics/2738767670/in/set-72157606574038434/

The trail to the pass climbs up above a thumb on the flank of the mountain between Duck and Purple Lakes before dropping again into some meadows along Duck's outlet stream. There it starts to climb again. Ascending through meadows and forests, you soon reach Duck Lake at the outlet end. We took off our packs at that point, had a snack and caught our breaths. We'd already traveled about half-way, about six miles. The last Wilson's Warblers of the trip foraged in the dwarfed Whitebark Pines and willows along the lake shore, and a beautifully white lone California Gull sailed down the canyon from Duck Lake.

Duck Lake outlet area

http://flickr.com/photos/rowleypics/2738782054/in/set-72157606574038434/

From the outlet of Duck Lake, you climb up and follow the lake's shore about a mile to the pass. From there it's only 5+ miles downhill, and you're home. We pressed on through lunch and arrived at the cabin - where the Profitas were staying for the weekend, but they were out - around 1:15, packed up, and headed for home (with a pit stop at the Ranger Station to change, use toilets(!), wash our faces, and return the bear cans).

We're happy to be able to stop walking for awhile.
http://flickr.com/photos/rowleypics/2737967527/in/set-72157606574038434/

The trip home was pretty uneventful. We listened to one of the Harry Potter novels on CD, and stopped for dinner at Rubio's in Adelanto. I remember when you had to eat at the Astro Burger in Kramer's Junction! Lots of people live in the high desert, now, though. On Monday, I went back to work. And that's the whole story.

The pictures from our last day can be found here: http://flickr.com/photos/rowleypics/sets/72157606574038434/

You can view all of the published pictures from our trip by clicking here: http://flickr.com/photos/rowleypics/collections/72157606431454213/

Tully Lake to Virginia Lake

Though, naturally, new for Libby, the last two days of our backpack trip were covering familiar ground for Dad and me. In fact, part of my first multi-day backpack trip traveled the trail from Tully Hole to Tully Lake. We'd now be retracing those steps in reverse.

The first half of the morning was easy hiking. The trail drops downhill parallel with Fish Creek - a rushing stream that drops precipitously down a narrow gorge of dark meta-sedimentary rock. Unlike the hard granite of most of the Sierras, this rock is softer, and the creek, earthquakes, and weather has ground it and blasted it into sharp spires and slabs.

Dad and Libby in front of Fish Creek.
http://flickr.com/photos/rowleypics/2734573234/in/set-72157606548076630/

The trail eventually reaches Horse Heaven meadow. Here, the trail flattens out a bit, and you and the creek descend at a more gentle pace down into Tully Hole. Tully Hole is a meadow in a deep depression between forested hills. It features large in our family lore because of its central location in the back country behind my grandparents' cabin. So it's sort of an iconic place, and its lush green fields are beautiful enough to warrant the attention paid it. Many travelers pass through it because the Muir Trail passes through it as it comes down from Virginia Lake and turns down Fish Creek a little bit before climbing over Silver Pass.

Tully Hole from the trail up to Virginia Lake.
http://flickr.com/photos/rowleypics/2734578600/in/set-72157606548076630/

From Tully Hole, there's a steep climb that takes you up about 1,000 vertical feet of switchbacks on a hot and open hillside covered in sage and only the occasional stand of pines - welcome islands of shade, and an opportune place to catch your breath and a drink before pressing onward. Anyway, we grunted our way up and finished the hike before lunch, which we had on the shore of Virginia Lake before hunting out a campsite. We found a spot near a stock camp in the dry subalpine forests that surround Virginia Lake. We had lots of time, so we set up camp and relaxed. We soaked our feet in the lake, took naps, read books, and generally enjoyed a warm afternoon in the Sierras - with blessed few mosquitoes compared to Tully Lake!

Libby's happy to take a moment to relax!
http://flickr.com/photos/rowleypics/2733753639/in/set-72157606548076630/

That night was our last away from home, and Dad and I sat by the shore of Virginia Lake waiting for it to get dark. As the stars came out and the opposite side of the lake became shrouded with gloom, we sat silently, listening to the bats flicking about our heads. The wind died and the lake became totally calm; the reflecting stars on its glassy surface were a welcome last taste of serenity before returning to the bustle of regular life.

Pictures from the day (including a nice one of a Clark's Nutcracker) can be found by clicking here: Backpack Day 5.

Bighorn Lake to Tully Lake

Our fourth day was the shortest backpacking day of the trip. Joe had to leave as early as he could to make the long hike from Bighorn Lake to the McGee Creek trailhead. The remaining three of us were going to climb a knapsack pass above nearby Rosy Finch Lake to look back into the Laurel Creek drainage - a different Laurel Creek than the one above Convict Lake near Mammoth.

The morning was warm and calm, like all of our mornings. The weather on the trip was perfect. There were almost no clouds the entire trip, and the rains preceding our trip had scrubbed the skies clean of the smoke from all California's wildfires this year. It made for perfect reflections in the water.

Cliffs reflected in Bighorn Lake.
http://flickr.com/photos/rowleypics/2726493863/in/set-72157606520422797/

The hike from Bighorn to Rosy Finch Lake is an easy gambol through grassy faults criss-crossing the glaciated granite bedrock. Rosy Finch Lake, just like Bighorn Lake, fills a granitic glacial bowl with little room to spare; its outlet stream spills right over the granite dam that creates the lake. This is really beautiful country, a melting pot of brilliant blues, whites and greens.

The pass we checked out that day is a potential backpacking route from Grinnell Lake to Rosy Finch Lake. It was one of the possible routes we could have taken on our trip, but we decided not to because the ascent from the Grinnell Lake side looked steep on the topo maps. It turned out that it was very steep, and it's a much easier ascent from Rosy Finch, but it was still too far for us to make it to Grinnell Lake and back, and then over Bighorn Pass to Tully Lake all in the same day.

Libby sitting on top of a rock on the pass we dayhiked.
http://flickr.com/photos/rowleypics/2727327408/in/set-72157606520422797/

So, we enjoyed the view from the pass and then went back, put on our packs, and headed to Tully Lake. The descent was a talus scramble that we alleviated by striking out across a snow field that allowed us to skip about half of the talus. At the bottom of the snow field we had our only lifer of the trip - a White-tailed Ptarmigan. A little baby grouse scurried by our feet, and after some patient searching Dad found the mother hiding in plain sight.

The mother White-tailed Ptarmigan using its cryptic coloration to blend in to its surroundings.
http://flickr.com/photos/rowleypics/2727913215/in/set-72157606520422797/

At the time I thought it was an out-of-habitat Sooty (Blue) Grouse, a bird that specializes in high mountain forest edges, and is the only native grouse in the higher altitudes of the Sierras. We were, however, miles from the nearest true forest, and it nagged a bit on my mind while we were up there. As soon as I had time at home, I started doing some research on Ptarmigans. Back in the early '70s, the Department of Fish and Game released about 70 White-tailed Ptarmigans into upper montane forests around Sonora Pass. The birds found their way up into the alpine meadows around Yosemite, where they are still apparently the most heavily concentrated. From there they've spread south, occupying suitable habitat - high alpine meadows - where ever they can find it. The Sierras offer a challenge to their survival, however, with heavier snow packs that last longer than the other mountain ranges they inhabit (the Rockies and north) and thus inhibit breeding, and dryer summers, that limit the kind of forage they require. As a result, they exist in the Sierras in the sparsest population density of any population, and during the summer they're most common around melting snow-packs; just the place we found one.

Tully Lake in the evening.
http://flickr.com/photos/rowleypics/2726512169/in/set-72157606520422797/

Anyway, we found a great campsite at Tully Lake. It was a horse camp in between the lake and the waterfall that comes down from Red and White into Tully's outlet - young Fish Creek. The only real drawback at Tully Lake was that there were swarms of mosquitoes. As the sun set, they came out in force, with clouds hovering around each of us looking for any chink the mosquito nets offered or for some spot where the DEET would rub off. We probably got the majority of our mosquito bites here. Still, it's hard to complain about mosquitoes when you're surrounded by such wonderful beauty.

Pictures on Flickr, as always. Click here: http://flickr.com/photos/rowleypics/sets/72157606520422797/

Mott Lake to Bighorn Lake

Our second night out I learned that Pikas may be somewhat nocturnal. One had a territory in a talus pile near our tent, and I heard its loud persistent call multiple times after the half-moon had risen. Sleeping isn't always easy on a backpacking trip. The morning bird song was restricted to some local White-crowned Sparrows, though the area was hopping with Wilson's Warblers, Gray-crowned Rosy Finches and a couple of Empidonax Flycatchers, too. Mott Lake was completely still that morning; it was beautiful.

Mott Lake in the morning.
http://flickr.com/photos/rowleypics/2722687688/in/set-72157606488398330/

As I mentioned, this was the first day we went off-trail. There's a faint use trail in a few places to Bighorn, but not at the points when it counts, and not very often. It was a beautiful hike, though, up through cool mountain meadows right at the base of some towering peaks. You have to climb a little to get out of Mott Lake's basin, but the hike along the meadows is through a generally flat glacial valley towards the outlets of Bighorn and Rosy Finch Lakes. From there, you cut back and the left up towards a large tarn before traversing over some faulted glacial boulders to get to the actual lake.

Libby and the meadows.
http://flickr.com/photos/rowleypics/2721875401/in/set-72157606488398330/

We had lunch at the tarn, and it wasn't very far from there to Bighorn, though it wasn't possible to just walk straight there. We did get a little off-target in our original attempt to reach the tarn, but it all worked out OK in the end.

Libby relaxing at the tarn.
http://flickr.com/photos/rowleypics/2722700762/in/set-72157606488398330/

Once we got to Bighorn Lake we did a dayhike up to the pass - Bighorn Pass - we were going to take the next day (Joe in the morning, us in the afternoon). It provided a great view of the backcountry behind Mammoth, an area that the Rowleys have been spending time in ever since Grandpa was a boy.

Red Slate and the Tully Lake area.
http://flickr.com/photos/rowleypics/2722705268/in/set-72157606488398330/

Then Libby, Dad, and I all hiked down a little and around and up to another little pass on the flank of Mount Izaak Walton. From there you can see Lake Izaak Walton, and more of the same backcountry as from Bighorn Pass. That was our last night with Joe, who had to get out of the backcountry earlier than us. Pictures of the day can be found at: Backpack Day 3.