Update!

It's been awhile since we posted here. I'm not sure why. I have started a couple of posts that I didn't feel happy enough with to publish, and I've also felt a little bit of a blogging-related malaise. What's the point?

If part of the point is keeping people who don't see us very often, but may be interested in what's going on in our lives updated than here's an update to satisfy the obligation!

This March is a bit of a drag for Libby. She isn't taking a class at Biola, anymore, but work is pretty exhausting. It seems like most of our energy revolves around her classroom.

Work is par for the course for me. Nothing too interesting is going on.

I've read a few books. I aborted a post about Dostoevsky's Memoirs from the House of the Dead. That was a very good Christmas present from Gabe and Emily. It was an interesting reflection on the experience of prisoners in a Tsarist siberian prison camp largely based, to the extent that he didn't even really change some of the characters' names, on his own time in Siberia.

I also just finished both of Flannery O'Connor's novels. It's hard to make sense of Flannery O'Connor, but she is without doubt a talented and thought-provoking author. The books themselves are incredible and really hard to describe. If more American Christian fiction was published along those lines, it would shake up some stereotypes!

Finally, we're also involved in a time consuming project in the local hills surveying remnant populations of coastal Cactus Wrens. Cactus Wrens have suffered a lot from habitat destruction and the recent fires, so the Nature Conservancy is sponsoring a region-wide effort to learn about their status and begin a long-term monitoring strategy for the birds.

We volunteered, and so we have committed all of our Saturdays to the birds for awhile. The plan is to map cactus scrub habitat on acetate overlaying Google Map satellite images. After getting all of the patches in our region mapped, we'll revisit them every couple of weekends through July. The reality is that mapping the cactus patches is a lot of work, and can be pretty difficult because of the surrounding vegetation and terrain. It's still fun, most of the time, though, and we're getting to know the local hills a bit better.

It turns out they're designed mostly to hurt and annoy people who venture off of their trails. Buyer beware!

Spring!

Southern California's winters aren't very deep, so it's sometimes hard to catch the signs that it is ending. I've been feeling very Spring-like, lately, as the chorus of resident birdsong increased, but I felt like today we were turning the corner when I saw some Northern Rough-winged Swallows hawking insects over the lake at La Mirada Park. These lightning-quick brown birds were the first spring arrivals I've seen this season - migrating north out of Central America on their way to breed here in the United States or Canada.

It's exciting to feel the pulse of the earth quicken. New signs of life were bursting all around the park this morning. I saw a Cassin's Kingbird shredding tissue paper for its nest in a nearby palm's crown. Not far away, a Common Yellowthroat broke out into full-throated song. Even the Townsend's Warblers in the park, winter visitors, warbled softly as they foraged in the bright green of a trees' renewing leaves.

It's still early, and winter hasn't gone completely, as the chorus of chipping Yellow-rumped Warblers testify, but I can already hardly wait until a flash of bright yellow will announce the arrival of our gaudier neo-tropical migrants. Orioles, Vireos and Warblers, oh my!

Southwestern Road Trip Bird List

I've been wanting to put this down here for future reference, and as a redundant record, ever since we got back from the trip. Our readers are welcome to tune out now. I'll annotate it from memory (a bit old by now).

1. Mallard (waterfowl found in three locations: Bosque del Apache, Casa Grande and Sweetwater Wetlands)
2. Green-winged Teal
3. American Wigeon
4. Northern Shoveler
5. Cinnamon Teal
6. Redhead
7. Ring-necked Duck
8. Bufflehead
9. Ruddy Duck
10. Gambel's Quail (first seen at Sweetwater Wetlands, but also seen east to Bosque del Apache)
11. Pied-billed Grebe (Arizona and Bosque del Apache)
12. Turkey Vulture (a kettle in Blythe)
13. Cooper's Hawk (uncommon throughout)
14. Harris's Hawk (Sweetwater Wetlands only)
15. Red-tailed Hawk (common along roadsides throughout southwest)
16. American Kestrel (common throughout southwest)
17. Prairie Falcon (a single bird at Casa Grande)
18. Common Moorhen
19. American Coot (common around water)
20. Rock Pigeon (anywhere there are people)
21. Mourning Dove (common all over)
22. Common Ground Dove (a small flock at Sweetwater Wetlands)
23. Anna's Hummingbird (our lone hummingbird for the trip was a single male at Sweetwater)
24. Gila Woodpecker (a couple of birds at Sweetwater)
25. Northern Flicker (common throughout low elevation wooded habitat in southwest)
26. Ladder-backed Woodpecker (same as Flicker)
27. Say's Phoebe (common through southwest)
28. Vermillion Flycatcher (a female at Casas Grande and an imm male at the Continental School near Green Valley)
29. Loggerhead Shrike (relatively common throughout southwest)
30. Common Raven (very common at all elevations)
31. Verdin (a few birds in Arizona)
32. European Starling (wherever there are people)
33. Yellow-rumped Warbler (much less common than in Southern California, but there were a few here and there in low elevations throughout our trip)
34. Canyon Towhee (uncommon throughout our trip)
35. White-crowned Sparrow (common through our trip - most abundant sparrow)
36. Yellow-headed Blackbird (large numbers at Sweetwater Wetlands)
37. Red-winged Blackbird (common around water throughout)
38. Great-tailed Grackle (common, especially in cities, throughout southwest)
39. Brown-headed Cowbird
40. House Finch (common throughout)
41. House Sparrow (wherever there are people)
42. Lark Sparrow (grassland x mesquite woodland below Santa Ritas)
43. Vesper Sparrow (same as Lark Sparrow)
44. Black-throated Sparrow (same as Lark Sparrow, also desert scrub)
45. Northern Mockingbird (common throughout)
46. Spotted Towhee (Florida Canyon area, Bosque del Apache)
47. Ruby-crowned Kinglet (very common in any forested area)
48. Green-tailed Towhee (Florida Canyon area)
49. Phainopepla (wintering birds in Carlsbad Canyon National Park and same habitat as Lark Sparrows)
50. Rufous-crowned Warbler (3 birds! in Florida Canyon) (Lifer)
51. Canyon Wren (Florida Canyon)
52. Indigo Bunting (a single female in Florida Canyon) (Lifer)
53. Lincoln's Sparrow (in brushy habitat throughout)
54. Crissal Thrasher (one bird in oak woodland in lower Florida Canyon) (Lifer)
55. Hammond's Flycatcher (Florida Canyon)
56. Kentucky Warbler (single vagrant male in Florida Canyon) (Lifer)
57. Western Bluebird (flocks in Florida Canyon and near Grand Canyon)
58. Black Phoebe (near water throughout southwest)
59. Mexican Jay (Madera Canyon)
60. Wild Turkey (Madera Canyon, Rattlesnake Springs)
61. White-winged Dove (Continental School near Green Valley - a small flock)
62. Acorn Woodpecker (Madera Canyon)
63. Northern Beardless Tyrannulet (a single bird at the Continental School near Green Valley)
64. Gray Flycatcher (Florida Wash)
65. Bridled Titmouse (Madera Canyon)
66. White-breasted Nuthatch (Madera Canyon)
67. Brown Creeper (Mexican variety) (Madera Canyon)
68. American Robin (uncommon throughout southwest)
69. Hermit Thrush (uncommon throughout southwest)
70. Townsend's Warbler (Madera Canyon in mixed flocks)
71. Chipping Sparrow (Madera Canyon)
72. Dark-eyed Junco (Oregon, Pink-sided and Gray-headed in Madera Canyon, widespread elsewhere in southwest, too)
73. Brewer's Sparrow (1 near Continental School)
74. Lesser Goldfinch (uncommon throughout southwest)
75. Pine Siskin (Madera Canyon)
76. Sandhill Crane (first seen flying over highway 10 near Wilcox, then many at Bosque)
77. Ferruginous Hawk (one near Wilcox along 10, one off highway nearer to Carlsbad in Texas)
78. Pyrrhuloxia (common in Chihuahuan desert scrub)
79. Eastern Bluebird (at a roadside rest near Guadalupe National Park)
80. Ring-billed Gull (in Carlsbad parking lots)
81. Sage Thrasher (common in Chihuahuan desert scrub of Carlsbad Caverns NP)
82. Rufous-crowned Sparrow (lifer for Libby - near Carlsbad National Park Visitor's Center)
83. Greater Roadrunner (Carlsbad NP visitor's center area and Rattlesnake Springs area)
84. Song Sparrow (Rattlesnake Springs)
85. Northern Cardinal (Rattlesnake Springs)
86. Belted Kingfisher (Rattlesnake Springs)
87. Great Horned Owl (Rattlesnake Springs)
88. Brown Thrasher (Rattlesnake Springs) (Lifer)
89. Eastern Phoebe (Rattlesnake Springs) (Lifer)
90. Merlin (Rattlesnake Springs)
91. Eurasian Collared Dove (roadsides throughout and near Grand Canyon's rim)
92. Snow Geese (Bosque)
92. Ross's Geese (Bosque)
93. Canada Geese (Bosque)
94. Bald Eagle (Bosque)
95. Northern Pintail (Bosque)
96. American Crow (Bosque)
97. Chihuahuan Raven (Bosque)
98. Common Merganser (Bosque)
99. Hooded Merganser (Bosque)
100. Gadwall (Bosque)
101. Greater Yellowlegs (Bosque)
102. Ring-necked Pheasant (Bosque)
103. Greater White-fronted Geese (Bosque)
104. Steller's Jay (Sandia Crest and Grand Canyon)
105. Mountain Chickadee (Sandia Crest and Grand Canyon)
106. Gray-crowned Rosy Finch (Sandia Crest - one Hepburn's, the rest interior birds)
107. Brown-capped Rosy Finch (Sandia Crest) (Lifer)
108. Black Rosy Finch (Sandia Crest) (Lifer)
109. (Woodhouse's) Western Scrub Jay (Grand Canyon)
110. Juniper Titmouse (Grand Canyon) (Lifer)
111. Clark's Nutcracker (Grand Canyon)
112. White-throated Sparrow (Bosque) (Lifer)
113. Meadowlark species (roadsides throughout grasslands in trip - two or three species possible if Lilian's is split as new research suggests it should be)

I hope I didn't miss anything. Not so many, but we didn't try for a big list. If I did it again I would have made time to look for wintering Larkspurs, but I'm very happy with what we did see.

Mammoth Trip

We got back Monday from a winter trip to Mammoth over the holiday weekend. It was a good trip, if short.

Photos on Flickr

Some highlights:

- The snow was really wonderful. It was dry, settled powder most of the trip. It snowed a couple of inches on Sunday, and it was dumping as we left.

- The heavy snow made our trip home a lot more interesting than normal. We needed chains from Mammoth all the way to Sherwin Grade. Snow was falling in Bishop when we arrived, and again in the Coso Junction area. Thankfully the storm was gone by the time we arrived at Cajon Pass, but we could see it accumulated on either side of the road.

- Joe Profita spent Saturday night at the cabin.

- The cabin was wonderfully comfortable, and the solitude was wonderful. Going up there in the winter is a really great way to get away from it all. There was only one other cabin occupied while we were there, and we only saw them on Monday right before they left. We didn't even know anyone else was around all day Saturday and Sunday.

- Dad and I took a night ski down up the uranium mine road, back down, and then out onto Lake Mary. It was exciting going downhill with only a few yards of track illuminated ahead of you.

- We saw a Golden Eagle right by the road on the way up! Just a couple of feet off to the left side of 395 and right on the ground. What a wonderful, enormous bird.

- We spent all of our time skiing up and around behind the cabin. Mom and Dad went to Emerald on Sunday, and Libby and I joined them in a ski up to the meadow below it on Monday before we skiied out to the car.

- It stayed around 20 degrees most of the time we were there, which was quite comfortable when you were skiing and kept the snow in great condition.

Well, there are a few memories for posterity. We definitely had a good time, over all. It was nice to take a break from school for Libby, and I also enjoyed the change of scenery.

Grand Canyon

The Grand Canyon is an enormous rift in the middle of the Colorado plateau, and it's dramatic vistas are basically unparalleled anywhere in the world. It's one of those select places you really feel like you ought to see before you die.

It's also the sort of place that's so well known it's almost redundant to photograph or describe. I imagine the first westerners to explore it were able to fill letters and articles with many well earned superlatives of praise, but, let's face it, the audience of this blog has seen so many pictures of this spectacular act of God that they have no need to read or peruse more here.

Never the less, pens cannot rest on the laurels of their forefathers, and I press forward with mine to record our experience for our own small family's sake.

While a winter visit to the Grand Canyon is cold and carries the hazards inherent in that season, it also brings a new beauty to the red rock. Snow and ice cover the ground and rest in the boughs of the pines and junipers along the south rim, collecting temporarily in the aged rock's strata. The forest is a frosted a smooth white, and the canyon itself is dusted with powdered sugar. Entering into this fantastic landscape, Libby and I oohed and ahed from each subsequent vista. You can see for miles, especially in winter, and we gaped at every rock formation and rift as it appeared through the crystal clear air of a southwestern winter. I even felt my stomach contract and curl when we stood atop particularly precipitous buttes. It's an uncomfortable distance to the bottom, despite the iron railings.

Still, discussing it later, we both felt that the best experience of the Grand Canyon would require you entering it and getting lost in its vastness. Looking down and across this gulf in the earth is almost so overwhelming that you can't appreciate it fully. I feel like if I was in it and looking up and around at the towering cliffs I'd have more of a feel of my own small relationship to its impersonal size. Plus, that's the way I'm used to experiencing yawning heights from the Sierras, and they're sort of my benchmark for judging any similar natural wonder.

We spent our whole day droving up and down the road running along the south rim. We did take one short walk - from Yavapai Point over to the Bright Angel lodge. We then took a bus back to our car. The hike along the rim was over snow and ice most of the time, and it took some caution because the ice was incredibly slick in places. By walking carefully and slowly we avoided any spills.

Naturally, we also took time to enjoy the birdlife of the canyon. Common Ravens and Dark-eyed (Gray-headed) Juncos seemed to be the most common birds, but we were also able to find our life Juniper Titmice (Titmouses?). That was neat - although they appear basically identical to the local Oak Titmouse we have here in California. That's not surprising, considering Oak and Juniper Titmouse were considered conspecific until the 90s. We also saw our only Clark's Nutcrackers of the trip (just two - but it seems like kind of low altitude for these birds), our first interior Western Scrub Jays (Woodhouse's group - paler and without the blue necklace of the coastal California group - it may be a separate species), Steller's Jays, Western Bluebirds, and a Eurasian Collared Dove. No Condors during the winter, unfortunately, but you get what you get and you don't throw a fit.

By the end of the day, we were ready to go home. We'd been away for a long time, and California was only a few hours away. Plus, a storm was blowing in overnight, and we didn't want to get stuck. I'm not sure how much fun the Grand Canyon would be in the middle of a snow storm, but we didn't much want to find out.

Pictures aplenty in the normal place: Grand Canyon set.

Sunset bound

The first dawn of the New Year warmed our faces in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Turning into it, and climbing precipitously, we headed for our first adventure of the New Year. We were going to Sandia Crest. Sandia Crest is the highest point of the Sandia Mountains, which crowd Albuquerque's north-eastern limits. There's a plowed road that leads right to the top, past a ski area, at a dizzying 10,600'. During the icy winter, all three species of Rosy Finch flock together for a few months, bringing with them birders with binoculars and field guides in their wake.

Usually, Rosy Finches live in out of the way places. We saw lots of Gray-crowned Rosy Finches on our backpack trip this last summer because we were in their ideal habitat - talus slopes and alpine meadows. The other two species are less widespread than their Gray-crowned cousin. Black Rosy Finches are restricted to the high mountains of the central United States - high mountains in states like Montana, Nevada, Wyoming and Idaho. Brown-capped Rosy Finches have an even smaller range, occupying high mountain areas of Colorado south into northern New Mexico. During winter, though, the birds spread out a lot more to find food as it becomes more scarce. Interestingly, though, some also stay in their breeding areas all year, making a meager living on bugs blown up into the mountains that die in the snow. Which is pretty amazing.

Libby watches the Rosy Finch flock.
Flickr

Sandia Crest is great because the birds wintering there are concentrated by the feeding stations put out by a local cafe on the mountain top. Not only can you see all three of these species in one place, but you can do in comfort through a window over a cup of steaming coffee. Normally. Not so for us! When we arrived, we found the cafe closed because it was New Years. Thankfully, though, there was still seed in the feeders, and it wasn't more than a minute before a big flock of Rosy Finches settled in the branches of some nearby trees. We were able to watch them feed from an overlook and soon picked out all three species. Gray-headed Juncos, Steller's Jays, and Mountain Chickadees filled out the experience. We were able to enjoy good views of the birds to our heart's content and were pretty happy despite the constant and steady wind and subfreezing temperatures.

Soon enough, though, we were back on the road and heading west. We were really heading toward home, now, though we were still planning on stopping to see the Grand Canyon. The rest of the day was involved in driving into and through the classic country of the southwest. Buttes and plateaus with sparse vegetation from sage to junipers zipped by on either side. Occasionally, there would be snow on the ground, and we passed into the Navajo Nation right at the Arizona border.

Our next big stop for the day was the auto tour of the Petrified Forest National Park. We hadn't made up our mind whether or not to stop there (it would take us a little bit out of our way), but we decided to a few miles before we got there and turned off to have lunch at the northern visitor's center. Then we paid our fee, jumped on the tour road and headed off to see the Painted Desert and Petrified Forest.

Petrified Forest
Flickr

Both were really cool, but one of our favorite stops was at the Puerco Pueblo mid-way between the two areas in the park. It's the ruins of a pueblo built way back in the 1200s and abandoned in the 1300s used by the people who farmed the valley long before the Spanish conquered Mexico. There were also some interesting petroglyphs. It's always fun to try to imagine what those mean, but I also feel a connection to their authors looking at the ancient scratches on the stone. It helps put humanity in context. The scratchings of any one human being will be meaningless some day, but the rocks they're put on will last much longer. Which author's work is worth the greatest consideration?

As it got dark, we pulled into very snowy Flagstaff, where we had dinner at a Cracker Barrel and I tried turnip greens and Libby had fried apple slices. I think she liked her apples better than I liked my greasy spinach-like side. Still, I like to try the foods of other cultures (and the south is a very different culture than California). Not long after dinner, we pulled into Tusayan and our hotel for the night, where I was unpleasantly surprised to find large crowds of people trying to find rooms for the night. We had reservations, and it wasn't any trouble, but it was annoying after the relative solitude of our trip to be among the hustle and bustle of humanity again.

Pictures on Flickr: Albuquerque to Tusayan.

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.