Lassen

Today is another rain/data day, bringing me to the big city (Quincy), where a post is possible!

Last week I camped and point counted with Mr. Lipp in the northern regions of Lassen National Forest. We caught fish and got ripped to shreds by manzanita, so there were ups and downs to the week, but it was especially nice for me to switch things up by helping out with their project, getting to see slightly different birds and habitat for the week.

Mountain Quail are spectacular. Though they do not shout "CHICAGO" like their Cali Quail relatives, they sure can belt out a good "Quork!"


Barn Swallows were nesting under this bridge, which was over a creek full of highly uninterested trout.


There were SO MANY butterflies everywhere we went. We must have hit hundreds with our truck, as they seem to gravitate toward moist surfaces...like these sandals.


This year the Juncos here are actually able to nest, as compared to last year, when there were still multiple feet of snow at many of our sites.


From the top of Burney Mountain at sunset.




Listen for the background barks

Not here, but there

Folks, we will be here tomorrow:


And maybe go here too (a lake with Torrent Tyrannulets):


But will be leaving here (and the internet) for a week:


By the 17th, not only will I be older, but I will have a NEW NEW NEW lens!

500

This is post number 500!

A few looks at where we're living.

Walking into the CCC compound where we are based out of in Tortuguero


Four of us share this


Our room and the "library" are in this building


Sunset in town


Northern Barred Woodcreeper

Made it off the island

Off the island now, in Oakland, packing away, about to settle catan, sleep, then 12 hours of flying to HK with AG!

I will leave you with this Peregrine eaten gull


HUVI, sorry Mark.


And some more sunny (living) gulls

Western GUs at sunrise

7 knots?

Re-up

Today Amanda and Melissa were kind enough to bring us food from the mainland! Every two weeks volunteers do a big grocery shop and hop onto a boat (which has also been volunteered to take the trip out) to bring it to us in order to resupply our fridges and pantry. They made it out here early afternoon, got a quick tour of the island and were getting back onto the sailboat again within an hour and a half. It's a brutally long day for anyone who does that (they shopped all evening last night, woke up at 5am, and will probably get home by midnight) and they also had some horrible weather on the way back, making it extra rough, so THANK YOU for doing it! Glad they got to see the island for what it is, but also where I'm working and living.

I somehow did not take any pictures while Amanda was here, but maybe she will supply some on her blog?

This sea lion was not happy about the e-seal. The e-seal could have cared less.




Black Turnstone


Black Oystercatcher, should still be the logo, I think






Big swell yesterday, made us wonder if the food and friends were going to make it onto the island today


Same Brown Creeper. I found him trying to cling to the house, he finally found the roof, then finally found the tree.

Eastern Phoebe

Today we had a visitor from the East Side. It was a Phoebe, it was cute and it liked me.


Yesterday we had a Lark Sparrow.


And today we also had another sunset.

Made it to the island

After a huge grocery shop the night before, Oscar, Jim and I (and some VIPs) hopped aboard the New Rayann and made a quick, beautiful trip to the Southeast Farallon Islands. After much loading and unloading a few crew members headed back to the mainland and I settled in a bit.

Here's my first Farallon sunset

Tahoe Day 1 and 2

Kanner and I went for a two night backpacking trek around Desolation Wilderness, which is just to the Southwest of Lake Tahoe.

Starting out at around 5pm at Echo Lakes we made it past the two lakes and all the houses by sundown:


We hiked an hour or so in the dark, finding a dryish, snow free spot for the night. Though we encountered few mammals on this drip we still took some precautions with our food:


The next morning we got up fairly early and made our way to the North end of Lake Aloha where we left our big packs for the day:




We wanted to make our way up to Jack's Peak, but were unsure of where a trail was...so we just went straight up the side of a mountain and made it to this spectacular ridge. It was quite steep, and a little sketchy at times, but it was a good scramble.

Sorry about the wind, put the volume down on this video:


View from the ridge:




Thankfully we had a map of the area (thanks Emma D) and found a route down the other side of the ridge toward Half Moon Lake, where we could find some trail again. The first step of making it down was navigating through some wide snow fields, some of which we successfully slide down, some not so much. We came from the upper middle right ridge area, and if you look closely you can see our tracks and butt-slides:




Then it was down to Half Moon Lake, where we jumped in, ate lunch, napped, and headed back to our stuff at Aloha.


At Aloha we set up camp, struggled to make dinner, and had the windiest night of sleep of our lives. But the sunset was amazing and the food turned out.






The best part of it all was that we only saw a person or two the whole two days.

Paddling in the Leverett Pond

Haven't had one of these in awhile...still rainy

25...

AWESOME picture from my dad:



And the lame view from Grid 4 again...