Rain in the mountains

After visiting Hanalei NWR I decided to make my way around the island and up Waimea Canyon to Koke'e State Park to reach some higher elevations.  These high elevation sites include much more native vegetation and host some of the more rare endemics that can be found in Hawaii.

The drive up was beautiful.






But of course, by the time I reach my destination the rain had started and birding was not really an option.  I did scurry around in the rain until it became a downpour, spotting my one and only Apapane, a beautiful red, black and white honeycreeper.




I decided to spend the night up in the mountains, hoping rain would subside by morning.  It did not.  So I missed out on some great species and headed down hill to the coast again.  Along the way I did score some crappy pictures of these two species!

Erckel's Francolin


Nutmeg Mannikin

@cutrules

Rough day for CUT/GUT nation, but still proud to see the team do so well. Shout out to the tweeters, keeping Baylis and I updated while hiking in the Sierras.

Libby releasing a hummingbird


Pacific slope flycatcher

Other pretty things today

Purple finch

5 days off

Its just the start of the spring banding season, and since I am staying on, they let me take 5 days off in a row! Great timing too. My parents flew in Wednesday, spent that afternoon and Thursday with me, my brother got in Thursday night, we all hanged out around Point Reyes on Friday, had a wonderful pizza party with my friends in Oakland, and then watched CUT dominate a weekend of frisbee, winning their second (of 2) tournament of the winter! Great visit by all.

And now some pictures:







Bishop pine




At Abbott's Lagoon










My BRO!


Horse tails of some kind


Open horse tails


On the coastal trail






Eggs?


Lil hermit crab


In Muir woods, checking out redwoods:








Small redwoods

Missmas

At this point its just me here at the station. I have today and tomorrow off, but will be banding the day after Christmas, which is actually the day my family is doing Christmas, so I'm going to get up early to video chat with them and open a couple of presents!

Today I went for a lil solo hike on the Tomales Point trail, at the very north end of Point Reyes National Seashore. The trail runs through a very open, scrubby area and is in the center of the tule elk reserve up there. It was about a 10 mile round trip hike, and I may or may not have fallen asleep at the point once I got there, but it was fun.









Freak 'shroom










After the hike I took a side trek to the historic lighthouse on Point Reyes. I thought of my dad the whole time I was there, and despite not remembering any details of the significance of it, it was impressive. The worst part, however, was walking back up the stairs, which were each numbered and counted down from over 300 on your way up.





From inside the lighthouse.

Flowers from Utah

Evening Primrose:




Fireweed:


Rocky Mountain columbine:

Survey flower

The flora from Great Basin

Here are some of the wildflowers we ran into on our trip, I don't know much about them, but Eric was great at pointed out what we were seeing all around us in the way of plants and birds.

These are attempted names. Eric told me all of them, but was unsure on some...

Shooting Star:

Snowberry:

?:

Western Yarrow:

Phlox:

Daisy:

Polemonium:

Phlox:

Parry's Primrose:

Blue bells:

Red columbine:

Spotted Coralroot (orchid family, yea!):