Wednesday, June 4, 2008

Last Weekend's Walk

If anyone's an arachnophobe, the spider photo will be at the end of the post.

We had one of our best bird walks ever yesterday - it was hot but not too hot for walking and we saw 26 species of birds. Our best ever one-day species count for here was 27 last fall sometime. We were able to add another new species for the ranch - a western tanager! Yes, of course, they are known to be around here, but this was the first one we've seen, so it was exciting for us. I do wish we had a better camera/spotting scope combo because this isn't the greatest photo, but it gives an idea of how pretty these birds are.

We saw our first fish of the season in the river - little inch long minnow type jobbers. Also saw many butterflies and dragonflies and the ridiculous European bullfrogs which go "Eeeeek!" and jump in the river as you walk by.

While cleaning up under the eaves, we found a little two foot rattlesnake tucked up behind a pile of something - it was making its music. We watched it for a bit and then went off to inspect a tarantula that had also scared up out of somewhere. Usually the tarantulas don't come out of their hidey holes until the fall, so this one probably wasn't too thrilled.

1 comment:

Tom Hurley said...

A western tanager! So that’s what that bird is. I saw the same thing up-canyon from your place.

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