Yay Some Rain

Looks like long walks are going to be out of the question this morning because we are getting the nicest rainstorm just now. Hope lots soaks in. Since most likely there won't be any pretty pictures today, I will post some photos from last week as documentation for the water tank project. The Dinosaur ordered up some pea gravel, which he convinced a merchant to deliver in spite of it being a small amount.

Step 1: Move the gravel from the bottom to the top of the hill

Step 2: Dump the gravel into its appointed spot.

Step 3: Spread the gravel evenly over the under-tank area.

Yes, it is a hard life being the photographer of record. One mustn't hurt one's little fingers by spreading gravel or anything.

I added a fun little gadget for no particular reason other than it's not easy always being earnest about birds and wildlife. Black boxes! Gotta love tha interwebz.

Yet Another Fabulous Walk - We Don't Get Tired of It!

We got started on our Sunday bird walk mid morning. It took us almost an hour to walk the first mile or so because we kept getting distracted by watching birds. We saw a flock of forty or so meadowlarks in the area where the abandoned houses are - what an amazing noise that was! We didn't know that meadowlarks flocked together like that, the way blackbirds and starlings do.

Not long after we saw the meadowlarks we started hearing shooting - there's a shooting range of sorts established by one of the neighbors on a particular flat spot by the river. We've gotten pretty much used to it, although I have to admit it's not my favorite sound. At any rate, along comes a huge shattering boom of a shot. We keep walking, cross the river at the bridge, still birdwatching - some birds don't seem to mind all the noise - and see the men at the range. That particular area near the river is actually a really good place for birds - even with the shooting we saw some killdeer there that aren't usually around, bluebirds, a phoebe and the ravens. As we continued walking up the road, one of the men decided that he'd better warn us and drove up to let us know that they were shooting a 460 Weatherby rifle that has a range of 2000 yards so we should probably not walk along the river but stick to the road. We'd already figured that, but agreed politely, seeing as how they had the big guns and we only had some mean looking binoculars and a sack of bird books. That particular rifle is a "dangerous game" rifle developed for shooting Cape Buffalo and African elephants, both of which are in a shortage here in Madera County. Now, I'm a bleeding heart liberal Bambi lover so practicing to shoot critters just doesn't get on my good side but it's legal and they were doing it as safely as they could so I guess that's just the way of the world.

Here's a pretty spot along the river. I actually took a little video of this, since my camera will do that, but the file is so big! I don't have any video editing software so have no idea what to do with it. I just thought it would be kind of fun to be able to see and hear the Chowchilla with water in it once things dry up over the summer.

We stopped for lunch at the schoolhouse, which has been abandoned for years, but yes, was a one roomer of the old fashioned variety. One of these times I'll get up there at a time of day when I can get some nice shots of it. There's a big hay shed next to it and it's a great place for seeing sparrows. We also spotted a Nuttall's woodpecker there yesterday. While we were still munching, one of our neighbors came up in her ATV so we had a nice chat.

From afar, this little item looked like a big hawk with a white breast sitting in this tree. But no, it was a just a Common Birthday Balloon, natus mylaris, subspecies deflatus.

Band-Tailed Pigeons

We took a lovely long walk yesterday, covering 6 or 7 miles or so, mostly along the Chowchilla. A perfectly beautiful day for it too, in terms of enjoying a day from a human perspective. I suppose rain would have been better since we certainly need more of that. We had one of those great bird watching days in terms of spotting different species - 25 yesterday! Including a new species - band-tailed pigeons. Now, these aren't rare or anything, but I've been seeing dove-like birds for a few weeks now that seemed bigger and just not quite dove-y enough. We got the spotting scope on them yesterday and ta da! (Pigeon photo US Fish and Wildlife)

Now, we do realize that just counting species isn't really the point, but it does help us pay attention. After all, it's not as if there is a shortage of doves and unless you're a dove freak (we're not) why bother looking at them?

Another discovery on the other side of the river - two barn swallow nests tucked under some big rocks. They were sharing space with uninhabited mud wasp constructions. We'll see if later in the year we can surreptitiously observe the comings and goings when the babies arrive from the other side of the river. Thank goodness for long lenses and spotting scopes!

New Year Cleanup

While yours truly sadly was required to appear at her actual job site to prove that she was still employed - you know, I had to go back to work - Dino stayed at Dryad Ranch and spent the time from Christmas to past New Year working on the continued fire perimeter project. He was able to open up the area just below the house where House Spring is, and there have been enough days where burning was permitted to get it all cleaned up. There is still some work left that he hopes to get done at the head of the spring where it meets the road.

He's also been getting estimates for having a 2500 gallon water tank that would hold water ready for firefighters if the worst should come to pass. The water will be pumped up to the tank, which we plan to locate at the top of Ant Hill and gravity will move the water down as it's needed. Dino's already started to clear off and prepare the area for the tank, as I found on my perambulations this morning.

Observations on today's walks: How I managed to miss it before, but stuck into the barbed wire fence on the Northwest Territory is a golf club. What the? At some point I'll try to get a nice photo of it, but today the light was against me. On our last river walk, we also found an arrow - not an old arrowhead - a modern arrow (with a very nasty looking tip) that someone had evidently been unable to locate after missing whatever they had aimed at.

The Solstice Ouzel

For our winter solstice activity, we decided on yet another long birdwatching walk (surprise!) We got in a good four hours tramp, the latter half while being rained upon. Nevertheless, since we had adequately prepared with rainslickers, hats and gloves, we carried on. In honor of the new season, we were blessed with extra good fortune in our birdwatching, and spent some time watching a water ouzel (current "official" name American Dipper) bobbing, swimming and catching morsels at the bottom of the river which he gobbled up with relish. The ouzels seem to show up around this time of year, having migrated not north to south but from higher elevation to lower. Although as I am sure is quite obvious, we love birds, there are certain kinds that bring an extra spring to our steps and the ouzel is one of them. There doesn't seem to be a gloomy bone in their little bodies. John Muir wrote a wonderful essay about ouzels, and lo and behold, it can be found here, if you have a few spare minutes, it's worth the time reading.

We've gotten some semi-decent rains the last weeks and the river is starting to fill in a bit. We ended up having to cross the river twice, and not at the bridge as originally intended because we realized that we'd never make it there and home without getting completely drenched. So we rockhopped across at a shallow spot - Dino hopped, I ended up splashing because I missed. But the water didn't go up over my boots so it wasn't too horrible squishy walking home.

Here is a pretty spot on the Chowchilla near where we often see ducks - mallards or wood ducks or both. We saw the mallards further down river, on the big bend just past the ouzel, a flock of 50 or more.

The Thanksgiving Bear (Only a Little Delayed)

Over the Thanksgiving weekend, on one of my walks, I hadn't gone more than a quarter mile from, when I saw these tracks in the road. Bear! Oooh, excitement! I scurried back to the house for my camera and also hubby so he could see them too.

The tracks were visible for a good way down the road, and then it looked like the bear headed down the hill toward the river.

The only bears in California are black bears, as the last grizzly was killed nearly a century ago. Bear hunting season ends on December 28 this year, or earlier if it's determined that 1700 bears have been killed. I wasn't going to post about this until after the season's ended because we are in favor of bears and there are a few of our neighbors that might take it into their heads to get a bearskin rug. Since I ran into one of said neighbors yesterday on my walk and they'd also seen the tracks, I guess it doesn't matter now. I did some researching and found out that since 1980, the California Department of Fish and Game has recorded only 12 bear attack incidents, and in fact they put "bear attack" in quotation marks on their web site. One of the descriptions of the attacks reads: "Mono County, April 1996 – A man received a bite on the buttocks from a young bear. Further details are not known." I wonder if alcohol was involved in this one, ha ha.

We do make doubly sure that our garage door is closed at night, as that is where the bird seed is kept and we don't want to encourage mooching.

We got a little rain Friday night, but didn't get any additional yesterday in spite of wishful thinking. What we have gotten has done wonders for the grass and the fungi though. We're seeing what probably amounts to dozens of different species of mushrooms from tiny round white ones to humongous things a foot across. There are some that are about a half inch long at most sticking up out of the crack of a split log, looking ver much like little orange fingers - very weird.

Dryad Ranch for Thanksgiving

We had a lovely Thanksgiving day and weekend at Dryad Ranch (when is it NOT lovely to be there?) We continued with the task of improving the fire perimeter around the ranch house. We had a rushed massacre of some manzanitas this summer when the fires were so bad, but further evaluation of our homestead area and additional research of recommendations made us come to the conclusion that we had to do more. So the Dinosaur got out the chain saws and started the task of taking down some small oaks in the garden area as well as most of the remaining manzanitas within the perimeter area. We do feel very bad about cutting down living trees and of course we will be finding ways to propitiate the spirits of the oaks that get cut - this IS Dryad Ranch after all and one must not offend.

The Friday after Thanksgiving we worked off our meal by moving the oak logs toward the wood shed and hoo boy, wet green oak can be heavy, as I'm sure some of our neighbors can attest! We also moved some winches and other metal thingies - that's a technical term - to a new resting area close to our storage containers so Dino could even out the slope toward the house with the Kubota. Oak and heavy metal parts - great weightlifting workout!

Dino did have a close encounter with vermin as he prepared the ground for the thingies. He wanted to put down some roofing paper and as he picked up the roll, a black widow fell onto his shirt. After he gently and carefully placed her in a safe place (snort!), he picked up the roll again and out scurried a rat! Since I didn't see any rat carcasses around, I'm assuming he or she made it to safety.

Sunday was an absolutely gorgeous day, with temps allowing short sleeved T shirts, one of the occasional perks of the California fall. As we were sadly leaving just after sunset, we were awed with the beauty of the crescent moon, Jupiter and Venus in conjunction in a crystal clear sky. The Milky Way was clearly visible along with so many other stars that Dino was wistful about the good old days of observing the heavens without so much light pollution.