feb 5
Yesterday was a day of Eaton Canyon adventure complete with rock-hopping and swollen-stream fording, culminating with the prerequisite injury. This always seems to happen after one has done something of questionable judgment, e.g. climbing tiny deer trails on canyon walls the day after a rain storm and rock/mudslides, or jumping across a flooded stream with $3000 worth of camera and optics, but never has to do with the questionable activities themselves. I once spent an entire day climbing rock faces in Joshua Tree and repelling down them, returning feeling brave and unscathed, only to slip off of a rock in camp that was only 8″ high. This resulted in a ripped Achilles tendon, which, in case you don’t know, is terribly painful and takes forever to heal. Yesterday was my father’s turn - he hit his heel rather sharply on a rock and bruised it, but not in connection with any of his earlier acrobatics.
Added to the sightings from Eaton Canyon and the Altadena house:
Merlin
Sharp-shinned Hawk
Northern Flicker (Red-shafted)
Black Phoebe
Mountain Chickadee
Bushtit
Bewick’s Wren
Rufous-crowned Sparrow
This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 5th, 2008 at 5:49 pm and is filed under Birds, Lists, Los Angeles |
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February 6th, 2008 at 1:03 pm
Sounds like you have quite an amazing slice of heaven where your family’s house is!
And Eaton Canyon seems otherworldy!
Hope your Pa’s bruise heals quickly.
February 6th, 2008 at 7:48 pm
Hope your dad is well and recovered from his mishap. At this point, I have only the deepest, fullest and most complete empathy for anyone that klutz’s out.
Hey, got see my achilles tendon on an X-Ray yesterday!
BTW: I think Bushtits are fascinating. They are so overlooked and dull colored, (ah, another Bushtit) but they have really interesting flock behavior and amusing vocalizations.
February 7th, 2008 at 2:11 pm
I’m not a birder, but I had to look up what a Bushtit looked like, male and female. I nearly keeled over they are so painfully cute!
http://homepage.smc.edu/sakai_walter/Species%20Accounts/bushtit.htm
February 8th, 2008 at 12:34 pm
It was funny with the Bushtits this trip - usually I see them my first day, in large flocks moving through our oak (we have a 200+ year tree in our backyard, a truly amazing thing with sprawling branches. You can climb the tree by literally walking up it - looking out from the house we often see one of the dogs walking around in it, which is a little weird). But on this trip I found a solitary pair in the canyon and no flocks, which leads me to think that they might be paired and nesting already. Which explains why, growing up, I always thought spring arrived at the end of January. I observed birds in the canyon getting ready to nest - Red-shouldered Hawks, California Thrashers, Anna’s Hummingbirds (the males kept trying to buzz me off of their territories).
February 8th, 2008 at 7:51 pm
They are breeding now, so you may be right. Cool, long pendulous sac nests too. We really have no equivalent in the east. Wrentit is another amazing teeny bird common in CA that I always enjoy seeing…Verdin too (more deserts in the SE). All of them remind of species like Penduline Tit et in Europe.
Got out briefly today in my new cast/boot to do an interview (Dr. Monica Dunford of the LHC working on Higgs Bosons, Dark Matter and the very foundations of reality. She has the best freakin’ job in the world! and the LHC isn’t even on-line yet. She will even be creating teeny black holes! Great spot too at the base of the alps and near Geneva. Got home to find out that a friend of mine just to the south of Worcester (Millbury ) saw and and photo’ed a HAWK OWL in his backyard!!!!!!! I am thinking of heading to the LHC this summer and try for Wallcreeper while there (one of my nemesis birds)