Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Santa Ana NWR and Estero Llano Grande SP

Wonderful day....

I got up at 6:30, had the complimentary motel breakfast (scrambled eggs and coffee) and drove to Santa Ana, about 15 miles. It opened at 8:00 and soon thereafter, a volunteer came out to fill the feeders at the Visitor Center. While waiting for the bird walk to start, I saw Green Jays, a Common Ground Dove, Kiskadees, a Black-crested Nuthatch, Golden-fronted Woodpeckers and Altamira Orioles! These were new birds for me, all mixed in with a couple hundred noisy Red-winged Blackbirds. The walk started at 8:30 and a dozen of us participated.

In all these refuges, there are many volunteers. (Maria had told me about this, as she had talked with one of them on their trip down the East Coast.) Most are seniors and many are couples. One such couple led the walk. The husband carried a spotting scope which he would set up whenever and wherever anyone wanted to get better looks at something. He admitted he did not know birds that well, but said there are all levels of birders on these walks and everyone contributes. His wife was the ostensible birding expert but she really wasn't, although it didn't matter at all. He was efficient and definitely a leader type without being obnoxious. We ambled slowly along for 90 minutes, stopping often to watch whatever was there: stilts, ducks, sandpipers, shrikes, a Merlin, Ladder-backed Woodpeckers (life bird), coots, Belted Kingfisher, a White-faced Ibis....I had prepared with sunblock and mosquito spray but the wind was strong which helped, at least with the mosquitoes. We were warned to stay on the trails because of unfriendly flora (thorns) and fauna (snakes and alligators). The understory was a tropical tangle of trees, brush, shrubs, vines, grasses, wet and swampy areas and small lakes scattered throughout the refuge. It would be challenging to try to navigate through this and often we walked along trails that were very slightly elevated.

There was an elderly couple in the group who were knowledgeable about birding and had been at Santa Ana "oh...a hundred times." They live near Austin. Somehow in the random chatting, I learned that he was Dutch and his name was John Vanderheide. They knew of Holland and said there were people living there with the same last name but not relatives. They had been to the Netherlands many times. John had been born there, and his father actually returned in his later years and died there. John had been a mining engineer in the UP and and said how much he loved living in Marquette...loved the winters. He would have Snowy Owls perched on his roof. There were also two middle-aged couples from Vermont. One of these women did not suffer from a lack of confidence in her ID skills. Back at the Visitor Center before we started, she pointed out a Cassin's Sparrow lurking in the underbrush. I got a good look at it and took her word for it. What do I know about Cassin's Sparrows? Absolutely nothing. It was a totally plain bird with no noticeable wing bars or streaks or other markings. It didn't look much like the Cassin's in the field guide. Later I was playing the song of the Cassin's on my iPhone, and she heard it and casually said, "Oh no, that wasn't a Cassin's; it was an Olive Sparrow...we had been learning songs on the plane and thought it was the Cassin's..." So that was another LB for me: Olive Sparrow, which is only found in the US in the extreme tip of Texas. We heard it several times after that, but it is a skulker and difficult to see.

The coolest thing happened when we came to the an area of three obsevation towers, two of which were connected by a rope bridge. The scope guy told us that there was supposed to be an Eastern Screech Owl in a dead tree in a hole at "eye level" at the top of the tower. If anyone wanted to try it, he said, go for it. John and I immediately headed up and a few others followed. He was a bit unsteady on his feet and wore hearing aides but was also tough and never hesitated. We moved slowly up a metal spiral staircase and at the top, John started calling the owl. He warbled and hooted several times. Obviously he knew what he was doing. But no owl appeared so three of us began walking across to the other tower. John went back down and of course, the owl showed! Those who stayed at the first tower motioned us back, and there it was checking out the situation. We could only see it from the eyes up but were very close. It was one more thrilling moment for all of us.

Most of the group returned to the Center but the leaders, John and his wife and I took another short trail that had three observation decks overlooking Willow Lake, and I saw several Least Grebes (LB). These look like small Pied-billed Grebes with sharper, thinner bills. I think I had 10 life birds at Santa Ana.

I hadn't intended to go there, but the Vermont lady said Estero Llano was a must-see park and "you can sit on a deck and eat ice-cream while you watch the birds." As I didn't have specific plans or a detailed itinerary (I do have the big picture in my head), I decided to backtrack a bit and go there. What has been frustrating the past few days is how little signage there is for these places. I use my iPhone constantly for directions and am constantly on Farm to Market roads, many of which curve all over.

At Estero, as I was getting out of my car, four Plain Chachalacas ran into the brush right in front of me (another new bird) and, while walking to the Visitor Center to pay, there were hummingbird feeders, one with a Black-chinned. Score again! The ranger said I could put it on the white board which was on the ice-cream-eating deck and which aleady had a list of the 50+ birds seen on Sunday. Black-chins are less common than Buff-bellied Hummingbirds, the very common hummer here, and which I saw later. The Buffs have a long red bill that highlights in the sun. Really, how cool is that? I am laughing as I type this because if one has no interest in birds (well you probably aren't even reading this), a glowing red hummingbird bill would never even be seen. It's weird about people's passions...I can barely imagine NOT being seduced, thrilled, enchanted, engaged and soothed by birds. But it also is about so much more than the birds themselves, as is illustrated by what happened tomorrow. Although, this was still very much in the context of birdwatching.

The ranger told me about a couple of trails where I might see a Green Kingfisher. I am getting increasingly directionally challenged and went off TWICE on wrong trails, but finally got oriented and, while it wasn't far, it WAS off in the boonies...to Grebe Pond and Alligator Lake. No kingfisher but a huge alligator on the far side of the lake and several roosting Night-herons (both species). I chatted with a young guy from Manitoba who was also searching for the Green Kingfisher and got close looks at a Red-shouldered Hawk sitting on the steep bank of a canal.

The vocabulary of all of this activity is totally about what and where people are finding and have found this or that bird, usually low-key and often informative. If someone sees something, people quietly and quickly move into position, set up scopes and camers and binoculars and peer, giving specific directions for those who have trouble locating the bird: "See that dead tree? the one in front of the little grassy area? Go up the larger trunk...see where it splits? go to the right on that branch at about 2 o'clock, next to that dark spot....."

I bought an ice-cream bar and sat in the shade in the hummingbird garden with four older gentleman who were talking optics. Orange-crowned Warblers also were intermittently sipping the sugar water.

I got in the car and watched doves in the parking lot, before heading into town. I decided to try the Valley Nature Center and was glad I did. This is a sweet little pocket park right in the middle of town, behind a park where kids were playing basketball. I paid a small fee and went out the back into a small but charming place with trails, feeding stations and water drips, a cactus garden, a native plant nursery, a tropical area and occasional benches, all with the noise of the city in the background but somehow still peaceful and secluded. I thought I saw a Clay-colored Robin but won't count it as I didn't get a good look. I saw and watched the hummingbird feeders (only Buff-bellied) and revived in the cool shade. (The trails I was on at Estero were in the hot sun.)

Inside the nature center were educational exhibits and the usual large snakes in glass cages. Nice for the neighborhood which was Hispanic...as is 95% of south Texas except for the tourists.

To another La Quinta. The working conditions (computer desks and chairs and usually a stable high-speed connection) in the slightly higher priced motels is worth the extra money. I ate at a local Mexican restaurant and had a fountain drink which I thought was lemonade but was a delicious milky coconut drink. More diced beef tacos with onions and cilantro and hot sauces on the side. The tacos were like the ones we used to eat as kids except the meat wasn't ground.

These more local places have staff with limited English language abilities, and I have no Spanish ability but we managed. Immersion like this would certainly make learning a second language easier.

Tuesday, February 28, 2012

On the Road: Bishop, Texas to Alamo, Texas

It had rained in the night and was still wet and muggy and overcast but with an OK forecast...mostly to partly cloudy but no rain, and temperatures in the 70s.

I have been grabbing half a cup of motel coffee and whatever fruit is offered and hitting the road. Today I finally ate something at a gas station in Rio Hondo late morning, which was a barbecued pulled pork sandwich and not-bad coffee. I had stopped there to get gas and buy bug spray. It was a bustling place...95% Hispanics.

Leaving Bishop, I drove directly south on a 4-lane divided highway with a speed limit of 70. It was not an interstate so there were what they call "crossovers" within every mile. So three times I "crossed over" and headed north and then "crossed over" again to head south to get better looks at hawks that I had whizzed by, going too fast on this busy road to safely stop and back up to see. The first one had been eating carrion and was not there the second time around. BUT the next two were, and both were life birds for me! The first was a Crested Caracara, a magnificent large hawk-like bird; subsequently, I saw three more traveling south. The second was a very cooperative White-tailed Hawk which did not fly even when I was directly beneath the tree where it was sitting. I could easily see the brownish shoulder patches against the grey body and the white breast and belly. Esther, this must be similar to finding a geocache. Once I methodically check range, size, habitat, frequency and then field marks, many of these identifications fall into place.

The landscape was wide open and the skies were mostly grey but with very occasional 30-second patches of weak sunshine. I had done a lot of research prior to this trip and had it all printed according to my route. Most were the major 10 or so notable birding venues here in SE Texas, but as I was looking through the notebook I found directions for the wintering grounds of Mountain Plovers with statements like "...and then drive through the plowed fields.." and "Mesquite Road is impassable after a rain..." I was headed to South Padre Island, and the "plowed fields" were on the way, AND, most importantly, these Farm to Market (FM) roads were nicely oriented north-south and east-west, a lot like open farm country in Iowa or Indiana or Montana. It was perfectly flat and one could sense the open water to the east.

So I ventured through the fields and the roads were totally fine and dry. I did not see either the plovers or Sprague's pipit which have been seen in these parts. There WERE, just like in Michigan and Indiana, dozens of Horned Larks and Meadowlarks and small sparrows which may or may not have been Song Sparrows. The skies were clearing and the scene was quiet and serene. I didn't see one farm vehicle on these field roads. It was such a contrast to the busy highway which I had been just been driving for 100 miles. At one intersection, a large white dog was lying in the middle of the road. As I eased gently past, he/she of course finaly roused and did his/her barking duty.

There was another beautiful causeway to South Padre Island with signs warning about pelicans. There must occasionally be mishaps with car-bird encounters, and pelicans are tame and large in these coastal areas. The island reminded me of Fort Myers Beach in that both are long and narrow islands, although SPI is much much longer. However, one can only drive 12 miles north, the last 6 miles through undeveloped dunes and drifted sands (but with several realty signs which I found unsettling and which made me crabby). What was not similar is that the roads had much less traffic and there were far fewer people, although this has to be an off season as I saw several motels advertised for $30 per night.

It was now sunny (way better than the day of deluges the Wetzels had in the Florida panhandle, for sure). The Birding Center has 1-mile boardwalk that is worth driving 3000 miles to see (I think) for the numbers of species possible in a setting of marshes and mud flats and the bay.

The first bird I saw was a Long-billed Curlew near the Center, and then two White-tailed Kites perched in a tree a bit too far for quick and easy binocular ID but, as always, there were birders around who knew right away what they were. That happened repeatedly over the next few days which was nice.

At one point, I watched an American Bittern right off the boardwalk, moving zen-like through the cattails. I know these birds are in Michigan, but they are secretive and perfectly camouflaged so I never see them. But this one was very close, and the birds in these protected refuges are tame and quite approachable. I didn't see any rails, but so it goes.

Another noteworthy encounter was a crazy Reddish Egret, moving in a demented way right off the boardwalk, skittering through the water, flailing its wings outward, running at the nearby Little Blue Heron, moving fast in one direction and then veering off in a totally different direction. I am learning that this is typical behavior for Reddish Egrets. It would be labelled ADHD in a human.

I drove out to the end of the road between drifting sand dunes with warning signs about sand on the road. The last six miles is still undeveloped and reminded me of the road to Ludington State Park. When I turned around, the high-rises were partially obscured by fog. There is something about an island...the unique quality of light and the smell of the sea.

I found a beach with gulls and shorebirds. It was public access, with hard-packed sand, and I could drive almost to the water's edge. I got the scope out and spent a delightful hour scanning Sanderlings, Laughing Gulls and Black Skimmers until I got the prize: a Snowy Plover, a threatened species. They are very small grey and white birds who build their nest on the sand and "line their nest with shells" according to Wikipedia. In a situation like this, the scope makes all the difference as I watched this sweet little bird forage in the wet sand. It is listed as threatened by the US Fish and Wildlife, so I felt lucky to have seen it.

Back to Brownsville, in busy traffic, with no idea of quite what to do next or where to stay. But I realized I would not be able to visit all the places I had researched so headed west and ended up staying in Alamo in a nice La Quinta and then worked for four hours.

Sunday, February 26, 2012

On the Road: West Columbia, Texas to Bishop, Texas

Sunshine, blue skies and temperatures in the low 60s this Sunday morning in eastern Texas. I headed for Aranasas NWR, but stopped several times to look at hawks which are perched at least once every five miles. I even pulled off on a country road to go through the bird guide and take a few notes on the 3 or 4 species that are unfamilar to me. Today, I still kept seeing Red-tails, a couple of Northern Harriers and a Red-shouldered.

The speciality of Aransas is the wintering Whooping Cranes which migrate back to Wood Buffalo Provincial Park in northern Canada to breed. In 1942 when I was born, there were only 21 wild whooping cranes left (and 2 in captivity) due to habitat degradation and hunting. Today there are about 450, which is still a small number so people come from all over to see them at this refuge. I saw four almost immediately on what is called Heron Flats and then three more from the brand new observation tower (opened just 2 days ago). I walked up the tower ramp first with just binocs, but then went back to the car and got my scope as no one else had one up there. It was fun to let people look at them through the scope as the cranes were at least 1/2 mile away. Even with the scope there was a bit of shimmer.

I got another life bird but it was a humbling experience. A couple from Torch Lake, Michigan, and another gentleman who lives locally near the refuge were commenting on two herons flocking around in the marsh below, closer to the tower. After looking at both, MY stated opinion was that the smaller heron was a Little Blue and the larger a Great Blue. I was not equivocal about this, not bragging, but not hesitating either. One of those senior citizen volunteer couples showed up while there was still ongoing discussion about the herons, especially as the larger one was exhibiting some odd behaviors, and the volunteer woman pretty much said the larger heron was a Reddish Egret, which truthfully I hadn't even considered, having never seen one. So we all looked carefully again and I could see that it must have been a Reddish Egret. It was much less flashy than the guidebooks and also larger than I thought they were, but I finally did see some reddish plumes lift in the breeze. So it goes. She did confirm the Little Blue Heron though. One gentleman corrected the ID of someone else re a very distant Large Egret / Whooping Crane. I had privately sided with the Large Egret ID but decided I had said enough for the day.

A Red-shouldered Hawk flew by at eye level. There were a couple of Roseate Spoonbills and some White Pelicans but no birds in any great numbers like at Ding Darling, except for Northern Mockingbirds which were everywhere, both here and along the highways. There were several short trails, and I walked two of them but only saw big basking alligators and a couple of armadillos. I wanted to see rails (there even was a Rail Trail) but no luck.

I debated whether to do another ferry ride from Aransas Pass to Mustang Island (which is off the north end of Padre Island) but it was too late in the day, so I drove through Corpus Cristi and south to Bishop. Ate at the Jalisco, a Mexican restaurant near the motel. This was a small local place with Hispanic clientele and wait staff. One older Hispanic gentleman looked like Antony Quinn. I don't mean this in any way as elitest or patronizing but I like being on the fringes of other cultures, even in small ways like this. I ordered just one burrito which was tasty in a comfort food way as it had a lot of diced beef, including some very crispy pieces, with gravy over the top rather than any melted cheese and/or red sauce or even the spices I've come to associate with Mexican food. Is this more authentic? Am I only familar with Tex-Mex? Had a pina colada ice cream bar for dessert.

On the Road: Ocean Springs, Mississippi to West Columbia, Texas

This was a long day...

I stayed on Interstate 10 through most of Louisiana, except when bypassing New Orleans on US 12. There is so much water down here. Like crossing the Atchafalaya Basin / River was at least 10 miles, all on an elevated road. There are many amazing bridges over causeways, rivers, swamps, canals, lakes and the Intercoastal Waterway. They are huge, very impressive and marvels of engineering; I could barely conceive of the actual construction. Only occasionally, there was a toll, like across the Choctawatchee Bay.

It was the best day so far for radio music: jazz, zydeco, cajun...One station "on the top of every odd hour" listed all the venues for live jazz for that particular evening, and there were at least 50.

The temperature had dropped. It stayed in the 50s all day with a mostly overcast sky. The landscape went from rather wooded, swampy and scenic to flatter land with rice farms and towns and general American clutter. The truck traffic increased also. Nearly contiguous were the towns of Eunice, Estherwood and Lake Arthur, all in Louisiana.

Finally, 20 miles from Texas, I turned south to Sabine NWR. As always, it was different from expectations. It was mostly a straight road through the lowlands with huge marshes, lakes and canals...lots of water everywhere, with a few turnoffs and a couple of hiking trails. It was a lonely place, although the locals were fishing here and there. I watched one human (I think it was a woman) pedaling a bicycle in low gear very slowly, covered from head to foot in odd loose clothing, with several containers of various sizes about her bike, looking like a serious but very bizarre long-dstance traveler, much more strangely dressed than other cross-country bicyclists I have see.

I stopped at the Blue Goose Trail and walked a short distance trying to ID sparrows, when I felt an itch on my ankle and realized there were a dozen mosquitoes preparing to suck my blood. I hadn't expected this as there have been no bugs so far, and it was cool, in the 50s. Of course, once they found me, they wouldn't leave me alone. I walked back to the car to slather ineffective insect repellant all over but, Maria, they were like that time at the Wastewater...I was hoping to see the Seaside Sparrow which is at this refuge year round in their habitat of salt grasses. I didn't try too hard though, and I think the sparrows I was seeing were Song Sparrows.

There were birds but not in huge numbers: one lone pale pink Roseate Spoonbill, cooperatively feeding close enough for me to easily see the spoon, Snowy Egrets, one Little Blue Heron, flocks of Red-winged Blackbirds, Great Blue Herons, Great Egrets, Coots, Belted Kingfishes and Kestrels on the wires, and my first prize: Boat-tailed Grackles, which ID I worked at because there are also the very similar Great-tailed Grackles and of course the Common Grackle. The clincher for ID was the Sabine bird list: Boat-tails were common (I saw hundreds) and Great-tails were not.

Nearly every structure (even trailers) are built on pilings, between 10 to 20 feet high. More than once I thought that PEOPLE really shouldn't try to live here. It's not exactly prime human habitat. I drove south to the Gulf and then west to Texas, pulling off to check birds on wires or in the adjacent canal and wet places. And was rewarded by my second life bird of the day: Black-bellied Whistling Ducks, at least two dozen and very close. This is handsome duck with bright pink bills and pinkish feet which I saw clearly.

Always the mosquitoes were ready to get me. Like who would put an RV here, even if it is overlooking the Gulf, and there WERE small conclaves of them.

I saw at least Red-tailed Hawks once I turned west and a couple of Northern Harriers, typically flying low over the land. There were a few small communities and oil rigs on the horizon, looking almost like palm trees in the water from a distance. It was not scenic. I don't know if I was fabricating reality or if the beaches really were kind of gritty and drab with microscopic oil particles. Of course, the sun wasn't shining and the mosquitoes were fierce.

I wasn't entirely sure (maps were less than obvious at times down here) about getting across some of the water. Like I would see signs about bridges being open or ferries running so knew the possibility also existed that they weren't at times. I really did not want to turn around and go back the 50 miles to US10, but the bridge to Texas WAS open. It's funny...looking at the map, I expected a funky little bridge but it was another high-rise bridge surrounded by refineries. Richard would have loved the slight oily aroma in the air.

It starting raining intermittently as I headed south to Galveston, and in order to get there, via the Bolivar Peninsula, I needed to take a ferry. I had intended to research this but didn't so again wasn't absolutely certain I wouldn't have to backtrack. This route goes through High Island, other small beach communities and more stilted vacation homes with the oil-rigged Gulf on the left as I drove south. Obviously this was not the high season though as there was minimal traffic. I started to see signs about the Bolivar Ferry which was reassuring. Again, there was water everywhere, the Gulf on the left and Galveston Bay on the right.

The sky was clearing and it was getting wonderfully scenic, not the Gulf part so much as the marshes and the weird elevated colorful houses, all enhanced by the late afternoon light. Amazingly, I drove right onto the car ferry after waiting about 90 seconds. This free ferry runs 24/7, but I still have no idea what the schedule is; like how long COULD I have had to wait? The ferries are big enough for 20 to 30 vehicles. Laughing Gulls were cacaphonous....ear-splittingly, raucously, noisily, screeching and calling and "laughing." They are handsome, dark-gray-mantled gulls with black hoods, two white arcs framing the eyes and black bills and feet. The ride took 20 minutes and most people stayed in their cars. My window was open and all at once I noticed two significant splashes of gull poop on my door and INSIDE on the arm rest. I hadn't noticed when it happened but it wasn't surprising, given the number of birds. There was an announcement about only feeding the gulls off the stern, so they are accustomed to handout, explaining their crazy-loud begging.

Into the busy working harbor at Galveston in the bright sunshine with huge Coast Guard ships and more large car ferries. I drove off the boat and had yet another question about the road south along the coast. The map was not exactly clear (a faint grey line that was or wasn't a road) about whether I could eventually get to the mainland near Freeport. I stopped at two convenience stores with map in hand and tried to get information from two East Indian ESL gentleman. The second one assured me there was a road, but I wasn't totally convinced and couldn't understand his directions until he repeated them about four times in what I think is a lovely accent.

He directed me to Seawall via Ferry (streets) which is a strip of major tourist attractions facing the Gulf with large hotels and restaurants. I kept driving south into an incredible sunset. The traffic thinned considerably, and there were now only hundreds of homes on pilings (but no tourist stuff). They were generally second homes as few cars were visible which was easy to figure as there are no garages and cars are parked under the homes in between the pilings. This sunset drive was gorgeous. There was a cloud bank lying on the horizon, but it was thin as the sun's light was visible through it...not the sun itself but the whole cloud was lit with a soft purple-rose-pink glow, the marshes were silver and the houses silhouetted against that stunning light. The afterglow lasted just until I reached Freeport over another bridge.

By then, it was full-on dark and I had NO clue where I was, where the roads were, were to find a motel. Texas is so big and populated hereabouts with hundreds of county roads (often called Farm to Market roads with numbers like FM534), that the state map has to compress all the information making it hard to figure out. AND the roads are never at right angles like in most of the Midwest. My iPhone helped until I ended in some oil refinery parking lot. I drove around, getting increasingly frustrated, tired and mildly concerned. Ginny called as I was in another convenience store parking lot trying to figure things out. She insisted I call her back when I was safe and sound "even if it is 2 in the morning."

Of course I did figure it out and found a motel in West Columbia, where I crashed immediately, although I read in bed for an hour. I had half a bottle of Mike's Hard Limeade and the last of a bag of French Onion Sun Chips for dinner.

Maybe today I will see Whooping Cranes.

Friday, February 24, 2012

On the Road: Homosassa Springs to Ocean Point, Mississippi

Friday was a driving day...over 500 miles, first up to Perry, Florida, where I turned west on US 98, which I stayed on until the congestion in the western panhandle area, starting near Mexico City / Panama City / Tyndall AFB, finally sent me up to Interstate 10 through Pensacola, Mobile and Pascagoula (Florida, Alabama and Mississippi).

The problem here was that I needed to make time and the state of Florida has all these little "come hither" birding signs, one about every 50 miles, with arrows pointing OFF whatever road one is ON. I found it difficult to resist this particular seduction but dutifully just kept driving, at least today. The signs are small and brown and read The Great Florida Birding Trail...AND in addition, there are the state and national refuges, parks, trails, natural management areas, coastal beaches or just plain unpaved roads perpendicular to nearly any route one drives.

I found US 98 wonderful up until Port St. Joe. The road was wide with little traffic, mostly through trees, marshes, across rivers and along the Gulf coast. It reminded me of US 2 west of St. Ignace in the Upper Peninsula. The road is that close to the water for a significant part of this route. There were small towns and vacation homes, nearly all built on pilings, many with second and even third floor balconies and screened porches. The ambiance was laid back in a different way than that in southern Florida. I pulled into one RV park to check out a raft of ducks (redheads) and the people seemed more like old hippies than old Republicans. Everything was quieter, with fewer roadside gimmicky shops; instead, there were funky little restaurants featuring fresh seafood, and small places selling shrimp, etc. If the timing had been right, I would have stopped for the night in a motel right on the beach....

But that all changed in the western panhandle and I was back in the artificial world of shopping (outlet malls for "3 miles" one sign said), all the usual commercial establishments, high rises, traffic, etc. Still, I loved the first 150 miles of US 98west from Perry.

To be fair, Interstate 10 from Destin to Ocean Springs, Mississippi was easy and I did make good time.

I worked 4 hours after I got here and then read Steve Jobs until after midnight. The TV in the room next door was loud, but the bed was extremely comfortable and the temperature exactly right so I didn't have to listen to any heating or cooling fans.

I'm now on Central Time; it's Saturday morning. On to Louisiana...

Maria, I may check out Sabine NWR; today would be the day to do that.

Thursday, February 23, 2012

On the Road: Ft. Myers Beach to Homosassa Springs, Florida

I was leaving on Thursday, so I went down to the beach for a last look at all the birds which come and hang out on the sandbars when the tide is out, terns, gulls, sandpipers, skimmers, turnstones, dunlins, plovers, herons and egrets. It was a warm breezy sunny morning, similar to an August day in Michigan.

I packed up and had coffee before we loaded my stuff on a cart and took it down to the car. How quickly the atmosphere and island life becomes familiar.

It was 9:30 and I headed north and east to three more places I wanted to check out for birds. Which worked for me as now I had an excuse to avoid Interstate 75. But this also meant I probably wouldn't drive enough today. While I have a general plan and itinerary, it is rather fluid, but I do have a reservation at the Grand Canyon and birds to see in Texas. My target bird there is a Vermilion Flycatcher, preferably a male. Birding for me is about the perfect beauty of many birds; it is a reason to stay off Interstates when traveling; it is the simple pure delight I feel when watching bird behavior, especially if unexpected, like finding Burrowing Owls standing in the bright early morning sun, staring back at me with yellow eyes from someone's LAWN, for heaven's sake, in a Florida city; it is the thrill of seeing a bird I have never seen before; it is an excuse to explore all kinds of natural habitat (even the back lots of restaurants, motels, malls and gas stations); it makes waiting in heavy traffic bearable as birds sing from telephone wires and forage on the ground next to the car; it is a mental exercise learning and reading about birds and memorizing their songs....

My first stop was 6 Mile Cypress Slough Preserve where I spent about 45 minutes. These parks and refuges and preserves have older retired people serving as volunteers. They wear nice birding vests and set up spotting scopes and chat with the tourists who walk by. This preserve has a beautiful 1.2 mile boardwalk and, while I only went a little way, I saw several birds that I will see in Michigan in May...Black-and-White and Palm Warblers, Blue-gray Gnatcatcher, another colorful warbler that flitted out of sight before I could get a good look at it, a Downy Woodpecker...These venues demand a certain time commitment, which I didn't give today, feeling some pressure not to linger too long.

So I went to the second spot, which on eBird was the Harnes Marsh, except I ended up at the Harns Marsh Elementary School. I drove into the parking lot and googled various possibilities and still couldn't find directions to "Harnes Marsh" but finally found some vague information I had written at Maria's while researching these places and drove to a sandy dead-end street that looked over a large pond. There were a bunch of Coots in the water and several Black Vultures on far bank. I put up my scope and saw an immature White Ibis which has a lot of brown on it. Another bird (that I thought was also a young Ibis) turned out to be a Limpkin! and was clearly visible and identifiable through the scope. I had never seen one before. It's a weird name..LIMP-kin. It looks like a large Ibis but is chocolate brown with small white markings all over its body. It also has the long downward-curving bill like an Ibis. This one was slowly probing in the shallows on the far side of the pond. I also saw one Tri-colored Heron. These birds have a very long, ropy, skinny, kind of ugly neck.

Next I headed to Alva, Florida, where I wanted to see Painted Buntings. Someone named "White" has feeders in or near Alva, and both Indigo and Painted Buntings come regularly. Or so the eBird reports said. The problem was though that I had NO idea exactly where these were. I was hoping Alva was tiny. It seemed that people in the know would just drive to Alva and see Painted Buntings. Maria and Richard had seen one at Merritt NWR. If you haven't googled this bird, do it now. The bird guide just says "unmistakable." No possible identification issues with this gorgeous sparrow-sized, not-in-Michigan bird.

Alva WAS small. It is on the Caloosahatchie River and I came from the south (via iPhone directions), crossed the river, drove into town and drove right on out almost before I realized it. What did I expect? That Painted Buntings would greet me when I crossed the river? or be perched on the bridge railings? I knew there was a state park 3 miles west of Alva, and I was already out of town so went there thinking perhaps the park would have a visitor's center or someone who might know the whereabout of the White's feeders or another PB venues. No visitor's center. There were trails but I wasn't going to walk around trying to find buntings. I couldn't quite let it go yet, so I googled and googled and came up with "oldmanriggs" who sold honey and had some connection with feeding PBs but not recently. I was about to just move on but it was peaceful under the trees in the Caloosahatchie State Park and I tried one more thing: the "coords" as Esther calls them...coordinates. I typed them in on my map app and was surprised when it showed a marker right in front of the school in Alva which I had passed as I drove through town. So I drove back slowly, looking in yards across from and on the side of the school but didn't see anything.

I was about to leave town, disappointed, but detoured one block south of the school and......voila!

The feeders were in the front yard of a modest home with a slightly messy yard...not messy with anything plastic, but just not perfectly manicured and orderly. There were bushes by the feeders and several types of shrubs and trees and vines on the property. Everything was very quiet and sleepy in the afternoon sun. I parked half on the street and half on the edge of the dry lawn but it wouldn't have mattered. It was that kind of property with no sidewalks and an empty lot across the street.

I first saw a brownish bird in one feeder and through the binocs could see a rich blue streaky wash on its belly, like someone had run a paint brush down the front and hadn't covered it on the first pass. It was an Indigo Bunting and I eventually saw about a dozen in the 30 to 45 minutes I watched. The females were all brown and nondescript with a bit of blurry belly streaking, but the males had varying amount of blue. Each one differed as to the amount of his particular blueness. Only one came close to an Indigo Buntings in its brilliant breeding plumage, and that one still had some brown blotches. Their tails also had navy blue coloring.

Very soon at another feeder I saw a mostly greenish bird and figured it was a female Painted Bunting, and then, glory of glories, the male came. The only downside was that Deborah or Maria weren't there to share the experience. I was mesmerized. The Painteds would feed about 30 seconds and then disappear into the bushes up against the house. I think I saw them come out 5 times, and once there were TWO males at once.

While sitting in the car, I heard a dove. Maria and I had listened to the call of the White-winged Dove which looks a lot like the ubiquitous Mourning Dove...same size, very similar coloration but with a slightly different vocalization, a more squared-off tail and visible white in the wing, so I was quite certain I hearing a White-winged. Yes! It came to feed on the ground, along with the Mourning Doves, and that was the second life bird in Alva, which town I will always remember. The sun was out and it was in the 80s but totally pleasant under the trees with my car windows open. Only a couple of other cars drove by, and no one from the house showed up or came out and asked what I was doing. Although, they must be used to people gawking at their feeders. OTOH, I have no idea if this was even the White's house.

I finally left and started seriously driving and got to Homosassa Springs at dusk. Both Maria and Esther had called and told me to "find a motel before dark!"

Coral City, Florida

While at Ding Darling on Tuesday, the first encounter with a fellow birder was a gentleman from Michigan who told us about the Burrowing Owls he had seen that morning. He was happy to show us photos on his digital camera and told us he had been up at dawn for two days looking for them and was successful on the second attempt. He vaguely said they were "north of here" sort of waving with his hand in that direction. He explained how the owls burrow in lawns right in the city, and that we should look for "little mounds of white sand" which they throw up as they burrow.

After we got home, Maria started researching and discovered the city was Coral City, just north of Ft. Myers, and that there are several hundred owl pairs and that one generally "just drives around neighborhoods and looks for small roped off areas" and oftentimes also a small wooden cross which the owls use for perching. I found a map with some specific locations and one site was at the library.

So off we went on Wednesday mornig, although not at daybreak as we found out that Burrowing Owls are not particuarly nocturnal and can be seen during the day.

I had my iPhone and we were headed for the library, following the moving blue circle. We turned off a busy street and Maria started slowly driving the 7 or 8 block to the library while I kept looking down the cross streets as we were now in a quiet, middle-class residential neighborhood. Right away, I saw a roped-off area so we went around the block and to check it out, and within 10 seconds of stopping the car, we saw an owl! It was incredible; we totally didn't expect to drive right up to an owl with barely any searching. I don't think we even really expected to find one.

One of our favorite people who writes about birds (Pete Dunne) says Burrowing Owls are like "potatoes on legs." We couldn't see the legs but it was brownish and speckled and stared back at us with bright yellow eyes and white markings on a light-brown face. It stood nearly motionless in its little area which was scruffy and weedy with a makeshift string fence around it. It was adorable. A man and woman walked by and told us about another burrow nearby, so we drove around a few blocks and actually found several although only one had visible owls. Yes, plural! There were two of them at that spot, which was on a front lawn with lawn chairs 15 to 20 feet away. We thought this whole deal was quite a phenomenon, especially since Burrowing Owls usually use already excavated burrows like those of prairie dogs. Why this population has settled in Coral City, Florida? Who knows....Some of the sites also had small signs on a post about respecting the owls' habitat.

And we also spotted two Loggerhead Shrikes on telephone wires in the same neighborhood, a life bird for Maria.

We got back home at 9:30, exactly when Maria told Richard (who opted out of this excursion) we would be back.

We walked the beach and then mostly rested up from all our strenuous birding of the past few days. And read and lounged about. Richard and I walked across the street to the library's secondhand book store, which was nicer on the outside than in, but I can always find a book (actually I bought three).

After another simply lovely sunset (this time of year, setting right at the end of Captiva Island), we sat down to a tasty chicken/vegie stir fry that Maria made.

And then ate ice-cream and fell asleep during the debate...at least I did.

Wednesday, February 22, 2012

Ding Darling NWR

"J. N. "Ding" Darling was a renowned editorial cartoonist who advocated conservation of our nation's natural resources. Father of the Federal Duck Stamp Program, founder of the National Wildlife Federation, creator of the Cooperative Fish Stamp; Wildlife Research Unit Program, "Ding" Darling laid the groundwork for the system of today's National Wildlife Refuges.

One of "Ding" Darling's cartoons—"How Rich Will We Be When We Have Converted All Our Forests, All Our Soil, All Our Water Resources and Our Minerals Into Cash?"—best illustrates both his conservation ethic and his remarkable ability to convey complex thoughts with a few stokes of pen and ink. Darling drew this cartoon in 1938."

Maria and I headed out about 8:15 and got to Sanibel Island in 30 minutes. It is 15 miles northwest of Ft. Myers Beach. The smaller island of Captiva is beyond Sanibel. These are lovely seductive places with shell beaches, flowering hedges and bushes, hundred of new tree species including several palms (Maria and I at least identified the sea grape, but birds were our priority), bicycle paths and birds, all under sunny blue skies and all cooled by balmy breezes off the Gulf. Or so it was today.

We stopped briefly to check a beach as a possible shelling venue for Richard and then took an auto route through Ding Darling. It was sublime! We were barely into the refuge when, alerted by a few stopped vehicles on the side of the road and a gentleman with a spotting scope aimed into the dense foliage, we saw a Yellow-crowned night-heron, sitting perfectly motionless in full view just across the small ditch. It was not bothered in the least by the half dozen or so people watching and photographing it. The "yellow crown" which we saw even better on another heron a bit later is a pale yellow forehead patch. This bird is chunkier in appearance than birds like the blue herons and is often seen sitting on a branch over or near water just as we saw it. And then we spotted the smaller Green heron sitting a few branches over, also motionless, slightly more muted in coloration. We spoke with the digiscoper gentleman, who lived in Michigan and who told us about Burrowing owls which story comes later.

We drove the rest of the auto route, stopping frequently and seeing amazing birds, both in variety and in number: Little blue herons, Greater yellowlegs, White ibises, Great egrets, a single Wood stork spotted in the distance by Maria, White pelicans, Pied-billed grebes, Red-breasted mergansers acting very different from the hundreds I saw on Black Lake all winter (like they would totally disappear under water for up to 10 seconds), Semipalmated plover, Spotted sandpiper, Least sandpiper...and the majorly beautiful Roseate spoonbills!

The road margins were generous enough to easily park, and there were often helpful women volunteers with good spotting scopes allowing folks to get better looks. Maria and I viewed birds at several spots with my new scope and also got clear and lovely looks at slightly distant birds. Again, the sun was out; a nice breeze cooled things; the sky was blue, all making the birding experience excellent, even apart from all the sightings. It is obvious that birds on some of these refuges are relatively tame, which makes for easier identification as they don't flush quickly.

We stopped briefly at the Visitor Center and bought postcards. We did try one more inland venue with freshwater ponds, but it was too warm and totally bird-silent in the middle of the day. We headed home and got caught in a major "crawl" on the highway heading south to Ft. Myers beach. After 30 minutes we found a seafood restaurant that Maria knew about and had a time-out from traffic. Wine, wonderful corn and crab chowder for me and stone crabs for Maria, sitting by a window watching White and Brown pelicans...music like the Marshall Tucker Band playing on the sound system.

An hour later, the crawl was still happening, but we had to get home, so entered the stop-and-go line of cars. I have never been to Key West, but Maria did allow that Ft. Myers Beach has some similarities. Island time is in effect; babes in bikinis (and some Speedo guys) saunter the beaches and streets; a number of slightly tacky food and drink and gift-store establishments line the main road in between a significant variety of tourist accommodations from nice high-rises to small single cottages, but not many conventional motels. There is white sand residue all over and every obvious living thing just moves more slowly. There are a disproportionate number of older men and women, many riding fat-wheeled bicycles and most deeply tanned...many couples walking the beaches, a few so tan they truly are nearly black.

The beach is a fine-grained white sand that is almost blinding in the bright sun. It is hard-packed enough near the shoreline to use bicycles.

We finally made it back. Richard's report was that he had been on the beach and had also actually seen a woodpecker on one of the palm trees out front. There are always people on the beach, but it is not crowded at all. I worked a couple of hours and then we went to a nearby restaurant, with a table by an open slider overlooking the beach. The sun had just set behind the palm trees and nightfall settled over the island. But it doesn't get cold and is mellowwwwww.......

I kept thinking of this as Jimmy Buffet Time...in this bar/restaurant with music and laughter and conversations and an almost palpable sense of relaxation in the air....

Monday, February 20, 2012

The Everglades

Maria had a route planned, and she had researched several possible options and stops. It was a perfect morning, made even better by 130 black skimmers standing resolutely on the beach, all facing the sun. At one point there were four species in one field through the scope: sanderlings, Laughing gull, Snowy egret and a Royal tern which is a large tern, similar to the Caspian but with an orange bill.

We packed apples and water and binoculars and drove down through Bonita Beach and Naples and headed east on the Tamiami Trail, seeing dozens of Double-crested cormorants and occasional Anhingas perched on the telephone poles and Belted kingfishers on the wires along this route.

After a brief stop at Big Cypress Bend Boardwalk where we saw a catbird and an alligator, we went on to a little gem of a place that Maria had scouted out: Kirby Storter Roadside Park. It was a small nondescript area just off the Tamiami Trail with a boardwalk that began in the open and ended in deep swamp. Near the beginning, there was a chickee which are the simple shelters found throughout the Everglades and available for campers/kayakers/canoeists. They are open-sided with palm-thatched roofs. We saw a soaring Red-shouldered hawk and a tail-twitching Palm warbler but no other birds until we entered the trees when we started seeing suggestive teasing flights of birds which would disppear into the foliage before we could ID them. We did see manage to see a bright red cardinal deep in the sunlit greenery and a few yellow-rumped warblers and heard more but couldn't find them. We walked to the end of the boardwalk, to the "alligator hole" where we watched a snake moving over matted leaves on the surface of the water, a large turtle on a log, a small alligator swimming slowly near the boardwalk, a pair of Great egrets and a Great blue heron and another Red-shouldered hawk. One of the egrets was making a strange hoarse sound, stretching its long neck and displaying its plumes.

While walking back, a young girl exclaimed about "swans" just as Maria and Richard also realized there were two Great egrets and a WOOD STORK! The stork is a huge white bird with a vulture-like head and a long, heavy, decurved bill. It moved closer and spread its wings showing large black markings. It was walking, probing and sweeping its stout bill through the murky water. There was some interaction between the egrets and the stork; perhaps the egrets were courting and the stork was ava non grata. WhateVer, it was thrilling to watch these pure white birds in this deep green swamp. The herons especially move very deliberately and purposefully and gracefully through the mud and water, putting one foot carefully down in front of the other.

I saw a flash of blue and persisted in following twitching movements through the foliage and identified a Northern parula, an especially beautiful warbler.

A ranger told us about the panther population and how it is rising in the Everglades and how they find and inoculate the kits against feline distemper. There are usually knowledgeable folk around, either government employees or volunteers or citizens, all of whom are willing to share their knowledge of the local natural world.

We drove to Everglades City and took a boat ride through part of the Ten Thousand Islands National Park seeing bottlenose dolphins, American oystercatchers, White Pelicans, Ospreys on their nests, Royal terns and more ibises, herons and egrets. An aerial photo of lower Florida would show a million white birds dotting the landscape. It was now mid afternoon, and we were fatigued and hot and headed for home, seeing several alligators in the canals, looking like old tire treads, and at one quick stop along the highway, we saw a Common Moorhen and a Little blue heron, both new birds for me.

Watched the sun set as people walked and bicyclists rode the beach while Richard prepared a wonderful dinner of pork tenderloin medallions, cauliflower and sauteed onions and mushrooms.

Matanzas Pass Preserve - scoping birds on the beach - Dinner Theatre

I woke up early and saw a couple on the beach with flashlights looking for shells. At first it seemed it was going to be a grey windy day, but it cleared and was blissful...a bit overcast at times, but mostly sunny with warm breezes. The water would change colors when the sun temporarily moved behind the clouds. People were constantly walking the beaches; birds were numerous and I was happy that we could see them well through my new scope. The first ones I saw were striking black skimmers, about 20 standing in a group on the beach. This is a bird you should google just because the bills are incredible. BLACK SKIMMER. Another life bird for me (and for Maria who had seen them the day earlier). Throughout the day, we would check the beaches from our fourth floor vantage and saw marbled godwits, ruddy turnstones, hundreds of sanderlings which are adorable in that they move en masse and run madly along the sand, often just at the water line. They look like clock-work toys, their little feet moving very fast. We saw a LONG-BILLED CURLEW which is also worth a look by you nonbirders. And willets, laughing gulls, Forster's terns, great and snowy egrets...

In the morning after we had coffee, Maria and I walked to Matanzas Nature Preserve which is a few short blocks from the condo. It has a boardwalk and trails through native flora. We barely saw or heard one bird which was strange as it seemed prime habitat through mangroves. The trail ends on the bay, and there were no birds there either except a cormorant and bald eagle. But it was a peaceful and serene place on this busy island. There is only one main road for its 7-mile length, and the traffic pattern at certain times of the day is called as the "crawl." It can take over an hour to go 5 or 6 miles at certain times of the day.

We had walked past a large Methodist church before entering the preserve and while sitting on a bench overlooking the bay at the end of the trail, we heard a carillion playing a familiar hymn, slightly muted by distance. In the neighborhood just adjacent to the preserve, a northern mockingbird was flying around, cooperatively landing on nearby street signs and trees, all the while singing loudly. This bird imitates the sounds of other birds or even inanimate objects and its song is melodious. I am becoming more attuned to vocalizations which certainly help in identifications. Many good birders will list birds they only hear, but I always want to SEE a bird before listing it. I was talking about this with Maria, and she mostly agreed but pointed out the whippoorwill, and I admitted I have never SEEN one but it is on my life list, since I've heard its very dtinctivise repetitive calls many times, always after dark, and sometimes to the point of "shut up already!"

Late afternoon, we went to the Beach Theatre and saw War Horse. This was advertised as a place where one can eat dinner while watching a movie. Well, it was not quite what we expected in that the venue was small. There were only two tables, a counter at which people could sit and just two rows of actual theatre seats. These had minuscule "tables" which could be raised and on which our food had to fit. Maria and I shared nachos which I liked and she did not. Eating nachos in the dark was a bit tricky though. Richard had a steak sandwich. Most of the food transactions were done in the dark while the movie was playing. The wait staff would come by with little flashlights and bring the food and deal with payments. We liked the movie, although the screen was too close, and the food part of this deal was more like going to the drive-in.

Back home to more key lime pie, reading, TV and computer work and then to bed lulled by the sounds of waves.

Saturday, February 18, 2012

On the Road: northern Florida to Ft. Myers Beach

When I left early this morning, it was totally overcast, half misting and quiet. I checked out and parked in a lot behind a gas station across the street trying to see some of the birds I was hearing. I finally found what I thought was a brown thrasher at the very top of a tall tree and figured most of the noise was coming from that particular bird. Steve and Andree had given me a CD of bird songs which I keep in the car and listen to periodically. I positively identified the thrasher against the thrasher track. It's song is melodious and complicated. There were also yellow-rumped warblers in the grasses here.

On down into Florida on Hwy 19, a perfectly flat, straight, divided 4-lane and, for a long time, a great alternative to I75. It was like the the Seney stretch in the Upper Peninsula. There was very little traffic on a Saturday morning and only occasional small towns.

At the placid and murky Suwannee River, I realized the crows making all the racket were not the crows we hear in Michigan but were fish crows. Similar but slightly smaller and easily identified by listening to the CD again. Another life bird, #5 for the trip so far.

I tired to find Chassahowitska NWR which is just a few miles off Hwy 19 but missed it somehow. I drove by modest homes and canals and trailers, with signs for fishing guides and river trips. Unless tamed by human habitation, the flora is dense and verdant, growing wildly together in tangles. Most homes or trailers had screened-in rooms or porches. The milieu reminded me somewhat of resort property and cottages in northern Michigan but with different trees.

And then suddenly the traffic went from 1% to 95%. It was crazy with non-stop commerical establishments on either side of Hwy 19, which was now 3 and 4 lanes in both directions, and there were dozens of immense billboards for personal injury lawyers. I cut over to I75 and was dismayed to learn it was still 130 miles to Ft. Myers Beach. The sun had come out; it was now 80 degrees. There was a lot of traffic, all driving fast. It was busy, monotonous and tiring. I can drive all day and mostly enjoy it but not on these interstates. Although, I WAS thinking how they mostly work...Republican and Democrats and Independents and non-voters all driving and cooperating and obeying rules and accomplishing goals of getting from one place to another, respecting one another for the most part.

I was in phone contact with Maria and called her about 3 times for directions as I made my way to the condo which was 15 miles off the interstate. Ft. Myers Beach is an island, accessed via a bridge, with periods of stop and go traffic to get over the bridge. While waiting in line, I saw dozens of brown pelicans either perched or flying overhead. Once across the bridge the scene was of tourists milling about, including girls in bikinis, the ocean, beautiful beaches, families pushing strollers, slowly moving traffic, restaurants, bars, hotels, motels and shops.

Musa's condo is on the 4th floor overlooking a broad, nearly white sand beach. The tide was out, and there were a couple hundred birds on a sandbar close to shore. We will check them out tomorrow morning. The condo is spacious and comfortable with a screened balcony. And of course the setting is idyllic with palm trees blowing in the breezes and the sound of waves.

We sat out until sunset when Maria made a delicious dinner of seasoned rice, steamed shrimp and asparagus with home-made key lime pie for dessert. Another strenuous day tomorrow....

Friday, February 17, 2012

On the Road: southern Tennessee to northern Florida

I woke up to sunshine. Vultures were wheeling in the skies and robins foraging in the fields behind the motel. I got gas and headed south on I65 for about 60 miles when I saw a sign for Wheeler National Wildlife Refuge. This was adjacent to the Tennessee River, and there was a lot of spread-out water that I could see from the road. It was only three miles off the interstate and I love NWRs, so I made a quick visit. It was a beautiful place, such a contrast from the surrounding busyness of traffic and commerce. These refuges are always serene and sane places for me: understated, well managed, very little zuzu and true havens for birds and other critters.

I stopped at the Visitor Center and looked over the pamphlets while listening to the rangers catch up since it was obvious they had just reported for work for the day. One lady ranger was telling all about her snakes and what she gets to feed them. I could have eavesdropped much longer because she had a wonderful southern drawl. Like she was talking about "maahs" which we in the northern states call "mice."

There were a dozen whooping cranes in the refuge, they told me, nine of which were in a release program, and three which came from the skies to hang out there. There were feeders all over the place with Carolina chickadees and white-throated sparrows. I walked to the observation tower on an idyllic little path through early spring foliage and sunshine, with no bugs, but a small trailside sign telling me about the three poisonous snakes I should know about. The open water area was visible through the trees with hundreds of ducks. I watched a brown thrasher vigorously poking through leaf litter, oblivious to me, closer than I've ever been to a thrasher and could easily see its yellow iris and large curved bill. I was the only one in the observation tower. I saw half a dozen great egrets but no whooping cranes. Maybe at Aransas in Texas.

On through Birmingham and then, because I had googled a Starbucks, I got off in Alabaster, Alabama. I had had it with interstate driving, but I did cover 150 miles which is good for me. I got coffee, juice and frosted lemon pound cake and then opted for some other roads, heading generally south and east, and for the most part these were a good choice. Into Georgia with areas of striking red dirt, more greenery, blue skies, tall long-leaved pines and what I think were pecan groves.

It was dark by 7 and I stopped east of Tallahassee in a nice Day's Inn. Except I have no food and am to lazy to venture out.

Speaking of food, I did stop before the NWR this morning at a McDonald's and then had a nice little bird deal. I had ordered two breakfast burritos and coffee. Burritos are always dripping sauce so I drove to the back of the parking lot to the trucker area and parked behind a semi next to a field to eat. I immediately saw and heard birds and several popped up from the weeds but then flew off. So I did my zen thing which is to be quiet and let the birds come to me. I waited 15 to 20 minutes, watching cardinals and a song sparrow before the small bird/sparrow flock came back and perched on various weeds very close to my open car window. They were field sparrows with their generally soft and muted rusty and grey faces, pink bills and clear, slightly buffy breasts. And nice white eye ring. I have noted that birds often perch on weeds that barely support their weight and one sparrow did just that right in front of the car, teetering and dipping while getting the weed seeds.

I saw very few other birds while driving. Far fewer than yesterday when I forgot to note that I also saw several hundered sandhill cranes in a field in southern Indiana. There was a wimpy margin so I was half on the road, but I quickly scanned thinking how amazing it would be if one of the cranes was a hooded. As they usual are, the cranes were in the distance, and for a second or two, I thought there was a dark one, but there wasn't.

Maria just called and told me there is going to be severe weather tomorrow and to get on down there. I will leave early. She gave me very specific directions and warned me about the slow-moving tourists and congestion and commerical traffic on the Tamiami Trail, so I am prepared.

Wednesday - the horrible prison fire in Honduras
Thursday - Jeremy Lin
Friday - the untimely death of Anthony Shadid

The news this week while on the road....

Thursday, February 16, 2012

On the Road: Holland to southern Tennessee

I left Holland about two hours after the sky turned soft blue with white clouds, the sun was all over everything and birds were very vocal. Why was I leaving?

I drove to Indianapolis and what began in sunshine ended in a really really ucky drizzle. Arrived about 5-ish and had a glass of wine with Deborah before we drove see to the short-eared owl venue which is an airport out in the country. I had no faith and was certain we were not going to really see anything. It was slightly mushy and wet underfoot, dreary-grey with a chilly damp breeze and it was getting dark. We HEARD horned larks which twitter away on the ground and usually aren't too hard to see in good light, but they are often in fields and camouflage well, especially in the dusk.

And then Deborah FOUND a short-eared! My heroine! I would never have seen it if she hadn't. It was flying low at a fair distance, would land briefly and then fly on down the edge of a runway, land, pop up and fly again. The impression was of large, very floppy wings and a smallish body. The wing motion was almost like there wasn't much muscle where they attached to the small body...kind of like laundry flapping, and very different from the flight of most birds, which is usually rather steady and coordinated. They predictably show up in the time of last light flying low over the ground. They roost in burrows in the daytimes. I didn't even expect we would go, what with the inclement weather, but Deborah thought we had a good chance.

She then made dinner (shrimp and those delicious Costco roasted vegies) and we ate chocolate and talked and went to bed by 10:00. Emily had painted her bedroom last summer. It turned out very nice: soothing and classy in two shades of what I think of as sage green with creamy white trim. Nice prints on the walls...I piled on quilts and slept well...

When I stepped out of their house this morning, it was noticeably balmier than it has been in Michigan...pleasant, although still overcast. About 100 crows were flying over as they do every morning.

We went to Starbucks where we had an Indiana map out. I was figuring a route when a lady overheard us and cautioned me against trying to get across the Ohio River at Louisville. There is a major rebuilding / repair on the bridge there and the wait could be "several hours...Some of my friends have even changed their obstetricians because they're afraid they'll get stuck when they are ready to deliver..."

I headed south and just meandered on lesser roads until late afternoon when I knew I needed to make some time and got on the interstate east of Nashville. I drove a couple of hours and am now in a motel not too far from Alabama.

Deborah told me I could "drive through" Brown County State Park so I tried, but actually went in a circle coming out where I started. There was no one around and I couldn't find any park maps. One enters through a covered bridge. It is a beautiful park, so unlike flat northern Indiana. It is very hilly and the road continually curves (as did the roads all day long). There are hardwoods, all leafless, except for many beech trees which retain their dry, light-brown leaves all winter. The effect is artistic: beech trees everywhere but singly, not in groups, interspersed on the hills with the tall maples or oaks or whatever hardwoods there are in Indiana. They brighten the woods considerably this time of year. It must be absolutely stunning in the spring and in sunshine. Also, there were a lot of birds. I saw a pileated, RB woodpecker, four turkeys, WB nuthatch, cardinals and many blue jays and juncos. And this was just casually driving through, not specifically looking for birds.

The best sighting of the day though was farther down the road after I left the park. I saw a buteo (hawk) on a fence post near a small house in the country. I was on a road where I could pull onto a shoulder (that was my mission all day: find roads with shoulders I could get on). As I was slowing down, the hawk flew but only to the other side of the house. I had very good eye-level views. It was a red-shouldered hawk (new bird for me) AND, while I was watching it, a male flew in and they mated in a very brief flurry of feathers. He gently landed on her back with wings outspread for balance. And off he flew. The female stayed another minute or so. This was such a cool sighting!

A bit farther on was flock of robins...at least 20 in a tree. I would sometimes go down a side road to get better views, like a mini-chasing deal, which was where I saw the robins. Well into the afternoon, I drove up on some road-kill with a couple of birds pecking away, and as I got closer, I realized one was a vulture and its head WAS NOT RED; it was greyish white, and as it flew off, I saw white wings patches. Yes! a black vulture and another new bird for me.

The rain did stop by mid morning and the temperature kept rising all day. I could tell because I would feel warm and look at the car thermometer and it would be a degree higher than last time I looked. When I stopped for the night, it was 55 degrees! Listened to NPR all day.

Tuesday, February 14, 2012

Book: Storm Prey by John Sandford

Third book by this author and I still like him. Storm Prey is also set in Minnesota, but in the big city this time....in Minneapolis. A bunch of low-lifers and a cocaine-addicted ER physician decide it would be a great idea to rob a hospital pharmacy. But it, of course, it wasn't a great idea; in fact, it turned out very very bad.

One reason I like reading John Sandford is that he has interesting and credible back stories. In this book, there are twins who are joined at the head (craniopagus), and they are to be separated in this hospital. The operation was to begin on the morning of the robbery, and of the many surgeons in attendance is a woman who is the wife of one of the lead law officers. She arrives at the hospital early on the morning of the robbery and.......So, there is the investigation into the robbery which turns into murder and then into more murders, along with the building tension surrounding the status and outcome of the twins.

The book is full of dialogue which is part of what makes Sandford's novels compelling as it flows easily and naturally, whether from cops or criminals.

The cops go into a biker bar and ask a few questions but no one knows anything. So, they leave but tell the patrons on their way out: "The reason you should do that is, being a tough guy is just fine, but if somebody's shooting you in the back of the head with a shotgun, from an ambush, like they did with Shooter and Mikey, tough isn't good enough....So you got any ideas, it might be your own life you're saving...If you get home and find out you got an opinion about who may be executing Seeds, you call the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension and ask for Agent Shrake. S-h-r-a-k-e. Shrake."

Sunday, February 12, 2012

Book: Cycling Home from Siberia by Rob Lilwall

Rob and his friend Al Humphreys started from Magadan in Siberia, a town on the Sea of Okhotsk, west of the Kamchatka Peninsula, latitude 60 degrees north. They started in September of 2004 and starting riding a big loop through Russia, through frozen, remote, gulag territory Russia. They were told repeatedly they would die--and although exactly how changed with whomever they spoke--they were never expected to survive. Al was the steady experienced rider, and with his help, Rob and he made it to Japan.

Al chose to leave this grand adventure there and Rob continued alone the rest of the way, approximately 31000 miles, through Japan, through South Korea, down through China, by boat to the Phillipines, and then to Papua New Guinea, on around eastern and southern coasts of Australia, by boat to Singapore, through Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos, a bit of China again, Tibet, India, Pakistan, Afghanistan (with much trepidation), Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, through the north of Iran, around the southern end of the Caspian Sea, through Turkey, Greece, Italy, Switzerland, France, Belgium and home to England. What an adventure! from the bitter ravaging cold in Russia to the humid steaming jungles of Papua New Guinea. Rob camped along the road, crashed in hostels, or often stayed with families who were forever inviting him for a meal and a place on their floor for the night.

Rob was relatively inexperienced and hardly travel-wise when he started, but after surviving 3 years on his bicycle, he returned to London "disheveled, bearded" and asking himself, "How will I cope with the normal world again?"

There are some wonderful black and white photos and a hundred stories...amazing stories of one man on a bicycle and all the people he encounters in all the countries he passes through.

Just an example of Rob's writing. He is dodging checkpoints in Tibet, waiting until the middle of the night and creeping past hoping the guards would be sleeping:

"I was getting cold, so I set off again, and rattled downward through a gloom of snow and potholes, clinging to my brakes. An hour later, I am still halfway up the mountain and it was virtually dark. ...I dug out my temperamental spare flashlight from the bottom of a pannier, and it then it took me twenty minutes of wheeling the bike down through the complete darkness until I spotted a small patch of flat land on a cliff top beside the road. I put the tent up and climbed inside. My body was aching, and I was too tired to cook so, in a bad mood, I ate cold oats with water and lay down to sleep...The next morning, I looked outside to discover, with a shock, that I had pitched my tent right next to a yak skeleton."

Rob and his wife now are directors of a children's charity: www.viva.org

And you can see some video clips from a National Geographic DVD at: www.roblilwall.com

Wednesday, February 8, 2012

Book: The Litigators by John Grisham

Grisham does not disappoint. The Litigators is set in Chicago, and has a good cast of characters, mostly lawyers of course, but others as well. When an author does well with the setting of a novel, as Mr. Grisham does with Chicago, it is a bonus. I felt good after reading it. It was satisfying. There was nothing too gratuitous; in fact, it was sweet in a way. It is full of details which make the characters credible with their foibles, their strengths, their focus, their choices, and the big event in this story is a choice made by one of the characters in the very beginning. Also it has a definitive ending, which is one of my personal requirements for recommendation.

The litigators are involved in a possible lawsuit against Big Pharma over a drug that may or may not cause heart damage. But there is more to the storyline than this, and if you like Grisham, you will like this book.

Now to the library where I will need to catch up on overdue fines and then to a movie with Adam: The Grey with Liam Neeson.

Book: Boltzmann'sTomb by Bill Green

Travels in Search of Science

Bill Green has been interested in science most of his life. He is a "geochemist and professor emeritus at Miami University" with far-ranging interests in the men and women of science, especially those of the "scientific revolution"of the last 500 years. So he tells of Kepler, Galileo, Lavoisier, Mendeleev, Newton, among others..and of how their brilliant minds made possible for us to: "walk on the moon;carry on conversations over thousands of miles; build weapons that in a few seconds can obliterate an an entire city; design molecules that can alter our blood chemistry; perform calculations at speeds beyond comprehension; fly by the thousands in comfort above cloud and storm into the fading sun; see deep into the human body without surgery, what is there, what fractures, what cells, what imminence of death lurking, that may be countered, held in abeyance."

He travels to the cities where these men and women lived and worked in order to come as close as he can to them. He stands in awe before the monuments and statues and laboratories and tombs. As a young student, he learns of Ludwig Boltzmann (and who has even heard of Boltzmann?) One of Boltzmann's students was Lise Meitner "who would be the first person to understand nuclear fission" and who, when asked, refused to work on the Manhattan Project. Boltzmann "believed in atoms..a fundamental world of particles underlying the beauty of mountain and sea..." before nearly anyone else. He was ridiculed and mocked. Is is amazing that this was not that long ago...just a bit over 100 years.

While there is a vocabulary of electrons, atomic mass, entropy, fission, isotopes...there is much more which captivates and charms a reader because the author is just as comfortable writing in non-scientific jargon. On nearly every page, there are lovely, ruminative sentences and paragraphs such as:

"But at the Hotel Glocke, I was thinking, for some reason, of photovoltaic cells, of sunlit fields and deserts...of vast arrays of silicon cells laid out awaiting the sun....just as Einstein imagined here in Bern, to be sent as current, as pure electricity from the sun's rays without all of commotion, the steam and noise of coal and oil--so nineteenth-century, so classical and disruptive of this thin shell of air--with just the silent turning and tracking as the Earth turns, as it warms itself before the great fire. This vision of photons and electrons--light and matter interacting in ways that we never understood until then, until Einstein thought one day how, just maybe, we could think of light as something other than a wave--would in time light the cities with a softer glow and send the engines spinning wheel to wheel, and all without the carbon that darkens our dreams and sends the oceans closer to our doors and the glaciers retreating far into distant hills."

He walks in European towns and drinks in pubs, absorbing the same air and noting the same quality of light as those he so admires and whose lives he presents to us in brief glimpses.

"Nature loves mixing, dispersal, spread-outness. Always the crushing failure of order: The crude oil pouring from the pipe, unconfined at last, comes to the surfaces roaring, mixes into marshes, encroaches onto beaches, rides the loop current, encircles the whole peninsula, flows northeastward along the coast of Florida and up toward CapeCod, and then abruptly north toward England."

Most of us in the United States do not know about or care about science. But a book like this is a toe dipped into those waters that so many perceive as "somewhere close to dry toast on the scale of earthly excitement." And once dipped, perhaps intrigued enough to read on, to learn more.

To name just two elements:

Take nitrogen: This gas "...serves as a kind of diluent for the explosively reactive gas, oxygen.." Nitrogen is 78% of our atmosphere.

Take phosphorus: "...the eleventh most abundant element in the [earth's] crust. But such is its chemistry that it forms highly insoluble compounds, and these are hardly disturbed by the passage of water. No dissolution. No coaxing into solution. Only a kind of obduracy in the face of water's challenges, its legendary ability to dissolve all that it touches. So in the past, the quantity of algae was kept in check by the grip of phosphorus minerals, which in their miserly way dispensed of their phosphorus atom by atom, never in displays of magnanimity. " But then scientists learned to make phosphorus more easily soluble, and it became part of detergents and fertilizers, and inexorably found its way via water into lakes, and thus eutrophication such as Lake Erie (and thousands of other lakes) whose algae fattened and grew with this unexpected banquet.

Anyway, obviously, I was taken with this book. The author says that a recent pole showed "23% of us could not name a single scientist; a little more than 40% could name only Einstein."

Science affects every moment we breathe and eat and every decision we make. Every politician we elect who is ignorant of science will help cloud our future.

Again, this book is not tedious or strictly scientific. It is a series of essays about the beauty of science, about those who did the outrageous experiments and were able to make intuitive leaps, but also one man's lyrical way of writing about them.

Monday, February 6, 2012

Book: Light in August by William Faulkner

I have been reading this book for about a year. I kept getting it from public libraries and then would move before I finished it, but I finally did.

Many of Faulkner's novels are of the deep South and the mingling between black and white...the way people lived down there after slavery was abolished, the decades after the Civil War. The characters are memorable, universal and unique, good and evil.

This story is of Lena, a young pregnant girl who travels from Alabama to Jefferson, Mississippi, mostly walking, occasionally hitching a ride on a passing wagon, intending to find Lucas Burch, the man she believes is waiting for her, the father of her soon to be born babe. As she settles in and keeps asking about Lucas, a shy and gentle man named Byron helps her. But during this time, a reclusive white woman is brutally murdered and her house set afire. Lucas knows Christmas, the murderer, and is desperate to get the $1000 reward. And a strange old couple show up and are also involved.

"Byron leads them into the study--a dumpy woman in a purple dress and a plume and carrying an umbrella, with a perfectly immobile face, and a man incredibly dirty and apparently incredibly old, with a tobaccostained goat's beard and mad eyes. They enter not with diffidence, but with something puppetlike about them,as if they were operated by clumsy spring work."

I don't think most of Faulkner is difficult to read, but his writing seems tedious at times with long sentences and flights of imagination and explication and history about plot and characters and one has to pay attention, increasingly difficult in our Internet age. I wonder who, outside of those required to do so in college, reads Faulkner nowadays? But one can come to know the South through the stories and characters in his novels. One absorbs the history, the land and heat and verdancy and sometimes gothic spookiness of the backwaters of Mississippi.

"That this white man who very nearly depended on the bounty and charity of negroes for sustenance was going single-handed into remote negro churches and interrupting the service to enter the pulpit and in his harsh, dead voice and at times with violent obscenity preach to them humility before all skins lighter than theirs, preaching the superiority of the white race, himself his own exhibit A, in fanatic and unconscious paradox. The negroes believed that he was crazy, touched by God, or having once touched Him. They probably did not listen to, could not understand much of, what he said. Perhaps they took him to be God Himself, since God to them was a white man too and His doings also a little inexplicable."