Desk-bound Nature Lover

ENSBC Trip to New Mexico and Arizona – January 21-30, 2011

2011-03-08T19:08:00.000-08:00

Offering a temporary escape from the Illinois winter, Dave Johnson organized a trip to New Mexico and Arizona for some southwestern birding. Fourteen people signed up for this trip, including me. Our group tallied 178 species during nearly 10 days of birding, with 93 species in New Mexico and 155 species in Arizona.

The first leg of our trip was in New Mexico. Our guide during this time was an excellent young local birder, Raymond VanBuskirk. Raymond, a student at University of New Mexico, was featured in the May-June, 2010 issue of Audubon Magazine for his work banding and studying the three species of Rosy-finch which winter in the Sandia Mountains just east of Albuquerque. With his help, we had three exciting days in the desert canyons east of Albuquerque, the wetlands of Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge, and, best of all, high above Albuquerque in Sandia Crest House where we sat in the comfort of a cafeteria, watching flocks of all three species of Rosy-finch fly in to the feeders and Raymond’s team banding and measuring the birds. Several in our group got to hold and release the Rosy-finches.

On the 4th day of our trip, we drove from Albuquerque to Phoenix. Our remaining days were spent in Arizona.

Our guides in Arizona were Karen Zipser, Diane Touret, and Michael Marsden. We met Karen and Diane near the town of Buckeye, at an otherwise non-descript point in the desert known to have three species of Thrashers: Crissal, Bendire’s and LeConte’s. The LeConte’s is a particularly fine find for Arizona.

From there, we headed south to the Tucson area, and, in an agricultural area called Santa Cruz Flats, we were treated to: a Burrowing Owl peeking out from under a broken irrigation tile; Mountain Plovers foraging with American Pipits and Horned Larks on a sod farm; and a Rufous-backed Robin in a fruit tree, trying to stay out of reach of an aggressive Mockingbird. At some cattle pens nearby, we observed four rare Ruddy Ground-Doves.

Over the next few days, we visited some of the famous hot spots in southeastern Arizona, including the canyons of the Huachuca Mountains, Patagonia Lake, and Madera Canyon in the Santa Rita Mountains. Our time in Madera Canyon got us some spectacular birds, including an Elegant Trogon, a Magnificent Hummingbird, Painted Redstarts, and Hepatic Tanagers.

Near the end of our outing, I paid with blood for my first sight of a Costa’s Hummingbird. I wandered into the brush and encountered a species of cactus known as the Jumping Cholla. It clings to a person at the slightest touch and every move you make puts you into contact with more sharp spines. Fortunately, I had a small pair of pliers with me, and succeeded in removing all the cactus spines by early evening. Such are the things which make travel memorable!

2011-02-05T11:16:00.000-08:00

Is anyone else getting thoroughly nauseated with all the crap we are seeing in the corporate media about Ronald Reagan on his 100th birthday. Is anyone as disgusted as I am by hearing what a great president he was? Am I the only one who still remembers the general environmental devastation his administration wrought? Has everyone but me forgotten that he sold weapons to our sworn enemies and used the proceeds to fund terrorists? Is his callousness in the face of the AIDS epidemic forgotten? Does nobody remember his profound ignorance on just about every subject under the sun? I’ll say it, if nobody else will: President Reagan was a catastrophe!

The Definition of a Good Hiking Trail

2010-10-24T18:09:00.000-07:00

For a trail to be a good hiking trail, rather than just a not-totally-awful trial, it must have all of the following characteristics.

A good hiking trail is long. It must be possible to hike the better part of a day at a moderate pace. A hike is hardly worthy of being called a hike unless it is at least five miles long, and a good hike is at least eight miles long.

A good hiking trial is roadless. It must be out of sight and hearing of paved roads and even dirt roads with any significant traffic. When you have hiked three miles, you should be at least two and a half miles, as the crow flies, from the nearest pavement.

A good hiking trail is uncrowded. A hike where you have to hear other people gossiping, or put up with other people’s bratty kids is hardly worth taking. The people you encounter on a trail should be few enough that each is pleasant surprise rather than part of a general crowd. If you see four individuals or small groups in an entire day, that is just about right.

A good hiking trail is quiet. By the time you have hiked an hour, it should have been at least forty-five minutes since the last time you heard a truck or a motorcycle or a leaf blower.

A good hiking trail is wild. Housing developments, shopping malls, and industrial farms should be miles away. Any man-made structures which are visible must be small, rustic, or in ruins (and preferably all three). If the area the trail passes through is not a pristine natural state, then any farming or logging should be many years in the past.

A good hiking trail is for hikers only. Bicycles, horses, dog walkers, hunters, and especially off-road vehicles of all kinds should be banished.

I have lived in Illinois for twenty-six years, and have searched and searched that entire time. I have yet to find a good hiking trail within 200 miles of where I live now. I will kiss the hiking boots of the first person who will tell me where I can find such a place.

Southwest Wings Bird and Nature Festival, Sierra Vista, Arizona

2009-08-15T15:43:00.000-07:00

I spent August 5 through August 10 in Sierra Vista, Arizona, where I attended the 2009 Southwest Wings Bird and Nature Festival. This was my first time attending this festival, which is in its 18th year. Mostly, it has been held in Sierra Vista, although for a few years it was held in the more charming town of Bisbee.

Sierra Vista is in the extreme southeastern corner of Arizona, so close to the border that I could see Mexico from the parking lot of the hotel I stayed in. This area of Arizona is famous with birders because it is at the extreme northern end of a chain of Mexican mountain ranges, and thus has many Mexican bird species that cannot be found any other place in the United States.

I had never traveled to this part of the Arizona and had never birded in Arizona at all, so I expected to see a great many birds which I had never seen before.

I arrived in Sierra Vista on the afternoon of the 5th after flying from Chicago to Tucson and then driving a rental car from Tucson. I checked into the Windemere Hotel, which was the venue for the festival, and immediately afterward in the hotel parking lot I got my first life list bird of the trip – a Canyon Wren, the state bird of Arizona.

Here are some of the places I saw.

San Pedro House

The San Pedro River is one of the last rivers in the Southwest which is more or less in its nature state. That is, not dammed or dredged or drained dry for irrigation. The land on either side of it is owned by the Bureau of Land Management and is managed as a nature preserve. San Pedro House is an old farm house which has been converted into a visitor’s center. There is a parking area at the house and a trail which goes from the house down to the river. Walking on that trail one passes through tan grassland full of singing Blue Grosbeaks, Vermillion Flycatchers, and Lesser Goldfinches. Right along the river is a ribbon of tall green trees. Southeastern Arizona has been going through a drought lately, so the river was very low – hardly flowing at all – but it was still a beautiful oasis in the dessert.

Ramsey Canyon
In the Huachuca mountains to the west of Sierra Vista, the upper part of Ramsey Canyon is a natural area run by the Nature Conservancy. I went up there two evenings with owling groups. As soon as darkness fell we could hear Common Poorwills, Mexican Whippoorwills, and eventually Whiskered Screech Owls. The leaders of these groups were able to call in the Owls with recorded calls and we got excellent looks at them.

Garden Canyon
Just north of Sierra Vista is a large military base known as Fort Huachuca. Part of the base is open to civilians, if you can prove you are a US citizen. There is some excellent birding in these areas, especially in the Huachuca Mountains. I took a field trip up Garden Canyon on the base. We took a van up a steep, rocky road, but the drive was worthwhile. As you get higher into the higher mountains of southeastern Arizona the desert gives way to beautiful pine and oak forests. These mountain top forests are known as “sky islands”.

I saw some great birds in that canyon. The most memorable is the Painted Redstart, a small black, red, and white warbler which flashes its colors as it climbs along the ends of tree branches hunting insects.

Miller Canyon
Another canyon in the Huachuca Mountains is Miller Canyon. This one is part of Coronado National Forest. I went with a group that took a hike a couple of miles up Miller Canyon. This is a popular hiking and birding destination for locals. The forest was lovely and we saw quite a diversity of birds. The bird we all most wanted to see was the Spotted Owl. (The Arizona population of this species is not as close to extinction as the population along the Pacific coast, but it still can be rather hard to find.) The guide knew some places where one particular owl had been perching in recent weeks, but we did not find it in any of these places. Just as he was deciding we should turn around and head back down the canyon, he looked around and saw the owl right next to the trail. We all got excellent views of it, and I took a couple of pictures.

Lower down in the canyon, surrounded by the National Forest, is a place called Beatty’s Guest Ranch and Orchard. This was a great place to watch hummingbirds. They have dozens of hummingbird feeders set up, and covered seating to watch some of them from. There I saw nearly all of the dozen or so species of hummingbird which one can find in southeastern Arizona.

Chiricahua Mountains

Somewhat further away from Sierra Vista than the Huachuca Mountains is a larger and grander mountain range, the Chiricahuas. I took a one day trip to the Chiricahuas which was kind of a whirlwind tour. It was enough to give me a good taste of the area, and to make me think that I want to go back there someday. This is another one of the “sky island” mountain ranges, with desert at the bottom and rich forest at the top.
The best sighting of that trip was a White-tailed Hawk. This is a bird which until recently could not be found anywhere near Arizona, but which has now moved up from Mexico in appreciable numbers.

Bisbee
Of the towns in southeastern Arizona which I saw, the one I would most like to spend more time in is Bisbee. It has quite a bit of charm to it. It is an old mining town which has turned into a hang-out for artsy types. The worst blemish on Bisbee is an old open-pit mine from which copper use to be dug. But most of the area around Bisbee is relatively untouched and there is some beautiful scenery.

Casa de San Pedro
If I were to go back to southeastern Arizona for birding and wanted really first class accommodations at a bed-and-breakfast, I think the Casa de San Pedro would be the place I would call for reservations. The last of the guided field trips I took stopped at the Casa de San Pedro for Sunday brunch. We had a wonderful meal in a beautiful spot.

Saguaro National Park
I didn’t see Saguaro National Park as part of the festival. Instead, I stopped there on my way to the Tucson Airport on the day after the Festival. I was cutting it pretty close with regard to catching my flight, so I could only stay about a half an hour. Those Saguaro cacti, as large as trees, are quite a sight. I actually did not realize that they grew as large as they do. Many of the cacti have holes in them which are dug by woodpeckers and used by a variety of the desert wildlife. This would be an interesting place to go back to. I hope I get a chance some day.

"Wild Things" in Chicago.

2009-02-09T17:40:00.000-08:00

On Saturday, February 7, I attended a conference at the University of Illinois in Chicago called "Wild Things". It was put on by an organization called "Chicago Wilderness". (The name of the organization sounds like an oxymoron, doesn't it? I think it expresses more hope than fact.) This is a biannual event for profession property managers in the forest preserves, parks, and other protected areas of the Chicago area, volunteers who get involved with those protected areas, and other Chicago area people who enjoy nature and the outdoors.

Some of my friends from the ENSBC were also there. Joel Greenberg was there signing copies of his latest book.

There were many interesting talks at this conference. The ones I attended were scientific talks on the ecology of northeastern Illinois and on ecological restoration. I enjoyed every one I attended and wished I could have attended more.

Everything at the conference went quite smoothly, considering that it all must have been done on a shoestring, given the low registration fee for the conference.

This was the second Wild Things conference. The first was held two years ago. I found out about that one too late to attend, so I have been looking forward to this one for two years. I hope they do it again some time.

Mazatlan Birding Festival

2009-02-01T17:41:00.000-08:00

I took a trip for a week in January with seven friends from northeastern Illinois (one old friend and six new friends) to attend the Mazatlan Birding Festival in Mazatlan, Mexico. Mazatlan is on the west coast of Mexico, in Sinaloa State. The festival was from January 16 to 19. We went down two days early to travel around a bit on our own. Here are some excerpts from my diary for that week. My diary includes quite a bit of bird listing. For this blog, I will mostly edit these out and put the emphasis on the places I went.

Wednesday, January 14
I got up at 3 AM to get ready for a 4:45 taxi. It had been arranged by my new friends Marge and Jamie. The three of us were the first one to the airport, but the others soon arrived. Our US Air flight was delayed by 45 minutes for de-icing, so our connection in the Phoenix airport, which was already fairly tight, became ridiculous. We had to walk all the way across the Phoenix airport in about 10 minutes.

We arrived at the Mazatlan airport about 1:00 PM. We took the shuttle to the Budget car rental place to pick up our van. Our leader Dave had to spend considerable time finishing the paperwork on the van, and the rest of us looked for birds in the vicinity of the parking lot.

We did some road-side birding near the airport and then hit the road to the Sierra Madre Occidental. We had reservations at a hotel in the little town of Copala, along the Mazatlan-Durango highway. Along the way, we stopped in the town of Concordia, where we had lunch in a little open air restaurant which was basically a dirt lot with a roof over it.

From Concordia we drove east through scrubby thorn forest. All the trees in this forest were covered with thorns. Some even had trunks covered completely covered with thorns. This being the dry season, the trees were rather bare and dry. Many of the trees were actually large branching cacti. Prickly pear cacti were a major part of the undergrowth. We kept seeing Black-throated Magpie-Jays along the way. These are some of the most spectacular birds we saw. They are blue, white, and black birds about the size of Magpies, with very long tail feathers which flow like streamers behind them as they fly.

When we got to Copala our directions sent us down a narrow cobblestone road with barely room for two vehicle to squeeze by. Our home for the night was a hotel and restaurant called Daniel’s. This is a set of white painted brick buildings. It was built decades ago by an American who had moved down to take care of his Mexican mother. The hotel we stayed in was almost a sideline, for the main business there is serving lunch to busloads of people who come up from cruise ships. We were the only people spending the night, so we had our choice of hotel rooms or cabins. All looked very comfortable and reasonably priced. The room I stayed in was 250 pesos a night. The rooms showed signs of do-it-yourself construction (like nearly every other building I saw in Mexico) but for me that only added to the charm.

After settling in, Greg, Dave, Rick, and I went birding around the town. The town looks rather third-worldish, with chickens and donkeys in people’s yards, and most of the houses I saw looked like do-it-yourself projects by people without hardware stores. But the people were very friendly and seemed about as happy as people anywhere.

Dinner was in Daniel’s restaurant, which is basically a huge veranda. It was very tasty, especially the banana coconut cream pie.

Staying at Daniel’s in Copala feels kind of like camping. The accommodations are simple, the nights are very dark and starry, and the village itself seems a bit like a campground after dark. There is a surplus of noise during the night: truck engine-breaking on the nearby highway, donkeys braying, and roosters crowing. But I had no trouble getting to sleep. I passed out about nine o’clock.

Thursday, January 15
The roosters started crowing at four AM and I got up at five. We met for breakfast at six, and were on the road as soon as it was light. Our destination was the Tufted Jay Reserve about fifty kilometers up the Mazatlan-Durango. Along the road there were little shops and houses, mostly with that thrown-together look.

From the highway into the preserve we took a bumpy dirt road which at some places looked more like a dry stream bed than a road. We parked the van in the shade in a large open area where a camp seemed to be under construction. We got out and started looking for birds.

We were in a mixed oak-pine forest. The scenery was spectacular. The weather was nice. I was comfortable in a light sweater.

We birded throughout the morning and afternoon. About one in the afternoon we returned to our van, since our lunches were there. We ate box lunches provided for us by the hotel while sitting on benches made from logs sawed in half.

Late in the afternoon we walked an uphill trail up to a spectacular overlook. (The walk really showed how unaccustomed I was to the altitude.) From the overlook we saw a rocky mountaintop known as El Espinazo del Diablo (the Devil’s Backbone). I took a number of pictures there and Rick took a group picture. (He had a timer on his camera.)

We never did see the Tufted Jays, but we saw a long list of other beautiful birds.

Sunset was approaching as we left the preserve. There was enough light to do some roadside birding on the way down, and to see more spectacular scenery, but it was dark by the time we got back to the hotel.

We had dinner again on the big veranda, again the food was delicious, and again we had the place pretty much to ourselves. And, once again, I went to bed early and fell asleep immediately.

Friday, January 16

At first light this morning we took a short drive up the Mazatlan-Durango Highway and turned onto the dirt road to the village of Panuco. We stopped about a mile off the highway in front of an apparently abandoned farmhouse. This was the only habitation we could see for miles, but there was occasional traffic on the dirt road and I could hear cowbells down below us.

The road was on the side of a mountain, and the views of the mountains beyond were fantastic. The shapes of some of the mountains on the horizon were quite unique. The vegetation was thorny scrub. As we walked along the road, thorny acacias kept clinging to our pant legs.

Dave’s information about this road was not wrong – it was full of interesting birds that morning. Some of the more interesting birds were Military Macaws, large green and blue parrots. There were several of them on the mountainside in two flocks. They were very conspicuous whenever they flew, but when they stopped in a tree they seemed to vanish. Other exciting birds included Yellow-winged Caciques (large and beautiful members of the Oriole family) and a Squirrel Cuckoo. The Squirrel Cuckoo seemed very aptly named because its movements in the trees were very squirrel-like.

We had a little worry with the van, in that one of the tires became very low. In the end it did not cause us any real problem.

We got back to the hotel about eleven, and then split up for a while. Some of the members of our group went to see the down-town of Copala, which I heard was very lovely, while Greg and I did some more birding. Our finds included a flock of Mexican Parrotlets, small stubby-tailed green parrots. They were hard to see in the trees. Like the macaws earlier, they seemed to vanish whenever they stopped flying. But we were patient and eventually got good looks at them.

We checked out of the hotel about one PM, and drove to Concordia and got the tire inflated.

After Concordia, we stopped at another dirt road were Dave’s information said that a rare bird called a Red-breasted Chat could be found. Again, the information proved to be correct, and we found the bird.

As we approached Mazatlan we were all rather anxious about getting lost. Finding our way actually wasn’t that difficult. We just followed the signs.

We checked into our hotel, the Playa Mazatlan. It was right on the beach, hence the name. (‘Playa’ in Spanish means ‘beach’.) We also checked into the festival. That process could have been more efficient, and I think the sponsors will probably work on that in future years.

After I was settled in, I walked out to the beach. They sky seemed to be full of Magnificent Frigatebirds, which I had never seen before. I encountered Greg on the beach and we walked along for a while looking at gulls, terns, and shorebirds.

Later, I sat on the beach for a while, and then joined the rest of the group for dinner in the hotel restaurant. The food was great, although the service was just a little slow.

Saturday, January 17

This morning we went out on the first of the festival’s excursions we had signed up for. This was to the Mesa de Cacaxtla , an area which is part protected land and part cattle ranch. Our guides were Peter Alden, one of the most experienced birding guides in Mexico, and the ranch owner and major local civic booster, Ricardo Urquijo. The vegetation was tropical deciduous forest and this was the middle of the dry season, so the landscape was mostly colored in shades of brown.

We parked next to a cattle coral, and saw a lot of the curious big-eared cattle of the ranch. Also, there were some Caiba trees – tall trees with disproportionately wide trunks. (I presume this is for storing water.)

Along with us were people from the local media, who had big cameras and who came in their own van.

We all walked along a dry stream bed for a few miles and saw a lot of wonderful birds. Two of the more spectacular birds were a Lineated Woodpecker (a hawk-sized woodpecker with a bright red crest) and Citreoline Trogon (a large green and yellow bird quite unrelated to any birds we have in the Midwest)

After the walk, we went to a little village called Quelite. Mr Alden said that he knew it when it was a grubby little place, but it has evidently prospered exceedingly. We ate a rather late lunch at a lovely restaurant which seemed to have mostly locals for patrons.

Sunday, January 18

This day we had all signed up for two tours. The morning tour was to the Islands of Mazatlan. Our guides were Robert Straub and Jesus Martinez. There was also a fellow named Cory along who took lots of pictures.

Our rides to the harbor were pick-up trucks with benches and canopies. We rode through the old section of Mazatlan to the harbor where a garishly colored tour boat was waiting for us.

Once we were on the boat, our first destination was a pair of small islands, or small rocks, where Brown Pelicans, cormorants, Brown Boobies, and Blue-footed Boobies roosted in large numbers. The rocks were white from a coating of guano from many years of large birds roosting.

We saw lots of Brown and Blue-footed Boobies that day, and by the end of the day, I was pretty good at telling them apart.

We landed on Deer Island, which is directly across from the Playa Mazatlan. To land on the island we had to get into a smaller boat, and then wade onto the beach. Fortunately, towels had been arranged for us to wipe the sand off our feet before putting our shoes back on.

After that, we took a trail that went rather steeply up hill. Our target bird on Deer Island was the Five-striped Sparrow. We never did see it, but we saw enough other things that I wouldn’t complain. When we got to the top of the island the views of the ocean were fabulous.

Above the island dozens, maybe hundreds, of Magnificent Frigatebirds circled. Suddenly, they all turned in the same direction and headed off in formation, like B-17s on a World War II bombing mission. They had seen a fishing boat! We later saw the boat, being swarmed by birds and covered with birds.

Back on the boat again, we passed a crowd of sea lions, as well as the same booby island on the way back to shore.

Back at the dock, we saw a Zone-tailed Hawk circling over a hillside the harbor with a flock of Turkey Vultures. A Zone-tailed Hawk often seems to disguise itself as a Turkey Vulture. They fly with their wings in the same position as the vulture’s, and often fly in flocks of vultures.

We rode the pick-ups back through the old town and along the shore front. I decided as we were riding that whoever was in charge of the public art in Mazatlan was apparently very partial to statues of topless women. The picture here, borrowed from someone else’s website, is only one of several examples of what you can see there.

We had lunch around the corner from the hotel at an American-style smoothie and frozen yogurt place. We were served with what is apparently the usual level of Mexican efficiency. At least they did not attempt to charge us for the parts of our orders which they never brought.

Our tour in the afternoon was to the Estero del Yugo, a managed estuary system with two lagoons, one saltwater and one freshwater. The saltwater part had some nice birds, including a Yellow-crowned Night Heron and some Orange-fronted Parrots, but it was the freshwater part that was really active, with ducks, grebes, coots, and herons of many kinds. The prettiest birds were a pair of Green Kingfishers – sparrow-sized cousins to the much larger Belted Kingfishers which we have all over the Midwest.

At a wildlife blind on the lagoon there was a long debate about whether a hawk in the distance was a Crane Hawk, a Snail Kite, or a Common Blackhawk. If you zoom in real close to the little black dot in the middle of this picture, you can see the bird they were talking about. (It is almost certainly a Crane Hawk.)

Monday, January 19

Most of us had planned to take the same tour today, but Dave, Rick, and Greg decided instead to go back to Crested Jay Preserve to try again to see the Crested Jays. Jamie had signed up to go kayaking in the morning, so only Janice, Marj, and I went on the tour according to the original plan.

Our guide was a local fellow who went by the nickname Flako. His knowledge of the local birds was immense, but he only spoke a little English. Fortunately, we had on the tour an attractive lady from Mexico City named Alison, who was fully bilingual and very kindly translated for us. The sixth person on our tour was Bill, a photographer we had met on Saturday’s tour.

We rode to an area named Playa Ceuta in a van which gave us a very bumpy ride. We pulled off the highway and went on dirt roads through weedy-looking grazing land. This was cattle country, as evidenced by a coral which we passed where a man was milking cows and playing a radio very loudly.

A bit past the coral we parked and then began to hike along the dirt road. We were soon along side an estuary. On some of the mud flats were large numbers of shorebirds of various kinds. In the air were many Gull-billed Terns – the first of that species I had ever seen.

To the other side of the road was some scrubby thorn forest. In that, we saw a pair of White-tailed Kites nesting. It turned out the be the first record of that species nesting in that location.

We were suppose to visit a beach-side facility for sea turtle hatching. We got there, the place was clearly set up to receive visitors, but nobody was there. I enjoyed watching birds on the beach while Flako got on his cell phone and tried to sort things out. We ended up going to another facility where there was at least someone to show us around.

At the final location, we saw the place on the beach where the newly hatched baby turtles are released. A batch of them had been released just the night before and their tracks could be seen all over the beach. Here is something I didn’t know before: instead of making a mad rush for the water, which I always supposed they would do, baby sea turtles wander around the beach for a while. They have to learn the beach so they can find it when they are grown.

In the afternoon I walked the beach outside the hotel, looking for birds. Many other people were enjoying the beach, but not enough to make it feel crowded. At one point I passed two nice looking teenage Mexican girls wearing string bikini tops and very short shorts doing yoga poses for the entertainment of some teenage boys. One tries to be nice and not stare in such a situation. Besides, I was there to look for birds. The picture below is one I found.

In the evening, we all met for the final dinner of the festival.

Tuesday, January 20

My flight home was at 2:05 PM. I enjoyed the beach one last time until about 11. Then I checked out of the hotel, took a taxi to the airport, and went through all the usual airport lines.

My last life list bird of the trip, of the 67 I got, was a Grey-breasted Martin perched on a signal light next to the runway. I saw it from the airplane.

My trip home was uneventful. I arrived home about 1:30 AM on Wednesday.

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Back to Blogging

2008-11-21T17:15:00.000-08:00

I'm going to try to start blogging again. If you scroll down on this page, you will see that, until a few days ago, I had only one post in the last year, and only one for nearly a year before that. I have had quite a funky mood since coming to Illinois from California more than two years ago, and there didn't seem to be much to say when I didn't have beautiful California to write about. Also, I started a new job which kept me busier than the old one. Now I am feeling better (although still very homesick for California) and my work/life balance is in pretty good order. I am ready to go back to the old outlet for my creativity. I will be trying to post at least once a month, on subjects similar to my earlier posts -- travel, birding, books I've read, and a little bit of politics from my own unique nonconformist prospective.

Here is something to feel good about: George "Dubuya" Bush will soon be out of the White House, hopefully to sink back into the obscurity he deserves.

The replacement sort of looks like he might be okay. He's smart and it looks like his heart is in the right place. I just hope he doesn't screw up too badly. Experience shows that being smart and having your heart in the right place isn't enough to succeed as president. (Think Jimmy Carter.)

Ten Things I Like About Northeast Illinois

2008-11-16T18:30:00.000-08:00

I hate living in Illinois. That is the truth, and it is the mildest way I can say it short of dishonesty. It is more than two years since I left California and returned full time to Illinois, and the passage of time has only sharpened my homesickness for the San Francisco Bay area.

I don’t want to go into why I can’t move back to California but I can’t. So, rather than wallow in homesickness, I had better make the best of it.

Last week I saw a blog by another person who was homesick for California. (http://www.sazzybamm.com/) She had moved to Maryland from the east bay area. To deal with her homesickness, she made a list of things she liked about Maryland. It seemed to me like a good idea. She was only able to come up with five things. I set a goal of coming up with ten. It was quite hard to come up with ten good things about the place I live, but I did it. So, here are ten things I like about living in the Chicago suburbs.

1. The Forest Preserves. Okay, these are pretty lame compared to the vast areas of public space in the Bay area. But compared to some cities, they are really something. As small as the forest preserves are, the people in charge of them really try to do them right. There is a serious attempt to recreate, as closely as possible, the native natural environments of the Chicago area: tall grass prairies, oak savannas, and hardwood forests. They are not big enough to take a decent hike in, but without these, I don’t think I could survive here.

2. Lake Michigan. The lake is beautiful. It is a joy to walk along the lake front, and there is a fair amount of public land along the lake front so that you can do it. Of course, I prefer the San Francisco Bay and the Pacific Ocean, but half a loaf is better than none.

3. Chicago museums. Chicago’s Field Museum of Natural History is the best natural history museum I have ever seen, outside of the Smithsonian Institute. The Chicago Art Institute is a world class art museum. Then there are the Shedd Aquarium and the Brookfield Zoo. I don’t go to these very often, but its nice to know that I can, and when I do, I like them a lot.

4. My wife and son like it here. My daughter, before she went off to college, saw nothing wrong with living in the Chicago area, either. (I guess there is no accounting for taste.) If they are happy, then I am at least somewhat happy too.

5. The Evanston North Shore Bird Club. I have a blast with these people. I’ve been a member of other birding clubs, but this one is the greatest.

6. Changing seasons. Of course, almost every place has changing seasons, but I like a full change from snowy winters to steamy summers. When I’ve lived places where the seasonal changes were milder (San Francisco, Tokyo) I missed Midwestern weather (kind of).

7. My Senator just got elected President. I was proud to have Barack Obama as my Senator, and I think I am going to like him as a President. (This more than makes up for the shame I have felt for living in the same state that produced Ronald Reagan.)

8. My job. As much as I hate living in Illinois, leaving here would probably mean leaving my job. I would need good luck to find a job I like as much.

9. No hurricanes, earthquakes, mudslides, wildfires, or other natural disasters. Illinois can have some pretty damaging weather. Thunderstorms can blow down trees and flood your basement, but after watching the news about the firestorms in Southern California today, I feel pretty safe in Illinois.

10. Good schools. I heard a lot of complaints about the schools when I was in California. Even in the nicer communities it seemed to be a problem. You also hear complaints about Chicago schools, but out here in the north suburbs you almost never hear people complain about the schools. Apparently, they are pretty good here.

Bald Eagles Nest Again in Lake County

2008-03-18T20:12:00.000-07:00

In the county where I reside, Lake County, Illinois, there is nothing left that would pass as wilderness to anyone who really cares about wilderness. Still, all may not yet be lost for wild things here. After an absence of over 100 years, Bald Eagles are now nesting in the county.

The nest is above Nippersink Lake, in the far northwest corner of Lake County. The spot where they have built their nest is actually in a suburban residential area, in the town of Fox Lake, the kind of place that I would tend to think of as ruined by too much development. But the Eagles seem to think it will do.

I saw the nest and the eagles this past weekend when the bird club I belong to went on a field trip of the lakes of the county. Another birder had spotted it some days before and told the trip leader about it. We came into the neighborhood in a caravan of cars, and had to stand almost at somebody’s front doorstep to get a good view of them. Fortunately, the residents were friendly. They were thrilled to have eagles nesting so close by, and tolerant of the people who came to see them.

Only time will tell if the nest will succeed. I have a feeling they are up against pretty long odds.

Magical Moment with a Coyote

2007-11-01T17:37:00.000-07:00

About a week ago I experienced a rare magical moment in my own neighborhood. I had taken my dog out for a pee about a quarter hour after sunset, as the last light of the day was fading. Away to the south I heard a Great Horned Owl hooting. From the sound of it, I thought I might be able to see it, so I walked with the dog on the leash down out of the cul du sac where we live. I could not see the owl, but as we were standing on the road a coyote came trotting across the lawns parallel to the road. It seemed to be gliding through the dark, like a grey ghost of the great natural beauty that once was here. It made a wide arc to avoid us, but then headed directly on its way, toward a small wooded area.

The dog saw it and wanted to play! She wagged her tail and pulled on the leash, as hard as I had ever felt her pull. I suppose it would be reading too much into the situation to suppose she heard the call of the wild when she saw that coyote. Rather, it would be projecting my feelings onto my dog.

The village officials in this accursed, beauty-blind suburb have coyotes shot whenever they become a "nuisance" (meaning, whenever they become too careless about being seen), and lament in the village newsletter that "unfortunately" it is not practical to shoot them all. I can't imagine how these animals could be less of a nuisance.

The traditional Native American were so right to venerate this awesome animal, and we are so very, very wrong to treat them as vermin.

Other books I’ve enjoyed recently

2006-12-14T19:47:00.000-08:00

I haven’t read many books in the last year or so that I haven’t loved. It isn’t that I’ve become easier to please. Rather, I have become more selective about what I read. Lately, I’ve been reading a lot of nature writing. Since leaving California for Illinois, I have been largely cut off from the things which make life endurable: quiet, solitude, and natural beauty; available in Illinois only in a greatly diminished form. Hence, I have to experience these things vicariously. So the next few books I will describe fall into this category.

Kingbird Highway, by Kenn Kaufman. Among the many books that I have loved recently, this one particularly stands out. Kenn Kaufman has made a lifelong passion out of birding, which for me has only been an occasionally serious hobby. In the 1970s, at the age of sixteen, he dropped out of high school and dedicated his life to the search for birds. Three years latter, he attempted to set the record for a “Big Year”. That is, most species of birds seen in the United States and Canada by a single person in one year. (He would have set the record except that another birder tallied up a count higher than his that year. That record, in turn, was broken a few years later by Scott Robinson, for whom I worked as a teaching assistant during the 1980s at the University of Illinois.) Years after the fact, Kaufman wrote this fine book, which beautifully evokes the exhilaration of this fine sport, and gives a glimpse of the kind of nonconformist personalities who are attracted to it. This book is one of my all time favorites.

The Outermost House, by Henry Beston. Here is another book which is full of birds and other wildlife. The Outermost House may be the most beautifully written book I have ever read. It describes a year the author spent in the 1920s in a tiny cottage on the beach in Cape Cod. I had never heard of this book, until this year when it was picked for a book club that I recently joined. For that, the organizer of the club has my eternal gratitude. More than in any other book I have ever read, I felt that my point of view and the author’s were one in the same.

Desert Solitaire, by Edward Abbey. Here is another book that I absolutely loved, although not quite as much as the last two. During three separate years in the 1950’s Ed Abbey worked as a seasonal park ranger manning a lonely outpost at Arches National Monument in Utah. On his days off he worked as a cowboy in the nearby ranches. Out of those experiences comes a truly awesome book. It is full of Abbey’s love of wilderness and his anguish and anger at seeing it diminished. I don’t agree with all the opinions Abbey expressed, but generally I have found a kindred spirit in this author.

Into the Wild, by Jon Krakauer. In this book, the mountain climber and journalist Jon Krakauer tells the true story of Chris McCandless. In 1990, Chris, a gifted, athletic, and sensitive young man, broke off all contact with his family, gave away his money, and for two years lived the life of a vagabond. In 1992, he went to Alaska to experience the wilderness. Because of a few innocent mistakes, his wilderness adventure cost him his life. In this book, Krakauer explores difficult relationships between fathers and sons, and the pull that wilderness and adventure have for certain young men. This is a slender book, but there is a lot to think about in it.

Fast Food Nation, by Eric Schlosser. I read this book last spring, actually, and I haven’t had a fast food hamburger since. I put this book on my reading list because I had heard the author on public radio, and I am glad I did. This book is a well-reasoned accounting of all of the negative effects which the fast food industry has had on American society. It is not just that we are eating more unhealthy junk food, but as a result of the rise of the fast food industry our society has become more economically divided between rich and poor, our agriculture has become more environmentally damaging, small towns and rural families have suffered economically, and corporations have more power over our lives. Everything in this book rings true.

Conifers of California, by Ronald M. Lanner. Here is a book about the evergreen trees of my favorite state. Each species of conifer native to California is discussed. The book is beautifully illustrated and the text is quite well written.

Some Books I have Enjoyed Recently

2006-11-26T17:57:00.000-08:00

Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed, by Jared Diamond. People who think of environmental issues as just fuzzy feel-good issues should read this book. As Dr Diamond demonstrates, environmental are in fact deadly serious, life-or-death issues. In this book, Diamond describes cases both ancient and modern where environmental problems lead to a societal collapse. In some cases, this collapse was complete and sudden. Easter Island society, for example, went from the height of its artistic and social accomplishment to cannibalism and near extinction within a couple generations due largely to overpopulation and deforestation. The chapter on the role of environmental problems in the tragedy of Rwanda is particularly interesting, since this part of the story was entirely overlooked by the media in the US.

Guns, Germs, and Steele: The Fates of Human Societies, by Jared Diamond. The book and the previous one have established Jared Diamond firmly on the list of my favorite authors. The subject of this book is the role of geography on human history. Why is it that some societies have been able to conquer other societies, and rob them of their lands and livelihoods, as my ancestors did to the Native Americans? Usually in such cases the conquerors invent explanations involving the alleged mental, moral, or spiritual inferiority of the victims (e.g., “God willed that this land should not remain the domain of degenerate savages”). Diamond provides us with better explanations. This book should be enjoyable to anyone who is interested in history, anthropology, or biology.

The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark, by Carl Sagan. When people remember the late author and TV personality Carl Sagan, they tend to remember his entertaining personal quirks, like the distinctive way he would say “bill-i-ons and bill-i-ons”. What they unfortunately fail to remember is what an immense and wide-ranging intellect he had. This book is a great way to reacquaint yourself with the brilliant mind of Dr Sagan. The chapters of this book were originally published as separate essays, but most of them have a unifying them: the importance of skepticism and critical enquiry. The best and most heart-felt writing in this book are the chapters on the witch hunt of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. (The sub-title of the book is a reference to a seventeenth century book “A Candle in the Dark” which was written, a great risk to the author, to refute the “evidence” used to condemn so-called witches during this tragic episode of history.) He not only shows how flawed and uncritical thinking lead to tragedy in past centuries, but applies the lessons of story to modern day “witch hunts” and shows how modern day thinking can be just as flawed. I experienced this book as a book on tape as I was driving from California to Illinois. It sure made the miles go faster.

Undaunted Courage: Meriwether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson, and the Opening of the American West, by Stephen Ambrose. This was another book on tape which made the miles go faster on my California to Illinois trip. The book is an autobiography of Meriwether Lewis, who is famous for the Lewis and Clark expedition of 1803 to 1806. The subject was intrinsically interesting for me and the presentation was entirely competent. In short, I thoroughly enjoyed this book.

The Republican War on Science, by Chris Mooney. The title of this book is a little overstated. Republicans are not bombing scientific institutions, or shooting at scientist. However, the point the author has to make is worth getting. The current leaders of the Republican Party, especially Bush and his administration, have politicized science to an unprecedented degree. The have brazenly pandered to anti-science elements of the religious right. They have suppressed important scientific evidence on major environmental issues, and have bullied and threatened government scientists who have not toed the Republican party line. This is not one of the best-written or best-argued books I have read, but it is still worth reading.

The Issues I Consider on Election Day

2006-10-05T20:18:00.000-07:00

When I choose whom to vote for on Election Day, there are certain issues I consider. But before I tell you about those, let me tell you which issues I don’t consider.

First of all, the economy. It’s shameful how many elections get decided because of what the economy does in the last few weeks before Election Day. The economy always cycles through expansions and recessions at its own random pace, and no politician has any real control over it. It would make as much sense to vote based on how your football team is doing as to vote based on how the economy is doing.

But there is a deeper reason why the economy doesn’t influence how I vote. So much of what is called “the economy” consists of destroying priceless treasures in order to make trash. We saw down a forest which took millennia to grow to make fast-food chopsticks which are thrown away after one use. We tear down a mountain which has stood for a hundred million years to make a car which will rust out in ten. We scar and poison a landscape which will take centuries to recover to pump oil which we will burn through in a fortnight. All of these things add to the gross domestic product, and they may bring happiness to economists and others who do not understand the real value of things, but they are sorrow to the hearts of anyone with moral discernment. Unless there are strict laws backed with aggressive enforcement to prevent them, all of these things happen faster when the economy is strong. I refuse to ever be persuaded by a politician because he claims credit for a strong economy.

I try to ignore any issue which we could change our minds about next year, and undo this year’s decision. Same-sex marriage is an example. We can make same-sex marriage legal this year, and if we don’t like how it works out, we can make it illegal next year. We can repeat this as often as we like. The death penalty is another example. Yes, in any particular instance, the death penalty is irreversible, but there will always be other vicious killers coming along. If we feel bad about the vicious killers we executed this year, we can change the law and try to rehabilitate next year’s vicious killers. (By the way, I personally favor the latter approach, though I truly understand the appeal of the former.) If we don’t like how that works out, we can go right back to hanging them. Repeat as often as you like.

Rather than consider these, the issues I pay attention to are the ones with consequences for everyone that will last for generations. Some of these are issues of war and peace. If we allow the lies of corrupt leaders to lead us into attacking another country with insufficient cause, generations yet unborn in that country will carry the distrust and anger from it. What all the consequences will be, no man can say.

Others are issues of basic human rights. (I never thought I would see the day when basic human rights are a domestic issue for the United States, but here we are!) If we allow the President to imprison whomever he considers a threat in secret prisons, to commit torture, and to take away the right to a fair trial, then democracy will be lost. Who knows how many generations it will take to win it back?

But the issues with the longest lasting consequences are environmental issues. When a species goes extinct, all the money and effort in the world will never bring it back. If the last ancient forest is cut down, twenty generations will never walk in the shade of another. If global warming is allowed to go unchecked, how many generations will it take to even partially undo the consequences? We have the ability right now to damage the Earth so badly that nobody will ever again see it set right, and there are too many people in positions of power who would help make this happen just so their stocks will be worth more at the end of the quarter. These are the issues which we must pay attention to, if we are to be true to conscience.

Vacation in British Columbia

2006-08-16T20:26:00.000-07:00

We just returned early Sunday morning from our summer vacation in British Columbia. We spent three nights in Whistler and six nights in Victoria. Here is a brief rundown of the things we did.

Whistler (Thursday to Sunday, 8/3 to 8/6)
On Thursday we flew from Chicago to Vancouver, and then drove up to Whistler. It was a beautiful drive. The mountains around Whistler are just gorgeous.

Whistler is a ski resort town up in the mountains a couple of hours drive north of Vancouver. It sits next to Garibaldi Provincial Park, which you can walk into from the top of the ski lifts, and which contains some of the most rugged and beautiful alpine scenery I have every seen. Whistler itself is the domain of skiers in the fall, winter, and spring, and of mountain bikers in the summer. The downtown area of Whistler has the look of an enormous shopping mall surrounded by hotels. It is a little too commercial for my taste. (My brother, who had been there last year, warned me that it would be this way.) I suppose it is what Yosemite Village or Banff would have if there weren’t the US Park Service or Parks Canada to reign in the commercialism. Still, it is not as bad as it could be. On a crassness scale of 1 to 10 (with Las Vegas as a 10) the commercialism of Whistler is only about a 5.

We did several touristy things there. We rode the gondola and the ski lift to the top of the mountain. The kids rode a cart pulled by sled dogs. The sled dogs with mixed breeds, rather than true huskies, and looked too small for sled pulling, but what they lacked in size they made up for in enthusiasm. We did a “tree trek”, walking on platforms and suspension bridges build high up in the tree tops, and my son and I did “zip trekking”. This something which seems a lot scarier when you watch it than when you do it. You strap on a big harness, which is hung from a cable, and then you ride on the cable from one platform to another. It’s a unique experience, but it really feels about as safe as standing on the sidewalk. I discovered that it is more fun if you look down just as you step off the platform.

In addition, we did some hiking in the mountains and I found a group of people to go birding with on Saturday morning for a couple of hours.

Victoria (Sunday to Friday, 8/6 to 8/11)
It takes most of the day to get from Whistler to Victoria. You have to drive down out of the mountains to the coastal town of Tsewwannen, take a ferry over to Swartz Bay of Vancouver Island, and then drive into Victoria. It took us all the longer because some of the streets in Victoria were blocked off for a holiday celebration (B.C. Day) resulting in traffic chaos. By the time we got checked into our hotel most of the touristy places in town were closed, so we did some of the few which remained open: Miniature World, the Bug Zoo, and Chinatown. Of these, the most interesting was the Bug Zoo. This was a small place, with just two rooms full of insects and spiders in glass cage, but the critters were interesting and the docents were very knowledgeable and enthusiastic.

The next day (Monday) we drove over to the Pacific Rim National Park. Of all the places we saw on the trip, this is the place that I would most like to go back to. It is a beautiful park, with long beaches, rugged coast, and ancient forests. We saw several Bald Eagles there. We also were amused by watching a Glaucous-winged Gull trying to eat two sea stars, the second one bigger then his head! Unfortunately, it was quite a drive from where we were staying, so we actually spent more time getting there and getting back then we were able to spend there.

Tuesday, we spent the morning and early afternoon seeing the Royal BC Museum. This was a nice museum. There were some temporary exhibits which were worthless, but the permanent exhibits of the natural and human history of British Columbia were excellent. We particularly enjoyed the exhibits on the various Native American cultures of British Columbia. (Lots of totem poles.) In the late afternoon we saw a restored Victorian era mansion called Craigdarrock Castle, which was similar to one we had seen in Toronto last year, though less fancy.

Wednesday we saw the famous Butchart Gardens in Brentwood Bay, about half an hour drive from Victoria. The whole idea Butchart Gardens is to make the prettiest garden possible, and they have succeeded.

In the afternoon we drove to the town of Sidney and visited the Marine Ecology Center. This was a very modest attraction, set in a houseboat in a marina, but it was a lot of fun. There were rows of tables set up with trays of ocean critters which you could look at through microscopes. We all had fun there, but I think my son enjoyed it most.

On Thursday, we took a tour of the Parliament Building, which was just a short walk from our hotel. Then we went to a fancy afternoon tea in our hotel, with the little English tea sandwiches and sweets. Later in the afternoon we took a short drive to Goldstream Provincial Park. This park is notable for its huge, centuries old Red Cedars and Douglas Firs. It also turned out to be one of the best places in the world for watching American Dippers. We watched three of these little birds as they hunted caddisfly larvae. They would dive into a stream and came up with what looked like a little twig, which was actually a tube built by the caddisfly. Then they would beat the tube against a rock until it opened, and then eat the little green grub inside.

Friday was our last day in Victoria, and we spent the morning on a whale watching cruise. We got to see Killer Whales hunting salmon. The whale watch was fun, but I couldn’t help but wonder what the whales thought of it. There were more whale watching boats out there than whales. Did the whales feel at all harassed by all these watchers? In the afternoon we took a hike in East Sooke Regional Park, about an hours drive from Victoria, out to a beautiful viewpoint on the rocky coast.

Vancouver (Saturday, 8/12)
On Saturday, we left Victoria and took the ferry back to the mainland. We made one stop on the mainland, before heading to the airport. This was the Capilano Suspension Bridge in North Vancouver. This place was in some ways more like an amusement park than a national park, but it was enjoyable. The were plenty of 300 year old trees and the view from the bridge was marvelous.

Stuff I’ve been doing lately – Yosemite, Mount Diablo, Butano, and Ano Nuevo.

2006-06-22T20:18:00.000-07:00

I’ve been too busy lately with this, that, and the other thing for internetting lately, and so I’m rather behind on posting. Here is a brief rundown of things I’ve been doing lately.

Yosemite National Park, May 5 to May 7.
I spent a weekend in May at Yosemite National Park. Since I am preparing to leave California, this will probably be that last time I will visit Yosemite in a long time. I had made camping reservations at a National Forest campground just outside of the El Portal entrance of the Park. The campground was called “Dirt Flat”. Not a particularly attractive name, but location is everything in such matters, and Dirt Flat is almost within walking distance of the park. The campsites are actually not bad. They are right on the bank of the Merced River, and were semi-shaded. A Western Kingbird was building a nest in a tree over my campsite. This was the first time I ever had to use bear boxes at a campsite. These are big metal boxes were you are required to put all your food and anything else with a scent (e.g. toothpaste). If you leave such things in your car, a hungry bear is liable to rip your car door off to get to it. However, the forest ranger I talked to says that bears are a lot less a hazard there then rattlesnakes. I got to the campsite rather late on Friday, so I didn’t have time to do much that night after setting up camp.

The next day my plan was to drive into Yosemite Valley, park at the Inspiration Point parking area, and hike as far up the south rim of the valley as I could by nightfall, and then hike back down by flashlight. However, by the time I had hiked up a few hours, I encountered snow, and eventually the trail was lost in the snow. So, I walked back down to my car, drove into Yosemite Village, and considered what to do next. From Yosemite Village, I ended up hiking up to Mirror Lake, which is right at the foot of Half Dome. It was getting dark by the time I reached the lake, and I hiked back to my car in the moonlight.

The last day I basically spent doing the touristy things around Yosemite Village, and then headed back to the SF area. I stopped at various scenic spots along the way out of the park, including at a gas station at a place called Crane Flat, which was suppose to be a good place a Hammond’s Flycatcher, a life-list bird for me. I found the Flycatcher, which was the third life-list bird I got that weekend. (Bullock’s Oriole and Calliope Hummingbird were the other two.)

Chain-o-Lakes State Park, May 20 and May 27.
Back home with the family in Lake County, Illinois, I made two visits to Chain-o-Lakes State Park, which I described at length in an earlier post. One Saturday I went canoeing with my son, and the next Saturday I went horseback riding with my son and daughter.

Mount Diablo State Park, May 30.
I made a Memorial Day trip to Mount Diablo State Park, a short trip from San Mateo. (Mount Diablo is visible from my workplace in South San Francisco on clear days.) The purpose for this trip was pure birding. I was aiming to pick up three life-list birds: the Black-chinned Sparrow, the Sage Sparrow, and the Rock Wren. Wonder of wonders, I found all three. The air was wonderfully clear that day, and from the summit of Mount Diablo I saw all the way across the San Joaquin Valley to the foothills of the Sierras.

Butano State Park and Ano Nuevo State Park, June 2 to June 4.
This may be my last chance ever to camp in California, so I chose to spend it camping under my beloved Redwoods at Butano State Park. I camped there from Friday evening to Sunday morning. The campground there is nice, although the campsites are a little close together for my taste. On Saturday, I took a side trip over to Ano Nuevo State Park, which is right next to Butano. Ano Nuevo is great for seeing marine wildlife. At this time of the year, seals were lying up on the beach molting. I spent about half the day there, before going back to Butano to spend the rest of the day hiking. Sunday, I had some things to do to prepare for my move back to Illinois, so I only stayed long enough to eat breakfast and pack up my stuff.

The Things I Will Miss About the San Francisco Bay Area

2006-05-20T19:22:00.000-07:00

For about two and a half years I have been travelling regularly from my home in Illinois to the San Francisco Bay area for business and staying for weeks at a time. That is going to more or less end in a couple of months. I will only going out to California once in a while now, and for shorter stays. I am happy that I will be spending more time with my family, and I will not miss the two thousand mile commute. (Each year airline seats seem to get narrower, and the other passangers seem to get fatter.) Still, I am kind of bummed out about this. I will miss California. Here is a partial list of the things I will miss.

Weather
Let’s get this one out of the way first, since it is the thing everyone always expects me to say on this subjecct, but it is the least important of the things I will miss. The San Francisco area is warmer than the midwest in the winter and cooler in the summer. In California, you can go camping in January. It’s great. But, if California had Illinois’ weather, and Illinois had California’s, I would still prefer California to Illinois, for all the reasons which follow.

They Have Their Land-Use Priorities Right Here
The Bay area has more state and county parks, more open space preserves, and more wildlife refuges, than any urban area I have ever seen. Compare this to Chicago. Some civic boosters in the Chicago area are proud of various slivers of forest preserve and specks of state park which are scattered amongst the otherwise unrelieved expanses of cornfields and suburban subdivisions. But really, they don’t amount to much. Most of these forest preserves a person can walk across in fifteen minutes, and even in the middle of the largest of them, you can still hear the noise of the highways which surround them. You could take the whole area of all the Lake County and Cook County forest preserves and put them in one corner of an average sized San Mateo County area open space preserve, and forget about them. The Bay area has lands you can get lost in, lands you can walk all day in, lands you can go to the middle of and feel a million miles from civilization, all within a short drive from any home in the area.

We’re Pretty Much All Democrats Out Here
Okay, not all Republicans are totally reprehensible. In fact, there are some people I truly love who are Republicans. But I definitely don’t want to live among Republicans. I prefer to live among people who are well informed and share values similar to mine. There are Republicans in the Bay area, but they are definitely in the minority, just the way I like it.

Racial and Ethnic Diversity
I like living in places that have a lot of racial diversity. Chicago has this too, of course, but San Francisco has even more of it.

On the Average, the Women are Prettier Here
You may have a hard time believing this. I wouldn’t believe it either, if I hadn’t spent time out here and seen it for myself. I am not sure why the Bay Area women are so much prettier than elsewhere, but I have a theory. It has to do with there being so few Republicans out here. Ask me, and I’ll explain it.

The Scents of Bay Area
There’s sage and eucalyptus. There are the rich scents of the seashore. The redwood duff gives the soils of the Santa Cruz Mountains a marvelous odor. More subtle, but also pleasant, is the scent of the California Live Oaks. Up in Marin County along certain streams there is some sort of botanical scent which I can’t even identify, but it smells just like heaven.

Public Transportation
I spent a year in Japan in my youth. That’s the only place I have ever seen which has better public transportation that the Bay area.

The Hills and Mountains
Furthest west, there are the awesome redwood covered Santa Cruz mountains to the south and the Marin Highlands to the north. To the east, the drier and more subtle beauties of the Hamilton and Diablo Ranges. Finally, still within a morning’s journey of San Francisco, there is the incomparable grandeur of the Sierras. It’s all wonderful.

And That Just Scratches the Surface
Throughout my childhood and youth in Iowa, I never really felt like I fit in, and I never knew why. Into adulthood in the Midwest, in Iowa, Ohio, and finally Illinois, something about my life never quite seemed right. It was only in my forties, when I came out to the San Francisco area, that I really came to understand what my problem was. It turns out, all my life I have been a Californian and didn’t realize it! Northern California, especially the Bay area, is where I really feel at home. There is so much to love about this area. Basically, California is just so not Illinois. Still, Illinois is where my family is, so I will make the best of it.

Camping Among the Condors

2006-03-15T07:53:00.000-08:00

I must camp and hike, as surely as I must eat and breath. Death from not hiking is a lot slower than death from asphyxia, but it is death all the same.

In day-to-day life, I am surrounded either by the oppressive sterility of office space, or by the possessions bought with the money I earn there: the house, the cars, the furniture, appliances, knick-knacks, and other accumulated manufactured objects. There’s nothing wrong with any these things individually, but as all this manufactured stuff builds up, it becomes like an infestation of spiritual parasites, sucking your soul away. I need to get out from under that load from time to time, to live for a day or two with a minimum of stuff, in order to renew the soul that all that stuff is sucking out of me, by closer contact with things of the natural world.

And so, to renew my soul, I went camping last weekend. The place I choose was Pinnacles Campground, which is just outside the east entrance of Pinnacles National Monument on land currently owned by the Nature Conservancy.

Pinnacles National Monument is a relatively small unit of the US National Park system in the mountains of the California Coastal Ranges, about two hours’ drive south of my California home in San Mateo. It is noted for its towering rock formations jutting up out of the chaparral, as though some ancient tribe of giants got half-finished with putting up a vast complex of primitive stone monuments. The actual cause of these formations is a great volcano and tens of millions of years of subsequent weathering. It is a popular place with rock climbers and wildflower enthusiasts.

Pinnacles is one of the few places one can reliably expect to see the California Condor. This magnificent bird went extinct in the wild a few decades ago. Captive-bred Condors have recently been re-introduced into the wild at Pinnacles, but, sadly, it is by no means certain that the population will become self –sustaining, as many of the factors which contributed to the earlier extinction still occur.

I had reservations for two nights at Pinnacles Campground. The weather forecast for the first night called for thunderstorms and hail. Not really wanting to fight the Friday afternoon traffic, only to then be putting up a tent in that weather, I decided to delay my departure until early the next morning. I was on my way to the campground as the sun was rising, and I could see a fair amount of snow in the mountains. That much snow is quite unusual in that part of California. Later that day, a park ranger told me that in fourteen years of working at the park this was the first time he had seen more than a light dusting of snow. I arrived at the campground around nine o’clock, set up my tent, and spent the rest of the day hiking and birding around the park. It rained occasionally, and the air was rather cool, but mostly it was a nice day for hiking.

It was cold as night was falling, and I was very glad when I went to bed I had brought a huge pile of blankets. I awoke the next morning to the sound of large tree limbs breaking all around me. During the night it had snowed even more than the night before, and many of trees could not stand the unprecedented extra weight. It was a little unsettling to think how little protection my tent poles would afford me if a limb broke off of one of the trees near me, but once it was light enough, I stuck my head out of the tent and saw that I wasn’t in any immediate danger.

I made my breakfast and folded my tent while enjoying the beauty of the snow on the mountainsides. Then, I was off again to explore that magnificent park.

I have never camped in snow before, and I liked it. It is nice to know that at forty-six years old, I am still doing some pleasant things for the first time.

Weekend of Owls and Eagles

2006-01-20T08:05:00.000-08:00

Over the three-day Martin Luther King Day weekend, I went on a trip with a group from the bay area chapters of the National Audubon Society. We planned to visit two great birding areas to the southeast of the San Francisco Bay area: the San Luis wildlife refuge complex near Los Baños, and Panoche Valley near Hollister.

San Luis Refuge Complex
The San Luis refuge complex is comprised of the San Luis, Merced, and San Joaquin National Wildlife Refuges, various state and county refuges, and innumerable private hunting clubs in Merced County. These hold a fair amount of wetland and grassland, which give some taste of what the Central Valley of California looked like before most of it was converted to pesticide-poisoned cotton fields, vegetable fields, and almond orchards. The area is very popular with birders and with duck hunters, and we saw and heard plenty of the latter during this trip.

The group gathered in the town of Santa Nella at about eight o’clock on Saturday morning. On this day there were about eight of us in the group, all from the Audubon (San Mateo County) and Mount Diablo (Contra Costa County) Audubon chapters. We were very ably led by a retired rancher who I will call “Mr Macho”. I have been birding off and on for about 23 years now, and have done it fairly seriously for about seven of those years, but I was a relative novice in this group.

We birded mostly from our cars, driving along narrow country roads and stopping where ever there was something interesting to see and enough room to park. It was a rainy day, but the rain did not dampen our spirits at all.

At the end of the day, I tallied up all the species of birds we had seen and counted 68 of them. The most common birds that day were American Coots. They were everywhere. Coots are a successful group, and in California they can be found in any more-or-less natural place that has enough water to get wet in. It doesn’t take long to stop finding Coots interesting. Mostly we were looking for less numerous waterfowl among the hundreds of Coots. The most spectacular bird seen was an adult Bald Eagle which we sighted flying low over the marshlands. Also spectacular were the immense flocks of Snow Geese and Ross’s Geese at Merced National Wildlife Refuge. These white geese gather in flocks of thousands there and at times almost darken the sky. At the same place, we saw a considerable flock of Sand Hill Cranes, which are also an inspiring sight.

We stayed the night in the town of Los Baños. Some of us, including myself and Mr Macho, were at the Regency Hotel, which was an over-priced dive. Every room seemed to have something which didn’t work. Good thing I’m not that much into luxury.

Panoche Valley
We gathered again at eight the next morning, and headed south about half an hour to the east end of the Panoche Valley. The Panoche Valley is desert at the west end and piney woodlands at the east end. This is cowboy country, where almost everybody dresses like the guys in “Brokeback Mountain” and drives pick-up trucks with gun racks. They are also very friendly to birders, and never fail to wave as they pass you. This is a place where California birders go to find species which are hard to find elsewhere.

Mr Macho particularly wanted to find four species: Mountain Bluebirds, Chukars, Mountain Plovers, and Phainopeplas. At the end of the day our score was one for four of those. We saw plenty of Mountain Bluebirds, which are the bluest of the three species of bluebird, but the others escaped us.

Our best stop of the day was at a rustic little resort called Mercey Springs, at the desert end of the valley, which Mr Macho knew about. For five dollars each, the lady in charge there let us onto the grounds and pointed out a little grove of trees where a flock of owls roosts during the daylight hours. What a spot! There had to be at least a dozen Long-eared Owls, a couple of Barn Owls, and a Great Horned Owl. Of the first two, these were the first I had ever seen.

My third life-list bird of the trip was in the middle of the day, when we spotted a Cassin’s Kingbird sitting on a wire. Central California is the extreme northern end of this bird’s range. It is quite rare here in the summer and even rarer in the winter. It was quite a find!

This was also a great day for seeing eagles. We spotted a Golden Eagle at the west end of the valley. At Paicines Reservoir at the east end of the valley, we were treated to the sight of two Bald Eagles and a Golden Eagle all sitting in the same tree. What a sight!

Henry W Coe State Park
After arriving at the west end of Panoche Valley, the group split up and went separate ways. But I still had another day left to my weekend, so I drove up to Henry W Coe State Park for a night of camping.

Henry W Coe is the second largest state park in California, and it must be one of the largest state parks in the country. It is very mountainous, and the mountains are covered with oak savannah. It is popular with backpackers, some of whom, I’ve heard, actually prefer it to the more well-known parks in the Sierras.

I set up my tent about sunset, and then started hiking. The moon was just past full and the sky was clear, so hiking at night was almost as easy as hiking in daylight. I had flashlights with me, but I only needed one at the shadier places.

After hiking a while, I bedded down for the night. It was chilly, but I had plenty of blankets. During the night I was serenaded. First a Western Screech-owl solo, then a Great Horned Owl duet, and finally a choir of Coyotes. Does it get any better than that?

I spent all the next day hiking and birding around the mountains. The scenery was breathtaking, and for the third day in a row I saw an eagle. This was a Golden Eagle soaring high over the oaks.

What I work on at my desk.

2005-12-09T08:03:00.000-08:00

Here is a link to an NPR news story which relates to what I do all day at my desk. It concerns three drugs to treat a condition called macular degeneration. One of these drugs, which in some cases literally restores sight to the blind, is one I work on. One of the main compensations for all the time I have to spend indoors at my job and away from the things I really care about is knowing that sometimes the products I work on really do help somebody.

Click here to hear the story

The Coastline of San Mateo and Santa Cruz Counties, California – October 30

2005-11-07T08:05:00.000-08:00

Some day I am going to post a list of the main reasons why I love the San Francisco area so much. One of the top reasons on that list will be the beauty of the central California coast. On various occasions I have driven, hiked, and birded along the California coast as far north as Bodega Bay and as far south as Big Sur. Since I first started coming to California, a frequent daytrip for me has been to drive from San Mateo, where I stay in California, across the peninsula to Half Moon Bay, and then to spend the day making my way down the San Mateo county coastline to about Davenport in Santa Cruz county, stopping at the various public beaches, scenic overlooks, and state parks along the way.

On October 30, I didn’t have time for my usual coastal itinerary. Big things were going down at the company were I work in South City, and I had to work that weekend. Still, I took some time for a quick trip along the coast. This is a good itinerary for anyone visiting the area with just a few hours to spare.

My first stop was near the town of Moss Beach at Pillar Point, where I climbed the hill overlooking the Fitzgerald Marine Reserve. Beautiful views here of the ocean and shoreline.

By the way, the curse of Pillar Point is the clueless dog people who ignore the conspicuous signs which tell them to keep their dogs on leash. Just in case one of them happens to see this, please bear with me while I try to help him catch a clue: Hey dog person! There’s a good reason for those signs you’re ignoring! Your dogs are harassing the wildlife! Get a grip!

This time I skipped one of my usual stops, the Pigeon Point Lighthouse. Lighthouse fans will love this spot. The buildings around the lighthouse have historical and natural history exhibits.

Pebble Beach is a pretty area. The beach consists of gravel worn smooth by the action of the waves. The combination of waves and pebbles has worn the stones of this rocky section of coastline into fascinating shapes. I hadn’t visited there for a while, so I stopped to see what animals were on the rocks: seals and cormorants and pelicans, mostly.

My last stop going south was the Rancho del Oso Nature Center, in Big Basin Redwoods State Park, just south of the Santa Cruz county line. I mentioned this place in my last travel-related post. I wanted to stop there again because on my previous visit I hadn’t had time to really see the whole place. Alas, the pretty naturalist who I had previously encountered was occupied with other tasks that afternoon, and I only spoke with her very briefly. However, I struck up a conversation with the volunteer manning the desk, and he proved to be a quite satisfactory, albeit less visually appealing, substitute. He turned out to be the head of an organization called the Waddell Creek Association, one of several California state park associations which provide funding and volunteer to various California parks. (See the link to the right.) He was a good salesman for his organization, of which I am now a dues-paying member. He was quite knowledgeable of the local natural history.

Here are some things I learned at the nature center, which I found interesting. The dominant trees in that area of the park are not Redwoods (too close to salt water there), but Monterey Pines. The natural range of Monterey Pines is limited to a few small areas in California, and for some reason within their nature range Monterey Pines produce wood which is considered almost worthless. However, outside their native range, they are widely cultivated, and are very valuable for lumber. Monterey pines grow quickly, and get quite large within a matter of decades. They often grow into contorted shapes. They don’t live very long, rarely more than a century. Thus, a huge gnarly specimen of Monterey Pine which looks to be older than Moses may actually be younger than some people you know.

On my way back north to work, I made one more very brief stop, at Pescadero Marsh. This is one of my favorite places to visit, and I will probably say something more about it sometime, but right now this post is already long enough.

Reading List Update – Brief reviews of books completed so far.

2005-10-27T05:40:00.000-07:00

A few months ago I posted a list of about 30 books that I had wanted to get around to reading someday, with the intention that I would finally read them. I promised to post updates on my progress on this list. Since then, I have finished seven of the books on the list. During the same interval, however, I added about another thirty, so at this rate I will never be finished. Here are some brief reviews of the ones I have finished, in order of how much I enjoyed them.

The Corporation – the Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power, by Joel Bakan
If you want to understand what is basically wrong with our society, start by pondering on this fact: The most powerful institutions in our world today are founded and legally obligated to put monetary profit ahead of all other considerations. Greed has been established as the central organizing principle of our most powerful institutions. This book examines how this happened (it wasn't inevitable) and the dreadful consequences of it. It also gives a glimmer of what we can do about it.

This is the most important book I have read in some time. If I could, I would require every literate person in America to read it. There is a documentary film by the same name based on this book, and it is available on DVD. If you can’t read the book, see the movie. If there is a flaw in this book, it is that it ends up being too optimistic. There are very strong trends now for corporations to become more powerful and more irresponsible in their behavior, and it seems that nobody has the power anymore to stand up to them. Things are going to get much worse before they get better.

Coast Redwood: A Natural and Cultural History, edited by John Evarts and Marjorie Popper
From my point view of this book obeys the first rule of show business: always leave them wanting more. For most people, this book would be everything you would ever want to know about Redwood trees. However, most people do not have my love and fascination with Sequoia semperverins. Still, this book is an excellent start towards what I do want to know about Coast Redwoods (which is, everything there is to know!). Although the text is written by various writers, the quality of the text is consistently good. The book is beautifully and amply illustrated

The Sacred Pipe, by Nicholas Black Elk and Joseph Epes Brown
Until recently, this wonderful book had been out of print for some time, and rather hard to find. I had started reading it twice before, having had to get it via interlibrary loans from distant libraries, but circumstances had conspired to prevent me from finishing. When it came back into print, I quickly bought a copy, so that this time I would be sure to be able to finish it. I wanted to read this because I had so immensely enjoyed the other Black Elk book, Black Elk Speaks. People without my level of interest in anthropology, comparative religion, and Native American lore may not enjoy this book as much as I did, as it does get a little repetitive, but I found the descriptions of the Lakota legends, prayers, and rituals to be beautiful and fascinating. Much of the Lakota religion was about the sacredness of the natural world, about our relationship not only to our Father in Heaven, but also to our Mother the Earth. I wish the religion I was raised in had a lot more to say on that subject.

Last Chance to See, by Douglas Adams and Mark Carwardine
This book describes the adventures of two men (the authors) traveling to various exotic locations to see animals on the brink of extinction. This is not as grim as it sounds, because: 1) the focus is on the adventure of trying to see the animals, and on the interesting people the authors meet along the way, and 2) the narrator of these adventures is the late Douglas Adams, one of the funniest writers of the twentieth century and the author of the popular Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series. Mixed in with the humor are some very poignant thoughts on the irredeemable loss of parts of our natural heritage. I thoroughly enjoyed this book.

The Return of Little Big Man, by Thomas Berger
This book is the sequel to one of my favorite novels, Little Big Man. The earlier book followed the wild-west exploits of Jack Crabb, who was born white but raised by the Cheyenne, and ultimately becomes the only white survivor of Custer’s last stand. The earlier book had a colorful, but plausible, cast of characters which included gunfighters, swindlers, a gay Indian, and a reformed harlot. The newer book is not quite as interesting, and follows Jack’s career as a saloon keeper and a performer in Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show. It contains far more detail about that famous show than I would have ever thought I wanted to know, but I still found it entertaining.

Stranger in a Strange Land, by Robert Heinlein
I wanted to read this novel, the story of a man who returns to Earth after being raised since infancy by Martians, because it is on almost every list ever written of the “all-time greatest works of science fiction”. Many fans have described reading this book as a major life-changing experience. I can see how it might have been for a teenager reading it in the 1960’s, but for forty-something men in the early twenty-first century major life-change experiences are, I guess, harder to come by. Science fiction, at it’s best, is rich in thought-provoking ideas and makes you see thing in ways you’ve never considered before. This book certainly provides the ideas, and presents them most entertainingly. Perhaps because this book has been so influential, some of the bigger ideas are now commonplace in science fiction stories and will be familiar to any Star Trek fan. The others seem dated, and some I just plain disagree with. Still, I enjoyed the book, and I recommend it to any science fiction fans who may happen to see this. Just don’t take it too seriously and don’t expect it to live up to its reputation.

Dude, Where’s My Country? by Michael Moore
This book is the only real disappointment on the list so far. I love Michael Moore’s movies. “Fahrenheit 9/11” is one of the very best movies I have ever seen, and I also loved “Roger and Me” and “Bowling for Columbine”. Of course, the pranks which are so hilarious in his movies are harder to do in a book, and his satirical tone just doesn’t come across the same in print. But what is strangely missing from this book is the informativeness of his movies. I learned a lot of stuff which I hadn’t known before by watching each of his movies. I learned very little from this book. Look, I already know that George Bush is a bad person, that he cares only about his corporate pals and his own lust for power, and doesn’t give a hoot in hell about anything else. If you are going to tell me that all over again, at least support it with examples that I don’t already know all about.

Another Redwood Weekend

2005-10-15T20:53:00.000-07:00

I camped again at Big Basin Redwoods State Park on October 1st and 2nd. I was going to write a long John Muir-ish posting about this, full of spiritual and philosophical reflections on the Redwood trees. If you have followed my blog for a while (probably only my mom has done this) then you probably know that I have a love for the old-growth groves of the Coast Redwoods which borders on idolatry.

However, for two weeks now other things on my to-do list have kept me from writing a long reflective post. So, in the interest of just getting it done, I will opt instead for something closer to the Joe Friday style. (“Just the facts.”)

I had made my reservation at Big Basin a couple of weeks before. (My first choice, the Butano State Park campground, also noted for its old-growth Redwoods, had already been booked up.) During the last week in September, I learned that my best friends in California, Frank and Nicole, could use some help moving. They need to move from their apartment to a house to accommodate a coming increase in their family size. I agreed to spend Saturday afternoon helping to move boxes for them in my Volvo wagon.

Since I now had nothing particular to do on Saturday morning, I drove over to the Pacific side of San Mateo County for some shoreline birding. A point of land at the north end of Half Moon Bay, called Pillar Point, is considered one of the best spots for birding in California. Fog limited visibility rather severely, but I still had a good time and tallied up a long list of bird species there. The most exciting find was a Wandering Tattler, a fairly uncommon bird.

That afternoon Frank and I loaded up boxes in his car and mine and made three trips from their apartment in San Mateo to their house in San Carlos. After we had gotten all the boxes moved, we had an early dinner at a Mexican restaurant in San Mateo which neither of us had tried before. Then I put a minimal load of my camping gear in my car and headed down to Big Basin. I reached the park, signed in at the campground, and pitched my tent just before nightfall.

One nice thing about camping at a great state park in the fall is that night falls fairly early, and then you have the hiking trails pretty much to yourself. After my camp site was all set up, I went hiking from about 7:00 PM to about 11:30 PM. Unlike my previous camping trip to Big Basin, this time I had two good flashlights with fresh batteries in my backpack. I was looking for owls mostly, and I found three Northern Saw-whet Owls (aren't they cute?) and a Western Screech-owl before the night was over.

The worst thing about the night at the park is that some @#$!& had apparently set up a boom box somewhere in the park and all night long was blasting the kind of noise which I hate to dignify with the name of “music”. (When I read The Lord of the Rings, I always imagine the orcs playing this kind of “music”.)

After a night of this kind of “entertainment”, it was pretty hard to get up early the next morning, so I slept in until almost seven. Then I got up and made myself a breakfast of a pancake and a couple cups of coffee. (Real coffee, not instant. What a wonderful invention for camping the French press is!) After this I hiked until about noon, seeing plenty of Winter Wrens, Acorn Woodpeckers, and Townsend’s Warblers.

In the afternoon, I drove down to the seashore, and then drove up on Highway 1, along the coasts of Santa Cruz and San Mateo Counties, stopping at various spots for some shoreline birding. At the south end of Big Basin Redwoods State Park, I stopped at the Rancho del Oso Nature Center. This is a little place, and apparently put together on a tight budget, but it was very nicely done and the tiny staff was wonderfully eager to be of service. I enjoyed talking to the friendly (and pretty) naturalist until closing time and then I hit the road again.

My New Hero, George Galloway

2005-09-26T07:35:00.000-07:00

I think I have a new personal hero, and his name is George Galloway.

In my mind, a hero is someone who speaks the truth to power, especially if he does it fearlessly, forcefully, and eloquently. In these tragic times, when the Republican Party is transforming into a fascist party, the Democratic Party is supine, and the newspapers are acting more and more like the PR offices of their corporate owners, the need for heroes, for people who speak the truth to power, has never been more desperate.

George Galloway is a British Member of Parliament. He was a fierce critic of the Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq when the Reagan administration and the first Bush administration were still his allies, and he has been an opponent of the invasion of Iraq since it’s inception.

Being a critic of the Iraq war has made him a target. With the reckless disregard for truth which has become characteristic of Republicans, a number of scurrilous accusations were made against him by Republican politicians and their spokesmen in the corporate media. A rising star of the neoconservatives, Norm Coleman, summoned Mr Galloway before his Senate subcommitee to answer these acusations. (In case you don’t know what a neoconservative is, I will explain it. “Neoconservative” is what Fascists like to call themselves these days.) Mr Galloway eagarly accepted this summons and, in front of the cameras of the news media, had Senator Coleman for lunch.

Below is an excerpt of Mr Galloway’s statement. Click anywhere on the excerpt to be linked to the complete statement. Is is worth repeated reading, as a case study in the tactics which Republicans use to smear their opponents, as an eloquent indictement of this idiotic war, and as a beautiful example of how the English language can be used for a good cause.

“I gave my heart and soul to stop you committing the disaster that you did commit in invading Iraq. And I told the world that your case for the war was a pack of lies.

“I told the world that Iraq, contrary to your claims did not have weapons of mass destruction. I told the world, contrary to your claims, that Iraq had no connection to al-Qaeda. I told the world, contrary to your claims, that Iraq had no connection to the atrocity on 9/11 2001. I told the world, contrary to your claims, that the Iraqi people would resist a British and American invasion of their country and that the fall of Baghdad would not be the beginning of the end, but merely the end of the beginning.

"Senator, in everything I said about Iraq, I turned out to be right and you turned out to be wrong and 100,000 people paid with their lives; 1600 of them American soldiers sent to their deaths on a pack of lies; 15,000 of them wounded, many of them disabled forever on a pack of lies.

“If the world had listened to Kofi Annan, whose dismissal you demanded, if the world had listened to President Chirac who you want to paint as some kind of corrupt traitor, if the world had listened to me and the anti-war movement in Britain, we would not be in the disaster that we are in today.”

If only Kerry or Gore had had the backbone to say such things! It makes me wish British citizens could run for U.S. President.

Writing My Congressman

2005-09-20T17:00:00.000-07:00

One of the last hurdles the Republicans have to get over in their efforts to destroy the priceless and irreplaceable Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is to work out an agreement on a budget bill. The Senate version has provisions to destroy the refuge and the House version does not. The handful of Republican congressmen who oppose destroying the refuge, including my own congressman, Mark Kirk, are under extreme pressure from the party leaders to change their position. To encourage Congressman Kirk to hold firm, I sent him this email.

Dear Congressman Kirk,

It is with great anxiety that I am writing concerning plans by many in your party to allow oil drilling on the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Past and current behavior of the oil companies prove that this would surely lead to the destruction of the refuge and much of its wildlife.

I know that you have expressed support for protecting the Refuge in the past, but I have recently learned that you are under great pressure from your party to change your position and vote to allow the refuge to be destroyed.

Please hold firm on this issue. It would be a terrible tragedy for this irreplaceable treasure to be destroyed. There are so many way which our energy problems could be addressed through conservations. It is not necessary to sacrifice the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

Note that I will be watching this issue, and I will pay close attention to how you vote.

Sincerely,
[My Name], PhD

On another issue, the time that all people of conscience in this country have been dreading has now come. Bush has a chance to select judges to the Supreme Court. As expected, his first nominee is a catastrophe. I sent the following email to my two Senators, Richard Durban and Barrack Obama, to ask them to do oppose this horrible nomination.

Dear Senator,

Please do everything within your power to block the nomination of John Roberts to the Supreme Court. Judge Roberts's opinion in the Arroyo Toad case shows an inclination to favor business interests over the public interest, and his flippant characterization of the case shows that he does not take the problem of endangered species protection seriously. It is reasonable to extrapolate that he does not take other environmental issues seriously. This man is not fit to decide cases on environmental issues which may have irreversible consequences.

[My Name], PhD.

I hope some of you seeing this will also take the time to write and oppose the destruction of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and to oppose Bush's anti-environmental judicial nominee.

For more information on the struggle over the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, see the National Audubon Society Website or the Sierra Club Website.

Birding on Monterey Bay

2005-09-16T19:11:00.000-07:00

I made a reservation weeks ago to take a pelagic birding trip offered by Shearwater Journeys in Monterey, California. I left San Mateo early on Saturday afternoon, having spent the morning cleaning my apartment and running errands. I took the scenic route down to Monterrey down through the Santa Cruz Mountains along Highways 35, 9, and 1. I checked into the Lone Oak Inn in Monterey. Judging by the number of wetsuits I saw hanging outside the rooms, it is a hotel which caters to surfers and divers.

The next morning I got up earl and drove down to Fisherman’s Warf and met the boat, which was called the Checkmate. It turned out to be a pretty full boat, with about 20 to 25 people of various ages, genders, and nationalities. All of them were either birders or birders’ spouses, of course. Some names there I recognized from some of the birding newsgroups I subscribe to.

The idea of a pelagic birding trip is to see birds which live over the ocean a rarely come within sight of land. Monterey Bay is a particularly good place to see such birds because the water is unusually deep just off shore. Within minutes of leaving the harbor I got my first life-list bird of the day: a Sooty Shearwater. By the end of the day, I would be seeing Sooty Shearwaters until I didn’t care much about them anymore. Within the next couple hours, I got four more life-list birds: Pink-footed Shearwaters, Bullers Shearwaters, Black-footed Albatrosses, and Sabine’s Gulls.

Albatrosses, by the way, are incredible looking birds in the air. No still picture really shows how amazing those long, long wings look as they are flapping.

In addition to birds, there were marine mammals: Harbor Seals, California Sea lions, Humpback Whales, Pacific White-sided Dolphins, and Russo’s Dolphins.

I had a good time, and it was a successful day of birding. (There have been very few times when I have gotten five life list birds in one day.) Still, having tried it, I have decided that pelagic birding is my least favorite mode of birding. About 90% of the individual birds I saw were three or four species of gulls I could have seen on shore, and about 90% of the rest were Sooty Shearwaters, so basically you spend your time looking for the other one percent of the birds out there. Also, it can be frustrating if you aren’t use to it. It’s an awfully big ocean and some of the birds you are looking for are small and hard to see. I missed about half the birds which were seen from the boat which would have been life-list birds for me. Finally, out on the water when there aren’t any interesting birds or other animals around, there isn’t anything else to look at but waves. On land, if there aren’t any birds, there are always trees, wildflowers, and bugs to look at.

One more thing that weekend: while on the boat I heard about a sighting of a Crested Caracara in Santa Cruz County. This is a bird which usually isn’t found north of Mexico. On my way home from Monterey I stopped where it had been seen. I didn’t find it then, but I returned the next day (Labor Day) and found it.

A Week in Switzerland

2005-09-02T07:22:00.000-07:00

The Family Vacation
The family and I have recently returned from a vacation in Switzerland. It was a bus tour through a company called Trafalgar, so our hotels were all arranged for us, as well as breakfast each day and dinner on most days. Mornings were usually spent on the bus. Lunch and the afternoons were generally on our own. The tour was competently run, but I am not sure that this is my way to see a country. It was far too much of see the sights from a bus window, especially when we were in the Alps. When I see mountains, I get an overwhelming desire to walk in them, especially when I see others doing the same. Its an automatic reflex for me. But there was almost no opportunity to do this on this trip.

This was a non-birding trip, since my non-birding wife and children were along, and the emphasis of the tour was sightseeing in cities and not getting outside, but I took my compact binocular with me and managed to see some good birds.

Pretty Girls, Ugly Noise, and a Bit of Tibet
We left Illinois on Friday afternoon, August 12 and arrived in Zurich the following morning, after a layover in Frankfurt. The tour manager picked us up at the airport and took us to the hotel. The first day was kind of slow-paced, which was fine with us since we had just had an overnight flight. There was suppose to be a tour of Zurich in the afternoon, but that was truncated by a big festival which they were having downtown closed down a lot of the streets and snarled traffic. I don’t know what the festival was called, but it involved a lot of the loud, oppressive thumping noises which some people regard as “music”, and young men and women in absurd, often skimpy costumes. The latter were funny, but the former was definitely not my idea of fun.

By the way, we had a celebrity staying at the same hotel in Zurich: the Dalai Lama. I think I saw him in the hallway when we were going to breakfast. There were some bodyguards with him as well as other monks. The hotel put up a Tibetan sand painting created by the monks in the front lobby. I love those Tibetan sand paintings, with their colorful, intricate designs, but I can’t even guess at all the symbolism which must be in them.

Into the Alps
Sunday morning was mostly on the bus. We left Zurich and rode to Vaduz in Liechtenstein where we made a short stop, and then went on to the resort town of St Moritz, up in the Alps. The scenery was awesome. In the afternoon we took a train ride through the Alps for more awesome scenery and a wine tasting near the Italian border. This was one of the only rainy days we had on the trip. Most of the days the weather was nice and clear. On the way back from the train ride, the bus stopped briefly at the top of an alpine pass and I got my first life-list bird of the trip: a Eurasian Kestrel. It was hovering, just like American Kestrels do, at the edge of a lake. I took a walk before dinner and got the second one, a Nutcracker.

Monday (8/15) got off to a nice start. I glanced out the hotel window and the bushes were full of Eurasian Blackbirds and Coal Tits, the latter my third life list bird of the trip. Then we had another morning of riding through the Alps. There was snow where we were riding for the first couple of hour, but it melted away after a couple of hours. This day was the Italian part of our trip. We crossed the Alps over into the Italian-speaking part of Switzerland and then into northern Italy in the afternoon. The climate and scenery were quite different here, still mountainous, but warmer and dryer. We stopped for the day in the town of Baveno on the shore of Lake Maggiore. The lake was beautiful. It reminded me a little of Lake Tahoe in California. On the lake and over it were Black-headed Gulls and Yellow-legged Gulls (life-list bird #4). Also on the lake, and on most of the lakes we saw that week, were Great Crested Grebes – large, very pretty water birds. We took a cruise on the lake and visited an island on the lake (Isola Bella Island) which contained the old palace of the Borrameo family, one of the three royal families which ruled northern Italy in past centuries and which still own just about everything in the area. The gardens of the palace were very impressive, and we took several pictures there.

A Fine Day at the Matterhorn
Tuesday (8/16) we rode back into Switzerland and went to the town on Zermatt. Zermatt is the town at the foot of the Matterhorn. This was my favorite day of the trip. Our hotel room was great. It was a suite with a huge balcony and a great view of the Matterhorn. Around mid-day we went for a ride on the ski-lifts high up into the mountain tops and in the afternoon we had plenty of free time to enjoy the area on our own. This was the one place on the trip where I had a couple of hours to do a little birding, which was great. I hiked up into the hills above the hotel and the woods, amid the twittering of Willow Tits (very similar to our Chickadees). I also found a Jay and a Hawfinch (#5 and #6, respectively).

Great Scenery and a Pair of Great Tits
Wednesday (8/17) morning we had some more time to enjoy Zermatt. I went for a short walk which my family was still asleep and found a Bullfinch (#7). Then the wife and I took a walk down into downtown Zermatt, before we got on the bus and rode to Geneva, with a couple of stops on the way. We briefly stopped to see Castle Chillon and later stopped in Montreux for lunch. Near the castle, my daughter found me a pair of Great Tits. (In case you don’t already know, these Great Tits are birds - see picture below.) From the bus window, I saw a Golden Eagle soaring amid the mountains, only the second one I’ve ever seen. As the bus took us into Geneva, we saw United Nations buildings and other international organizations, such as World Health Organization. We arrived in Geneva in the afternoon and walked along the Lake Front and downtown area for the remaining of the day. We saw the Brunswick Monument, Wall of the Reformation, Jet d’Eau, and St. Peter’s Cathedral.

Old Switzerland
Thursday (8/18) we had a stop at Berne and walked through the old section of the city. Albert Einstein used to live in this town and we saw where he used to live. There was an old clock tower which, if I understood the sign correctly (it was in German), dated back to 1192, and we watched the old clock chime at 11 AM. After seeing Berne, we rode to Interlaken where we stopped for lunch. Of all the awesome scenery we saw, I thing the Interlaken area was the most beautiful. The valleys we rode through reminded me of Yosemite, only not as dry. Also on this day we took a carriage ride in the country side which stopped for a little party at a barn which was built in the 1630’s. Finally, we ended up in the city of Luzern (also spelled Lucerne). Between Interlaken and Luzern, I saw a Marsh Harrier (#8) flying over a grassy field.

Prettiest City in Switzerland
Friday (8/19) we spend the day wandering the old city of Luzern. I think this was my wife’s favorite day of the trip. Of the large cities we visited, this one was probably the most interesting. We saw the famous ‘Dying Lion of Luzern’, a monument carved into a cliff, and then the Chapel Bridge, the old covered footbridge, which is shown in lots of travel brochures. At the middle of the old bridge is a large tower, and in this tower roosts a large colony of Alpine Swifts (#9). Alpine Swifts are about four times as big as the Chimney Swifts we have back home. About the time we reached the bridge, they left their roost all together with a big burst of noise. In the river which the bridge crosses were many Mute Swans, Mallards, Great Crested Grebes, and a pair Red Crested Pochards (#10). We also climbed the towers of the old city walls. We spent some time at the Jesuit Church, a grand Baroque-style church from the 17th Century with lots of pink marble and beautiful paintings. We also went to the Hof Church built in 1634.

Saturday (8/20) was the last day of our vacation. First thing in the morning the bus took us straight from our hotel in Luzern to the Zurich airport, where we boarded a flight to Copenhagen, and from there to Chicago.

Not how it’s done in nature films.

2005-07-29T17:51:00.000-07:00

Three times these past few days the kids and I have seen a Cooper’s Hawk hunting the House Sparrows in our front yard. Two of those times she made a kill while we watched. We think she’s made at least one other kill in our yard when we weren’t looking, because we found a pile of feathers in our back yard which looked like they might have been from a robin, along with a single feather which could have come from a Cooper’s. The sparrows are acting a lot more wary and are not coming to the feeder as much as they use to. (It’s in kind of an exposed position.)

The first time we saw the hawk, it landed in the middle of our front yard and then ambled over to the hedge which grows along the front of our house. It stood there for a moment, and then it made a small hop. As casually as a man might pick an apple from an apple tree, it plucked a sparrow from the hedge and settled down to the ground with the sparrow held in one foot. It stood by the hedge again for a while, presumably waiting for the sparrow to stop struggling, and then flew off with it.

Usually, in nature films when you see a raptor make a kill, it is with a dramatic swoop or dive. They never show a hawk standing next to a bush and pulling sparrows out of it.

Weekend in the Sierras

2005-07-07T07:45:00.000-07:00

In spite of the vigorous efforts of our last few Republican presidents to turn our national forests into national stump fields, there are still some very nice places to visit in the national forests of this country, especially in California, where Democratic congressmen and senators have some influence. This past weekend, July 1st to 4th, I spent most of my time enjoying some of our National Forest lands.

I set out from my San Mateo apartment on Friday afternoon with my car full of my camping gear heading first north and then east through the coastal mountain range and then across the great Central Valley of California. (About the Central Valley, I like to say that California is an interesting state, with the Sierras on one side, the Pacific Coast on the other, and Nebraska in the middle.) Fortunately, California’s “Nebraska” is narrower than the real one, and within a few hours I was in the foothills of the Sierras.

My initial destination, and my base of operations for the rest of the weekend, was an area in Eldorado National Forest known as the Crystal Basin. I had learned about the Crystal Basin from a travel guide called Birding Northern California, by John Kemper. I have often used this book in planning my weekend excursions in Californian. It describes 81 areas in California which are good for finding birds and other wildlife. Of these 81 areas I have now visited 26, including four this weekend.

I had a campsite reserved at Fashoda Campground on the shore of the Union Valley Reservoir, which is owned by SMUD, the Sacramento Municipal Utility District. I was not especially impressed with the campground. It was pretty enough, being set in a grove of Incense Cedar trees which looked to be a century or two old, but the camp sites were too close together, there was no privacy, and I had noisy neighbors on two sides of me who kept up an alarming racket until well past midnight each night. Later in the weekend one of the Forest Service employees told me that she could have steered me to much quieter and more private sites if I had called ahead. From now on I will make a point of calling ahead and asking about the quietest sites before I make my camping reservations.

The next day I got up at sunrise (in spite of being given precious little chance to sleep during the night) and spent the whole day birding the Crystal Basin. There were birds all around the reservoir which I had never seen before or had only seen once or twice. Hermit Warblers (my first!), MacGillivray’s Warblers, Mountain Chickadees, and White-headed Woodpeckers, just to name a few. There was a Townsend’s Solitaire right in the camp site, only the second one I had ever seen.

Near sunset, I went high up in the mountains near the border of the Desolation National Wilderness to take a trail which had been recommended to me by the same Forest Service employee I mentioned two paragraphs before. It was a pretty trail, but without mosquito repellant I think I would have been a dead man! The mosquitoes and black flies were as thick as I have ever seen them. However, my first ever sighting of a Red-breasted Sapsucker made the hike particularly nice.

The next morning (Sunday) I drove about an hour to the east to see Lake Tahoe. About this lake, Mark Twain wrote, “A month of camping along the shores of Lake Tahoe would restore an Egyptian mummy to full health and vigor. Not one of the older and drier mummies, of course, but one of the fresher ones.” I absolutely believe him, but that would have been back when the shores of the lake were still pristine. Today I think it would only work for a freeze-dried Peruvian mummy, and not an embalmed Egyptian one. However, Lake Tahoe was as crowded as you would expect any place to be on a fourth of July weekend, so I escaped the crowds and went on up further into the mountains. Before I left, though, I found the nest of a family of Mountain Chickadees and watched a pair of Ospreys hunting along Taylor creek, which flows into the lake.

I spent the afternoon and early evening at Carson Pass, up among the beautiful craggy, snowy peaks and alpine lakes of the Sierras. There I found my third and fourth life-list birds of the weekend: Cassin’s Finches and Green-tailed Towhees. I also watched a pair of Williamson’s Sapsuckers (gorgeous, magnificent birds!) tending a nest of chicks. The chicks were in a hole in a dead tree which the Sapsuckers had drilled as smooth and round as you could have made with an electric drill. This species is found only in high alpine areas, but they sure do make the climb worthwhile! Also making the climb worthwhile were a small flock of Mountain Bluebirds, the bluest bluebirds you can find.

Monday, Independence Day, was the last day of my trip. I did a little more early morning birding around the reservoir, finding one of my favorite birds, the American Dipper, and then packed up my tent and blankets and headed out. I stopped a few times on the way out of the Crystal Basin for some roadside birding. Further along the way back to San Mateo I stopped for a couple of hours at a place in the foothills called Sly Park, another area recommended by John Kemper. I finally made it back to San Mateo about six PM.

Can you tell Pat Robertson from Osama bin Laden?

2005-06-27T17:52:00.000-07:00

This is something cute I found on the internet.

Can you tell a hate-filled religious bigot in a turban from a hate-filled religious bigot in a business suit if all you can see is their rhetoric? Take the quiz at funnystrange.com and find out. The quiz consists of twenty quotes, some from Osama bin Laden and some from Pat Robertson or Jerry Falwell. Your task is to pick which quotes come from the Arab bigot and which ones come from an American bigot. I couldn't tell the difference. My score was only 12 out of 20.

Ice Age Weekend and a Movie

2005-06-23T07:24:00.000-07:00

Ice Age Weekend
My son and I spent the weekend camping at Kettle Moraine State Forest (Northern Unit) in Wisconsin. For those of you who are rusty on geology, a moraine is a ridge formed by the gravel and stone pushed in front of a glacier. A kettle is a depression formed when a large block of ice is left behind by a retreating glacier, becomes buried, and then melts. Often, these kettles fill with water and are then called kettle lakes. The Kettle Moraine area, near Milwaukee, is full of these and other Ice Age remnants, and is a fine area for camping, hiking, and other outdoor activities.

(For those who prefer the “intelligent design theory”, I suppose I should give equal time to the view that all the geological features mentioned above were made instantly by divine fiat a week ago Thursday.)

We left home about five-thirty PM on Friday, after I finished work for the day and packed the car with our camping gear. It would have been about a two hour drive from our home in the North Suburbs, but some slow traffic in the Milwaukee area added about an hour to that.

The campground we stayed at was on a kettle lake called Mauthe Lake. Our own site was up on a high ridge, back a ways from the lake. It was not too close to the other camp sites which made getting to sleep at night easier. After we set up our camp, we walked down to the lake and along the lake until it started to get dark, and then returned to our tent for the night.

Saturday morning we went to the Ice Age Visitors Center, a few miles north of our campsite, to take part in a naturalist program for children. There were about a dozen children there with their parents. The Big Guy was one of the oldest ones. Recommended ages for the program were six to twelve, so he was near the upper limit of that range, but we had fun. The program mostly involved looking for the tiny animals which live in the soil and leaf litter of prairie or forest. The afternoon and early evening were spent hiking through the woods on the moraine and along Mauthe Lake.

Late in the evening, we went to another family naturalist program, this one on astronomy. We learned how to find the summer constellations, and looked at the three planets, Jupiter, Venus, and Mercury, which were visible in the evening sky.

Sunday morning was spent packing up our camp gear and canoeing. We rented a canoe on Mauthe Lake, and paddled all around the lake and about a mile or so up a slow, meandering creek which feeds into the lake. The creek, particularly, was beautiful, lined with willows and alders, with blue irises in bloom along the banks.

All the time we had our ears and eyes open for birds. Our camp site was surrounded by Eastern Towhees calling their name, “tow HE-EE-EE”, and House Wrens with their gurgling song. In the woods we were always hearing the insistent chant of Ovenbirds and whistled phrases of Red-eyed Vireos. Along the stream, we continually heard the dry trill of Swamp Sparrows and the “witchity-witchity-witchity” of Yellowthroats.

We were able to identify 60 bird species during our stay. Here is the list of the birds we found. Great Blue Heron, Turkey Vulture, Canada Goose, Roughed Grouse, Killdeer, Black Tern, Yellow-billed Cuckoo, Barred Owl, Chimney Swift, Belted Kingfisher, Red-bellied Woodpecker, Downy Woodpecker, Hairy Woodpecker, Northern Flicker, Eastern Wood-Pewee, Acadian Flycatcher, Alder Flycatcher, Willow Flycatcher, Eastern Phoebe, Great Crested Flycatcher, Warbling Vireo, Red-eyed Vireo, Blue Jay, American Crow, Tree Swallow, Barn Swallow, Black-capped Chickadee, Red-breasted Nuthatch, White-breasted Nuthatch, House Wren, Blue-gray Gnatcatcher, Veery, American Robin, Gray Catbird, Cedar Waxwing, Blue-winged Warbler, Yellow Warbler, Chestnut-sided Warbler, Black-throated Green Warbler, Ovenbird, Common Yellowthroat, Hooded Warbler, Scarlet Tanager, Eastern Towhee, Chipping Sparrow, Field Sparrow, Song Sparrow, Swamp Sparrow, Northern Cardinal, Rose-breasted Grosbeak, Indigo Bunting, Red-winged Blackbird, Common Grackle, Brown-headed Cowbird, Baltimore Oriole, and American Goldfinch.

A Movie
After the Big Guy and I got back from our camping trip, the family decided to take me out to dinner for Father’s Day, and then to a movie. The movie we picked was the new Miyazaki movie, “Howl’s Moving Castle”.

In my household we are all huge fans for Hayao Miyazaki, and me as much as anyone. In my profile, I list “Princess Mononoke” as one of my favorite movies, but I could almost as readily have named “Spirited Away” or “My Neighbor Totoro”, also directed by Miyazaki. (“Kiki’s Delivery Service” and “Naussica of the Valley of Winds” are also quite good.) Yeah, these are all animated children’s movies, but they are children’s movies which are worth watching even if you don’t have children watching them with you. (Actually, “Princess Mononoke” is not appropriate for younger children.)

Unfortunately, “Howl’s Moving Castle” is not the equal of “Princess Mononoke” or “Spirited Away”. But even second-rate Miyazaki is well worth watching on the big screen. Ever since Disney’s “Aladdin”, most American family movies are too busy trying to be hip and trendy to ever get around to doing anything really interesting. It’s nice that Miyazaki is still making movies which aspire to something more.

My Reading List

2005-05-30T11:04:00.000-07:00

When I chose something to read, I tend to act on impulse. I go to the library, usually to the 200’s, 500’s, or 900’s in the Dewey decimal system, and just pull down whatever catches my eye. I have a lot of books that I’ve been planning, often for years, to read “someday”, but I almost always forget these when I go to the library or bookstore.

I’ve resolved to change this for a while and finally get around to reading some of those things I’ve been planning to read. In fact, I’ve already made a start on this, reading Sand County Almanac, Black Elk Speaks, and Wuthering Heights within the last year or so, as well as finishing the entire Old and New Testament and most of the Apocrypha. (I think the Bible counts as at least 66 books!) To go a step further, I’ve come up with a list of all the books I can think of that I’ve been intending to read “someday”.

The 31 books on this list are on it for a variety of reasons. Some are considered “classics” in at least some circles. Others are obscure books which just happen to be on subjects which I am very interested in. Some of them are books which I have repeatedly seen referred to in other things I’ve enjoyed reading. Some of them are books on which movies I liked were based. Some of them are books which I once started to read and enjoyed immensely, but for one reason or another just never finished. In some cases, I heard the author speaking on public radio and thought, "I gotta read that book!"

I am not setting any timetable for reading these, or setting up any rules for myself, but I do plan to make an effort to get through most of them in the next year or two or three. I will post updates from time to time on my progress on this.

After I wrote this list, I realized that all but a few of the books in it fit into four broad categories. So here is the list by category. (The stars represent books I’ve already read a significant part of.)

Nature
Kingbird Highway, by Kenn Kaufman
The Voyage of the Beagle, by Charles Darwin
Desert Solitaire, by Edward Abbey
Sibley’s Birding Basics, by David Allen Sibley *
Coast Redwood: A Natural and Cultural History, edited by John Evarts and Marjorie Popper *
Last Chance to See, by Douglas Adams
The Mind of the Raven, by Bernd Heinrich

Indians and Cowboys
The Sacred Pipe, by Nicholas Black Elk and Joseph Epes Brown *
Dances With Wolves, by Michael Blake
Lonesome Dove, by Larry McMurtry
Undaunted Courage, by Stephen Ambrose
The Return of Little Big Man, by Thomas Berger *
A Good Year to Die, by Charles Robinson *
The English Patient, by Michael Ondaatje

Classics and Near-Classics
Moby Dick, by Hermann Melville *
Stranger in a Strange Land, by Robert Heinlein
Life on the Mississippi, by Mark Twain
The Aeneid, by Virgil
The Histories, by Herodotus
Lolita, by Vladimir Nabokov *

Public Affairs
Fast Food Nation, by Eric Schlosser
The Corporation, by Joel Bakan
Strategic Ignorance, by Carl Pope
Manufacturing Consent, by Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky
Dude, Where's My Country? by Michael Moore
Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them, by Al Franken
The End of Poverty, by Jeffrey Sachs

Other
One River, Many Wells, by Matthew Fox
Nature's Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West, by William Cronon
The Bonesetter’s Daughter, by Amy Tan
Vietnam, a History, by Stanley Karnow

Chain O’Lakes State Park, Lake County, Illinois – May 20 – 22.

2005-05-24T20:44:00.000-07:00

Illinois is, to be blunt, a bad place to live for a nature lover. Only about 3% of the land in Illinois remains in its natural state. The only state of the fifty states which is worse in this regard is my native state of Iowa, where less than 2% of the land remains in its natural state. Still, even in Illinois one can find some nice green spots to enjoy, even if they aren’t exactly pristine.

The Big Guy and I spent the weekend in such a pleasant green spot. Chain O’Lakes State Park is not exactly a wilderness. It is small and the land and water were roughly used before it became a state park about sixty years ago. In fact the water is still roughly used by sports fisherman and speed boats. Still, it was a happy weekend.

We loaded up the car and left home late in the afternoon on Friday. The park is about an hour’s drive from our home, and we were there by about 5:30.

One of my goals for the weekend was to find a Sedge Wren, which, according to the birding guides I read, usually nests at the south end of Turner Lake near the campground where we had reservations. So after we set up camp, we went to the lake to have a look for the first of several times. Unfortunately, the Sedge Wrens either weren’t present this year, or chose to keep still whenever I was around. We heard lots of Yellowthroats, Yellow Warblers, and Redwing Blackbirds, but no Sedge Wrens.

After that, we went to the park concession to check prices on rental canoes. We birded around the boat launch area and tried to find a place where we could see the Sand Hill Cranes which we kept hearing. It was clear that we were a symbiotic team when we birded. The Big Guy had the sharp eyes of youth and often saw birds first, and I had the experience to know what they were.

In the evening at our campsite we saw some raccoons, no doubt checking to see if we had dropped anything edible on the ground.

The next morning was mostly dedicated to canoeing, one of the Big Guy’s favorite activities. We paddled a few miles up the Fox River, which flows through the park, and then back down for about three and a half hours. The weather was beautiful for this activity. The sky was clear except for a slight haze and the air was calm. Marsh Wrens, Yellowthroats, and Willow Flycatchers sang along the river banks, Barn Swallows, Tree Swallows, and Rough-winged Swallows skimmed the river for insects, and Foster’s Terns dove for fish. At one point we saw a beaver swimming in the river, and at another we saw a Sand Hill Crane carrying a round, white object (a duck eggs, perhaps?) in its bill, while a brave little Redwing squawked and attacked its rump, to no apparent effect.

We went back to our camp site for lunch. An American Redstart was singing in the trees near our camp site as we prepared lunch, and he stayed around for the rest of the weekend, but, try as we might, we never saw this beautiful bird.

After lunch, we went for a leisurely hike of about five miles and saw lots of birds. I don’t think I have ever seen so many Baltimore Orioles, or Bluegrey Gnatcatchers, or Indigo Buntings as I saw that afternoon. At one place, we found the nest of a pair of Bluegrey Gnatcatchers, high in a tree near a picnic area. The parents seemed to be displeased that we were staring at their nest, so we left as soon as we had seen what there was to see.

Rarer finds included a Cerulean Warbler, a Philadelphia Vireo, and an Olive-sided Flycatcher. The latter bird was one I had never seen before – my first life-list bird in Illinois in almost eight years.

When we went back to the campground, we found it much more crowded and noisy than it had been the previous night, and there seemed to be a frat-house party atmosphere among some of the campers. But fortunately everyone respected the official quiet hours, and by ten o’clock we were able to enjoy the night noises for a short time before we went to sleep.

We got some rain the following morning (Sunday). We had planned to go canoeing again that morning, but the rain and a forecast of possible thunderstorms made us change our plans. We packed up our camping things and got ready to return home. But by the time we were finished packing the rain had stopped, so we spent a couple of hours hiking one of the trails we didn’t do the previous day. Again, we had good luck finding birds. Finds of the day included a Kingfisher, a Great Egret, a Least Flycatcher, and a Yellow-throated Vireo. We also found a Warbling Vireo sitting on a nest, again looking unhappy that her nesting site was discovered.

We didn’t stay long on Sunday. The Big Guy had a school project to do, so we left around 11 AM.

Weekend Under the Redwoods

2005-05-10T08:11:00.000-07:00

My love of the California Redwood trees is at odds with my enthusiasm for birding. Forests of giant redwoods are not particularly good places to look for birds, as relatively few bird species live in the deep shade of these forests. But last week the redwoods won out over the birds as I was making by weekend plans, and I went camping among the redwoods trees and banana slugs of Big Basin Redwood State Park, near Santa Cruz, California. The birding actually turned out not to bad.

I took off a few hours early from work on Friday, May 6th. (I’d given them 40 hours and more already. I wasn’t cheating anyone.) It took me about an hour to load up the wagon and about an hour and a half to drive to the park (the last half-hour for the last ten miles of narrow, twisty mountain road) and I was registering at the park office by about 4:30. The camp ground I stayed in was very no-frills. A fire pit, a picnic table, and a designated spot on the ground were about the limit of the amenities. Plus there was a 100 foot walk from my parking space to the actual camp site. But I much prefer the no-frills, walk-in camp sites. It just doesn’t seem like a complete camping experience if person next door is running an air conditioner.

And, of course, one aspect of the camp site was incomparable: you could step out of the door of your tent in the morning and put you hand on a beautiful living thing that was already growing before the English language existed.

After I had my camp site set up the way I wanted it, I took a drive to the near-by town of Boulder Creek for a hot meal at a nice little cafe.

Saturday morning I was up an on the trail by about 5:30. My destination was a craggy peak called “Buzzard’s Roost”. I didn’t see any buzzards on this walk, but I did see a Short-eared Owl flying over head. That was exciting, since I had never seen one before. Since a redwood forest was not the normal habitat for this species, I assume he was on his way to somewhere else. This particular trail had more oaks and low scrubby growth than redwoods. There were quite a few birds in this area, but they were mostly invisible in the foliage. This was birding by ear, which is the most challenging way to do it, but I used to be quite good at it, and I am starting to get good at it again. I counted twenty-five species on that walk, most of which I was able to identify by voice, either on the spot, or from my notes once I got back to my apartment and compared them to recordings.

I took two hikes that day, one in the morning, from about five-thirty to noon, and one later in the day from three until about nine. The long break in between was because I was battling a bad cold that day and needed to take it easy. As I almost always do, I walked at a very leisurely pace, stopping frequently to look at birds, butterflies, flowers, female hikers, and any other pretty sights which caught my attention. The trail I took in the afternoon took me past thousands of showy ivory-colored flowers which I never did learn the name of, but which were something in the iris family.

The final walk back to my camp site looked like it was going to turn into a real adventure. Here, the word “adventure” means an experience which is a lot more fun to read about than to actually live through. I had underestimated how much time it would take to get back to the tent, and by the end it was getting pretty dark. The flashlight I had with me was just about powerful enough to show me my feet once it got really dark, and the trail was muddy, slippery, and uneven.

Then, just as I was about a hundred yards from the camp site, something happened which made the whole muddy experience worthwhile. An owl called from a tree just over my head. A Western Screech-owl! A life-list bird!

If you don’t see how a few moments of hearing an owl calling in the darkness can more than make up for muddy jeans, wet socks, and stubbed toes, then you are not a birder, and I can probably never explain it to you.

The next day it started raining about five o’clock, just before my alarm clock went off. But nine, it was looking like it was going to rain all day. So, mindful of the fact that I wanted to get over my cold, rather than have it progress to pneumonia, I finally packed up my camping stuff and, after breakfast at the café in Boulder Creek, headed home. (Yeah, I wimped out.)

So that was my camping trip. How was your weekend?

If you see this, Mom, Happy Mother's Day!

2005-05-06T13:43:00.000-07:00

I'll call you Sunday, late afternoon or early evening.

My Heart Goes Out to Michael Schiavo

2005-05-05T17:31:00.000-07:00

In case you have just returned to civilization after living in a cave for the last few months, or have a very short memory, Michael Schiavo was the husband of Terri Schiavo, a woman in Florida who recently died after fifteen years in a persistent vegetative state and who was the subject of a big political rhubarb. My heart goes out to Michael Schiavo because he has been vilified for doing exactly what I would want my wife to do if I were in Mrs Schaivo’s state; namely, getting on with life and turning off those accursed "life"-support machines. I can’t do much for Mr Schaivo, beyond expressing my support in a blog which very few people will ever see, but I can to something for my self against the day when, God forbid, I am in the state Mrs Schaivo was in.

So, just in case someday some Doctor Frankenstein wants to use a machine to pump blood through my body, or some “pro-life” ghouls want to force-feed my body through a tube, here are the criteria use to determine whether to leave the life-support machines running.

Unless there is a good chance that I will one day again be able to stand on a mountain top, or on an untamed seashore, or walk through forests or meadows, turn off the machines!

Unless there is a good chance that I will one day again be able to tell a Song Sparrow from a House Sparrow, turn off the machines!

Unless there is a good chance that I will one day again be able to go places I’ve never been before, see things I’ve never seen before, and learn things I’ve never known before, turn off the machines!

Unless there is a good chance that I will one day again be able to make decisions which affect my own destiny, turn off the machines!

What do I mean by a “good chance”? I mean at least an even chance. Unless it is at least as likely that I will recover to the extent of meeting the conditions above as it is that I will not recover, turn off the machines.

I would not want to live if I could not truly live.

Ryerson Woods, Lake County, Illinois, April 28, 2005

2005-04-29T19:12:00.000-07:00

Today my parents are visiting Illinois from Iowa. We were in the mood to do a walk in the woods, so we went over to Ryerson Woods in Lincolnshire, Illinois.

Ryerson Woods is a unit of the Lake County Forest Preserves, and one of the premier birding spots in the Chicago area. It is prominently featured in both Sheryl DeVore’s excellent travel guide, Birding Illinois, and in Carpenter and Greenwood’s equally fine book, A Birder’s Guide to the Chicago Region.

It was a beautiful spring day and the woods were lovely in the new spring green leaves. The forest floor was covered in wildflowers. Trilliums, large white flowers with three point flowers, were prominent, and violets were everywhere. There were several others which I didn’t know the names of. (Birds I know, but wildflowers are another matter.)

Ryerson Woods is a place were you hear many more birds than you see, and although we didn’t see many birds the air was full of music. Most of the singers were goldfinches, on the edge between the woods and a prairie area in the middle of the preserve, but there were also blue jays, cowbirds, cardinals, flickers, and red-bellied woodpeckers. The Des Plaines River runs through the center of the preserve, and we could hear the rattle of a kingfisher out of sight just down the river. There was one persistant song which I could not quite recognize, but later determined to be a Wilson's warbler.

The sight of a single tree swallow, and the chilly temperatures, prompted the observation that one swallow does not make a summer. The prairie area had several bluebird houses set up, and there was at least one potential tenant among them.

I had never stopped by the visitor’s center, and we saw it was open, so we stopped. The staff was smart, friendly, and eager to please. The building is a beauty, resembling an old plantation house. There was a small natural history library and bird exhibit. We were told that they often have art exhibits there, but they did not have one up at that time.

Ryerson Woods is a joy to visit and highly recommended to any nature lovers visiting the North suburbs of Chicago.

The New Pope (Same as the Old Pope)

2005-04-21T22:00:00.000-07:00

Some might say that I am unqualified to comment on the Pope. I have never been Catholic, and although I am very much attracted to the pomp and ceremony of the traditional Catholic mass, there is probably no chance that I ever will be Catholic.

That being said, the Pope influences a lot of people, and what he says and does makes a difference to all of us. From my point of view, the selection of the rigid traditionalist Joseph Ratzinger as Pope, though not unexpected, is very bad news. Pope John Paul II was never a friend to those who love the natural world and care about the future. Ratzinger, now Benedict XVI, is a man cut from same material as JP2.

We humans are rapidly crushing the life out of this world by the shear weight of our ever-increasing numbers. I know there are some economists and conservative ideologues, of the Julian Simon school of thought, who say this either isn’t true or it doesn’t matter. But under scrutiny their arguments on this subject boil down to: “You can’t convince me of anything, because I’m not listening.” It is happening, and it does matter to anyone with a soul and a conscience. Pope JP2 did more than any other single person of our time to encourage this tragic trend.

I remember a few years before his health started to fail, JP2 took a trip to several African countries. Africa is were the loss of our natural heritage is occurring the fastest. The causes of this are many and complex, but rapid population growth is undeniable the biggest factor. Population growth also contributes to poverty and hunger in Africa, which in turn lead to political instability, war, and genocide. What was the Pope’s message as he traveled around Africa? He warned the people there of the evils of birth control and praised them for having so many children! I could not even imagine a more evil thing for him to say.

JP2 tried to do some positive things. I commend him for trying to reduce hostility between various religions. He rightly condemned the industrialized countries for our excessive materialism. And, although I cannot think of anything better to improve the conditions of the poor than reliable family planning (the one thing the Pope tried to deny them), I think JP2 was sincere in his compassion for the poor, in his own peculiar way. Still, from my point of view, his opposition to family planning outweighs all the good things he did by as much as an elephant outweighs a grasshopper.

Toronto Sightseeing - March 2005.

2005-04-20T18:19:00.000-07:00

I took my family to Toronto, Ontario, for a vacation towards the end of March. On our first day in Toronto, we saw the famous CN Tower, which dominates the skyline of Toronto. The day was fairly clear and we could see all the way across Lake Ontario.

Big Zoo
The second day we saw the Toronto Zoo, which is possibly the largest zoo I have ever seen. We couldn't see the whole zoo in one day, just two-thirds of it. It is not only big, but a lovely zoo as well. Worth a visit for any zoology lovers visiting the city.

Massive Propaganda
We spent the first part of the next day in the Art Gallery of Ontario, a rather small art museum. They had a special exhibit going on called "Massive Change" which was massively advertised around the city, but which we weren't really wild about. The concept had to do with how designers are dealing with the problems of global change. Okay in concept, and interesting in execution, but for my taste it showed much too much of the point of view of the corporate sponsors of the show. The message was that there are all these world problems that just happen to be out there, and these wonderful corporations were inventing ways to deal with them. There was no sense that the corporate economic and political system is itself a big source of the problems. (For a contrary point of view, see one of my favorite documentaries, "The Corporation", which I think is now available on DVD.) We liked the permanent exhibits of European and Canadian art in the Art Gallery better.

More Interesting Than It Sounds
We also saw the Bata Shoe Museum. A museum dedicated to shoes actually turns out to be more interesting than it sounds. Its interesting how this one subject, shoes, which I didn’t think I had any interest in, can touch on so many things which I am interested in: anthropology, history, even religion.

Rich Guy's Digs
The following morning we saw one of the better known tourist spots in Toronto: Casa Loma. This was a huge castle-like mansion built in the early 1900's by a wealthy industrialist who then proceeded to lose all his money on bad investments after World War I. It was interesting for people who like extravagant architecture. In the afternoon we saw the Science Center of Toronto. This is a hands-on museum aimed at children about my son’s age, and he really enjoyed it. It turned out to be another thing which was too big to see in one day, and it was kind of crowded due to it being a holiday.

Feathered Dinosaurs
On our last full day there, we spent most of it at the Royal Ontario Museum. This would have been another thing which would have been too big to see in a day, but much of it was closed for renovations. Even what was opened was quite a variety of thing. It had natural history, art, and archaeology exhibits. It had a fascinating special exhibit called "Feathered Dinosaurs" about some recent discoveries in paleontology. If you have ever seen "Jurassic Park", you might be interested to know that the Velocaraptors, the scaly bad guys in that movie, should probably have had feathers, because they were actually flightless birds, and fossils of some of their close relatives have feathers.

Speechifying
After the museum we stopped at the Ontario Parliament building, but we were too late for the last tour. They did let us into the visitor's chamber where we could watch the politicians speechifying. They sounded not too different from US politicians.

Petition to save Giant Sequoia National Monument

2005-04-15T07:41:00.000-07:00

Please go to the link below and sign the petition to stop George Bush's plan to clear-cut Giant Sequoia National Monument.
http://www.sierraclub.org/petition/sequoia-give-dm?Promocode=D05DSQW125&asking=35

Also, this link will help you write a letter to your representative, asking to save the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
http://www.capitolconnect.com/audubon/summary.asp?subject=378

Tamalpais State Park, Marin County, California – March 5-6, 2005.

2005-04-07T19:35:00.000-07:00

This is an entry transcribed from my journal, and edited somewhat for brevity and clarity.

I had a wonderful time this weekend camping at the Pan Toll campground of Mount Tamalpais State Park. I drove up to Marin County from my apartment in San Mateo on Saturday morning. The camp site I chose was on a ridge overlooking Muir Woods National Monument. It was a most pleasant camp site, even though it was quite a walk from the camp ground parking lot.

After setting up camp, I took a hike along beautiful oak savannah hillsides and then along a stream which descended steeply though a densely wooded canyon in a series of gorgeous waterfalls. The woods were filled with the songs of juncos, winter wrens, and brown creepers.

In the evening the stars were very bright overhead, so I tried looking at them with my spotting scope. I don’t know much about astronomy, so I didn’t really know what I was looking at, but I think I found some nebulae in Orion’s sword which I didn’t know were there.

In the wee hours of the morning I was awaken by an owl going “hu-hoo, hoo”. I couldn’t really tell for sure what kind of owl it was, even though it was quite close to my tent. I think it was probably a great horned owl, though I tried hard to convince myself that it was a spotted owl.

After breakfast, I hiked down from my campsite to Muir Woods, through the stunningly beautiful old-growth redwood forest. As I got to the bottom of the valley, the trails got crowded with people, as they always are there on the weekends, but unlike the first time I was there (several months ago), I was savvier about avoiding the crowds. When I am among those giant firs and redwoods, I feel as if I am in church, only much more so. To me, quiet reverence seems only acceptable attitude. Unfortunately, so many others there act as though they are at a carnival side show, and I get a bit annoyed with them.

After having lunch at the Muir Woods visitor’s center, I hiked a round-about path back to my car at the campground parking lot, going along the sunny chaparral to the west of the national monument. The usual sunny hillside birds were they, including western bluebirds, band-tailed pigeons, and several birds of prey. I got a beautiful view of a peregrine falcon perched in at large broken fir tree at the forest edge.

Little Big Year

2005-03-20T18:45:00.000-08:00

For any readers of this who are not familiar with birding, among birders a “big year” refers to the practices of putting almost every other aspect of your life on hold and dedicating an entire year to trying to see as many species of birds as possible, usually within some defined area such as the United States and Canada. Some people get really competitive with their big years, and some try to set some sort of record, like seeing the most birds ever in one year in the United States and Canada while spending less than $10,000.

Owing to my wife’s total lack of interest in birding, and her understandable insistence on having a stable income for our family, it is certain that I will never do a big year. But 2004 was probably the closest I will ever come to doing a big year, so, borrowing from the name of one of my favorite novels (see profile), I am calling 2004 my Little Big Year.

I started birding in 1982 and gave it up in the early nineties after my first child was born. Well, I didn’t give it up completely. I still did it once or twice a year, or sometimes three or four times a year.

Then, in September, 2003, in need of a work, I took a temporary position in the San Francisco area and was spending nearly all my time away from my family. For about a year I was in California almost all the time except for about one weekend a month. Even since then I have been spending quite a bit of time in California, being there about one weekend a month. Since I’m an hourly consultant, I only have to work forty hours a week. Hence, when I am out in California I have a lot of free time on my hands. Even with all this free time, I didn’t really start birding in earnest until about March of 2004. Before then I was doing a lot of California sightseeing, but only a little casual birding. But once I got started birding again, I really got started.

2004 was probably my biggest year of birding since before I got married. In fact, I have probably done more birding then in all the other fourteen and a half years since getting married, all put together. In 2004, I estimate, I went birding on somewhere between 60 and 70 occasions, including stops on the way home from work. In addition to birding in my home state of Illinois and my favorite state of California, I birded during family vacations in Alberta and South Carolina. During 2004 I got sixty life-list birds: two in Alberta, one in South Carolina, and fifty-seven in California. This is in addition to twelve others I got in California in 2003. Only in 1983, the year I first started birding, did I get more life-list birds.

I counted up how many species I saw in 2004 and came up with 217. (This is a retrospective count, and therefore I probably missed a few.) To put this in perspective, it took to 1990 for me to get that many birds on my life-list. In other words, I found more birds in 2004 than in the first 30 years of my life all put together. On the other hand, a real big year is considered a success if you see at least 650 species.

At the end of 2004, my life-list had 393 bird species in total. Since then, in 2005, I have added eight more species to my life-list. My 400th life-list bird was the Canyon Wren, seen in Pinnacles National Monument in February of this year.

In 2004 my single best day in terms of life-list birds was April 10, when I got six life-list birds along the bay shore in Haywood, California. These were the Black-necked Stilt, the American Avocet, the Long-billed Curlew, the Marbled Godwit, the Short-billed Dowitcher, and the Rufus-crowned Sparrow. Two days of birding which got me five life-list birds were July 10 at Mines Road and Del Valle Recreation Area near Livermore, California, and August 14 at Pillar Point, along the Pacific cost of the San Francisco Peninsula.

The most productive places for me in terms of life-list birds were Yosemite National Park where I got seven life-list birds on two trips: the Mountain Quail, California Gull, Williamsons Sapsucker, White-headed Woodpecker, Cassin’s Vireo, Townsend’s Solitaire, and Black-headed Grosbeak; and Half Moon Bay, where I also got seven on several trips: the White-tailed Kite, Eared Grebe, Peregrine Falcon, Western Sandpiper, Red-necked Phalarope, and Common Murre.