A Sunday Stroll to the Stratosphere

Sunday I went birding with Don and another birder Sue (a new Birdin' Buddy for Don) in Butano State Park. It was cold, foggy and rather dismal - as coastal forests usually are this time of year. Sue had checked and found a nice ‘easy trail’ for us to hike, with the purpose of finding Pileated Woodpeckers. It was a beautiful forested trail, that wound its way up the hillside which after reading about the trail Sue assured us had only a gradual rise in elevation. Uh… right. The only gradual rise was my heart rate. Hummm… no the rise in my heart rate wasn’t gradual, it was sharp. The person who thought the trail was ‘easy’ had to have been a strapping six-foot park ranger, because he sure as hell wasn’t a 5 foot five tubby woman like me. Early on in our hike we were visited by a cute little Winter Wren that sung its bubbly happy song for us. That was when we started the accent, and that is when all bird life on the mountain ceased to exist. That’s how it goes sometimes; a great effort to hike doesn’t necessarily pay off in an abundance of birds. Life can be annoying like that. We did hear a Hairy Woodpecker but at the top of the hill there were no Pileated Woodpeckers waiting for us uphill; boogers.

The rear sled dog only sees the pink bouncing butt holes of the lead dogs; I can relate.
A Snag (dead tree) covered over with Christmas silvery Spanish Moss

Same snag viewed from way up the hill

One advantage of stopping to sweat and pant is you have time to admire the wildlife and the flowers, like this Indian Warrior.

Banana Sluggie

Don and Sue headed back down the hillside.

After the hike, we headed to the little town of Pescadero for a great lunch at Duarte's Diner. Later we went on a hunt for a Ferruginous Hawk; a particular bird that Sue often sees on the route we took. The hawk had other plans and we didn't find it. Then our little trio broke up; Don and I headed for Thornton Reserve. There we went on a short walk that paid off with a surprising event.

Don pointed out a chickadee that was flitting around in a tree and a Peregrine Falcon flew in, alighting on a tall tree not too far from us. Peregrine’s are always a treat but this one even more so. I was puttering around and Don shouted. I turned to look and see the Peregrine dive bombing toward Don! WHOMP! The Peregrine miss judged its dive and smacked itself into a tree branch! Beautiful poofy blue-grey down feathers floated earthward. Tee hee… the poor Peregrine must have been making a dive for the little chickadee but it misjudged its own trajectory. The Peregrine flew off dazed and probably nursing a headache, but otherwise unharmed. Must have been a young bird, not too familiar with the concept ‘hey, is that branch there between me and my lunch?’

Waking Up Goofy

Woke in the wee hours of the Saturday morning and began to prod and poke my left hand, trying to find and read the LED (light emiting diode) light panel built into the flesh of my hand. At the time it seemed a perfectly sensible thing to do. I lay sleepily running my fingers over my palm and along the front and back of each finger, but could not find the built in LED panel so I could read the numbers. I knew my hand had electronic numbers on it but why couldn't I find it? It took a minute or two for my brain to click out of dream cycle. ‘What the...?'

Strange things happen when I open my eyes while most of my brain is still in deep REM sleep.

Claire Habitat

Several days ago, while rummaging around the Internet I ran across Neo Earth, which provided the oh-so-cool map of earth seen on the right side of this blog as Claire Habitat. Quite the eye-opener the thing is. Had no inkling that in a given day my blog gets visits – peeked at, if not actually read, from every corner of the Big Blue Marble (loved that show when I was a kid).

Neo Earth enabled me over the past week to know that I’ve had ‘guests’ from as far away as Ghana, Argentina, Stezzano Italy, Athens Greece, and several from China; Jilin, Taizhou and Bejing. How amazing to think, however brief the visits might be, that my ikle blog is peeked at - literally - around the world.
Not all the visitors are unknown entities. I know the visits from Yakima Washington are from my buddy Diane (Hi Di!). The New York visitor is most likely my brother (Yo, Juanie!). The viewer from Salt Lake City is no Latter Day Saint, but is a freshman at the University of Utah, my friend Carolanne (Oy, Carolanne!). Isn't that too cool? So click on the NeoEarth map on the right, top of the blog and have a look at who's having a look. Travel the world without having to get through airport security. Liquids & gels in your back pocket & keeping your shoes on are all are A-OK here in Claire-land.