Last Road Trip Post, 8 Months Later...Part VI

I think I learned my lesson about many-sectioned posts. This ridiculous string of road trip posts from something I did 8 months ago is a little ridiculous. I must either write them in the moment or be better at summarizing later. Thanks for sticking with me!

Buff-breasted Flycatcher, Empidonax fulvifrons, in Carr Canyon, SEAZ.

We spent two days in Southeast Arizona, staying at Patagonia Lake State Park and birding as much as possible. Then we drove to Joshua Tree and camped--we had not eaten since noon in Madera Canyon and we arrived at J. Tree around ten, so we had been planning an epic meal the entire way but by the time we got there we were so exhausted we ate clif bars and went to bed immediately. We learned the next morning that our stove didn't have enough gas anyway. After J.Tree we headed to Midland and then home via Big Sur. I will leave you with a long string of photos. End of Road Trip! I know we both had a great time.

Grace's Warbler, Setophaga graciae, in Carr Canyon, SEAZ.

One of my favorites, Vermilion Flycatcher, Pyrocephalus rubinus, what a name! Patagonia Lake State Park.

Summer Tanager, Piranga rubra, Patagonia Lake SP.

Botteri's Sparrow, Peucaea botterii, Patagonia Lake-ish.

 

The same Thick-billed Kingbird that all my friends saw at the roadside pullout. Tyrannus crassirostris.

Super awesome Gray Hawk, Buteo plagiatus, eating flesh (can't see it, sorry).

And then this happened in Big Sur. This is the first time I have seen a life bird and immediately burst into tears. I just never thought I'd see a California Condor that close. For some reason I always expected my condor sighting would be seeing a speck in the distance and just barely being to identify it, but instead, my first condor experience was coming around a bend in the road and swerving to the side and realizing that we were not looking at just one condor, but 10. That's about 4% of the wild population. We got to spend over twenty minutes with these magical and bizarre creatures before they all soared out of sight on the wind, miles away in minutes.

California Condor, Gymnogyps californianus. The timeless and ageless old man of the skies.

Baby condors have black heads!

Two adults taking off into that giant sky. I will never forget this experience.

Chiricahua National Monument: Road Trip Part V

Chiricahua National Monument in southeast Arizona. It's pronounced Cheer-uh-cow-uh, not Cheery-cuh-who-uh, named for the Apache people from that area.

We breezed through New Mexico (and by that I mean it was so hot we nearly died) and made it to Chiricahua National Monument very early the next morning. We drove to the top of the monument and enjoyed the sun warming the bizarre and incredible rock formations.

The goal bird of the day was a Red-faced Warbler so we set out on a long hike into the canyons to an area where they are usually seen. We were surrounded by awesome birds the whole time. Yellow-eyed Juncos, Hepatic Tanager, Dusky-capped Flycatcher, Montezuma Quail! In the depths of the canyon we lucked out and saw a Mexican Chickadee, a Painted Redstart, and our goal bird, the Red-faced Warbler. Unfortunately, I didn't get a picture because I have a policy with life birds to really see them before I lift up my camera. This little guy was in full view for only a few minutes, then popped back in the trees and bopped around for a bit before he disappeared. Next time!

Black-throated Gray Warbler, Setophaga nigrescens.

Later in the evening we walked to the Faraway Ranch, where my father had written a history of the little cabin, and found an Arizona Woodpecker on the way back! We also found this Desert Grassland Whiptail digging.

Arizona Woodpecker, Picoides arizonae.

Desert Grassland Whiptail Lizard, Aspidoscelis uniparens.

It was a great trip to the Chiricahuas. I can't wait to go back there and spend more time exploring and birding! I would also really like to see a Coatimundi.

Important Note: I am heading out to Santa Cruz Island tomorrow! Though I still have a few more road trip adventures to share, I may detour and my next post will be from the island about the island!

Chisos: Ghosts or Forest People? Road Trip Part IV

Chisos Mountains, which either means ghosts/spirits (Catalan/Spanish) or people of the trees (Apache). Both are very fitting.

We trucked it through Texas with as few stops as possible. Remember, it was June, so it was hot and my little truck doesn't have air conditioning, so we rolled along Interstate 10 with the windows down. The sweltering rush of air from the speed of the truck did little to cool our skin. We needed to get as high as possible (elevation-wise, dude) to get out of the burnanation, so we were headed for Big Bend National Park. We got up above 5,000 feet in the early evening and let the magic of nature wash over us, the clear night sky filled with pinprick stars whispered away the stress from the clanging and whooshing little metal pods that had hurtled around us at breakneck speeds all day.

On June 6th, in the Chisos Basin Campground, I wrote the following in my long-neglected journal:
"It's a warm, blustery night below the stars and I am free once again. I will not recount the trivial yet monumental misery of the past few months [at school] because it is over and done with--right now I am appreciating right now, here. This place is stunning and the heat adds to its essence--when I was here last in January 2011 (wow, 3.5 years just scoots by, doesn't it) it was cool enough to not feel particularly like a desert but now, in the heat of June, it is full-fledged HOT and it feels so real. The Texas desert...Being here, at 5,000+ feet, could not be more perfect for my soul. Sleeping outside with a breeze to keep the bugs away and a clear shy with stars--YES. Tomorrow we will hike up to Boot Springs to find a Colima Warbler--a 9-mile round trip hike into spectacular country, mountain lion country, to search for a tiny bird (my kind of adventure!). For now I am going to turn out my light and enjoy the wind and the [relatively] cool air while it lasts."

Cactus Wren, Campylorhynchus brunneicapillus, on our trail sign.

We met many facemelting birds the next day and one very exciting face-tingling herp. First, the warbler--Colima Warbler, Oreothlypis crissalis--is only found in this mountain range in the US. The rest of their population is in Mexico. They are also a part of one of my favorite groups of warblers (I say group rather than genus because, well, I liked it better when they were Vermivora) so I was excited about finally seeing this one and completing my vermivora/oreothlypis species list (SOOO NERDY. "Completing" taxonomic groups [which you can break down into varying sizes depending on how specific you get] is really fun. I've completed all the North American nuthatches, for example [that's an easy one], but I still need Brown Jay to complete my N.A. Jays). Anyway, we had only been hiking for a short while, maybe 2 or 3 miles, and I heard an unfamiliar yet familiar song. It sounded like a Vermivora song, which I guess really is an Oreothlypis song, but whatever. My first instinct was right and we immediately spotted him singing from the very tip of a tiny snag. Adrenaline rush, then relaxing afterglow while we basked in the glory of this tiny puff of feathers for well over 20 minutes before he popped down into the brush and then up the canyon.

Colima Warbler, singing as loud as birdly possible.

Insolence or yoga?

Later in the hike, just plugging mindlessly down the trail, heat setting in, Ben yelled and jumped back. On the steep hillside next to us, about shoulder level, was a Rock Rattlesnake (either Banded or Mottled, hard to tell the subspecies' apart), Crotalus lepidus. EPIC.

We didn't see any mountain lions, but the journey really solidified how much I love Big Bend NP. Our last night camping there, we sat through an incredible and very intense lightning storm that surrounded the bowl of mountains we were in the basin of. It was both exhilarating and terrifying, and it was a crazy way to spend a night--completely unprotected from the elements, electric current coursing through the warm night, cold drops the size of Gobstoppers cracking open on the dusty ground. The cacti drank well that night.

We're Not Even Through Louisiana Yet! Part III

Gator at the fishing pier.

It felt like we were driving along the Louisiana coast for a longer than half a day because we kept pulling over at fishing piers and beaches and finding cool critters and situations. The air was hot and salty, a little thick, but the breeze off the Gulf pushed it all around, smoothing the edge between stifling and sufficiently dispersed particles. Once we made it west of the bayous, the gulf waves crashed brown on the straight sandy stretch of beach that touched Texas many miles away. Porpoise backs glimmered in the distant swells. The water was the exact color of exceedingly watered-down cowboy coffee (not that a real cowboy would ever water it down) with flecks of seaweed rather than fragrant coffee grounds. I was at once in a cloud of screaming Least Terns, hovering above like angels but with anger in their cries. When they calmed down and settled back into the sand, I made sure I wasn't near any nests and moved on. I made the happy discovery that my entire bar of chocolate had melted, which meant I got to drink it right then. All of it. We made it to Texas.

Carolina Anole, Anolis carolinensis.

That's called a dewlap. Yeah. A dewlap. This is a male displaying to me, probably telling me to fear him and GTFO.

Black-necked Stilt, Himantopus mexicanus. Why this bird is not named after a more prominent feature, say a pink-legged stilt, I do not know, but I think it was interestingly named...yes, it has black on it's neck, but most of it's neck is white...silly ornithologists.

Screaming Angel bird AKA Least Tern, Sternula antillarum.

This Laughing Gull, Leucophaeus atricilla, ushered us out of Louisiana and into the ginormous state of Texas. Or he was begging for food, but gulls don't do that, right?

Shamelessly Late Road Trip Post: Part II

As you can perhaps imagine, it's been a busy six and a half months since my last post. My mind was alternately filled with either too much stuff or too much emptiness to bring me to write eloquently about my incredible road trip with my brother. But now is the time, seeing as I am about to return to one of my blog-inspiration islands, Santa Cruz, in just a few short weeks.

We drove through Georgia on the idyllic back roads, which I highly recommend, and counted Mockingbirds on the telephone wires. After a long day of driving, we crossed into Alabama and pulled in to Tuskegee National Forest, the nation's smallest NF. The pine forest was bursting with Prairie and Yellow-throated Warbler songs.

That evening I stalked a toad, which, thanks to my Herpetology class this fall, I later identified as a Fowler's Toad, Bufo fowleri.

The next day we stopped by Splinter Hill Bog in southern Alabama and strolled through the carnivorous pitcher plants and towering pines. Keep your eye out for a post soon about why bogs are so fascinating.

 
We visited my dear friend James in New Orleans and were immersed in an up-close and personal view into the underground singer/songwriter scene in the Dirty Dirty, which was pretty incredible. We camped in Louisiana and met a campground armadillo, with whom we sat for a long while watching him or her while they snuffled around in the sand pit where our non-existent tent was supposed to go.

Stay tuned for Part III, which I promise will come much sooner than six months from now!