It was the strangest thing, and has been quietly haunting me ever since it happened.

We were on our way out the door to surprise a friend on his birthday, saying goodbye to a guest who had spent the night and was now on his way to Colorado, by bicycle. Tom had taken the first load of things out to the car, when he called me, and pointed out a small baby bird, still slightly downy, hopping and cheeping on our walkway. It didn’t seem able to fly yet, and could only manage a few feet in a flutter.

That was interesting, and I thought maybe I’d go out and take a picture. I sat down on the sidewalk, and started taking pictures, and the little guy (girl?) started hopping toward me. I held still, delighted to be getting a close-up view, and trying not to frighten it away. I shouldn’t have worried about that. It hopped straight up to me, and cuddled in next to my leg. When I moved away, it followed me and settled in again. It seemed cold (in spite of the down coat?), and desperately cute.

The only explanation for this one being out on its own, that I could think of, was that he’d been kicked out of his nest by a stronger sibling or something, and left without help from his parents, hopping and peeping as it was, it was probably going to end up as a coyote snack, if it didn’t die of exposure or starvation first.

Normally, I can be fairly stoic when it comes to natural selection. In nature, sometimes even the really cute little guys get killed and eaten, but then the cute little guys rarely make a personal plea. They rarely come right up and ask for a little warmth. It had snuggled up to me. It had started a Relationship.

Crap.

I know nothing about how to care for a young bird. I didn’t know what kind of bird it was, or what it would normally eat. If we fed it, would it still learn to forage for itself eventually? Even more of an issue, we were leaving for a 3 day weekend in San Diego. We couldn’t take it with us, or care for it while it was here. so, we settled for leaving an old fleece jacket on the sidewalk with the little bird, and continued packing the car. Almost immediately, the bird settled into the jacket and I was able to pick up jacket and bird and move it to a more sheltered location. Then we left.

Tom wondered aloud whether we’d really done it a favor or not. Starving to death doesn’t sound like a good way to go. Maybe it would have been better for it to have been left more exposed, to die more quickly from a predator.

We’ll never know. When we got back, the little bird was gone.

I learned later, that sometimes when a young bird is first learning to fly, it spends some time hopping and flapping furtively on the ground, with the mother bird nearby, before getting itself straightened out and getting on with its life. I choose to believe that is what happened to my little bird.

Of all the birds in Yosemite, this little brown bird is my new favorite kind of bird… or would be if someone can tell me what kind of bird it is.

We took a somewhat abbreviated backpacking trip out past Ostrander Lake June 25-27 to try out some of our new gear. The short version? We love it, and we had a great time. I also learned and re-learned a lot of stuff about backpacking. For a first trip, it was just right.

We left Thursday night around 9pm after getting off work and cooking up a yummy dinner the comfort of our own home, and hiked out to Horizon Ridge before setting up camp. In some ways I like hiking in the dark – it’s usually very quiet and peaceful. Plus, this was an out and back trip, so we got to see the scenery, and the flowers that we walked past in the dark on our way out.

In the morning we finished our somewhat circuitous route to Ostrander Lake, and circled around to walk along Horse Ridge. It was a lazy day, filled with many stops and a bit of napping. We had plenty of water so we camped high with a bit of a breeze and fewer mosquitoes, filling up when we hiked down in the morning.

For more random notes about our trip, in no particular order Read the rest of this entry »

Sometimes, it’s the little things.

I got out of work late today. It was a long day, and I’m still recovering from this stupid cold so it felt longer than it was. My bike was parked at Curry Village, which meant that instead of a <5 minute bike ride, I was resigned to a whole 15 – 20 mintues to get home on foot. (I know, wah wah wah, but ANYWAY…)

I go about 100 feet from my building and start running into different friends. I really like being part of this little Yosemite community. Because we have so many visitors and so many seasonal positions, a lot of people don’t realize what a small-town atmosphere Yosemite has after you’ve been here a year or two. I stop to watch a Flicker in a tree, and again to watch another bird (don’t know what kind) dart through the air in the pursuit of insects.

On the Housekeeping Camp bridge, there are a bunch of kids sword-fighting with sticks. As I approach, one of them delivers a powerful Super Strike to one of his friends – palm out. “Super strike!” he yells. “Whoa, whoa, I say. Cease fire! Cease fire!” as I try to sneak past.

“Dude,” says the Super Striker, “We’re all Magicians.”

It’s one of those times that I wish my tongue was a bit quicker, and I could have come back with something like “I know that. What do you think I am? Stupid?” As I’m walking away I hear Super Striker’s voice again. “You can’t do that. If you leave the Bridge, you’re Dead.” I don’t turn around, but I imagine his friend turning mid-stride and to continue the battle on the bridge, and I smile.

Housekeeping Camp is really a great little place to stay, and I like walking by in the mornings or evenings as families are circling their chairs around a smoky fire and getting ready to start or wind down the day. Mornings are best when there is someone in their camp chair set up in the sunshine, facing out over the river absorbed in a book or some sketch, but I like the evenings too. Tonight, as I go by, one man is offering left-over dinner to his neighbors. “We always cook to much and then try to see if anyone around wants it,” he explains. The receiving family is delighted, and they are trying to come up with something in their supplies that they can give in return. The Burning Man people would be proud.

OK, so *really*, I gotta love my commute.

Spent much too long tonight looking at animals on the computer monitor – but my brain is in slow motion after a grueling couple of days at work, so it seemed like just the right speed.
Read the rest of this entry »

Spring is here. I pulled my bike out of storage today and have been enjoying the freedom of that transportation – so much more fun, faster than walking and sometimes even faster than traveling by car and then finding a place to park.

The birds are returning too and mornings are filled with bird songs. I recognize only a few right now, but even so it’s like having old friends call to you from across the street. I imagine that knowing bird songs is like knowing a secret language – that if you knew how to listen you could learn all kinds of things about the world around you even with your eyes closed. I wouldn’t classify myself as a birder or anything, but I really do like those little guys. That’s why this announcement to locals within the park caught my eye.
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I admit it. When we pulled into the Badger Pass parking lot this morning, in the dark, I had serious reservations about this being the right time to go for a skate ski. But, we had done the backward calculation, and figured this was when we needed to start to make it in to work at a reasonable hour. The car thermometer said 15°F, which is a fair bit chillier than the 35° that we are used to around here. We hadn’t waxed the skis, being lazy and accustomed to the speedy spring conditions we were having, so that meant skating was a lot harder than usual as well. We skied part way down the hill toward Bridalveil Campground. Normally that is a nice turn-around point, but I stopped early – in fear of the slow conditions and the return climb.

Half-way through the ski, our faces, ears, fingers and toes were uncomfortably cold or numb, but the sun started to come out, and the sky had ribbons of pink and purple in it. During a short break, I realized that bird song was everywhere. Someday I’ll learn to recognize what kinds they were. And there were fresh tracks in the snow from coyotes and squirrels.

By the time we got back to the car, I’d gotten a nice workout, and was really enjoying the morning. It was still cold though. If you look carefully at this picture, you can see that my braids are all frosty from the cold air. Tom raced back to the car to grab the camera (and the new 50mm f/1.8 lens we just got on Monday), to take pictures.

We thawed out in the car on the drive back to our house in Yo West, and were treated to a beautiful coyote sighting. He seemed very preoccupied with something on the other side of the road, and stood still to pose while we snapped pictures. I love the Yosemite coyotes, and I think we’ve been seeing this one roaming the neighborhood for several months at least. He didn’t seem to think we were important at all – either as a threat or as a source of handouts – which is always nice to see. But I think he was happy when we finally pulled away and he could return to the road instead of falling through the deeper snow.

Then, just to top off the morning, I paused at Sentinel Bridge pull-out again to revisit the rainbow that visits around 8:30 each day. It’s like we’re becoming friends, that rainbow and I. I haven’t been stopping, the last few days, but Yosemite Falls was iced up in a beautiful fan pattern, that was already starting to come down as it got warmer out, and I was having such a great morning I decided to stop and take some more pictures. Tom and I keep promising ourselves that one day we’ll hike up the Upper Falls trail one chilly morning and hang out at Indica Point (Oh My Gosh Point) to watch the ice come crashing down.

Not too bad for a working day! It brings me back to being grateful for all the things that make my life so wonderful. An early morning ski with my favorite person in the world, skate skis, sunrise, frosty braids, cameras, new lenses, coyotes, waterfalls, rainbows, and, yes, even the job that got me out of bed at an unreasonable hour so that I could have a great morning like this.

The Pano project was also the perfect excuse to go to a Yosemite spot that I’d never been to before. Plus, the prospect of hiking with strangers also provided motivation for prioritizing some ‘training’ hikes leading up to the end of the month.

Between the Fern Ledge hike, and the Pano hike, I took a couple of other relatively substatial hikes. The week after Fern Ledge, I hiked with my friend, Hope, to Yosemite Point and back. (Tom wanted some exercise, so he ran laps on the Falls trail while we walked.) Hope’s a great hiking partner, and I was entertained by stories and got some good advice on hiking in a sundress/skirt – what to do, and what not to do.

The week after that, tempted by reports of amazing Sugar pines, clusters of snowplants, and some potential climbing, Tom and I hiked out to Dewey Ridge. Hiking through the deadfall along the side of the ridge was difficult going, but exploring new ground is always interesting. We found some awesome bouldering – including a boulder even I was willing and able to play on. And the prize of the hike was spotting the tiny Steershead flowers, which aren’t exactly rare plants, but are uncommon to actually see.

My hiking partners for the Pano day were Scott and Eric from the Pano project, and Bruce and Em, who I’ve known for so long I don’t even remember exactly how we met. The best thing about hiking is the chance to chat with new folks and old friends, so this fit the bill perfectly. Although, I have to say that I missed Tom. At some point on the trail I was bemoaning his absence and one of the guys says, “Well, that must me nice. To be free and do your own thing for a while.” Huh. I guess so. Not really, though.

I managed to get a somewhat ruffled picture of a small yellow bird that was singing brightly in a tree just off the trail. I think, based on a quick look through a field guide by John Muir Laws’, that it was a Warbler.

Also, we were treated to a pair of hang glider pilots taking their sled ride down from Glaicer Point. I previously thought that launch time for them was around 7 am, so that they would have very little chance of any thermal activity, but these guys launched sometime after 8 – not that they found anything that kept them aloft. One guy flew into the Yosemite Falls amphitheater, close enough to get wet from the spray, which seemed a little risky, but it must have been an amazing view. It’s been such a long time since I was a hang glider pilot, but seeing one (even if it is packed up on a car) usually brings back such joyful memories. I wonder what all my old HG buddies are doing now.

Eagle Peak itself is a beautiful rock outcrop with the top of Yosemite Falls visible on one side, and looking down on the Three Brothers (or the humping frogs), and beyond them to Middle Cathedral on the other side. It takes a long time to take 376 images, even if there is a little gigapan unit doing the work for you, so we had plenty of time to hang out and have lunch there. It was more crowded than I would have thought for a place I haven’t visited until now, but the rim is long, and we did have long stretches of time to ourselves as well.

Bruce found a pair of abandoned eggs lying on the ground along the rim. I have no idea what sort of eggs they are, and sadly there were no parent birds anywhere nearby.