Squirrel!

SUMMARY: Learned some stuff.

After seeing Change is Hard's photo of a squirrel (likely Eastern Gray) and reading the comments, I did a little reading of my own.  Particularly because, as the roommate of many dogs who have taken a great interest in squirrels that run across the dog's personal fences, I want to know more!

We have quite a few black color variants on gray squirrels here. They seem to appear in waves; some years I see lots, other years, none.  I don't seem to have any photos of the black ones, so here's a gratuitous Gray on a random palm tree.

Interesting that the Wikipedia post on Eastern Gray Squirrels mentions the variants: --

"Particularly in urban situations where the risk of predation is reduced, both white – and black-colored individuals are quite often found. The melanistic form, which is almost entirely black, is predominant in certain populations and in certain geographic areas, such as in large parts of southeastern Canada. Genetic variations within these include individuals with black tails and black-colored squirrels with white tails. (See Tree squirrel for more information on these color variations.)"

But the post on our Western Gray Squirrels doesn't mention the variants.

So I searched farther afield, and, wow, ok, I didn't know any of this:

"Three species of tree squirrels live in the Bay Area: the Eastern Gray Squirrel (Sciurus Carolinensis), the Eastern Fox Squirrel (Sciurus Niger), and the Western Gray Squirrel (Sciurus Griseus). Of these three, only the Western Gray Squirrel is a California native, and its status is of concern to naturalists." 

So, likely, the blacks that we see here could be invasive Eastern Grays!

The things I learn in the blogosphere.  (And makes me feel even worse each time Luke--er, Zorro--brings another squirrel in. I don't know whether I'd know the difference between species, though, and if, as the article says, the Westerns avoid people more, then maybe we're OK. Sort of.)

Soooooo moving along to other topics. Tomorrow: A sweet heartbreaker for Boost.

Another Trip to Elkhorn Slough, with Family

SUMMARY: Wordless Wednesday.

(I added identifying captions but you don't have to read them.)

Sea Lion mom and baby

Brown Pelican

Oops

Brandt's Cormorant and chick

Brown Pelicans, Cormorants, and Gull

Great Egret

Sea otter

Sea lions

Great Blue Heron

Great Egret

Sea Otter

Harbor seals

Brown Pelicans, huge White Pelicans, cormorants

Long-Billed Curlew

Family, five of us

Brown Pelican

White Pelicans

Brown Pelican

Presidents' Weekend Monday

SUMMARY: Big Sur and Monterey.

UPDATE: Tuesday Feb 22, 10:30 a.m. See below.

Set the alarm *again* (merely 7:00 this time) so that my seester and her husband could pick me up at 8. We drove down the Coast Highway (Hwy 1), loving the scenery, stopping to briefly explore various places, geocaching as we went; had lunch at a restaurant they like (Nepenthe) wayyy down the coast, then turned and beat feet back north, had hot fudge sundaes at Ghirardelli's on Cannery Row, then home again.

I am really really sore from yesterday's hike. Must. Get. In. Uphill. Shape.

Some brief highlights from the day:

We skimmed through the old Fort Ord, passing its decrepit buildings, trying to find our way to--

--the [relatively] new Fort Ord Dunes State Park. We got out, read all the signs, looked at the view and the ice-plant-covered dunes, and then continued south.

What better scenery could one imagine for geocaching in?

There wasn't yet a profusion of flowers, but small samples of what is to come could be found almost everywhere we stopped, like this Indian Paintbrush.

The Big Sur coast speaks for itself.

I mean, really, how many geocachers get this kind of view?

I mean, I really do, I really mean, how awesome is this for a geocaching background?

UPDATE: Really needed to show the Point Sur Lighthouse. It's no longer manned but still shines and its location on a dramatic outcropping of lava is amazing.

We even found one at Cooper's Cabin--the oldest remaining building on the Big Sur coast, UPDATE: (at Andrew Molera State Park) near Pacific Grove.

There, to our surprise and delight, we also found Monarchs fluttering everywhere! As one young kid explained to us with enthusiasm, these butterflies are trying to make babies.

The only California poppies we saw in bloom:

Is this the most amazing setting for a restaurant that you've ever seen? We sat at the table in the right bottom corner.

We had a tasty and filling lunch, browsed in their intriguing gift shop, drove an hour back up the coast , drove past Pebble Beach to Asilomar to round out our geocaches for the day to 10, then continued to Monterey and Cannery Row where we just HAD to visit Ghirardelli's for the usual.

Strolling back among the hotels and shops, we spotted this guy out in the water among the kelp--and of course I had left my 400mm lens in the car, so this is a very cropped in, crappy photo, but he is recognizable: California Sea Otter.

Then home again by sometime after dinnertime, and then work work work on photos, give up on finishing tonight, and post these three summaries. At some point in the future, there will be more photos from all the trips!

Presidents' Weekend Saturday

SUMMARY: Cosumnes River Preserve

UPDATED: Tues, Feb 22, 10 a.m. (see below).
What a great weekend! Very busy, exhausting, still sorting hundreds of photos, but here are glimpses of the whole thing.

On Saturday, I drove with my parents out to the Sacramento delta area near Elk Grove--the Cosumnes River Preserve, where I went a couple of weeks ago but didn't get enough of. This time I had a borrowed 100-400mm telephoto lens, hoping to get some better bird shots. And my mom's a long-time bird watcher and my parents both love exploring and nature, so I invited them along.

We left around noon, drove 2 hours out the Preserve. Looked at some birds there. Drove along some of the roads in the preserve at various locations--this area is intriguing because of cooperation between the Preserve and private landowners. A lot of the land that is farmed during the summer is left fallow and even flooded during migration seasons to make up for so many thousands of square miles of the Central Valley marshlands lost to development and farming.

We saw so many different birds! And, when sorting my photos at home, I discovered more that I didn't even know that we'd seen. After sunset, we stopped for dinner and then headed for home--essentially spent about 8 hours in the car with just a break for dinner. With my additional half hour to my parents house and then half hour home at the end, that's a lot of sitting.

I still have tons of photos sort through, try to make clearer, crop down to a reasonable view, and so on, but here's a taste.

Dad and Mom  with MUTT MVR at the Cosumnes Visitor Center, ready for anything.

So many birds in every direction! Snow geese in the background here.

Pintail getting out of Dodge.

This kestrel didn't like us stalking her. Every time I edged the car forward 15 feet, she'd fly 15 feet farther down the wire and go back to watching us. We did this for about 10 minutes.

We saw Sandhill Cranes! Lots and lots of them! Not many very close, and it was overcast and a bit dark, but, yay!, cranes! This one has bands and a transmitter of some sort. UPDATE: I reported this bird sighting online and got this response: " That crane was marked during my study of wintering ecology of sandhill cranes and was captured as an adult on Oct. 15, 2007. We found it on its nesting territory during summer, near Likely, Calif. It has been observed wintering at the Cosumnes River Preserve every year since."

The sun sent beams out from behind the clouds onto the farmers' fields and Mount Diablo in the background.

And then it was night. Time to get home, pack the car, and get to bed for Sunday's adventure.

The First of the Crazed Back-to-Back CPE Weekends

SUMMARY: To Elk Grove--and beyond!

Five runs per dog per day this weekend. I find that I'm looking forward to the weekend. I find that I'm not looking forward to getting up at 4 in the morning (duh) nor to sleeping in MUTT MVR, just because it's a pain to take the crates and everything else out and then put them all back in again at the end of the weekend.

But the weekend itself, looking forward to it.

This is a good thing.

Because we're doing all of these CPEs for The Campaign, here's what we could *possibly* complete this weekend:

• Tika's Snooker Extraordinaire  (that's 30 Level C Qs, 4 chances to earn 1 needed Q)
• Boost's Level 5 Standard (4 chances to earn those 3 needed Qs)
• Boost's Level 5 Wildcard (2 chances to earn those 2 needed Qs)

There's no Top Ten thing really in CPE, so don't care about placements, except --mwah ha ha haaa---both dogs will run in Full House this  weekend and I'll be looking for a chance to get high-in-trial score for that with both dogs. (There's no such award except in My Own Mind.)

Weather should be great.

Plus in the paper this morning it noted that peak Sandhill Crane viewing season is in February, and one of the best places to see them, Cosumnes River Preserve,  is only a few minutes from the trial site. Sandhill Cranes were once hunted almost to extinction in California but are coming back well. I might try to get there, sometime, somehow, although the preserve is open only during daylight hours, which is also when the trial is running, of course.

(Map from their web site; CPE trial is about where Bruceville Rd. runs off the top of the map and Twin Cities Road is sometimes the route I take from 5 to get to the CPE site.)

So, I'm off for Games and Cranes! Hope you all have a  lovely weekend.

Foggy Night at the Agility Field

SUMMARY: Just some photos and notes.

I was going to post about Boost's training work, but instead, well, I became enchanted with the fog.

According to the newspaper's weather report, last Saturday South San Jose got .70 inches of rain and .25 more on Monday. My rain gauge says different.

In any event, everything around here is now saturated, and top that off with unseasonably warm weather this week. 

As a result, on the drive up to class last night, for the last mile I encountered clouds of fog drifting across and alongside the road, surrounding me in an odd, shifting tunnel of gray. When I alit from MUTT MVR, I admired the softly glowing agility field:

Kinetic the Papillon ponders her first agility lesson and carefully checks out all the dogs. Kinetic hikes with us regularly, many long miles without having to be carried even once.

The Merle Girls would like there to be some kind of action, here.

Our instructor shows us how it's done. At least, we think that's Ace and his handler out in the fog.

Boost's full sister (but not littermate) TCam also shows us how it's done, as the fog tries to take the field.

They can both really hustle!

And here, for your enjoyment, is the current #1 Mixed Breed AKC (I never dreamed I'd ever be saying that phrase!) agility dog, Roo. Is she good-looking or WHAT?

"Can haz photo?" ---or--- "Use the Force, Luka!"

But one of the best parts of the evening was The Owl's Song: From a Great Horned Owl, high in a dark tree, and I ran my video--you can admire the drifting fog, but then just listen--the perfect sound for a night like this:

On the way home, the fog had thickened enough that I drove that first mile--which I've driven hundreds of times at 40 MPH--at around 20, and at times on that curvy foggy road, 20 was a bit much as the road vanished and it wasn't entirely obvious whether it was vanishing into the fog or over the side of the mountain. Glad the fog cleared away as I descended the hill.