A Fine Fall Day

There were reports of inclement weather headed our way this evening, but no one said anything about fog. I was supposed to go out to Hopper Canyon today, but stopping atop Hopper Peak on my way there, I could barely see five feet ahead of me. I had forgotten, too, what it was like to be so cold that your hands stopped working. The reminder was brutal. I waited several hours to see if the fog would clear. It didn't. I radioed Geoff and he called me back to the house: there was no point putting off the inevitable any longer. I was not going to see that chick today.

Back at the house, Geoff had started raking leaves--a fire hazard--from the front yard. Trying to salvage the rest of my day and prove myself useful, I too picked up a rake. Don't laugh, but I'd never raked before. It was actually pretty fun. Ryan, back from a.m. obs, joined in as we carted wheelbarrow-loads of leaves, hitched to the back of an ATV, down to the big leaf pile some distance from the house.

What a quintessentially Fall day, us raking in the chill October air. The only thing missing was some hot apple cider.

Broken

I have sad news. The chick who fell last week had to be euthanized. Unfortunately, he was too badly broken to fix. Rest in peace little one.

Bad News

The Bitter Creek chick fell out of its nest and broke at least one wing. It was an accident waiting to happen: the cave was so small; there was no ledge. Chicks will be chicks, which means being curious and a little wobbly, and god help them if they start hop-flapping excitedly. No one saw it happen, just saw the chick on a ledge lower down, looking wrong.

This morning Joseph went down to collect it, brought it back up for the LA Zoo's head honcho condor guy to take it back with him, hopefully to get it fixed. Apparently, chicks are heaviest at this age, with half grown feathers, fat stores for growing said feathers, and no lift to keep them aloft. It was a perfect storm of bad news for the little chick. I hope it is alright.

I spent a good 9 hours trapping today--or rather, being trapped in the flight pen blind. I actually trapped my quarry only a few hours in, but condors on the ground outside the blind prevented my leaving (don't want them to associate being on the ground when humans are around as a good thing). A little before 4, I seized a brief window of opportunity and dashed out of the blind. I was hungry, thirsty, I had to pee, and I had anxiously been poised to leave for at least 2 hours. Long day.

Pair 107 and 161 look off into the distance

Condors make silly faces

Eye spy.

Red-tailed hawk (Buteo jamaicensis)

Condors in the Mist

The Best Time a Tarantula Made Me Feel Guilty

So, I used to be terrified of spiders. I called myself phobic, but I probably wasn't nearly hysterical enough to be technically designated as such. Over the years, though, I think I successfully mind-over-matter'ed the issue: I didn't like it when my family or later, my roommates, killed the spiders in my house so I effectively mastered my fear enough that I could carry the spider out on a piece of paper slipped under a cup. My fascination with living creatures won out, too, so that I could watch closely, in horrified fixation, as a black widow the size of a small child wrapped a cockroach in her web.

But nowhere in this history can I quite account for my new determination to hold, or at least touch, one of the many tarantulas currently questing for mates nightly on the roads of Bitter Creek. I guess they're fuzzy, and generally harder to lose sight of than their smaller relatives. They lack the spindly, needle-like legs that so unnerve me on other spiders. I thought if I could get one to just walk on my hand, then, I don't know, I could prove something to myself. I knew one of my colleagues had done it. Why couldn't I?

Driving back from taking signals on Hilltop this evening, I spotted something in the road that might have been a tarantula but might also have been coyote poop (an easy mistake, trust me). Pulling over, I confirmed that it was indeed a tarantula. This was it. I was going to do it. I was going to hold a tarantula. I moved toward it slowly, crouching down, talking to it in the voice I reserve for puppy dogs, usually. I put my hand flat down on the ground in the direction it was walking, palm facing up. No backing out now. If anything, I was sure I'd be the one to chicken out first. But, no.

The tarantula eyed me, eyed my hand, and then began to shrink back from both. Step by backwards-step, it retreated until its legs found a hole in the ground. Slowly, gingerly, not taking its multiple eyes off me, it lowered itself into the hole, then closed its legs above it: impenetrable.

I was mortified. What a monster I was! Scaring this poor beast so badly that it went and hid. That sight--of its two sets of legs, joined together above its head--was the most pathetic. I felt like a big jerk. I practically ran back to the car, apologizing profusely as I went.

I am sorry. So sorry.