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.

No Good

I went on yet another carcass run today, this time with Geoff. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Katie was trapping birds. We were far more successful than Ryan and I had been earlier in the week, though many of the dairies we visited still seemed distinctly lacking in dead baby cows. There were some fairly grotesque looking bloated adult cows, expanded to balloonish proportions, in the piles. One had the words "No Good" and a sad face spray-painted on its side. I wasn't sure whether to laugh or grimace. Mostly I just breathed through my mouth.

Lightning Storm!

We had the coolest lightning storm tonight! I've never seen something so impressive. Geoff, Katie and I stood on the porch in the dark (cameras / phones out, of course) watching the storm roll in. We gasped and oohed and aahed in all the right places for a good ten minutes before it started to pour. 

Some of the thunder was so loud it shook the house.

Once the storm had quieted down a little, we realized we still had to go drop a calf at the feeding site for trapping the next day. We all piled into one car and drove through the intermittently bright darkness, looking for possible fires as we went. None spotted, I'm happy to report. 

You've got something on your nose...

512 just doesn't realize quite how silly he looks.

Tiger moth

Settlers of Catan

Full house yesterday night, with Geoff, Ria, James, and Ryan. We played a rousing game of Settlers of Catan. For those of you unfamiliar with the game, everyone owns certain plots of land, each with its own resources. The goal of the game is to get the most "Victory Points," which you earn through different combinations of sheep, wood, bricks, and wheat that can be used to build houses, cities and roads. It's a lot more complicated than that, and basically, you end up bartering sheep for wood, and smack-talking other players in the process. I was dubious--having played several boring rounds before--but it was actually pretty fun. The smack-talk got pretty intense. Geoff and I were neck-and-neck for longest road for a while, but he ended up winning. Definitely the latest I'd stayed up at either of the refuges, particularly since Geoff and Ria and I talked late into the night once the game was finished.

Today, Ryan and I went on a carcass run. We must have been trailing the tallow truck, because we did not get a particularly good haul today. Either that or it was baby cow dry season. We did, however, see quite a few of these delightful little owls--a reward for putting up with the amazing stench of the dairies.

You're Doing It Wrong

In the early days of the California Condor reintroduction program, there were several birds that died from  unfortunate run-ins with power lines. To remedy this, the captive birds were treated with electrified mock power poles in their flight pens, which administer a shock to any bird daring enough to land on them. The condors seem to have learned their lesson in recent years, and there have since been no reported condor deaths by power pole. However. Someone (not naming any names * cough * 462 

* cough *) unplugged the solar power to the mock power pole in the Hopper flight pen. And while I don't know how long the power was off, it wasn't long before the younger birds were perched on the pole. 

Lesson: not learned. 

My name is Angela, and I'll be your tour guide today

Our newest intern, Marian, hadn't been to Hopper yet. I got a call early this morning asking if, after I'd done flight pen observations and checked to see if there were any fires on the refuge, I could drive down to Fillmore to meet her that afternoon and caravan up the mountain with her. It seems like just yesterday I was trailing behind Geoff's SUV in the dark, crawling up and up and up the mountain, the road obscured by the dust the car kicked up. Now that's me, driving ahead, without so much as a second thought--each turnoff familiar. I pointed out the landmarks--Green Tanks, Silver Tanks, CROP--over the radio. Essentially, I got to play tour guide. It was fun.

Any idea what kind of bird this is?

FIRE!!!!!

Text message I received today from Geoff:

"Fire in the headwall!"

There was a lightning storm that seemed to skirt Hopper by an inch, but apparently it cruised on up to Bitter Creek and lit a tree on fire. Thank goodness Geoff and his eagle eyes spotted it, or else it might have turned into something a lot worse.

(Note: The above image is from the creepy / amazing video "Muffins.")

Night Vision Goggles are the Best!

No, really. Night vision goggles are the best!

Also, any time I'm out doing anything at night (which, let's face it, is practically every night) I always think of this bit from the all - around amazing episode of Spongebob, " The Graveyard Shift. " The episode also has one of the best non sequitur endings of all time.

I'm a big kid now!

I hiked down to South Potrero today, and was shocked at the transformation of the little muppet I had last seen nearly two months prior into this almost - condor in front of me today.

She's getting so close to fledging!

So cute! So small!

Look who I found!

Phrynosoma coronatum

It is as big as my fingertip. (Note: the photo is basically life size)

Can I keep him, mommy?

Can you find the horned lizard?