my sandbox

So, this past weekend I went to my folks’ house for the 4th. We were going to go to Newport overnight on the sailboat (not on the aforementioned party boat) but we got rained out.

We ended up grillin’ out at the boatyard (steaks, pot-tate-toes, corn on the cob) and then going out on someone else’s motorboat to watch the fireworks off the North Kingstown town beach. Which was also nice, ‘cept for the part where I had too much wine, and felt poorly the next day.

Previous weekend, I went to see my friends Jessica and Jeff, who live in Our Fair City, Cambridge, MA. Jessica is currently pregnant, which I was able to capture on film but which photos I am not allowed to share with the general populace, which is a shame, cause she’s a good-lookin’ pregnant woman. We made french toast, then went canoeing on the Charles (upstream of Boston a ways), then went to this guy’s 60th birthday party, then the next day went to Dim Sum. Everyone always raves about Dim Sum, which is somewhat baffling to me as all we were able to get out of the experience were a bunch of mysteriously dense dumpling like items stuffed with equally mysterious fillings. There was this thing that was kinda like bread wrapped in noodles, which I quite liked, but other than that, not much goin’ on. Jessica and I did concede that perhaps it would have helped to go with someone who knew what they were doing.

Weekend before that, I went to see Ken and Kim down on the Maryland Shore. They live near Chincoteague and Assoteague, which are those island with the wild ponies. Here’s one now:

Apparently their bellies become bloated and round because they ingest so much salt as they graze. I imagine they must be used to it, but it sounds uncomfortable. Ken and Kim and I also went bird banding, and had ice cream, and seafood (my belly became bloated and round, and uncomfortable), and went to the zoo, where I took around a gazillion pictures of a peacock. Oh, all right, here’s a couple of them:

That about catches you up with my weekend doings, for now. On the horizon, I have a trip to Philly and some visitors from Arlington, MA, which is good, cause it seems that not much goes on around here of a weekend.

I just want to say up front that this post will contain no photos.  However, it will contain a map, just to keep things lively.

I’m in Rhode Island now:  got in Tues. night.  The flight was fine, if by “fine” you mean being packed into a tiny seat trying to pretend that the dozens of people around you don’t actually exist, having all the moisture sucked out of your body by a ruthlessly efficient ventilation system, and subsisting for a total travel time of ten hours on two packets of mini-pretzels when really you don’t even like pretzels in the first place, but it’s all they’ll give you, the cheap bastards; if that’s fine to you then yes, the flight was fine.  It was uneventful.  It achieved its purpose.

So now I’m at my parents’ house, which is in an older neighborhood, on a lake.   And I just want to take this opportunity to mention that, unbeknownst to many, there’s more to Rhode Island than the fact that it’s small.  It’s a fine place, all green, with birds, and blue skies, and all that.  It’s been awhile since I’ve been in RI at this time of year, so it’s kind of nice to be reminded of what a swell place it is in the late spring/early summer. 

My mom and I went wine tasting yesterday.  Yes, Rhode Island even sports a few vineyards.  We visited two.  The first was, well, lame.  The climate and short growing season here really only lends itself to a few varietals, mostly whites, but this vineyard tried to make it all - they had like 30 or 40 wines available for tasting, and four out of the five we tasted were not very good.  Seemed like they were just trying to fleece the tourists rather than make a quality product. 

The second winery, Greenvale Vineyards, was excellent (although their website has annoying harp music when you first enter it, so consider yourself fore-warned!).  The tasting room was tucked away in an old converted stable within sight of the Sakonnet River- very picturesque.  They focus primarily on whites, and had six wines for tasting, all of which were good.  They also have twin elderly springer spaniels, Sarah and Danielle.  Sarah came and slept on our feet while we tasted.  Here’s a map of where it is:  note that it’s on the same island as Newport (Aquidneck Island). 



View Larger Map


My folks are over there by the Arcadia Management Area, so we drove across Narragansett Bay on the Jamestown and Newport Bridges. It used to be that whenever I came back to RI from out west the landscape would look totally foreign to me and it would take some time for me to readjust to eastern topography and vegetation. I’ve been back and forth enough times now so that’s mostly worn off, but crossing the Narragansett Bay yesterday it struck me that it looked all weird and unfamiliar, and I realized that now the predominant “crossing the bay” image in my brain is crossing SF Bay on the Golden Gate Bridge. Narragansett Bay is smaller, and the shores are lined with trees rather than cliffs and/or city.

Anyhoo. Today’s plans include a little hike/walk around a birding area, an early evening showing of Indiana Jones, and dinner at a ribs place.

I’d like to announce Victor’s and my intended schedule for our East Coast tour this year.

We’ll be flying into Boston Dec. 17, flying out Dec. 24, and we’ll be spending the bulk of the time with my folks in RI. Victor expects to have to work at Planet Pooch on Christmas (busy time for them) so we’re celebrating Christmas early. Or twice. Or something. If anyone is interested in rendezvousing, drop me a line. We’ve already booked Travis for Dec. 17, so that’s out.

Tangentially, when I first came to work at the Center, one of my coworkers said, “You’re from the East Coast, aren’t you?” (He hails from the Toronto area, incidentally). I responded in the affirmative and asked him why he was so wise in the ways of identifying natives of Back East. He said that he always found East Coasters to have a friendly and open demeanor, as opposed to the Californians he meets. This is the first time I had heard anyone make this observation, cause usually the opposite stereotype prevails: New Yorkers are obnoxious, New Englanders standoffish, and Californians are laid back and mellow. So it was nice to be appreciated. Go Back East!

Boring post, but necessary to properly document our activities. Why is writing about travel (at least when I do it) so unexciting, as compared to actually doing it?

Victor and I went up to Lassen NP and surrounding National Forest for a few days in mid August to do a bit of camping and see the sights. On our way up, we stopped at the Sacramento River National Wildlife Refuge to do a bit of birding. The refuge hadn’t done their water release yet (which is what makes all the nice wetlands that attract the shorebirds and waterfowl) so it was pretty quiet, but we did see some nice stuff including a pair of willow flycatchers at the viewing platform. There were also lots of ring-necked pheasant (not surprising since they’re introduced):

We camped in Lassen National Forest, right outside the park, along Forest Road 17 if anyone’s interested. We were primitive camping rather than camping in a campground, so basically we just found a good spot in the forest and pulled the truck up. At our first campsite, we were eaten alive by mosquitoes, which we blamed on the fact that we were camped right near a pool of stagnant water. We moved to a new campsite the next night, which was much nicer. It was on the edge of a dried lake bed. It was a great spot for birds: each morning we’d wake up and there would be a bunch of hermit warblers (as well as Nashville, MacGillivray’s, Wilson’s, yellow-rumped, and orange-crowned warblers) foraging high up in the trees as they moved through on their journey south. Tons of bluebirds and chipping sparrows hung out in the middle of the lakebed, and we also saw a goshawk at the site. Here’s Victor looking at something in the middle of the lakebed:

We went for a hike up to Heart Lake on one day - saw a black-throated gray warbler on the trail, which was a nice bird to see. This was in the National Forest so we were able to bring Arty; he’s not allowed on trails in the National Park. We were hoping to swim in the lake, but it was kind of narsty with algae and such, so we just looked at it. We went for a dip in a creek on the way down instead. It was freakin’ cold. Here’s Arty at the lake:

We spent a day in the Lassen National Park. Lovely place, but as with most National Parks we didn’t really fully sample all of its pleasures because we had Arty with us and couldn’t go on any extended hikes in the park. We did leave Arty in the truck while we went on a short hike into Bumpass Hell, which I believe is what one might call a geothermal feature.

It’s got all these vents and hot springs and boiling mudpots and all that kind of thing. Good times.

We left on a Tuesday morning and got back Friday night. We had been planning on staying an extra day or two but I was fighting a sinus infection so we decided it best to curtail the trip.

Last weekend Victor and I were up in the North Bay, so we did what everyone does when they head up that direction: we went to an RV show. This was in the middle of the day on a Friday, the first day of the show, so we kind of had the place all to ourselves, except for the salespeople (who were all very nice, and who, reasonably, pretty much left us alone once they saw that we weren’t serious buyers (this assessment probably took them about .7 seconds)).

At first we were looking at the little RVs, cause feasibly, someday, we might want to set ourselves up with something like that. But eventually we migrated over to the big ol’ land yachts, cause, you know, how can you not?

We had a little photo shoot, with Victor demonstrating the various features of some of the rigs that we looked at. Maybe if we go to enough of these things we could make a calendar.

Last weekend Victor and I went banding in Yosemite.

We stayed with our buddy Bob, at his gracious and well-appointed field house in Groveland. The house’s main attraction was its large stone porch. Over the course of their field season many person-hours were logged on that porch by Bob and his field crew, and we did our best to boost the number during our visit.

This is a fairly typical scene.  Bob’s the one sucking down the beer; Ben was a member of Bob’s field crew this summer working on a willow flycatcher survey:

Of course, sitting on the porch was not in fact our primary mission. We banded some birds as well. We joined interns Craig, Bucky, Lanaye, and Jordan at Crane Flat and banded there for six hours. One of the highlights that day was a Lazuli Bunting:

When we band, we set up ten mistnets in established locations around the stations. We make a circuit to check the nets once every 40 minutes, and we extract whatever birds we come across as we’re doing our checks. That day, we had a rather impressive 23 birds in one net at the same time: it was pretty busy.

Here’s what a mistnet looks like:

I think I was taking a Lincoln’s sparrow out of the net in this picture but I’m not quite sure. Here’s what a bird caught in a net looks like:

Once we get the birds out of the nets, we bring them back to our banding station in small cloth bags. We put a band on each bird (unless it has been recaptured, in which case we record the band number) and determine the bird’s age and sex, along with some other data. The data goes to The Institute for Bird Populations, where Victor and I used to work. The data are used to estimate survivorship and productivity of the species that we catch: in other words, researchers at IBP can examine trends in populations of these birds with the banding data collected by folks at this station and around 500 others across North America.

Anyhoo, Victor went out with the interns the next day to Gin Flat, which is a higher elevation site. I hung back at the house cause the site was a hike-in, so we weren’t able to bring Arty (dogs are not allowed on trails in the park) and I didn’t want to leave him tied up outside all alone. But, the star of that day’s banding was a Williamson’s sapsucker, which I was sorry to miss as he’s a fairly impressive specimen:

So, there you have it.

We went down to Carmel/Monterey to celebrate my parents’ 40th anniversary. Here are some pics of the time we had. My parents are so freakin’ cute it makes me want to barf.

Me with a wine glass, number 893 of a series.

Travis’s blog-friend was apparently in Monterey at the same time and saw the exact same harbor seal as us. We didn’t get any good deals on shirts, though.

Victor mit knob:

Here’s a picture from a couple of years ago, when Victor and I were working on mountain plovers in Texas. It’s actually a still from some video that Victor shot of the first mountain plover we managed to catch. We were the first people to successfully catch mountain plover during the month of December, so pay attention; this picture captures a historic moment.

Since we’ve moved to Pacifica, Victor and I have started taking BART into the city and wandering, semi-aimlessly, around various neighborhoods. Last weekend we checked out the Castro. Yesterday we explored the area around the Civic Center.

Got off at the Civic Center stop and headed up Market for a little while. The stretch of Market right by the BART stop is pretty ghetto, but after a few blocks we got into an interesting bit. We stopped in at a travel bookstore and bought a Lonely Planet guide to British Columbia, since we’re planning a road trip to Vancouver Island in August. Spun around once we realized we were about to overlap with our stroll around the Castro last week, and stopped in the Zuni Cafe for a bit of liquid refreshment. I had a Manhattan, made with Maker’s Mark. I had never tried a Manhattan with Maker’s before and found it quite good- the Maker’s complements the cherry flavor in the vermouth nicely. Victor had Grey Goose with grapefruit juice, on the suggestion of the bartender when Victor asked for “something refreshing with Grey Goose”. I think he was hoping for something a little more creative, but he said he enjoyed his drink nonetheless.

As we were sipping our beverages, we noticed a commotion at the other end of the bar, and like good bar patrons we flocked to the scene of the excitement. There was a fire on the 5th floor of the building next door, which was undergoing renovation. It looked like one of the plywood forms had caught fire somehow. It was a pretty small fire, but tricky to get to. Four firetrucks pulled up and we left as the firemen were assessing the situation.

Continuing on our journey, we turned up Franklin, more non-descript ghetto stuff, then down Hayes, which has apparently burgeoned into a little enclave of trendy stores and restaurants within the past fifteen years or so. It’s right near the symphony and the opera house, which probably accounts for much of its popularity: as we wandered past the Hayes Street Grill we saw a line of symphony-dressed folks waiting for tables. The bar/restaurant Absinthe and the restaurant/bakery Citizen Cake are in this neighborhood too. We thought to pick up some treats at Citizen Cake, but we were both hungry enough that the thought of something sugary wasn’t appealing.  We then flirted with the idea of stopping in Absinthe and ordering a couple of small plates and a couple of glasses of wine, but realized that this would undoubtedly result in us dropping fifty bucks or so on a small snack, and decided to just go hungry for another hour or so instead.

We turned onto Grove St. to walk by City Hall, the UN Plaza, and all those big, grand, landmarky buildings around that area.  We briefly stopped in the SF Public Library, but didn’t really look around much: it seemed to be closing when we got there at around 6pm. So, back to the BART station and Pacifica.

This is Jenny.

Victor and I used to pass Jenny every day on our way to work, when we worked where we used to work. When I first saw Jenny, I thought she was a mule, and I had some vague recollection that female mules are called “jennies” and male mules are called “jacks.” So, we started calling her Jenny.

We soon discovered that Jenny was equipped with male genitalia, but not wanting her to feel judged about her lifestyle choice we continued as before. She never said anything, but I sensed that she was grateful that we accepted her for who she was.

But now, I’m not even sure she’s really a mule. Her ears seem too short.

Jenny winters somewhere else (when we were in the Yucatan in March of 2005 we thought we saw her down there), so as the time neared when I was to leave my old workplace back in early April, I feared I would never see Jenny again. She returned from her winter quarters just three days before my last day of work. I was happy to have a chance to see Jenny one last time.

If you want to see Jenny yourself, look for her between April and October on the Point Reyes Station-Petaluma road in Marin County, California. She’s closer to Point Reyes Station, on the right as you’re driving towards Petaluma.