Showing posts with label birdwatching. Show all posts
Showing posts with label birdwatching. Show all posts

Saturday, January 10, 2009

Newberry Springs



We spent the day today at Twin Lakes RV Park near Newberry Springs, California. We'll spend the next couple of days here then head for Quartzite. One thing nice about RV Parks like this is they don't have rules against hanging clothes outside like most of the ritzier ones. Forry strung the new line Granddaughter Havela gave him for Christmas from the toad to a tree and I washed some towels and hung them out. It seems like the nicer a place a park is, the less "green" it is.

There isn't too much vegetation around here, it's mostly grease wood and salt cedar trees like the one in the picture. Also called tamarisks (I think), they are much disliked by forestry people as they are considered weed trees that force out other trees. Their roots pull of salt from the deep ground that contaminates the soil around them so nothing else will grow.

It's a full moon tonight. We were out walking as we watched it rise, it looked huge! It got pretty warm today -- we had all the windows in the RV open. It did freeze last night.

MUSINGS WHILE MAKING TUNA FISH SANDWICHES

I was thinking about Martha (my late beloved mother-in-law) this noon when I was making some tuna sandwiches for lunch. As I buttered the bread I recalled her urging me to "be generous with the butter, make sure it covers the edges so the bread doesn't dry out," as we prepared sandwiches for the harvest crews. It was quite a contrast to my Mom, who with five kids, was always very sparing with butter -- and other food. Not that we never had enough to eat, but there never was a surplus. Anyway the sandwiches were good -- I learned to cut dried apricots into the tuna at a little sandwich shop at Manito Park in Spokane.

Birds seen today while we were out driving around:

Ravens, red-tailed hawk, Say's Phoebe, Black Phoebe, white crowned sparrows, mourning doves, geese, mallards

Saturday, January 3, 2009

NO Snow!



We woke up to beautiful sunshine this morning -- it was so bright it almost hurt my eyes. We've gotten used to overcast dreary gray skies. The 7 Feathers RV Resort is a gorgeous place. It's only a year old. We're going to spend the weekend here and leave on Monday morning.

We took a walk this morning around the periphery of the property and along the creek that runs through it, The Umpqua tribe has done a great deal of work improving salmon habitat along the creek. They actually had their first spawning salmon return last fall. There are several dead snags among the evergreens along the creek. We heard and then saw a large pileated woodpecker. It must have found a treasure trove of bugs in a hole it hammered open, for it let me get right under the tree where it was working. I sure wish we would have had Forry's camera. His is much faster and might have gotten a better close-up.