Wilson's Warbler

Wordless Color Carnival

A Lone Phalarope and a Mountain

Oh hey lookit that. It's a Wilson's Phalarope. That's pretty cool, wasn't expecting to find this gal hanging around. She was at one of our sites and let me snag a few photos of her good lookin' self.. This (Sierra Nevada) is the edge of their range, so she was a pretty good find. Hopefully a male will come along to keep her company...

The shots below are from a field site south of Tahoe - Red Lake Peak. Uh, so, it's a pretty nice spot, but no Willow Flycatchers :( However, Zac and I were pretty sure we heard what sounded like a...wait for it, a PIKA! The peak does get up to 10,000 feet and we were at about 7500-8500, so it's about the right elevation for the little guys. Outdoor Wednesday Nature Notes

Cute Stuff

Fledgling Dipper doing the Dipper dance. Awfully cute stuff.

Shooting Star

Alpine Shooting Star above. Below? Haven't figured that one out just yet. Today's Flowers Macro Monday

What's That Coming Over the Hill?

..is it a monster? Shadow Shot Face of the Week

Monochrome Weekend

Seals and More Seals

Seals. What? There's no seals in Truckee! Nope. These are from mid-May, when I made my last trip to see my seal friends at Mad River. Saw a few (tiny) babies. Their heads were much too big for their bodies, very cute indeed. It was in the middle of the day and the light was less than ideal- that mixed with sea spray didn't make for super sharp images, but who cares. I love these guys! Also, I'm not too sure how to save the videos so they aren't as sharp as they should be either..ah well. I counted close to 50 adults that day. Harbor seals are adorable. Scenic Sunday My World

Dipper Fledgies!

How great are these little guys? We saw a Dipper pair with 4 fledglings last week at one of our field sites. After we were done in the morning, I was able to snag some photos of the fledgies. Luckily, I had brought the camera with me that day. We watched them for quite a while- they were pretty cute trying to figure out how to dip and forage on their own.

Wind Travelers

Monochrome Weekend

Baby Bear. Big Bear. Almost Hypothermia for Zac.

So, more Willow Flycatchers are showing up thankfully, but they seem to still be taking their time. Think nests are starting to be built so that's good.

Last Friday, hiking out of LT2, Zac and I ran into a baby bear! We knew there were bears in the area, thanks to lots of big and little bear tracks in the snow a couple weeks ago and plenty of scat too. But Friday we finally saw one of the little guys. He was awfully cute, can't lie about that. He was all fuzzy and stuff. I had my crappy point and click and we had Zac's scope on us so I took this lovely poor quality video(scope) of said baby bear.

When we first saw him, we were only about 30 meters away - bit too close, yes, but he was hiding behind a tree and we didn't see him. He ran up the tree at one point, which was pretty damn adorable. But he quickly came back down and continued foraging, but kept a good eye on us. We backed up about 100 meters away and observed his cuteness for a few minutes before taking a long detour around..definitely didn't want to run into mom...

Oh, no? But I did run into Mom Bear on Tuesday. Because I'm a little wimpy, I had Zac walk the 10 minutes through the woods to the open meadow with me. I really didn't want to run into the bears solo. Especially mom with baby...yikes. I got down to the meadow, said bye to Zac and told him to turn his radio on. 5 minutes later, I turned a corner and saw Big 'Ol Mama Bear hanging out. Yup. She was way too close to the WIFL territories I was trying to go to, so I promptly turned around. Probably a wise decision. Zac and I went back later in the morning together and didn't see the bears, only some world record black bear scat and lots of tree scratches. Sweet.

All the pictures are from the Taylor site today. I thought I had a rough morning with the deep water and getting pretty wet, but Zac actually fell in where he was (Tallac), up to his chest. He's 6'4 so that's pretty deep water. Really kinda scary, because hypothermia was a serious threat. The temperature this morning was around 29-30 and the water temperature (all snow melt) is probably about the same temp. His radio got drenched and broken so he couldn't contact me. He walked 2 miles barefoot and soaked to a Forest Service office and they gave him some dry clothes. Poor Zac :( Scenic Sunday

Mono Take 3

Watery Wednesday Wordless

Mono Take 2

More photos from last weekend. These are are from/around our secret sweet tent spot. I mean, really.Awesome. Yes indeed. Snazzy sunset clouds below...(Yellow Warbler above)

Our lovely dinner view...can't complain, eh? Lots of bats and Common Nighthawks snarfing the 'skeeters and bugs around us. Always appreciated.

So...sunrise was more or less ideal. Lots of good birds like the House Wren below, Yellow Warblers, Green-tailed Towhees, Brewer's Sparrows, Violet-green Swallows, Flickers, Common Nighthawks and Common Poorwills, etc. My World Outdoor Wednesday

Color Splash

(Kellogg's Monkey Flower above, not sure about the one below yet)

Some flowers from a hike near Nevada City, CA today. Saw some good ones, and also saw a Grey Fox and two more Alligator Lizards! Most excellent! Today's Flower Macro Monday mellow yellow

(California Indian Pink above; below is some sort of Lupine...too many in CA to figure out now!)

Shadows on the Mountain

Somewhere in the middle of nowhere Nevada.. Shadow Shot Sooc

Nuthatchin'

Pygmy Nuthatches (above) are one of the most social nuthatches in the world, and most times you won't just see one, you'll probably see 3-10 together. They share roost cavities and also have cooperative breeding. Basically, they form little family groups, with the young from past years helping with stuff like feeding, warning against predators, making cookies, doing the laundry, vacuuming. You know, generally stuff around the roost or nest site. (Other birds that do this are Florida Scrubjays and Acorn Woodpeckers)

(White-breasted Nuthatch above)

White-breasted Nuthatches don't do this and are more solitary. I think they're the most wide spread nuthatch in North America and have a bigger variety of habitat that they use.

(White-breasted above, feeding either female or nestlings)

Both White-breasted and Pygmies are secondary cavity excavators. They'll use old cavities (like an old woodpecker's) that they find and will use it as is or clean it up, make it bigger, etc. (They will also excavate their own cavity).

(Pygmy Nuthatch above)

I don't remember seeing Pygmy Nuthatches in a while and we came across about 4 of them sharing a cavity the other day. They're so tiny it's hard to tell who if any were fledgies. After closer looks, it doesn't look like there were any young, all adults. And all crazy cute.

The White-breasted Nuthatch was feeding either the female or nestlings, not sure which. Probably female since we didn't hear any begging from inside the cavity. Camera Critters Bird Photography Weekly Face of the Week