Wordless Wednesday: Two-Second Video In Stills

We Are Everywhere

There's nowhere we are not.

(Click on the sailboat photo to see who is sharing the sea)

What's Coming

The weather has been unseasonably warm here on California's central coast. Some crazy high pressure system has parked over us (again), and we are warm and dry. Sure, it feels good deep into our winter bones, but we know how we'll pay for it this summer-- with water rationing. We've been reading stories about it everyday in the local paper. It's hard not to love these balmy days, blue skies, temps in the 70s, but we need rain. Bad.
We've lived here long enough to remember when "northern" California was considered wet, wet like Oregon wet. Roger was born in this part of California; he has spent much of his 66 years within 50 miles of here. The coastal redwoods here are at least twenty times older than he. They thrive in the coastal foggy damp environment. That dampness is long gone. Now we are watching the parched land dry and crack. Day after week after month after year.
On these beautiful sunny days we walk the Pogonip, a 640 acre piece of land covered in redwoods, oaks, and coastal prairie. Here the red-shouldered hawk cries out to its mate. We watch as she flies over, and they fly away together. The hummingbird leaves a tippy top branch and darts above us where it hovers and watches every move we make.
Off in every meadow, especially the ones we don't ever see, the coyotes, bobcats, and cougars roam. They see us, so think they know what's coming.

All photos taken last Wednesday January 28th.

Hello Goodbye

I keep thinking of a line from the Beatles Hello Goodbye "Hello hello. I don't know why you say good bye. I say hello. Hello hello."

Yes, instead of waving good bye to that old 2008, we are shouting hello to 2009.

New Year's Eve is an anniversary for Roger and me, reminding us of yet another Beatles tune, "It was 20 years ago today..." We met on New Year's Eve 1988-89. You can read about it here and see all of our goofy pictures. We're older and grayer now, but not much wiser. (You'll also notice that we had different blogging names then: Dread Pirate Roger and RD.)

On the last day of the year this old hawk friend showed up. We've been seeing him around lately, but today he landed close by and let us take a good long look at him. Not sure how the hunting is around here. He's been flying from rooftop to tree, from tree to roof, with nothing to show for his efforts. We hope the new year fills his belly.

Hello hello.

Keep the Wind at Your Back

Roger and I are in severe self-editing mode. It's very hard for any words to make the cut. Each idea is slashed with giant red pens of "who cares about that?"
Lately all the birds have been far away. Too far for even a 12X optical zoom to capture with any clarity. I fool around with the 48 digital, and the results are not impressive. Still, I think they say something about the moment. The meadows are vast. The birds hug the tree line. We are small in the world. There's a hovering White-tailed Kite in the above photo. Do you see it? Roger says the meadows aren't too big for our eyes to see the kite hover or the red-tails sailing in the vast expanse. Only too big for our technology.
We've been hiking the 640-acre Pogonip. There are places where I half expect a mountain lion to leap from its hiding place on the limbs of snarly old oak. A jogger runs by us, and I think, "Oh good, there's the prey. Prey always runs." I walk on slowly feeling much safer. Twice in the past two weeks, young mountain lions have been found in our local vicinity. One dead by the creek, one killed in a backyard after it took a chihuahua up into a tree.
Our true neighbor the Red-shouldered hawk came by the other day. His fierceness seems belied by the soft feathers lightly fanned in the afternoon breeze. Reminding us to keep the wind at our backs.

Adaptation

A pole is not a tree, but it will do.

There's an interesting post over at Via Negativa about a Red-tailed hawk on a 40,000 student campus. The Buteos have figured out how to live among us. Not many of our fellow citizens actually notice them, but they are everywhere.

We are purposefully not saying anything about politics right now. It is interesting to be in California, but to not be a resident or a registered voter, and therefore feeling immune to the media hype and onslaught. It is a complete and utter relief to not have to choose at the moment. A luxury not shared by our neighbors and family. To them we say, good luck and thanks for voting.

Kite in a Tree

We closed our laptops, turned off the radio, and went for a hike. We saw our first White-tailed Kite, a very dramatic and beautiful raptor.
The whole time we hiked the hills and redwood forests, Red-shouldered hawks called and cried to each other. Their ongoing flight and song made us wonder if perhaps we were privy to a wild mating ritual.

Despite the cold, gray weather and a sky not suitable for photography at all, we had a fine walk in the woods. We saw signs of spring everywhere.

Have a good weekend, friends.

Winter Window

We look out the window often. It's hard not to with those waves and clouds pulling our attention like a magnet. Winter is here. It arrived late, but better late than never, right? California needs this rain, otherwise everyone will be drinking reclaimed sewage, and as delicious, clean, and healthful as it is touted to be, we still say no thanks. We'll gladly take the gray skies and the torrential downpours. Every now and then, the clouds part and the sky lightens up, like it did Tuesday morning, and we saw this.

Or later in the day, when we saw this. We came home from the market later in the afternoon and put the groceries on the table. Over Roger's shoulder I saw the Red-shouldered hawk on our neighbor's roof. These neighbors are in the process of building their home, so usually there's commotion with ladders, power saws, and hammers, but Tuesday was quiet. So the hawk came to hunt.
There's only one window in this old house I can photograph out of that hasn't already yielded to ancient, wavy glass. The photographs seem soft from being taken through the closed and rain-smudged window. I don't mind, I took seventeen photographs in the five minutes the hawk perched there.
All of the hawk's movement are found in the slight changes in the direction it looks. Its concentration is only broken by the barely perceptible click of the camera shutter.

That's when it turns its gaze on us, where we are looking out at it from the winter window. We have a rare moment when something wild looks back.

We ran into an old friend the other day. He's a decade older than Roger, and two decades older than I. We had a nice chat along the railroad tracks about the state of the world and politics. He said, "Oh you two still believe things will change. You know you're going to have to give that up. Things don't change. They really don't." I thought about it for a while, and suspect he is right. I hadn't realized how much I still held on to that hope that things would someday be just as we would like them. How silly such hope seems. Based on what would we nurture such desire?

Rest Stop

We drove back to Santa Cruz Wednesday. It's a 350 mile trip from my sister's back here. We know that part of Highway 101 pretty well, having made the journey many many times. Yet, we still managed to have a few surprises along the way, even though we stopped at the same old rest areas and parks. We saw three bald eagles for the very first time here in California. No photographs, but a sweet sight nonetheless.
One of our favorite stops is a little cliffside park in Pismo Beach. Quite a lovely spot to stop for a picnic lunch. It's midway, so we stop whether we're heading north or south. We always see pelicans here, but this time, we saw sea lions and this very friendly Heerman's Gull. (Check out those dark legs and feet!)
RCWBiologist suggested that we look for Yellow-billed Magpies, and it reminded us that we always have seen magpies in the rest areas. We stopped in one around Hunter-Legget, soon after we saw the Bald Eagles, but did not see any magpies. We did however get a good eyeful of this fantastic Red-Shouldered Hawk.

Still it was a long, tiring and sad journey. While we were heading north my mother was readmitted to the hospital. When we left on Tuesday she was really recovering well, but Tuesday night things took a turn for the worse. My sister is down there with her, and she also has some great caregivers who are looking after her. We plan to head back down when she is released from the hospital, or if the situation warrants a more quick return. Until then, we're going to take a nice long nap. We're beat.

We Took a Breath; We Looked Around

We are still in Leisure World, Orange County. A retirement village of 18,000 units. Golf courses, tennis courts, and palm trees. Speed limit 25 mph, gated community, and club houses. Now that things have settled down a bit, still one more doctor's appointment Monday afternoon, we have started looking for the little bits of wildlife that seep through the cracks.
First we noticed a flock of Bushtits in the flowers and bushes outside our window.
Then we saw this crazy paperbark tree. We'd never seen anything like it. A little research reveals that it is from Australia, a Melaleuca quinquenervia. Cool to look at, but an invasive species in Florida and Hawaii.
Then, I went to get the mail and heard a familiar cry from the sky. I couldn't believe it. I brought the mail in, and could still hear it from inside the house. So, I grabbed the camera and ran to the parking lot to see where it might be. There it was, in the tree at the edge of the parking area. A wonderfully wild Red-shouldered Hawk. Like a good friend, a reminder of the world.

Thanks so much for all your kind comments and emails. My mother is recovering. Little things are still going wrong, but the big picture is looking good. We are hopeful.

Red Tide

There's been a rusty-red tide here in Monterey Bay and hundreds of sea and shorebirds have been sickened or killed by it. There has been extensive research done and as far as it can be determined, the tide is a natural phenomenon, but quite possibly exacerbated by fertilizers and run-offs.

The tide shifts from place to place, and right now it's back in the Santa Cruz area having traveled from Moss Landing and Monterey. We have definitely noticed the impact on bird life here. In addition to seeing three dead birds, we've seen strange behavior, like this seabird propelling itself seal-like to get on to the shore. At first we weren't sure if this bird had been injured. Its movements looked so wrong. But after conferring with friends and fellow bloggers, it seems like it was moving the only way it could on land, but its presence was troubling nonetheless. Why would a seabird come ashore like this?
We went back down to the wharf to watch the Grebes (this may be a Clarks or a Western), to get an idea of how these birds move in the water. It was a relief to see those little legs and feet propel these birds around, and yet look absolutely useless as land legs. It occurred to us while we were watching them in the water just how much those legs are more like flippers than anything else. No wonder they look so peculiar on land.

The best hope for this tide to move on will be for rains or big winds. As much as we have been thoroughly enjoying this balmy November weather, we'll take the wind and rain if it will restore the waters to their blue and beautiful state.

Bonus Red-Shouldered Hawk Pic: Yum.

Slowly But Surely

Healing takes its own sweet time. There is no pushing it. We try to do all the right things and simply hope for the best outcomes. In the meantime life happens outside our windows.
This is our next door neighbor's roof where the Red-Shouldered Hawk likes to hunt. It's been there for several days, hunting along the railroad tracks below, and then coming back to the roof with something to eat. This hawk seems fairly well habituated to humans, and doesn't seem to mind much if I click a zillion photos of it. It's got a few choice spots it hunts from. As I type this, I see it on top of the power pole across the street. There's some comfort in having wildlife this close everyday.
We did get out on Friday for the minus tide. It was great to see these familiar tidepools again, although we didn't find an octopus, the way we had so many years ago. Still the colors on the anemones were enough to thrill us.
We like the steady rhythm of life unfolding outside our window. We're quietly watching, listening, healing.

Roger's health issues have put blogging into a peculiar perspective at the moment. We seem to have settled into a life that doesn't readily yield to a diarist approach. So, blogging will be light to non-existent, but I guess that's already obvious. Thanks again for all of your good wishes.