Punishing Isolation

Look at this dude.  He's a rock.

Check it out.  Yup.....its a black and white photograph.  Totes artistic.  But you know, thats just me.....the artistic bastard that you all know and love.

Ok, I hate most art, its true.  Most of it is poorly done, pretentious, aggravating, unoriginal, etc.  No different than poetry, music, books.....I'm a little more receptive to photographs for some reason though, they are harder to judge.  I don't dare begin explaining why, because it will come off sounding pretentious, aggravating, unorginal......

Man, the weather here is, er, atypical.  Theres a bunch of new snow uphill from The Martin House (aka, my cabin, but thats what its actually called), and Im pretty sure its been raining all day.  Because of this our initial data collection has had to be pushed back.....so after talking plants and quizzing ourselves on birdsongs we lurked down to the Santa Cruz River, where the birds flowed freely.  I got a bunch of dazzling yearbirds....Red-naped Sapsucker, Green-tailed Towhee, Townsend's Solitaire, Wilson's Warbler, Black-throated Gray Warbler, Lawrence's Goldfinch, Hepatic Tanager.....and a goddamn Common Black-Hawk, which I have spent years waiting to see and for some reason lucked into one today.  I have much respect now for this black/white/yellow hawk that spends most of its time hunched over a stream, waiting to kill frogs.  Talk about an alternative lifestyle for a raptor.  Great birding overall, although the one known as Hot Coco was in a catatonic state of pure pain, due to his back and part of his leg feeling the need to separate themselves from his body.

Aside from the Black-Hawk, the highlight was watching 2 Crissal Thrashers do the deed to make more Crissal Thrashers.  I think spring is coming.  Just ask the rock man.