Monday, March 23, 2009

Owl at Home







Well...I had all day to paddle about...but didn't see much!...moving I mean...lots of pretty scenery though...it was another Perfect Snow Fall..much like the one back in December...started out with a quick walk and look at the Snow for Tracks at Lower Falls...didn't see any... but didn't go very far...and so to Breakfast...Blackbirds about Last Chance..pic..got a good pic of two friends waiting for bus too...geared up back at the Cabin..and out to the Rocky Slope....further along then before, I found some Bobcat and Coyote tracks...from late yesterday, they looked to be....Snow was too hard and crunchy for later, as it froze hard overnight...the tracks were deeply impressed like when the snow was fresh and wet...and over behind the Sunnyside Tents I found fresh Bear tracks...maybe two Bears...I backtracked one a little way up the Slope and ran into a pile of Boulders where it started...and maybe wishful wondering makes me think Bear sleeps thereabouts!....followed the track about the Tents...Bear was checking all the Bear Lockers...this likely in the wee hours...the meander took me back the way I came, and I found a fresh Coyote track...Coyote over my track!....followed that, and that meander took me back to the Rooms and the Cabin where I finished up the laundry...and then got waylaid by phone calls to sort out the Bus...which is now in the works to be returned in its same condition...something about dropped valves and impossible to find replacement engines reliable for just that model...well...I wishwishwish I had a garage to just work on it myself!...sigh...anyway, the Backyard wont look so empty, and the Blue Jay will have it's birdbath!....out again, I paddled over to the Post Office....picked up lunch...tuna chips hershy's and gator aid...the later a welcomed addition to the selection!...Pepsi has ousted Coke......oh...I get to use my new word...extirpated!...oh!...I looked it up...that's too strong a word!...the "Important Bird Sites" book uses it to express what happens to bird populations ...for instance...the coastal population of some Raptors in SoCal has been extirpated by development...for sometime a book review blog!...anyway...found my perch on the Long Fallen Cedar at Bobcat Meadow and had lunch...one Raven patiently watchingwaiting...I have a clip of Fir Bear with the Ravens, and just how the Ravens were waiting, or daring to get close and steal away some food, with the Bears and the Deer carcass, is how they behave when I'm sitting having lunch!!....picked up, and crossed
Chapel Bridge to check on Owl...YI's gathered under the Cottonwood about their guide in a circle!...whattodo...I walked out trying not to disturb their lesson, and seeing Owl was at home, thought, whattheheck, and invited them all to have a look....they had a very hard time seeing Owl, all standing in a row looking up at the Cottonwood, with their guide, who I had loaned the binocs too, trying to describe the Magnificent Perch...dont know, but our brains and eyes, conditioned as they are to Citiscapes, may have trouble distinguishing Landscapes and Critters...kindof the reverse of what ethnographers discovered with Indians and Eskimos...they would show them photographs, or spring a city scene on them...like Forest Pygmies seeing open savanna for the first time!...and note how confused they would be trying to figure things out....oh...this post is a meander!...anyway, the YI's went back to their lesson, and before continuing on the Big Loop, I took some Owl pics and clips...at CAD Beach I caught a glimpse of Kingfisher...I was so close to a pic!...but Kingfisher flew off low over the Merced to Ozone Beach...then came hurrying back and up to Chapel Bridge...thought to follow...but felt a bit worn down...phone call tired!...and finished the loop...back at the Cabin, visited with neighbor friends, and Annie the Cat, and, back at the Cabin, curled up!...woke up after sunset, so missed a late evening walk...clouds came in and made the evening kinda dreary after the blueblue aftenoon with new white snow...oh...blog surfing I found a Robert Graves' poem...
Like Snow
She, then, like snow in a dark night,
Fell secretly. And the world waked
With dazzling of the drowsy eye,
So that some muttered 'Too much light',
And drew the curtains close.
Like snow, warmer than fingers feared,
And to soil friendly;
Holding the histories of the night
In yet unmelted tracks.
Robert Graves
from this blog:
which is a pretty nice blog...Blogs have become an end in and of themselves, rather than a means, say, to market...for the longest time people communicated through a small media window...and the small size lent itself to narrow views...when the printing press was invented, the window opened wider...with the web, maybe a window wide enough for the world!

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