The lonely road had been a busy place that morning, as evidenced by the myriad tracks crisscrossing their way over the snow, like those of this rabbit:

Rabbit tracks

I came upon a wide clearing; it seemed to be a very popular white-tailed deer hangout:

Deer Party

There seemed to be one big guy hanging around the deer party too…the bouncer, perhaps?  (That’s my mitt on the ground for reference).

Moose Tracks

A coyote loped between the trees:

Coyote tracks

Teeney-weenie tracks were EVERYwhere.  We tend to forget that there’s an entire community living, eating and travelling under the snow…and occasionally on top of it, but less commonly because it’s pretty dangerous to be roaming about the surface when you look like tasty noms to, oh, pretty much every predator out there.  The track on the right was about the size of a quarter.  I think it’s a red squirrel, but I’m not sure.

Small mammal tracks

This paw print appears to have been left by a different animal:

One paw

A pair of twin tunnellers left their marks:

Twin Tunnellers

As did this tail-dragging deer mouse:

Deer mouse tracks

Mammals were not the only creatures roaming the woods today…there was also a FEROCIOUS PACK OF RAVENOUS RAPTORS!!!!

Well, sort of.  These three-toed wild turkey tracks (very likely left by the same group I met the other day) just SCREAM “therapod” to me (oh, wait, that’s ’cause they are).  I just love them!

Therapods! I mean, Wild Turkeys!

Stay tuned for more winter wanderings!  Tomorrow – Part 2:  stories in the snow.

After a recent Arctic blast which brought temperatures of -23 F. to Montana, we’re now having amazingly mild weather for January. We’ve got temps in the 40’s by day and 20’s by night. On the downside, we’re not seeing many eagles near our house in the foothills. We’re assuming that, since there’s so little snow in the mountains, they have no need to migrate to lower ground to find food. We do see the occasional bald eagle fly up and down the river, and every so often, a golden eagle appears (then it’s time to bring in our little dogs…they would be a Chicken McNugget to a big eagle).

I have 22 whitetail deer who come by every afternoon for a snack, along with 7 wild turkeys and an assortment of birds….they’re my favorite neighbors. The dogs are having a blast, digging holes in search of moles. The ‘girls’ are going on 10 years old, and they still have the energy of a puppy.

Our firewood is almost gone, and more is on the way. Gotta’ be ready for the next big blast, right? All in all, we love a Montana winter!

On the way between the Burdekin dam and Townsville we met this Australian Bustard (Ardeotis australis). The small group slowly disappeared in the scrub. December 2008

The Christmas Bird Count isn’t the only citizen science activity that the Museum does. We do Project Feeder Watch, too. It makes for a very pleasant lunchtime: good food and a viewing window (today we saw our first Wild Turkey and Tufted Titmouse of the month). Many of you with feeders at home or work can participate. You can sign up at any time. Here’s an overview from a recent Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s e-newsletter:

Project FeederWatch

The 2009-10 season of Project FeederWatch begins November 14, though you can sign up at any time. FeederWatchers keep track of their birds through the winter and report their tallies each week. This helps scientists track changes in winter bird populations from year to year.

To learn more and to sign up, visit the Project FeederWatch website. New participants receive a kit with a handbook, a bird-identification poster, calendar, and instruction booklet. There is a $15 fee ($12 for Lab members) to help cover the costs of materials and participant support. If you live in Canada, please visit our partner, Bird Studies Canada, or call (888) 448-2473.

I was out on the race course this past weekend doing some final exploring and I have to say that this is one of my favorite areas that we have used for racing. It will be a true Swamp Stomp experience for all those who participate–challenging terrain mixed with options for some challenging navigation. I had a great time this past weekend navigating through trackless cypress swamp–spooking a huge red-tailed hawk and sneaking up on a large flock of turkeys as I slid through the vegetation boundary and into a grassy clearing.

Jessica deep within the bowels of the earth. Okay, maybe only 20 feet down.

The previous weekend, Jessica and I tested one of the major foot sections and we were impressed with the variety of terrain and unique features of the area–it is a run/trek not to be missed. Even though the temperatures were in the 30s, we had a great time and it reminded me of why I love to be out in the woods tromping through the bush and finding my way to cool places.

So, if you are looking for a challenge for your body, your mind and your friends, put together a team and register for the Swamp Stomp 30-Hour Adventure Race or the shorter, Son of Swamp Stomp–February 13 and 14.

More information at www.wecefar.com.

It’s not too unusual to see a flock of wild turkeys (Meleagris gallopavo) when you’re travelling local rural roads. This is especially so in winter, when the large birds show up starkly against snowy fields as they forage. It hasn’t always been that way though. I certainly never saw turkeys when I was growing up. Although wild turkeys are native to southern Ontario, its only Canadian locality, habitat loss and over-hunting decimated the turkey population during the 1800s. The species was extirpated from Ontario by 1909. The last confirmed sighting was in Aurora, north of Toronto.

A program to restore wild turkeys to Ontario was undertaken by the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources (OMNR) and the first 74 wild turkeys, imported from Michigan and Missouri, were released in 1984. Since then, additional birds have been imported and released with considerable success, with large population increases over the last two decades. The OMNR ended its release program at the beginning of 2005. It still seems something of a novelty to see flocks strutting and gleaning seeds in fields.

Turkeys do well where there is adequate forest cover, a water source, and open fields, such as corn and soybean fields, for foraging. When spring days begin to warm up, the winter flocks break into smaller breeding groups, with dominant males preventing subordinate males from accessing females. The females construct nests by scratching a depression in the ground in an area where it will be well concealed by grass and vegetation.

When snow is very deep, it limits the availability of food, as the turkeys are unable to forage on the ground. If snow depth exceeds 25 centimetres for more than seven weeks, turkeys may begin to starve to death. Good luck, turkeys. Hope to see you in the spring!

As holiday revelers lift their glasses at office parties and New Year’s bashes, they may want to keep one rule of thumb in mind: the darker the liquor, the bigger the hangover. People who drank bourbon reported more severe hangovers than people who drank vodka, but they weren’t any less alert. Compared to clear liquors, brownish spirits like whiskey and rum contain more congeners. People who drank bourbon reported more severe hangovers than vodka drinkers.

Although it sounds like an old wives’ tale, it’s actually true — to a point, according to a new study. Compared to clear liquors like vodka and gin, brownish spirits like whiskey and rum contain greater amounts of congeners, substances that occur naturally or are added to alcohol during the production and aging process. Congeners — many of which are toxic — contribute to an alcohol’s unique color, odor, and taste, but they can also interfere with cell function and punish your head and belly the morning after – Read full article…

So there’s a detente for now, peaceful co-existence.  These large neighbors have the run of the garden and they don’t mind me as long as I don’t bring along the dog.  Today I put out food and they stood around like hungry cats, waiting for me to turn away.  They clean up the garden, desposit some fresh fertilizer, then fly up onto the carport and move on to the next stop on their progressive lunch.  Today it was a group of eight, four adults, four youngsters about half size.  All have the array for  brown hues frlom bronze and tan to burnt umber.  I got that one from Crayola.

I’ve noticed they eat the tops right off the tender young weeds and leave our perennials untouched.  So far, so detente.

Last Friday the rain gods were busy, so instead of tramping the mud on the fire trails, I decided to take a walk up Centennial Drive to the Lawrence Hall of Science (LHS) in the Berkeley Hills above UCB campus.

Maybe it’s because I grew up in the desert, but I love walking and hiking in the rain. The colors of the plants and earth seem more vivid, and the gray skies somehow make the green hills seem even more green. I’ve also noticed that I usually see more wildlife on a rainy day than a sunny one. Maybe it’s because there are fewer humans out, or maybe some animals like foraging in the rain.

So, I expected to see some animals on the hike, but was happily surprised to come upon this on Stadium Rim Way just above the California Memorial Stadium:

Wild Turkeys—not your typical Thanksgiving gobbler!

Wild turkeys! I am a huge fan of this native American bird. I consider it the American peacock:

But I didn’t always appreciate what amazing birds turkeys really are. Like a lot of people, my early impressions of turkeys were from the standpoint of Thanksgiving. I remember being told as a kid that turkeys were so dumb, they’d look up in the sky during rain and drown, and other nonsense. (See the debunking Snopes site: http://www.snopes.com/critters/wild/turkey.asp)

The problem is, as the Snopes article points out: “Domesticated turkeys are not necessarily ’stupid,’ but because they have been bred in captivity for so many generations, they lack the survival skills of their wild cousins: They’re weak, they’re fat, they’re not agile, they can’t run very fast, and they can’t fly.”

[Update 2010-02-04 - There's a fascinating article on the domestication of wild turkeys at ScienceNOW called the Turkeys: So Good People Tamed Them Twice.  It explains what molecular anthropologists have been able to figure out about who first domesticated turkeys and when it occured.]

The turkey—one remarkable bird

The wild turkey is the very antithesis of our domesticated Thanksgiving bird. It’s wicked smart (“cunning” is a term hunters often use), illusive, and agile. And it’s a big, powerful bird.

An adult wild tom turkey typically weighs between 10 and 25 lbs and can be over 4 feet tall.  That’s one big bird!  Females typically weigh half as much and can be up to three feet tall.  The wingspan of turkeys range from four to nearly five feet.  The record-sized adult male wild turkey, according to the National Wildlife Turkey Federation, was 38 lb!

Despite its size, a wild turkey can run over 20 mph and uses that five-foot wingspan to hits speeds of 55 mph in flight. The wild turkey can defend itself, too. The spurs on a 20 lb. tom turkey make it a formidable foe, as many a hapless dog has found out when cornering one.

The turkeys one encounters in the Berkeley Hills are fairly used to humans, and it’s amazing how close you can get to them. This rafter (flock) of turkeys seemed to be all the same size and age —they seemed to be from the same brood. They walked up Stadium Rim Way for several hundred feet and then nonchalantly moved up the hill away from the Stadium, feeding as they went.

Centennial Road—beautiful lichen and black-tailed deer

As you head up Centennial Road up Strawberry Canyon, you’ll see some wonderful examples of lichens on most of the trees. I plan on doing an in-depth post about lichens later. They are fascinating plants, but identifying lichens is much more difficult than identifying vascular plants. Each lichen is a complete microscopic world with unique characteristics, and they can be very hard to tell apart.

The rain made the vivid green and yellow of two species of lichen quite striking:

About a quarter of a mile from the Berkeley Botanical Garden, I spotted two black-tailed deer grazing on the new grass that’s been springing up with our late fall rains:

Late Fall storm from Lawrence Hall of Science

It’s a pretty steep hike up to the Lawrence Hall of Science, but the view is always worth it. Even on a stormy day, unless you’re fogged in, the vistas can be wonderful, especially if you’re a fan of dramatic clouds.  In these shots, you can see Sather Tower just coming out of the low clouds, with the distant San Francisco Bay mostly hidden:

Compare these views to this one from midsummer:

And here’s a view looking over to Oakland:

That golden stream in the distance is Highway 24, the Grove Shafter Freeway, curving through Oakland. This picture doesn’t do it justice; It looked like a river of molten gold—magical!

Going home—caressing clouds and a talisman

On the way back down Centennial Drive from LHS, the rain lifted some, and there were beautiful views of Strawberry Canyon. I alway love to watch the interplay between low clouds, fogs, and the Berkeley Hills.

Finally, in the grass along the road, I found one this lone feather, a final reminder of the rafter of turkeys I’d seen earlier. For me, it was a talisman of a remarkable bird that makes the Berkeley Hills such a wonderful place to explore.

A couple of unusual birds at Ashland Pond recently.  A Green Heron in the tiny unfrozen end of the pond on Friday.  Usually that species heads south for the winter.  This one was eating a fish.  Then today I looked up and…

Turkey Vulture passing over.  Another bird that is usually somewhere south of Mt. Shasta this time of year.

The Black Phoebe and Red-breasted Sapsucker are still at Ashland Pond.  Today’s mild daytime temps, over 40 degrees, have the ice melting and ducks returning.  That includes 3 Wigeon now and 2 female Shoveler.

This Anna’s male was the first I’ve seen there in weeks. 

On the east side of the Medford Airport at mid-day I found two Cooper’s Hawks, two Harrier, one White-tailed Kite and a Red-tail.  Here’s a pic of one of the Coops.

At Denman Wildlife Refuge I found both a White-throated Sparrow and a California Towhee among the more common birds.  The small ponds west of Agate Road were all still largely iced over.  No ducks.

In our garden the Wild Turkeys continue to be regular visitors.

Shoveler on Ashland Pond.

Wigeon on ice…on Ashland Pond.

Late today I saw a Dipper on Asland Creek behind Munchies on the plaza.

He thinks he’s hot stuff now, but I know him and early this spring he was just an egg.

(1276)

Photo #114:  Tracks I found on the Swinging Bridge trail between Bridwell and the bridge.  This was taken in the morning before the girls started using the trail.  The reason I was at camp was for The Great Amazing Race Event for Cadettes, Seniors, and Ambassadors – Girl Scouts. 

Not a vintage book, but one of my books — since I have a “wild” theme going on here this week, I thought I’d toss it in.

I wrote this one hot lonely summer in 1999, sold it to Tor/Forge in 2000, and it waspublished May, 2001 with little fanfare as I had become orphaned at the publisher (my editor left to become a concierge at SoHo Grand — better money than publishing!)

A bookstore in Santa Monica dubbed it “surburban noir” and that stuck…they top-billed it for their customrs that month as did a few other speciality bookstores.  Reviewes were mixed, some good, some not so good.  The paperback cane out in 2002.  It won the Best Published Novel of 2002 from the San Diego Book Awards Association and has been optioned for the movies (or one movie, the other cable) twice, but never developed. Blurbs from John Lutz, Maxim Jakubowski, Don Webb, Larry McCaffery…

Tor Books was not happy with sales. It went into the black, at least, but was no giant seller.

Wild Turkey is vintage inspired, tossing in some Rear Window, some Joe Lansdale, some Crying Game, and some David Lynch.  It begins “normally” and gradually gets absurd, more violent, surreal, and ultra-violent, and probably more sexual than your usual Tor/Forge novel.

Now, ten years fter I wrote it, I see it differently: some things I still like, some makes me cringe, and I certainly would have written it differently today.

You can find it pretty cheap, hardcover or paperback, on Amazon, ebay, biblio.com, half.com, etc.

So if you’re intetested in this blog guy’s fiction…there are others, plus two forthcoing from Black Mask Books, Shabbytown and The Trouble with Tramps, both set in the past and vintage-y in feel.

Okay, this probably won’t work right, but…. Here are my 30 characters, but I linked them to my site. Sorry. I couldn’t do all of the links twice, I don’t think….

Again, thanks to everybody for the encouragement and/or other comments and for Tyler for putting this whole shindig together… I hope everyone keeps creating and gets the success that they’re after (unless you’re doing it just for grins…keep grinning, I guess) It’s been fun! It’s always neat to interact with other artists/creative types even if it is only through the internet!

*Obligatory Shameless Plug: Please check out my Zuda entry whether it’s on Zuda or my own site…. I should know one way or the other 2 weeks from now…

http://crashlanden.wordpress.com/

November is National Blog Posting Month (NaBloPoMo). To celebrate, and in typical fashion, I donned my “Screw You” hat and refrained from blogging almost entirely. Take that mass organizing!

Besides hosting NaBloPoMo, National Georgia Pecan Month, and of course National American Indian & Alaska Native Heritage Month, November is also a month revered for its segue into Winter and the dreaded cold season, dare I say flu season.

Today I offer a list of the things that keep me from getting sick. I absolutely NEVER get sick, and swear by this list. I know, I know, there’s always some idiot who runs around saying “I NEVER get sick,” though they do, in fact, get sick as often as anyone else. I actually do not get sick, so, here is my list of simple preventative and/or proactive measures for staying healthy all winter long:

goodtimejohnny’s list of
simple preventative and/or proactive measures

4) Citrus
Squeezing lemons and limes into water is tasty, and most likely a good source of vitamin C. Everyone knows that’s a good thing for some reason.

3) Garlic
Put it on everything. It’s one of the best additions to a dish, and does wonders for the ‘ol immune system. Let us not forget that vampire related crap is unnecessarily popular now, and possibly more dangerous than the swine and avian flus combined. And SARS. Vampires are really lame.

2) Hot Sauce
The hotter the better. Hot sauce raises your metabolism. That is important. If you consume enough hot sauce, it will probably kill every virus-thing inside you. There’s probably even facts to back this up. They might even have a website.
Goya makes a fantastic green hot sauce, similar to a Tabasco, that you can put on anything. Anything.

1) Whiskey.
Yes, after all Pappy was right. While  citrus, garlic, and hot sauce all help prevent harmful attacks from viruses, whiskey has a bad (ass) habit of bursting through the door and kicking the shit out of them before they even know what happened.  Where hot sauce attempts to slowly roast your illness, whiskey just shoots it. “I’d rather waste a bullet than cough all #@%$ing winter,” said a shot of Wild Turkey during a recent interview.

Now get out there and show the world what you’ve learned!

disclaimer:

*Excessive and mixed quantities of preventative measures numbers 1 and 3  may lead to smelling, if not acting, like a pirate.

*Excessive and mixed quantities of preventative measures numbers 1 and 2 may lead to excessively hairy chest, mustache.

Wobble Gobble The ‘Wild Turkey’ is the world’s greatest stunt-bird/daredevil. See his show and you will believe that a turkey can fly (and just like his idol, he carries a cane filled with his favorite beverage:Wild Turkey).

Hope everyone had a GREAT Thanksgiving Day today…

Wobble Gobble The ‘Wild Turkey’ is the world’s greatest stunt-bird/daredevil. See his show and you will believe that a turkey can fly (and just like his idol, he carries a cane filled with his favorite beverage:Wild Turkey).

I hope everyone had a happy Thanksgiving. I had a pretty good one. Hopefully next year this time will be even better.

A Cooper’s Hawk sped from some elevated perch down into the birch tree in our neighbor’s garden.  It’s where many of our Mourning Doves loaf between meals on the grain on the ground.   This time the Coop missed but she sure scared all the smaller birds out of our garden for half an hour.  Except the Bushtits who seem to operate in their own parallel universe.  Sixteen or more come and go, twittering amongst themselves, ignoring all other birds.  They favor only the suet feeder.  There have been eleven turkeys in the flock that has gleaned our garden this week.  A mix of large males, some females and some immatures that are still but half-sized.

Their rich plumage shows what you can do with a palette of browns: cream to dun to tan to chocolate to bronze to brown-black.

Herit Thrush in brush near Ashland Pond.

Spotted Towhe being difficult to spot.  Peeking over the leaves.

Wrentit in motion.

Location:     243 Granite Street, Ashland
Observation date:     11/24/09
Number of species:     15

Wild Turkey     11
Cooper’s Hawk     1
Mourning Dove     18
Northern Flicker (Red-shafted)     1
Steller’s Jay     8
Western Scrub-Jay     2
Black-capped Chickadee     4
Mountain Chickadee     1
Bushtit     16
White-breasted Nuthatch     1
American Robin     1
Spotted Towhee     1
Song Sparrow     1
Dark-eyed Junco (Oregon)     8
Lesser Goldfinch     3

Location:     Ashland Pond
Observation date:     11/24/09
Number of species:     28

Canada Goose     2
American Wigeon     10
Mallard     8
Pied-billed Grebe     2
Northern Harrier     1
Red-shouldered Hawk     1
Red-tailed Hawk     2
Mourning Dove     2
Acorn Woodpecker     4
Red-breasted Sapsucker     1
Northern Flicker (Red-shafted)     2
Western Scrub-Jay     8
American Crow     8
Common Raven     3
Black-capped Chickadee     1
White-breasted Nuthatch     1
Ruby-crowned Kinglet     2
Hermit Thrush     3
American Robin     35
Wrentit     2
European Starling     2
Yellow-rumped Warbler (Audubon’s)     6
Spotted Towhee     14
Song Sparrow     5
White-throated Sparrow     1
Golden-crowned Sparrow     16,        Dark-eyed Junco (Oregon)     8
Lesser Goldfinch     2

To friends and family near and far, I wish to you a Happy Thanksgiving.

Openin’ up a can of wild turkey this Thanksgiving