Alaska 2012 Day 2

After sleeping for over 8 hours, we left the house to run and get some groceries and odds and ends.  We were probably gone about an hour.  When we returned, and pulled into the driveway, I caught movement out of the corner of my eye.  Of course, it was my blind eye, so it was probably the wind blowing leaves on a tree.  But, wait, the movement was larger than just leaves, and it was coming toward me - at eye level.  Holy s**t it was a moose!  In the driveway!  Not only was it a moose, but it was a mama moose and her yearling.  Talk about being frozen in your seat!  They quickly moved off the driveway so we could pull in, and then abruptly stopped along the trees and started grazing.

In fact, they totally ignored us.  The young one (on the left) then bounded about 40 feet back toward us and into the yard, as if he was playing and then went right back over by mom and started eating again!

Only in Alaska!

After about a minute it was clear that we were not bothering them one bit, so we parked the truck, slowly opened our doors (I wanted to be able to jump back in the truck and shut the door just in case mom decided to charge) and unloaded our groceries and went in the house.  By the time we made it to the front door, the two moose had moved on through the woods and over to the neighbors yard.  Man, I love this place!

Alaska 2012 Day 1 Part 2

Today, Sunday, May 20, 2012 we arrived in Fairbanks, AK at 10:30pm (2:30am Monday Ohio time) with the sun shining brightly. Our fabulous boss, Michelle, picked us up at the airport in her 1989 Chevy Suburban - thank goodness, because we had one duffle bag that was big enough for both Michelle and me to fit inside.  We are staying at the University of Alaska guest house, The Schaible House for the first week we are here until our permanent summer housing is available.

The Schaible House is a lovely home that was donated to UAF by Dr Schaible.  He was a local physician who was very dedicated to helping students succeed at UAF, and as a result his residence has become the guest residence to international dignitaries and no-name birders from Ohio.  It is a large log home on about 5 acres, with birch, aspen, spruce and alder trees providing shade and beauty to the property.  During our first year at UAF I helped prep this house for the family of Neil Conan from NPR's :"All Things Considered", when he came to campus and gave a talk.  Now we're staying here.  How cool is that?

Alaska 2012 Day 1

Sitting in O'Hara with a 5 hr layover.

Flying Nun Road Trip

9am.  I arrived a little late at Sister Marty’s apartment this morning.  Daylight savings time  kicked in last night and we moved the clocks ahead an hour.  So, when the alarm went off at 6am – which was 5am – I didn’t want to get out of bed. An hour later, I realized that I had fallen back to sleep!  After putting the food from the fridge into the cooler, Dave packed all our goodies into the car and kissed me goodbye.  Marty and I were off on a road trip to Myrtle Beach, SC and the only thing on our agenda was to relax and bird – oh, and to spoil our daughter Amanda.

The weather was perfect.  Mid 50’s, sunny and clear skies.  We had Dave’s special tuna salad sandwiches in the cooler, a fresh batch of homemade chocolate chip cookies and the most important birding trip food of all, Hussman’s Cheese Curls! 

I drove as far as Lexington, KY, and then Marty took over.  I’m so spoiled on road trips, because I never have to drive.  I get to kick back, play on the internet and find interesting places to visit along our way, work on my latest knitting project, and blog! Meanwhile, we kept track of Red-tailed Hawks and which states the licence plates were from on the vehicles we passed along the way. 

We stopped for gas and a power converter at Radio Shack in London, KY and realized that the trees are already blooming out!  The further south we go, the further along spring is.  We ate ½ of our tunafish ginormous sandwiches and some cheese curls and were back on the road.

When we reach the Kentucky/Tennessee border, we hit a detour.  Apparently, a rock slide had pummelled the highway the day before, so we were directed down a Civil War Trail, Hwy 25W from Jellico thru Wynn, Habersham and to LaFollette, TN.  

My guess is that this was the route everyone took before the interstate was built.  The highway wound through a beautiful creek/river valley with striking rock formations on one side of the highway, and blue green water flowing through mild rapids in the river on the other side. 

Forsythia and weeping willow are blooming along the highway here. We arrived in LaFollette at 1:30pm  and saw this beautiful weeping cherry tree in center of town.

Knoxville at 2pm and then East on I 40 to Asheville.  We saw our first red bud blooming here.  Still 66F and sunny.  The drive from Knoxville to Ashville is my favorite part of the drive.  There is something magical, or should I say spiritual, since I am travelling with a Sister of Charity, about going through the Smokies. 

I love the rawness of nature here and the lack of human intervention/destruction.  We turned on Pandora and played a John Denver song as we crossed the mountains.  Perfect.

Once in South Carolina, we stopped at the visitors center and saw our first daffodils. 

It was an easy ride to Amanda’s house in Conway.  10 hrs, license plates from 22 states and 7 Red-tailed Hawks.  

Day 2 – Myrtle Beach, SC

We started our day off with blueberry coffee and bluebirds perching outside the window.

On the road by 9am.  Huntington Beach State Park was our first destination to see if we could find Seaside Sparrows, Alligators and Painted Buntings.  As we crossed the causeway  between the salt water marsh and the freshwater marsh, we ran across this curious fellow sitting on the guardrail.  

There were a ton of shorebirds along the edges of the marsh, and Snowy Egrets, Little Blue Herons, Great Blue Herons, Black-crowned Night Herons, Double-crested Cormorants, and Green-winged Teal.

We parked at the Gift Shop and walked the trail to the beach.  

What a beautiful day!  A nice, cool breeze coming in off the water, and a low cloud cover that lifted within in minutes.  

Life at the beach was abundant.  We saw Northern Gannets, more Pelicans, Grebes, Gulls and Loons.  It was way cool.  

I think we would have sat there all day, if we hadn’t gotten a little chilled.

We ate our lunch and then walked the trail behind the Castle Atalaya, the picturesque, Moorish-style winter home of Anna Hyatt and Archer Huntington, sculptor and philanthropist, respectively, who left the park and adjacent Brookgreen Gardens as their legacy.  

We saw at least a dozen alligators hanging out in the back pond and got good looks at Common Gallinule and Pied-billed Grebes in the scope.  

We’re a little early for the Buntings and the Sparrows, but we did get good looks at Yellow-rumped Warblers and White-throated Sparrows.

After leaving the Park, we headed across the highway to Brookgreen Gardens, a garden museum that preserves the native flora and fauna and displays objects of art within that natural setting.  

What a breathtaking experience!  

Vibrant floral gardens surround figurative sculptures in a this tranquil preserve.  

We must have walked 1 mile as we meandered through the various themed gardnes. 

Even at 23 yrs, Amanda is stil the same little girl who would run down the the creek behind the house and grap frogs and snakes.  She spied  tadpoles in one of the pools, and immediately grabbed a couple to show the interested park patrons. 

It wasn’t long before she had here eye on a couple of anoles, and just like that, she had one in her hand and was showing a little lady her wirey friend.

I just love seeing all of the flowers here.  

By 3pm we had walked another mile and were getting a little tired.  We found a statue of St Francis of Assisi the patron saint of nature. We have a stature of St Francis in the courtyard at the Motherhouse too!

There is no way you can see everything in one day.  Fortunately, our entrance fee is good for a week, so we’re planning on coming back again tomorrow so we can go to the zoo and the labyrinth.  

Calliope Hummingbird Road Trip

“I’ll be back at 11am to pick you up,” Dave said as he headed out the door for work.  He’d already spoken to Sister Marty this morning, and we were going to head to North Vernon, Indiana and try to see the Calliope Hummingbird that was coming to a feeder.  This was one of the few times that all three members of our birding competition team, aptly named, On a Wing and a Prayer, could be together to go birding, and we were all anxious to see this bird.  It would be a life bird for me.  Calliopes breed in the northwestern US, migrate through the Rockies and overwinter in western Mexico.  How this individual wound up in south central Indiana is a mystery.

At 11am, Dave was back and we jumped into the truck.  The weather is absolutely perfect – clear skies and 50F weather.  We met Marty in Mt Vernon and gave the homeowner of the feeder a call.  She’d seen the bird this morning, and we were welcome to come on over.  When we arrived at the house, Ken from Columbus, OH was already standing against the fence in her backyard watching for the bird.  We introduced ourselves to Norma Jackson, signed her guest list and quickly walked around to the backyard.  She had two feeders set up; one with a heat lamp directed toward it, and another one further out in the yard with heat tape wrapped around it.

Within minutes, the hummingbird landed in the badford pear in the backyard and zipped down to the feeder for a drink.  

We quietly stood in the yard for about 30 minutes and the bird came in and out about 3 times.  

She’s one of those female hummers that looks just like a bunch of other female hummers.  But, we were able to snap a couple of photos that really show the decurved bill.

We were visitor numbers 224,225 and 226 to Norma’s yard since Christmas Eve.  I’d say she’s had a pretty busy holiday season!  

We left the Calliope and headed over to Muscatatuck NWR and went into the visitors center to check out their feeders.  We were rewarded with great looks at both house and purple finches, fox, tree, white-crowned and white-throated sparrows as well as standard feeder birds, chickadees, titmice, etc. 

We had decided to head over toward the big lake and see if we could see otters, when we spotted two photographers frozen in place at the edge of the woods.  We crept up slowly in the truck – well, I guess we didn’t creep, considering the truck is a diesel.  So we turned the engine off and asked them what they had.  “Screech Owl,” the man replied.  We quietly stood by the car for a few minutes and watched the hollowed out hole in the tree, but didn’t see anything.  We moved on and birded the rest of the road and turned around.  On our way back past the photographers we checked the owl hole again, and sure enough, there it was.  A beautiful rufous morph eastern screech owl.  Score!

We picked up a few more duck species at the lake and a red shouldered hawk sitting on a telephone wire on the way into North Vernon.  Team On a Wing and a Prayer is up to 80 species and its only January 6^th!  I think we’ll stop for Mexican food on the way home.  Birding is exhausting and I’m starving! LOL!

Great Gray Roadtrip Final Post

We were back on the road by 2:45pm with a brand new alternator in the truck.  Pretty fast service for a dealership, and everyone was really nice.  The employees certainly live up to the company name, Friendly Ford!  After a little SNAFU finding the Ambassador Bridge over to Windsor, Ontario, we were finally in Canada.  

You can tell we're in our truck, see that crack in the windshield on the left?  Going through Customs was a breeze.  They were more interested in Steve than anyone else.  Guess he looks a little sketchy with that shaggy beard!  LOL!

After following the directions from the bird hotline, we pulled onto Road #2 and saw a bunch of cars pulled over about a mile ahead.  The sun was just touching the horzon, and we only had a few minutes of light left.  You could feel the tension and anticipation in the truck as we got closer to our destination.  As we approached Arner Townline Road, we saw about 10 cars lining both sides of the road just ahead.  

A group of people were clustered together on the right shoulder and a few others were standing on the opposite side of the road.  There, on the telephone wire, not 20 feet from the nearest person, was a beautiful Great Gray Owl!  

Massive, and beautiful in rich chocolate brown, white, and gray, it glowed in the late afternoon light. 

It was so unconcerned with the mass of people snapping pictures of it, that it didn’t even look at them.  It just turned its back on us and focused on watching the grass in the ditch for prey. 

We pulled over at the first open spot on the road and quickly jumped out of the truck.  We were able to snap a couple of great pictures, as the bird methodically worked the ditch from telephone pole to telephone pole. 

It would intently watch the grass and then rotate its head to the other side and scan the roadside for a few seconds.  Then its attention would return to the original spot in the tall weeds. 

Eventually, It flew across to the north side of the road into a small tree about 5 ft from the road and kept hunting.  

The bird didn’t even react when the Canadian police car drove by and announced on the load speaker that we needed to stay off the road.  Then, suddenly, the bird dropped down into the weeds in the ditch.  

I heard 45 cameras click.  After foraging for a second or two, it emerged with a vole in its mouth.  Incredible! Then, it turned around, facing all of us, and proceeded to gulp the vole down in 2 swallows. 

I never imagined that I would get this good of a look at a Great Gray.  It was amazing!   Life Bird number 563 for me, and 655 for Dave and 450-something for Steve.  Woohoo!!  Happy Dance!

We were back in the car and heading home by 5:15pm.  Decided not to spend the night and just drive home.  Dave says the truck has more pep now that it has a fully operational alternator.  So, what the heck, let’s just come home.  It’s been a very successful adventure!

Great Gray Roadtrip - Part 2

The canned elevator music is softly playing ACDC, which is really surreal.  We're sitting in the lobby of Friendly Ford in Monroe, Michigan.  I'm working on my A&P lecture syllubi, notes and Powerpoints, and we're waiting for our truck to be fixed.

At about 10am, we entered Michigan, and the "check battery" light came on.  Steve located a Ford dealer nearby, and now at 2:15pm, we are getting a new alternator and have been informed that the brakes and tires are bad.  LOL!  What a roadtrip!  Good thing we packed our overnight bags, cause at this rate, we may not get to Kingsville until dark.  We ate our tuna fish sandwiches and watched Steve sleep at one of the salesmen's desks.

Good news is that there is a Comfort Inn near Kngsville that has special "birder" rates and we made reservations.  So, our trip has now become an overnight adventure!