A Birder's Life for Me

We are back in Key West for awhile having travelled 49 of the last 67 days to Texas, Arizona, New Mexico, Michigan, Ohio, Nevada and California.  

The snowpack in the Sierra Nevada mountains is thawing quickly, forming raging cascades along the trails.

This panorama provides a nice view of our final California trail near the town of Bishop.

The night before we had a fun dinner at a small restaurant in Big Pine called Rossi's.  What a hoot.  The owner was there.  He is in his late 80's.  The waitress mentioned something to him as he walked through the restaurant to which he replied, "Shit, everything I have is run down."  I think he was mostly talking about himself.  

His cowboy cousin showed up shortly after that and sat down at the bar.  His usual adult beverage was promptly placed in front of him without him having to say a word.  He said he will be 89 soon.  He talked about the booming days when films and tv shows were made there.  He talked about taking trains of pack mules into the mountains to supply camps for hikers and horseback tours.  He talked about how they prevented massive fires in the old days by clearing out the fallen trees instead of leaving them as they do today to create the monster fires we see each year in California.  He was a walking, talking museum and a lot of fun to chat with.

Our spaghetti and meatball dinner was served in paper bowls with plastic dinnerware.  It was nothing short of awesome.  An old western movie was playing on one screen and the 250th Army anniversary parade was on the other. This place is what America is all about.  Even in California.  At least the part of California that is still part of America, that is.

500!

We were about 2 miles into the final hike in California when we saw our target species for the day.   The Gray-crowned Rosy-finch spends its summers high in the mountains.  We got ours around 10,000 feet elevation.

So, mission accomplished.  Goal attained in the usual DJ fashion.  Now, I'm left to ponder whether to try for 600 or not.  We have another trip planned for late August to Washington and Idaho.  550 might be doable.  But 600 would require a lot of travel just to pick a couple species here and there.  So, we'll probably focus on playing with Henry and OG in the pool and doing some shelling around Sanibel in the weeks ahead.