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chased by fog My plan was to take you through the morning, through my first Breeding Bird Survey route of the year. Step by step photos of driving down the headlighted highway, and then a dirt road. But it all seemed so familiar. Yeah, been there, done that. They say telling the same stories over and over is an early sign of dementia, or Alzheimer's... So. We'll assume you've read last year's entry about this route, and instead concentrate on what was different this year. First off, no heelers. They both decided that 03:45 was way too early to go running out into the country, and stayed in the warm, soft bed with the wife. Their loss. Secondly, no moon. Made finding the big white rock kinda hard. or it would have, if it wasn't for this wonderful thing called GPS. Park at the right coordinates, looking at Jupiter low in the sky,
and a few minutes later, as the day begins to break, there it is, right outside my window.
My big white rock, with the feeble shine of Jupiter off to the right. And thirdly... fog.
Now, fog is bad when you're trying to count breeding birds. Naturally it makes them harder to see, but most courting birds usually taper off their singing if it's cool and damp out. So you're not supposed to run routes when it's foggy. But as you can tell in the photo above, the fog was in the basin behind me. Where I was sitting... no fog. I'm okay to go.
But as I sat there, waiting for my exact starting time of 05:02, the fog came sneaking in.
Craaaap. I make my three minute count (1 horned lark, 2 sage thrashers, 2 Brewer's sparrows and 4 Vesper sparrows) and quickly hightail it west, away from the fog. Stopping exactly one half-mile farther on, for another three-minute count. And the fog follows. Before my three minutes are up, I'm inside fog. Quickly I record my data, and again race out of the fog into daylight. The fog close behind, obscuring the rising sun.
We do this for twelve miles. I start my counts in clear skies, the mountains far to the north clearly visible.
But almost every time, before the three minutes are up, the fog has caught me again.
Mile after mile. After each stop, I break out of the rolling fog to a bright fogbow.
and drive west with the fog rolling behind. At one point I break out of the mist with pronghorn running alongside. But you can see the fogbank chasing behind us in my mirror.
Only to catch me at the next stop. The fog swept in to envelope this shrike on stop 18...
And to hide this drillers' camp
seconds after I arrive at stop 21.
Other pronghorn just simply disappeared.
At stop 25, however, I finally escape. At stop 25 my route turns north, and an insignificant ridge appears to be enough to divert the fog off my path.
For the remaining 25 stops, I am in daylight. And soon strip off my coat as the temperature rises. The only trace of the fog the dew it left behind.
Without the fog, I can see other wildlife along the route.
Not to mention the birds I was supposed to be looking for, like the eagle at 29
the cinnamon teal at 43
and the pair of Swainson's hawks at 46.
Both the cinnamon teal and Swainson's were first time reports for this route. Outracing the fog also allows me to see things out in the desert that I would be happier not to see:
Finally, on schedule, I reach the end of my route, at stop 50.
I make my last 3 minute count
and record wind and sky conditions, along with the temperature.
It was only 44 degrees when I started. |
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