Sandhill Cranes in Lodi

Vidya and I went to the Sandhill Crane Festival in Lodi, CA on November 9th. Here are some photos from our trip.



In the morning we took a tour of a reservoir with a EBMUD biologist. This was mainly a bird watching tour billed as an eagle viewing trip. It was nice because we saw a lot of ducks, loons, hawks, and ospreys. The eagles we saw were far off.

In the evening we went to a field which is known to be the overnight spot for the sandhill cranes. Each evening they fly-in to the field and it's a great opportunity to observe them low to the ground.

I'd like to go back and do a morning fly-out. One of the issues with the fly-in is that it's constantly getting darker. The fly-out would ensure that it's getting lighter with time, the risk is you may run out of birds before you get to view them.

Beavers in Martinez

http://www.hurlbert.net/Pictures/2008/20081018%20-%20Martinez%20Beavers/

Saturday evening I went over to Martinez, CA hoping to get some pictures of the local beavers.

I had seen a story on the news that alerted me to the presence of the beavers. A local restaurant, built along a creek, had put in some steel pilings forming a wall along the creek side edge of the restaurant to prevent the beavers from burrowing under the building. The beavers had built their house about 20 feet from the foundation of the house. People thought it was mean of the restaurant to put in the pilings because they believed it would upset the beavers. To their credit, after the cranes, huge pile drivers and work crews left the beavers could really give a dam (get it?). So, the local news came out and covered it and now the beavers are rock stars.

There were about 25 other people there, many with cameras and video equipment. I had checked out the times for sunset and knew I would be shooting in almost total darkness. The last couple of shots in the sequence were in total darkness. I used a flashlight in my left hand to light up the beavers and provide enough light for my camera to get a focus lock and snapped the pictures with my right hand while hanging off the support cables of a pedestrian bridge by my ankles and elbows.

The beavers were very cool and not nearly as tame as these pictures make them out to be. You could not really approach them but if you were on the bank when they swam up they didn't seem to mind your presence. One good thing over wild beavers is that they are used to the sounds and movements of people taking their pictures. I've taken pictures of Alaska beavers on occasion and they are definitely afraid of the noise made by the camera.

During the few hours I was there the beavers shared the water with a muskrat, about a half dozen raccoons (which started brawling at one point which was funny as hell - don't worry, nobody got hurt. I think they do it a lot.), and a rat. I've kept those treasured pictures for personal enjoyment.

Suitable for Public Consumption

I run across a lot of things I share by email, but these items are things I found interesting that anyone might be interested in:

Shared Links

Blogging for Peter

Peter asked me to help him setup a blog. I've been posting notes for a while on my wiki but I like to keep it semi-private so it's not really a blog.

Google offers this service so I recommended he use it. I guess I better use it too if only to understand how it works.