Beauty!

No, I only use eBird as a research tool. I’ve considered doing that but it hasn’t felt worth my time yet as long as I’m posting them here anyway.

Hey Scott, this post has a nice variety of colourful birds! btw Are you using eBird to record them? Until Costa Rica we had been relying on notebooks and a spreadsheet, but now I am trying to convert the whole thing to eBird. Putting in the 100's of historical birds is a bug, since eBird wants to know where each sighting was, in order to offer the correct checklist, not to mention to have Cornell's records be accurate. But for time saving I am fudging this a bit, telling it for instance "France" as opposed to say "north part of Bayonne". I also found eBird a bit counterintuitive in Windows, having to hunt for functions like starting a new checklist for the right place, deleting a completed checklist, adding to one, seeing a World life list, etc. Is that clumsiness unique to me, or to Windows?

Thanks. Yes, I do track my hikes. After I saw your comment I decided to calculate the total from the beginning of the year until now. I hiked 122 days for a total of 1415 miles and 138,ooo feet of elevation gain. I’ve really enjoyed doing more hiking and have seen some incredible scenery. We look forward to seeing you and Barry!

Could be, although the needles seem long for a lodgepole to me. Maybe a muricata (Bishop’s pine)? I wish now I’d taken more photos of it.

Lodgepole? Bill will know!

Beautiful hike! I'm curious, do you track your mileage for the year. You must be putting up some big numbers with all your long treks.

Squirrels are good at insisting.

Wow, I'm loving these oak trees!

Magic 8 Ball says: Yes! It’s certainly twisty, which made me think valley, but it still had its leaves, which made me wonder about coast live. But those are definitely valley oak leaves. Thanks for the clarification.

It sure does, once you make it up that first step.

Yes, it is. I’d say she’s still grieving for leaving the PNW after calling it home for so long, but she’s definitely landed in a nice place.

It’s definitely not a live oak. I’m pretty sure it’s also a valley oak, because I took a photo of its leaves and acorn but then failed to include it. I’ve gone back and added it now though.

Thanks, Steve. You’re right about it putting a damper on life. I think I’m finally coming out of it but it feels like I’ve been living in a dense fog ever since we returned from Spain.

Thanks, Suzanne. I’ve been out with it again since this post and am more pleased with it every time I go out. 350 next year? I wonder.