Laguna Lake/Irish Hills

December 11, 2024

A short post, so that Rachael can remember her hike up Froom Creek in the Irish Hills (a hiking area Liz recommended over dinner last night) in case she wants to return to the area someday; and so I can record my experience with my new camera, which I’m more pleased with each time I’m out with it. It’s working out well enough that i imagine I’ll make room in the panniers when we go overseas again next spring.

No biking though. My headache situation continues to improve, but I think I’m going to hold off biking again until I’ve got my full health back. Someday soon, hopefully.

(Rachael) I’m really enjoying hiking in San Luis Obispo. In previous visits to San Luis Obispo, I’ve done several hikes but this was a new one for me. I didn’t know what to expect but it turned out to be a great hike! Thanks, Scott!

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Janice BranhamBeautiful 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.
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1 week ago

Rachael AndersonTo Janice BranhamThanks. 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!
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1 week ago

I took this to test out the photo app’s built-in ID function to see if it knows its trees. And it does, sort of - it correctly labeled this as a pine of some sort. Can you narrow it down a bit? Hint: two needle-bundles.

A yellow-rumped warbler, included here because he looks like he’s about to beak-plant. I should have waited a minute to see if he ended up augured in.

This is an example of the limitations of the built-in ID function in the photo app. It actually does quite well on good, clear images. On the raptor in the lower left though, it failed to even recognize it as a bird. Merlin though correctly recognized it as a bald eagle, which is impressive given such limited information. It’s the same bird in the upper right - clearly an eagle, and being chased off by one of a pair of red-tailed hawks.

Cerro San Luis Obispo, the hill Rachael climbed yesterday.

Pretty scenery, but this section of the park was a bird bust today. One black phoebe, a few meadowlarks, that’s it. Not much return on the investment.

Oh, except for this guy. #298: Savannah sparrow

Common yellowthroat, a female this time. Compare against the male from yesterday.

Tree abuse! How much longer do you think it can hold up under such pressure?

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Steve Miller/GrampiesHey 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?
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1 week ago

Scott AndersonTo Steve Miller/GrampiesNo, 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.
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1 week ago