Although I’ve recorded in many parts of the southern half of Oregon, I’ve never visited the northeastern portion. This area is known to be home to some beautiful mountain ranges and lots of wildlife. I realized after my earlier trips this spring, that I’d fallen into a rut of visiting the same places again and […]
Exploring northeastern Oregon, Part 1 Read More »
I was cleaning up my archive of nature sound recordings and ran across a lovely pre-dawn recording from the mountains north of Mimbres, New Mexico. In this rather remote area between two large wilderness areas was a small USFS campground where I stayed for a couple of nights back in June of 2015. It was
The only constant is change Read More »
As I usually do in early July, this last summer the dog and I headed off to the hinterlands of northern Nevada. The trip is timed to allow us to get far from civilization to spare Shadow the horrors of fireworks. This years trip took us across central Nevada to Ruby Lakes Wildlife Refuge, then
That time when the dog got stoned Read More »
On our recording trip this last spring, Lang Elliott and I stopped by a beautiful area of Sonoran Desert, east of Roosevelt Lake, known as Cherry Creek. I’d never heard of it before, but was instantly struck by its rugged beauty. Cherry Creek, and nearby Coon Creek, are lovely drainages with rich riparian areas
Timings and transitions Read More »
As a follow-up to my last post about the tardiness of migration this last spring, I wanted to use our trip to Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument as an example. Lang Elliott and I recorded recorded here in late March of 2017. The expected compliment of birds was there, behaving as I’d come to expect
Late winter soundscape in the Sonoran Desert Read More »
Although I stayed pretty close to home during the spring, avoiding Covid-19 and all, by June I couldn’t stand it anymore. So I June 1st, I packed up the car and headed into central Nevada to record the sounds of the wild. My first stop was Stillwater National Wildlife Refuge, near Fallon. Breeding activity was
Although I focused most of this summer exploring the Great Basin and its soundscapes, I also dabbled on it’s edges in northern California and southern Idaho. In early June, I detoured a bit from my search for Brewer’s sparrows to check out a small mountain range that borders the northern Great Basin. Waters on the
Spring in the Rockies Read More »
I take my dog for a walk almost everyday, usually to a chunk of BLM land on the east side of town. The city and BLM have created a small recreation area there, with many trails winding up and around a mountain. The trails are in a stand of big sage, an ancient stand where
Sagebrush Soliloquy Read More »
This summer has been unbelievable in the amount of smoke, even in areas distant from the wildfires in California, Nevada, and the Pacific Northwest. In northern Nevada, rather than the rare smoky day, a day better than “moderate” air quality was something to celebrate. During much of July and August, the air quality never got
Escaping the smoke Read More »
It’s been a hot and very smoky summer in western Nevada. I almost hate to complain, given the horrific blazes that have occurred just on the other side of the Sierras in California. Much of the smoke from those fires moves east, over the Sierras to linger in the valleys beyond. Day after day of
A few weeks ago, just as winter was finally arriving in northern Nevada, the dog and I headed to southern California to do some recording in the Mojave Desert. I expected to find spring on its way out, with birds frantically bringing food to their youngsters. But the weird winter we had out west threw
Spring in the Mojave Desert Read More »
I was perusing the internet recently (a bad habit), when I ran across something someone posted about fireflies. I don’t remember the gist of the article, but it did remind me of a magical experience I had with fireflies last summer in the mountains of eastern Arizona. I was actually there to try to record
Starry skies and fireflies Read More »
