I recently returned from an 11-day road trip through central and southern Oregon. I traveled from Steen’s Mountain in the east, across to the central Cascades, to the coast and then south until I ran out of Oregon, back to the Cascades in southern Oregon, and home via Mts. Shasta and Lassen. It was more […]
Strange sounds in the night 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 an incredibly busy spring, with little time to get away and record nature sounds. But in late May, I took a break from house renovation and writing projects to escape to northern California. My goal was to try to capture sounds within the coastal redwoods. In the right conditions, these giant trees can
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 »
Winter has finally arrived in northern Nevada, with colder temperatures and a few snowflakes, although not enough to get us out of a severe “snow drought.” Last week, temperatures were pushing 70 degrees F, causing the plants to start budding, and a notable increase in singing by the local house finches and Eurasian collared-doves. My
Summertime Dreaming Read More »
It’s been an insanely busy few months, as I relocate my residence to northern Nevada. But now that the move is done and most of the boxes unpacked, it’s time to filter through the many recordings I made this year and get back to blogging. The move itself was hectic, as I packed up a
First breath of winter Read More »
In early July, I took a break from the moving/packing/cleaning routine that has occupied much of this year to meet up again with Lang Elliot for some sound recording in northern Nevada, Montana, and Wyoming. I’ll present many of those recordings over the next few months, but now I wanted to present what was, for
It’s been a horrible year for fires out west. I’ve spent much of the summer dodging smoke and trying to find areas to record that are not on fire. Southeastern Arizona is a naturally fire-prone area, with much of the flora and fauna adapted to wildfires from dry lightning storms at the start of the
The Great Basin is a rough, corrugated landscape of rugged mountain ranges separated by desert flats. Although each one differs a bit, most of the valley bottoms are decorated with bursage, big sage, and salt flats. When the glaciers melted at the end of the Pleistocene, these basin were filled with large lakes, primarily Lake
The dawn chorus is a wonderful, natural phenomenon in which many birds do most of their singing at or before the first light of day. It is most obvious during the spring, as birds set up territories and go about attracting mates. In southern Arizona, the resident birds begin singing in February, and many are
Chasing the dawn chorus Read More »
The final days of my fall 2016 border-to-border journey I awoke to a beautiful, calm and sunny morning along Disappointment Creek in Colorado; the silence only broken by a light whisper through the sage brush and a car on the distant highway. After breakfast, I packed up the car and headed south. I made a
Changes in latitude Read More »
Day 8 of my border-to-border road trip. After leaving Red Rocks National Wildlife Refuge, I headed east to Yellowstone. With all the wet weather and cooler temperatures, I thought some of the crowds might have stayed away but boy, was I wrong. In spite of the weather and being in the middle of the week,
Osprey on the Grey’s River Read More »
