Nevada

On a warm summer evening

The snow is falling in the Sierras and northern Nevada has settled into its winter soundscapes.  Insects have gone quiet and the birds are too busy looking for food to make much noise.  It’s a good time to organize and sort out the huge number of sound files I collected last spring and summer. One […]

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Escaping the smoke

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

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Fire and feathers

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

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Jarbidge Summer

The Jarbidge Mountain area, in far northeastern Nevada, is considered one of the most remote areas in the lower 48.  So naturally, I wanted to check it out, but was a little intimidated by some skirmishes between local ranchers and federal land managers.  So when Lang Elliot, in the midst of his sound recording tour

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First breath of winter

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

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Desert Marsh

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

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Exploring Nevada’s alps: Lamoille Canyon

In September, 2016, I set out on a long road trip, from Carson City to northern Montana, and back to southeastern Arizona.  The trip took almost 2 weeks and covered more than 3,600 miles.   It was a good test for both my little CR-V camper and my recording equipment, as I ran into a wide

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Going in circles

In early September, 2016, it was time to head back to my home in Arizona, after visiting my dad in northern Nevada for most of the summer.  A friend working in Glacier National Park invited me to visit her, so I decided to make a big road trip out of it, traveling to eastern Nevada, eastern

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White pelican on Catnip Reservoir

The white pelican

I had the good fortune in mid-July of this last summer to visit the Sheldon National Wildlife Refuge in far northwestern Nevada.  Along with it’s sister refuge, Oregon’s Hart Mountain Refuge, it preserves a wonderful chunk of Great Basin habitat.  Wide, open volcanic mesas and corrugated drainages stretch to the horizon.  It is an important

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The Sagebrush Ocean

It’s no news to anyone who reads my blog that I am fascinated by the Great Basin.  Where some people see brown desolation, I see a complex and intriguing ecosystem.  Actually, many ecosystems, that differ by elevation, latitude, longitude and history.  Lying in the rain shadow of the Sierra Nevada and Cascade Mountains, the Great

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Water and Ice

It’s been a pretty good winter in northern Nevada.  Lots of snow in the Sierras, and just enough cold to make you long for summer.  El Nino, so far, has meant that northern California and northern Nevada have been seeing a lot of snow, rain, and cloudy weather. I spent late December and early January

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The changing soundscapes of Lake Tahoe

Lake Tahoe holds a special place in my heart.  As a teenager, I swam in its frigid waters, cross-country skied on it’s slopes, spent a night or two sleeping on its beaches, backpacked it’s wilderness, and even spent a couple of summers working in a state park on its northern shores.  I’ve marveled at its

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