squirrels

Pine trees near a meadow.

Exploring northeastern Oregon, Part 2

After being gob smacked by the beauty of the Wallowa Mountains, but disappointed in the opportunities for sound recording, it was time to head south.  My first stop was in the Blue Mountains, west of La Grande.  The rugged peaks of the Wallowas smoothed into rounded pine-covered mountains surrounding meadows and small streams. I found […]

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View of the Warner Mountains from the east.

Exploring the Warner Mountains

In far northeastern California lies a remote range of mountains known as the Warner Mountains.  More than 90 miles long, they hug the California-Nevada border, and just cross into Oregon east of Lakeview.  The peaks at the southern end approach 10,000 ft, while those in the north only rise to a little over 8,000 ft.  

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Retrospective

Well, it’s been quite a while since I posted here, as I’ve been recovering from knee replacement surgery.  Recovery has been quite the ordeal, with hours and hours of physical therapy every day.  But the strength and flexibility is coming back, just in time, as the trees and shrubs are starting to bud, the spring

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Voices in the forest

Last October, the dog and I took a lovely hike down Summit City Canyon, near Carson Pass in the Sierras.  I last hiked this canyon more than 40 years ago, and remembered it as one of my all-time favorites.  The only problem with it is that there is no easy way to get there.  Most

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Soggy night at Red Rock Lakes Wildlife Refuge

Day 7 of my border to border road trip. I left Kalispell under light clouds, but as I drove further south the clouds became heavier and heavier, and by the time I stopped in Dillon to refuel, it was raining.   It rained intermittently until I arrived at my destination, Red Rock Lakes National Wildlife Refuge,

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Listening to big water

Day 2 of my big road trip from western Nevada to northern Montana then to southern Arizona began with a lovely hike in Lamoille Canyon, eastern Nevada.  I then drove north through rolling hills toward Idaho, and without even realizing it, left the Great Basin and entered the Columbia River watershed.  No longer in the

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Mountain Voices

I made my annual summer migration from southeastern Arizona to northern Nevada a few weeks ago, stopping to record along the way.  My first stop was in the Blue Range of east-central Arizona, a land of conifers and beautiful grassy meadows.  Much of this area was impacted by the 2011 Wallow Fire, and the hillsides

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Fall afternoon on the Tahoe Rim Trail

It was one of those glorious days in the fall, when the sun is bright but not hot, and a light breeze makes the golden aspen leaves shimmer.  The kind of day that just makes you feel glad to be alive. It was on one of those glorious days, one of a string of similar

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Black-tailed prairie dog

Listening to prairie dogs

As readers of my blog know, I like squirrels.  I professed my love for them in a previous post.  In this post, I want to go into greater depth on one of the most socially complex squirrels, the prairie dog.  There are 5 species of prairie dogs in North America, although most detailed studies have

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Golden-mantled ground squirrel

Squirrel Chatter

On my recent trip through the Great Basin, I spent a night in a lovely place called Bowers Flat, near the resort town of Duck Creek, Utah.  This grassy meadow surrounded by Ponderosa Pines should actually have been called squirrel meadow, as within a few minutes of arriving, I heard the calls of yellow-bellied marmots,

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Smoke over the Gila Wilderness

Before the Whitewater-Baldy Fire

In mid May of this year, I headed over to the north end of the Gila Wilderness to do some camping and recording.  A small column of smoke was visible in the general direction of the center of the wilderness, but I had read on the USFS website that some controlled burns were planned for

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Arizona grey squirrel

Grey squirrel love song

In late May, 2011, I headed out to Apache Creek, New Mexico, to see out some petroglyphs (a hobby of mine). With me was a one-year-old English Shepherd that I adopted from a rescue agency just 2 months before, and this was his first camping trip.  We arrived at the campground at Apache Creek in

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