Hello, Everybody, 2008 March 4, from Santa Cruz CA The accompanying slideshow covers six weeks in southern Arizona and California, during a winter which while cooler than I had expected was nothing like the frigid snowy conditions farther north. I spent a couple of weeks more in the little town of Safford AZ getting the body and the spring bushings on my truck rebuilt, fairly major work needing the camper and pickup body to be pulled off. I was lucky to find a one-man-shop super creative and experienced mechanic, and a pleasant and very cheap RV park within walking distance for the camper. Also a short walk for lunch, the best Mexican (well, at least Tex-Mex) restaurant ever. Along with the usual travel and birding slideshow, I've made a mini-slideshow of this for those especially mechanically interested (TruckRepairsJan2008.exe). After a last birding visit to Whitewater Draw, I headed west across southern Arizona for Buenos Aires NWR, where I was lucky to see a Green Kingfisher, according to my field-guide 'rare and difficult to observe' yet perching happily and fishing nearby for a quarter hour. Also a first sighting of an Eastern Meadowlark, which I would have missed but for fellow birders who noticed that it looked slightly 'wrong' for a Meadowlark (Western) and had a different song. As I crossed from the California desert into the hills, it was interesting to see the impressive solar (and wind) farms which seem to be a lot more widespread than I remember. If you look at the solar array with Google Maps 34.99625375979014, -117.54409790039062 and zoom [-] a few times, you can see that it occupies several square miles. There are hundreds of big white windmills along Tehachapi Pass, really an amazing sight, but I didn't get any good pictures of them. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Uevs4Ak9S4&NR=1 gives some idea what it's like My friend Joey Tuttle in Santa Cruz took me on a couple of local birding walks, and deep in one forested area we heard much loud screeching and found it to be a pair of Red-shouldered Hawks buzzing around and alighting just a few feet from a calmly perching Great Horned Owl, unsuccessfully trying to scare it away. I'd never seen this bird before, but it is becoming much more common in the NW and both Joey and I were surprised to have our second sightings (independently) within the next week. Then E.V. flew down from Portland OR for nearly a week in the Death Valley area. We had very strong winds and rain the first couple of nights, but then as expected bright sunny days. As were first looking down from the surrounding mountains into Death Valley, we were surprised to see the top of a rainbow arc - - I once saw an entire rainbow circle from an airplane, but I've never otherwise seen only the top without the sides. A great unexpected delight were the flowers blooming, mostly in the area between 100 and 200 feet below sea level, with a real yellow carpeting on the desert background. As we came back across the southern edge of the Sierra Nevada, we stopped at the Kern Audubon Bird Reserve, which has many feeders in good habitat, making for lots of easy pictures. EV got seven new birds for her life list, and I got two (with two more later on). After returning EV to the Bakersfield airport, I followed suggestions in the book 'Return of the Condor' which I had just been loaned, to visit a location where Condors might be seen. This was near the Carrizo Plain where I had enthusiastically visited three times before, without realizing the connection with the Condors. And I saw one!! A real thrill. Only far in the distance, nearly a mile away, but in the few minutes it was visible I got just enough of a photograph to identify it. A few decades ago there were only 22 California Condors left in the wild, and they were heading rapidly for extinction, but a controversial program to trap all of them and then reintroduce offspring from zoo breeding programs has been at least tentatively successful, as there are around 50 wild Condors in California and another 50 near the Grand Canyon in Arizona. They are mostly outfitted with highly visible wing number tags and radio and/or GPS transmitters. The major problem remaining is the birds ingesting lead fragments from hunters' bullets in the carrion which is their diet; an effort is underway to convert hunters in their area to all- copper bullets, and if this is successful the Condors may survive. Their wingspan at nearly 10 feet is 50% greater than an Eagle's, and nearly double that of their already large 'relative' the Turkey Vulture, so they are really huge. Following the Condor book's suggestion for another possible viewing place, I climbed up into the Sierra Madre mountains for the 30 mile ridge drive to the locked gate at the Wilderness Boundary. I saw no Condors, but what a spectacularly beautiful drive! Wild mountains in all directions with great views, extremely few roads, and even fewer other people. I took the Coast Road #1 back to Santa Cruz, with gorgeous views along the coastal cliffs (and California Sunday traffic!). Gazing over the ocean made me think fondly of the great years I had on the boat. Not much wild camping in that part of California, but San Simeon State Park offered what they called 'primitive' camping (pavement, tables, bathrooms, without power/sewer hookups) for $11 minus a $2 senior discount, and once in a while this is affordable. And good birding right around the campground, another new bird for me, the White-tailed Kite which is a hawk masquerading as a gull. In two days I'll brave the airlines for the first time in 7 years to fly from San Jose to Boston - - MY DAUGHTER AMY IS GETTING MARRIED! And I'll soon be a Grandpa, wow - - getting harder and harder to think of myself as a youngster. I'm really thrilled. Here are the same old instructions for the slideshows: http://www.meetmarsha.com/john The new slideshow is: 08 01 Jan Feb Mar AZ CA.exe Just for fun, I went through my previous slideshows and picked out my favorite pictures and made a slideshow of them, a more-or-less chronologic collection of scenery and birding pictures. This is on the server as: JohnFavorites01.exe Each browser is a little different, but generally you can either choose OPEN to view the show once, or choose SAVE TO DISK and then OPEN if you want to have it your hard drive for future re-viewing. I have used Zone Alarm to be sure the .exe files are virus free, so you can safely ignore Windows's warning about 'dangerous <.exe> files'. Right-Arrow or Right-Click or SpaceBar will advance to the next picture. Left-Arrow or Left-Click will return to the previous picture. Esc will end the show at any time; use Esc if the show ever seems stuck. If you don't have a high-speed Internet connection it's not realistic to download these large files on a phone line please let me know, as it is very easy for me to send them to you on a CD. And if you would like any of the individual images, perhaps to print, just let me know. I have limited space on the server, so must periodically remove older slideshows to put up new ones; let me know if you want me to send you a CD of any of the 'back issues', or of all of them from 2004-2007 along with their accompanying emails, on CDs. And if you don't want to get any more emails like this one in the future, just let me know. If you have friends who might be interested, I'll be happy to add them to my email list and they can download the slideshows. None of this is commercial or copyrighted, the more who enjoy the pictures, the better. Regards, John Armitage