2010 Feb 22, from the Mojave Desert, California Hello, Everybody, When I flew to Boston in December, in addition to a great visit with Amy and Tom and grandson Lewis, I saw one 'new' bird and got a few nice eastern birding photographs - - these start the current slideshow. Just down the street from my friend Joey Tuttle's house in Aptos (on Monterey Bay) is a mountain bike jumping ground, which over the past few years had built up to be pretty impressive - - in fact, it is internationally known, and one of the local 20-year-old 'boys' is near the very top in international ranking. Until I checked it out with Google, I didn't realize what a huge sport this has become. I couldn't resist including a couple of photographs. Just a few feet behind where I park my camper at Joey's is a large bushy hedge, which sometimes collects a number of songbirds at just the right distance for photographs from my tailgate. Blossoming 'bottlebrush' flowers add a nice touch. Santa Cruz is one of the major over-wintering migration stops for Monarch Butterflies, and although the numbers are much reduced from earlier years (mostly from habitat destruction), there are still an impressive number, and it is exciting to see them in big clusters. I spent the last few days of 2009 in the Santa Lucia mountains of the Coast Range, and even though I could sometimes look down and see the busy Coast Highway Route 1, the dirt roads up in the hills were deserted. On the way to get out to the Mojave Desert, I drove through the Carrizo Plain, which has become a National Monument since I first went there. It's interesting and pretty, and very un-busy, usually with some good birding. My first visit there in 2006 was during the best March wildflower season in many years and it was spectacular, but of course I was much too early this year. I was pleased to get a nice photograph of a Rough-legged hawk in flight - - when I 'shot' it I assumed it was the far more common Red-tailed Hawk, so it was a bit of a thrill when I saw in on the laptop and realized that it wasn't just another ho-hum Red-tailed. The new slideshow is: 09 12 Dec BOS Pacific.exe The server address is: http://www.meetmarsha.com/~john (note the tilde ~ before the john part) 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 my up-to-date Zone Alarm and SpybotSearch&Destroy to be sure the .exe files are malware 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 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 2004-2009 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 if they have a Windows computer and broadband internet connection. None of this is commercial or copyrighted, the more who enjoy the pictures, the better. Regards, John Armitage 1-970-250-6080 john@qued.com