Big Morongo Canyon Preserve

Christian has been really struggling with work this year. He started off teaching during what seemed to be the worst time possible. Covid hit just a year into him teaching but every year has brought more problems and struggles. The kids are very rough and don't want to do or learn anything, but it is the administrators and other teachers that seem to always cause the worst problems. Even he custodians and security employees seem to just refuse to do their job and no one holds them accountable. It is just chaos at school every day and Christian struggles to keep a calm, safe and inviting atmosphere for his kids and teach something to the small handful of students that actually care to learn anything. This year, he has been given the most amount of students of all the other teachers as well.

He had an especially hard time at the beginning of the month and took a day off in the middle of the week to try to regroup. He got a substitute to take his class and we drove out to the Big Morongo Canyon Preserve to take some pictures. We originally wanted to go during the Thanksgiving Break but he hadn't really felt up to it.

When we arrived, we were a little worried as it was kind of windy out and there were an unusual amount of cars already in the parking lot. There was also a small group of people gathered in the middle of the parking lot. I recalled that they do birding walks on Wednesdays and when we got out equipment out to start down the trail, one of the birders asked if we were joining them for their bird walk. We decided to try it out and join them. It was certainly an interesting experience as they immediately started spotting and recognizing the bird calls around us. One of the first birds they spotted was a small Sharp-shinned Hawk way off in the distance. I did not get a great photo of it but I was able to spot it and record it. They had hoped to find an owl for us but that was not meant to be. After the initial spotting of some small birds, everything slowed down. We had to really have to work hard to find anything.

They said that it was unusual to have to work so hard to find birds. We managed to see a few more but the birds were mostly hidden and hard to capture. We got to walk in the closed off areas as we just followed where they were leading. They didn't seem to care about the damaged areas so we didn't either. It was still a beautiful walk, although, it would have been a lot better without the gusts of wind...which is probably why a lot of birds were not out and about.

We did find a dead Long-eared Owl in the closed off section. They were trying to decide what it had died of and whether they should take it into the Ranger.

We walked a bit farther with the group but ended up separating from them as they headed back over to the nature center as we were taking some pictures and videos of the surrounding areas.

We eventually ended back up there and at the feeding stations to see what birds were around.

I was most excited to see the Oak Titmouse there. It was one of the birds we saw flitting in and out of the bushes but I could not even get close to capturing. It was still aggravatingly difficult to get a good picture of it, but I was determined to get it.

Christian spent more of his time getting some of the birds in flight in the neighboring trees and surrounding area but he managed to also get the best Oak Titmouse picture!

You never know what to expect when we are out birding...either in some preserve or in the neighborhood. On this trip, I also barely got a somewhat obscured shot of a Lark Sparrow which I had not gotten before. I was a glad to have at least gotten it, but a bit disappointed that the shot wasn't that great. A couple of weeks later, I was taking a few pictures in my driveway and lo and behold, the Lark Sparrow was just casually feeding along with some of the more common sparrows under our feeder in the driveway!

I have managed to get some birds at a distance, especially on the wire in the back of our house. I got my first Western Bluebird a couple of months there and then got a bit better pictures of them when we went out to Newport last month. Now the Bluebirds are common birds that flit around the house. They are still not as common as the birds that come to our feeders but it is no longer an unusual occurence. 

I got my first Phainopepla some months ago on the ash tree in our backyard. Now we see them flitting in and out of all the trees around us.We saw our first Thrasher and Towhee here at the Morongo Preserve and didn't even know that we had them in our neighborhood until afterwards. So sometimes you just never notice them and sometimes it must be a slight change in their migration patterns or we are just lucky to capture them in the neighborhood because they don't come that often. There have been many birds like that.

Thanksgiving

We spent Thanksgiving with my family this year. It's been a while since we have done that. We've spent the last several years on the road and camping. We usually take advantage of the time Christian has off and go out into areas where, hopefully, others will think it is too cold to go out to but not too cold for us to camp still, trying to find some peace and quiet. I think that it wasn't too successful last year. In fact, it hasn't been very successful in a while now. There is no getting away from people anymore. They are just saturated everywhere. With the TJ still out of commission, we haven't bothered to get out to more than a day trip to a local spot. 

Christian has been too burnt out to work on the Jeep, so it's just been sitting there. 

This year, both of our nephews on my sister's side was planning to bring their girlfriends. We haven't met any of them. I believe one came last year, but we didn't make it. So that something we wanted to make time for.

That was interesting. It was nice to catch up with everyone. Unfortunately, my sister's house doesn't have a lot of good lighting, so I struggled to get useable shots. 

My sister is taking my mom on a cruise next month. They are going to make their rounds to a number of asian countries along the way. Tommy is setting off to Asia on his own trip, meeting up occasionally friends and my mom and sister along the way. We won't be seeing any of them next month, especially since we have our own plans to visit the girls during the holidays anyway.

November

It's been a long month. Christian spent half of it either sick or fighting some sickness. He had to take several days off as well, so we haven't really done that much this month. We've continued our birding locally. 

We've taken walks to the base of the Box Springs Mtns. 

We saw a surprising amount of birds on our short walk (along with some non-birds). You may not even notice them if you aren't paying that much attention (or don't have a long lens/binoculars). Not all of them are that easy to find or see otherwise. 

There are quite a few hawks in the area. They are mostly Red-shouldered Hawks and Red-tailed Hawks. I've seen as many as three generally flying in the same area, usually being harassed or flanked by Ravens or Crows. I've even heard a Cooper's Hawk one morning but have not been able to see it around here yet.

During the week of Christian's Thanksgiving break, we took a walk over to the UCR Botanical Gardens. They are closed the last time we attempted it but since this was during the middle of the week, we figured we might as well take the opportunity to go.

We used to always love going to the Botanic Gardens. We have many memories of it from when Christian and I went to UCR and throughout when the kids were growing up but I can't say that it held any real nostalgia or sentimental value when we finally went back. It just doesn't have the same feeling anymore. The loud obnoxious people certainly didn't help. Plus, I didn't really find any new birds. We were on the track of a raptor of some sort when some loud idiot went through and scared it away. The only thing I found unusual there was this Leucistic Yellow-rumped Warbler.

That was an interesting find. I thought we found a new kind of bird initially, but it definitely had all the other markings of a normal Yellow-rumped Warbler.

It was a long walk to and from campus. Plus we were there for quite a long time. By the end, we were super hungry and tired and pretty disappointed with the whole day.

My favorite picture this month is still just in my own front yard...and is still a hummingbird.

Garden

We spent another month fighting the weeds, gophers and donkeys from destroying our yard. I have resorted to chemicals to kill some the bermuda grass trying to take back my planting area. I keep digging up bermuda grass and if there is even a small chunk of rooting material left behind, it sprouts and spreads all over again. I am losing the fight. The gophers continue to make tunnels disrupting my watering wells and helping the spread of weed grass and no matter what barricades we put up, the donkeys seem desperate to get into our yard to ravage and destroy everything in sight. We don't understand it as lots of neighbors have some of our same plants out in the open and the donkeys leave them mostly unmolested. Sometimes they will go in the neighbors yards to nibble on the grass, poop or roll around on their lawns but I don't see major damage to their areas. Maybe I am not looking close enough but somehow I don't think so.

This month, they got back into our yard and destroyed half my dwarf orange tree once again. It has been something like three years since I have been able to get any fruit from it. It is just hanging on to dear life and then recovering enough to start growing and fruiting again until the donkeys come in to destroy it once again. This time they even got into our back yard and destroyed my dwarf lemon tree. It doesn't want the fruit, it just eats the leaves and tears the branches off by the mouthful and everything that comes with it. Now my lemon tree looks like someone took a couple of swipes with a weed wacker to it. It nimbled on several other trees and plants, including my roses, but my lemon and orange tree took the biggest hit. Of course, it left big holes in the softened soil from the recent rains everywhere and piles of poop I now have to shovel, both in the yard and my driveway.

In addition, it pulled down and broke my bird seed feeder in my driveway! I think it attempted to pull down the suet feeder in my front lawn as well, but was unable to do anything more than stretch the line it is hung from. The bird seed feeder is a lot more delicate. Plus the birds had just found it and was flying around wondering where there seed was, scrounging around on the floor picking up the bits that were left scattered on my driveway.

The damned donkeys act like we are the only source of food in the area for miles and are determined to come in when in fact, we are surrounded by houses everywhere, most of which, are not gated and some idiots even invite them in by leaving out, or even hand feeding them, carrots, pumpkins and put out buckets of water for them. One even went out and got a watering trough for them!!! A few neighbors have had to put up gates around their property. Others have put up the flimsiest of barricades. I can't even believe that those work for them because it certainly wouldn't work for us! Others seem to just get left alone for whatever reason and other's couldn't care less about their yard anyway. They have destroyed many mail boxes as they use them as scratching posts.

Anyway, I digress...I mostly wanted to post about the birds and the success (and failures) of some of our feeding stations.

The suet feeder is the only one that doesn't seem to be working. I'm not sure why yet. Maybe I have to try some different suet or move it. I need to have it re-hung anyway since the donkey stretched out the line and it is now hanging too low.

We also put up a second hummingbird feeder, hoping that the Anna's Hummingbird that protects it will be less aggressive if there is more food available...it hasn't. Now we hope it will tire him out trying to protect both so that it will give the other hummingbirds a chance to sneak in and get drinks. There is a fairly aggressive Costa's Hummingbird that is always contending with him. Personally, the Allen's Hummingbirds are our favorites. They are just beautiful and seem less aggressive but are not around as much. I'm not sure if they hang out elsewhere most of the time or if they are repelled by the other two factions!

I really like the new spot for the second hummingbird feeder though. It lends itself to much better pictures. 

The background is much nicer than the side of the garage or my ugly kitchen window. Most of the birds are still pretty skittish around us though. They will fly away as soon as we walk out the door. It will take quite some time for them to come back to the feeders afterwards. We have to be out there for quite a while before they do and we still have to be somewhat stealthy to get pictures of them. The hummingbirds are actually the boldest. They will fly away if you are actively moving into their area but after they get used to you, they will fly down to take drinks even if you are standing somewhat close to the feeder still. 

I want to get a few more bird friendly plants but am a little reluctant to put any more into my garden when the donkey's can still get in and destroy everything if we aren't extra vigilant. You can go out and chase them off during the day if you notice them, but they sneak in in the dead of night sometimes so not much can be done in that case. They have woken me up many times as the stomp around on my driveway or garden. We need to come up with a better moveable barricade. Right now, we are parking our cars across our driveway and putting up our trash cans in order to deter them. We have the fence that Christian put up a few months ago still to block off our garden from the driveway, but they have still been able to find the weaknesses to get in here and there.

Newport Coast

My family hasn't gotten together all at the same time for a while, they were trying to get us all to go on a vacation together but it's hard to coordinate with everyone's schedule. Then, earlier this year, my brother had his stroke and wasn't able to do much. After months of physical therapy and everything, nothing much has helped. My sister decided to get a timeshare nearby so we could "get away" a bit and spend some time together. She was going to get her usual Palm Springs resort over the summer while the girls were still in town but no one seemed that interested or had the time to drive out there to be stuck in some condo like place in that kind of heat. She tried to find a place near the beach but they were all booked up until now.

She got the place for a week but no one was really able to go for that long. Everyone is back to work and only had the weekend. She headed over early with my mom and they hung out there themselves, taking walks on the beach and seeing the tide pools. Tommy was in and out and had to fly back briefly to work. When he came back, he picked up my brother and niece who took Friday off to enjoy a little more time there. Christian and I headed over late that evening after Christian got off work. He was too exhausted to go earlier, so he took a nap after work and we had dinner before heading over as well. 

The place sits above Crystal Cove. They have trams that take guests down to the beach there or Laguna Beach on and off all day. My mom took Norman and Lauren down to the beach I guess briefly on Friday. Then, Tommy and Wendy taught Lauren how to play pickle ball.

Christian and I got up early and walked down to Crystal Cove by ourselves to go birding. There was a surprising amount of people already at the beach and really, all over the streets. It was not exactly quiet or relaxing. We didn't make it very far down the beach. We took our time taking pictures and videos of whatever birds we could find.

The little sanderlings are always the neatest but they dart around so much it is difficult to get a good picture of them. There were a ton of brown pelicans and they were the easiest to take pictures of because they are big, abundant and move a lot slower compared to the smaller birds. The most interesting bird we got was actually just a Heerman's Gull. It came down and was flailing around in the waves and totally got bodied by the waves several times before making it out. He was very unsteady afterwards. We didn't know if he was old and dying or hurt from the crashing around in the waves or just drunk. It eventually recovered at least somewhat but it was very dramatic watching him. 

Eventually, we decided to head back to see what everyone else was planning to do for the day but on our way back, we ran into a hawk flying around and we chased down several smaller birds in the chaparral. 

By the time we got back, Tommy had left again to see his mother and meet up with his sister. Everyone else was up and had gotten breakfast. We made a few plans and headed out again after lunch. We took the tram back down to the other side of Crystal cove. Christian wasn't feeling that well and stayed behind.

It was just as well that he didn't not come with us because the tram takes you to the most crowded part of the beach, where all the shops and restaurants are. It was crowded and there were not a lot of birds. We only spent an hour or so there before heading back to meet with Christian and to take the tram to Laguna Beach. Our niece wanted to go to some of the museums there. My mom was tired and stayed at the resort. My brother went with Lauren and the rest of us went down to the beach. It was even more crowded here. Not sure if it was just because it was later in the day or if the beach is always more crowded. There were as many people milling around as when I went to the beach over the summer with the girls.

We took some pictures of all the Brown Pelican's and Brandt's Cormorants on Pelican or Bird Rock and the tide pools. 

Afterwards, we headed back to the resort. We were pretty tired and hungry. We planned to celebrate Christian's birthday that evening even though his birthday is technically not until the next day. Christopher drove out to join us just for the evening. Christopher, Tommy and his sister took the opportunity to play pickle ball at the facilities while we worked on dinner. I had baked a simple portable cake on Friday before we came. I brought some extra caramel to drizzle over it and some candles but no matches. No one had a lighter so we did without. Christopher decided to decorate the cake a bit but I think the caramel was a little too thick to flow well. He ended up writing "HBD" and drew some stick birds flying in the air. It was hilarious because you can barely tell what anything was. Since the caramel was somewhat thick, he tried to make a caramel candle but it fell and turned into something more akin to a caramel turd. The important thing was that the cake tasted good!

After dinner, some of us went for a walk. Wendy took us for a tour of the facilities there. We went to the gym and attempted to play ping pong! Christopher left to go back home. Wendy's place really isn't that far and he opted to drive back to get a better night's sleep in his own bed. Which was a wise choice as the place was packed and kept way too hot.

The next morning, Christian and I got up early once again and headed back out to the beach but we never made it. We got distracted chasing little birds on the grounds. We also kind of bush wacked our way onto the golf course. Luckily, no one was really out playing. We did run into one of the grounds keepers but he was friendly and didn't seem to mind us being there.

All-in-all, we got 10 "lifers" over this weekend. We are racking up quite a list since we started a couple of months ago when I got my big zoom lens. We did count a few of the birds we've taken pictures of and can identify in our picture catalogue. Some birders will even count birds they can hear and not see, as long as they can identify them. We've decided to count only the ones that we are able to capture on camera and catalogue. They don't have to be great pictures, but they do need to be recognizable! Afterwards, we still hope to get better pictures of them all when we find them as we are photographers first and foremost.

Since it was getting late, we decided we had better hurry back to help pack up and clean up as we were supposed to check out soon. Even though Christopher took some things home for them, they still had more stuff than they could fit in their one car because Tommy picked up Norman and Lauren up separately with their luggage. We were really only allowed two cars in total at the resort and since it was all booked up, we had to both park on the other end of the resort in the parking garage. Tommy had offered to take everyone out to lunch for Christian's birthday to a Hong Kong style cafe that we had talked about the evening before. So we put most of the luggage in our vehicle and met them back at Wendy's house. Luckily, Christopher was still there and able to then join us for lunch. Collin also joined us at the restaurant. The restaurant was super crowded but the food was pretty good.

Afterwards, we went back to Wendy's to hangout for a little bit more. Christopher gifted Christian a wireless microphone for his birthday. He had seen some of Christian's neat videos and thought that it might be useful. You can connect it to your camera or phone. Christian got to play with it a little as Christopher gave us a little example of his matcha tasting thing he does. Christian recorded him doing it.

We ended up polishing off the rest of the cake before heading back home.

I had a few token presents for Christian but we are mostly saving and waiting for what he really wants, which is a new mirrorless camera. The one he wants was just announced last week and will ship later this month!

October

 Upon reflecting on what we've been doing this month, I decided that I would show it in pictures...

As you can see, we've been spending all our free time taking pictures. Besides the Big Morongo trip, we haven't really gone anywhere. All these pictures are from the yard around our house and does not even show all the species of plants and animals we have viewed or taken pictures of here. They are merely some of my favorites from this past month.

We have set up a little watering hole/bird bath out front for the birds. I cleaned up the planter area next to our driveway a bit. I pulled out the weeds and put in some ground cover to try out. It is frustrating though because I can't seem to get rid of the bermuda grass that keeps invading and trying to take over the area. Hopefully the new ground cover will eventually help control that once it gets established but I will probably have to get a little more once I am sure that it just won't die on us. It seems to be holding up okay so far, although the snails did a number on one of them. We put in a little feeding station for ground feeders (birds) and some sticks that they might want to, hopefully, use to perch on. The other frustrating thing is the gophers that keep making tunnels through the area. Sometimes my watering wells will collapse because the tunnels are too close to the top soil in that area. Also, the roots of the bermuda grass seems to use it as a highway to re-spread back through the planting area. Every few days, you can see new grass coming up and you can dig it up and follow a line of roots following the tunnels. Christian has tried to set traps but they have thus far been able to circumvent them.

Christian has also been trying to tame the trees around the property, especially the pomegranate. We keep hacking it to bits in the hopes of getting rid of it once and for all, but by the time we fill up the green trash can and wait for it to be emptied and have time to continue our work, it has grown back by quite a bit. The upside is that I was still able to harvest enough pomegranates to make a batch of jelly this month. 

Christian is also putting in a hedge on the side of our house where the donkeys keep trying to sneak in. The originally lined our driveway with some fencing in order to keep them out but now they are going around the cars parked on the street, crossing the neighbors yard and stepping down into ours in order to reek havoc in our yard. Why?! All I know is that it keeps nearly destroying our dwarf orange tree. I don't think we've been able to get oranges for at least four years because of them. I thought we had our yard protected this time but it managed to get in several times now to poop in our yard, eat some grass and destroy my orange tree once again. We even put up some cinder blocks on the lowest part of the yard that we believe it has been crossing over to get in. It knocked it over once getting in and out of there still so Christian has put more blocks to raise it up some more to deter them. And now we have expensive baby shrubs that we are trying to raise up to be a nicer and more permanent solution, we have to reinforce the cinder blocks so that they don't know the cinder blocks over again and smash our baby shrubs.

Shortly after we did that, I went out one morning to water and found the donkeys in our driveway, munching on the Mexican feather grass on the side of the driveway that sticks out of the fence. I chased them away and found a lone donkey in our neighbors yard, looking in mournfully at our temporary, make-shift barricade that it hadn't found a way yet to circumvent. It eventually walked back out to the street to join the donkeys I chased away into one of the other neighbors yards which is more accessible to them.

Big Morongo Canyon Preserve

This month, Christian and I decided to check out the Big Morongo Canyon Preserve as it is not too far away and is supposed to be a popular migration stop for birds. It is on the way to Joshua Tree, but tucked away in the little town. When we arrived, we were a bit skeptical because there were quite a few cars in the parking lot and camp area.

As we walked in though, you can tell the place is kept fairly nice. The area was beautiful but we were still a little wary of what we would find going in as we heard a lot of noise of machinery or a loud vehicle in the distance. Christian got a neutral density polarizer for his camera and wanted to try it out for his videos.

They have a little nature center just inside of the preserve. There isn't a whole lot in the office but outside of it has an area set up to feed and attract the birds and animals. It was actually quite nice and inspired us to maybe incorporate a few things in our own yard. We immediately started spotting various birds in the surrounding area.

While we have taken pictures of various birds over the years, we are mainly just enthusiastic photographers, not birders so when some of the other birders there were asking us questions or talking amongst themselves, we had no idea what they were talking about for the most part. We are obviously aware of some of the popular birds we've run into over the years, we didn't know about some of the not so common birds that have not been so easy to spot while we were out hiking, like the Tanagers, Towhees or Thrashers. We know a quail when we see it but is it a Gambel's Quail or a California Quail?

I've been taking pictures of birds a lot lately. First, when I went out to the Bolsa Chica Ecological Preserve with Caitlyn this summer because she also loved to take pictures of birds. A few years ago, we attempted to take her to the Salton Sea for this purpose, but it was in the middle of summer and the water line was very low and was very disapppointed with what we found there. Once Christian got me my new insane zoom lens for my birthday, the excitement for bird photography was renewed and multiplied.

In an effort to learn more, we talked to the people at the nature center about whether they had a field guide for birds in our area. They did not really have anything that specifically targeted our area and they suggested an app called Merlin or eBird. Looking into all this made us fall into the rabbit hole of "birding." 

It was vey relaxing and even somewhat therapeutic to sit there watching the antics of the little birds around us. I was jealous that big groups of hummingbirds seem to be able to coexist together at the nature center. They didn't have any crazy, super territorial hummingbirds which guarded the feeder and chased all the rest away constantly like I have here at home.

However, there was a Cooper's Hawk that flew into the area every 20 or 30 minutes and all the little birds would scatter and hide. The second time that one flew in, we finally dragged ourselves away to explore more of the canyon trails.

A couple of the trails were closed off because of damage from heavy rainfall earlier this year but the trails are slated to be fixed by the end of the year. The canyon was fairly well maintained and kept pretty clean. When we got farther down the trails, it was pretty peaceful. We didn't have the whole place to ourselves or anything. People were still wandering about on the trails here and there but it wasn't too bad. It is definitely worth returning here. In fact, by the time we whipped back around to the nature center, we were already making plans to return in another month or so when the cottonwood trees changed into their fall colors!

And as we continue down the rabbit hole of birding, after all the new pictures of birds we've collected, we ended up starting a "life list" to help us keep track of what we've captured. We got a handful of "lifers" and our life list is steadily growing.