Lonesome Highways

Yesterday's trial run of approximately half of next weekend's Birdathon yielded some surprises and more than a few no-shows. Most notably with the waterfowl. But, we've still got a week for them to show up, so I'm not worried.

Besides, even by myself, and only half-heartedly trying to identify all of the various songs floating through the woods and merely scanning all the tiny little dots swimming on distant ponds through the scope, I still ended up with 64 bird species, four moose, and one porcupine.

But the highlight of the day has to be the black bear sow with twin cubs that crossed the road in front of me. I was twenty miles or so down a lonesome dirt road north of Seward when I came around a corner and saw her standing not more than 20 feet from my car. As she strolled into the woods on the side of the road I was easing slowly past her when I spotted two of the tiniest little cubs I have ever seen. They weren't any bigger than our cat and were bouncing around on each other as their rather large mom (she was one of the biggest black bears I've ever seen) tried to encourage them to climb a tree. I stayed for only a few seconds once I saw she had cubs, since I didn't want her getting too stressed out. I just wish I had brought a camera. Oh, well.

Sonja gets home tonight from a week-long trip back east to visit family and attend a friend's wedding, so I've spent the better part of today cleaning up the "bachelor pad" that temporarily replaced our apartment. I gathered quite the tower of dirty dishes in only a week. It was rather impressive how I was able to fit nearly every plate, cup and utensil we own in the sink without anything falling out. Too bad I didn't have a camera ready. Oh, well.

And, just in case you were looking for one, here's a dumb dinosaur.