February 2nd

Today Dana had a big birding day with Jo and Bud at Whitewater Draw Wildlife Area. This is located about a 3 hour drive, southeast of Tucson in the Sulphur Springs Valley. Dana reports seeing about a million sandhill cranes. She later amended the figure to around 30,000, still a lot of poultry. She reports the sky was full of "strings of noisy cranes". Jo described it as "they came in wave after wave, after wave". It reminds me of my childhood out on the flats of the Creston Valley. Granted there were no cranes but many ducks and geese. Different kind of birding, but similar scene....

Ok, no pictures today. You will have to make do with pictures at the website noted below. Pretty cheesy, but there you go.

http://www.arizonabirder.com/coppermine/displayimage.php?album=13&pos=18

Barry had a "spa day". Rest and relaxation. Slept in, hung out at the pool. Nice...

I thought I would throw in a couple of pictures of our trip south. The Oregon Coast and the Redwood forests of northern California remain etched in our minds. Here are a couple of pictures from the first and second days of our trip.


The beach at Manzanita, Oregon


Taken near on the south end of the Oregon Coast


"Typical" beach scene on Oregon Coast. This one near Gold Beach, Oregon



Dana with Giant Redwood in Stout National Forest, Crescent City, California