Day one...

5/24/2007

Today I woke up at 6, made some eggs and then waited for Aaron to get some things together before heading out for the day. Matt, Justin, Aaron and I went out in one of the trucks to scope out the roads, if you can call them that, around Catnip Mountain. Imagine a 4 wheel drive truck in first gear bumbling along all day. All our insides were scrambled after that outing. The only radio stations that we could get were 2 AM stations. The first playing “Songs of your life” oldies, the kind of stuff I frequently hear when I walk into Memere and Pepere’s house. Which isn’t bad, because I enjoy that kind of music. The other station was some crazy conservative talk radio channel. So we listened to Rush Limbaugh a bit and snorted and laughed quite a bit, as well as downright enjoying his references to “wacko environmentalists” and “crazy liberals.”
Saw quite a bit of wildlife besides birds. I’m beginning to keep a list of everything I see, not just birds. The highlights of the day were the infamous wild (or feral, more accurately) horses, and a young, probably 4 day old, pronghorn antelope hiding under a mountain big sagebrush. Aaron spotted it and I lent him my camera. Got a few sweet pictures. The pronghorn are pretty funny. Apparently they’re the only species of antelope in the US. When they startle the take off either galloping, or doing that funny hop/ run that only antelope can do; their white butts bouncing along, warning others.
Tomorrow we continue training. I’ve still got a ton of bird song to learn and field marks to be able to visually identify them. Also, I’ve got to learn the vegetation, which shouldn’t be too hard, as the landscape is pretty homogenous.
I’m off to look at my bird guide… serenaded by the sounds of Matt on guitar.
~me