Morning Lark

The day dawned bright, but quickly clouded over. We were ready to go by 6am. We had a plan in mind- not a grand plan, but a plan, nonetheless. I had been perusing Google Maps and found a road through the hills that followed a nice stream. What with it being July and the fact that birds and flowers nearby were becoming harder to find, I thought that a trip into the hills might provide us with new watchable wildlife opportunities and change a new section of the hills around my home from ‘terra incognita’ to more well catalogued ‘terra sciri’.

Daughters, dog and gear went into the van and off we went. We started out with scrubland adjacent to agricultural fields- all punctuated by a couple of modest wetlands and a nearly expired ephemeral stream. As you might expect, the wetter areas were full of life and the drier areas were almost devoid of any activity except the constant buzz of insects. How so many mosquitos can survive in such a dry, hot environment is beyond me.

It turned out that the road followed both a stream and an abandoned railway- so the grade was nearly dead-flat, but the scenery was really nice. Lots of amazing rock outcroppings lots of birds and flowers. Since this was simply an exploratory trip, we only did a little modest rambling, but we now have lots of new areas to explore in the future- when the temps are not in the mid 80s early in the day. The combination of deciduous and coniferous trees would make this a prime fall hiking destination.

By the end of the excursion, we had added a Least Flycatcher and a Lewis’s Woodpecker to our birding year list, and Prairie Coneflowers and Viceroy butterfly to our other flora and fauna list. I’d call that a successful morning lark.