A Christmas Bird

How many Christmas cards have you received showing bright red cardinals standing out against a snowy background or black-capped chickadees perched on a snow covered pine branch? It seems these two species of birds have cornered the market as the epitome of Christmas birds. But we don't have cardinals and black-capped chickadees on the Central Coast. So what bird can qualify to take prominence on our Christmas cards? I nominate the white-breasted nuthatch.

All nuthatches have something in common with spiders and flies – they can walk upside down and they are popularly known as the "upside-down" bird.

On the Central Coast more than one kind of nuthatch resides. Along with the white-breasted is the red-breasted and pygmy nuthatch. Each of them can be found in wooded areas where oaks and conifers grow. Parks and urban woodlands are also good places to look for them.

Of the three only the white-breasted is a true year-round resident. The red-breasted are often abundant in winter months but can be totally absent in some years. Pygmy nuthatches, as indicated by their name, the smallest of the three, are common only in the Cambria woodlands and are rare anywhere else in the county.

So how do these birds defy gravity on the trunks and branches of the trees? They have strong toes and use their claws to grip the bark and venture up and down tree trunks and large limbs, often even hanging upside down on the underside of a branch. Birds such as woodpeckers use their tails to help balance and prop them up on the sides of trees but the nuthatch has a short tail which doesn't come into play in their foraging techniques.

The white-breasted and other nuthatches feed mostly on insects that are hidden in the crevices of tree bark. This ability to walk down a tree makes it easy for the birds to spot their prey.

During winter months when insects are not available the birds change their diet and consume mostly seeds. Their habit of stuffing a seed or nut into a crevice in tree bark and then hacking or "hatching" away at it is what gained them the name nuthatch.

White-breasted nuthatches may mate for life. Their courtship display consists of the male spreading his tail, drooping his wings and swaying back and forth, bowing deeply. The female builds the nest in a tree cavity sometimes utilizing old woodpecker holes. They often use a crushed insect to sweep the inside and outside of the nest site. It's thought that the chemical secretions in the insect might deter predators.

Five to nine eggs are laid and while the female incubates them, the male brings food to her and feeds her. The nestlings are fed by both parents and generally fledge no later than 26 days from hatching.

While there are subtle differences in the plumage of the three western nuthatches, their most distinguishing feature may be their different vocalizations. Calls can vary regionally even among the same species. Pacific white-breasted nuthatches call with soft, slow nasal notes that sound like "whi-whi" or "wahwahwah" and can end on a high but descending note. Interior birds also have a nasal tone but call in a rapid series of notes "yidi-yidi-yidi."

So this Christmas season if you take a walk on a chilly morning through our local wooded areas keep an eye out for our very own Christmas bird, the white-breasted nuthatch.

A Christmas Goose

In merry olde England the Christmas table contained many delicious platters like plum pudding, roasts, codfish cakes, peas porridge and fruit pies. But the epitome of the holiday dinner had to be the main course, the Christmas goose. I suspect, although I don't know for sure, that this bird was the domestic variety, grown solely for the purpose of consumption. In North America there is a bird that migrates southward for the winter and is often depicted on our holiday cards and wrappings -- our Christmas goose, the Canada goose.

This bird is probably the most widely distributed and best known wild goose. There are 11 races or subspecies listed in the Audubon Society's Encylcopedia of North American Birds. Several of these spend time in California every year. All of the races look alike except for size, with a long black neck and head, white cheek and chin patches, brown-gray body and wings, pale underparts and white undertail coverts.

The largest of these birds, weighing up to 24 pounds, is known as a "Honker" thanks to its characteristic "ah-honk" call. This bird is the giant Canada goose measuring up to 48 unches long with a wingspan of 75 inches. The "Lesser" is a bird about the size of a snow goose, 26 to 31 inches long, weighing approximately six pounds. "Cacklers" are the smallest and darkest of all the Canada geese, weighing about three to four pounds and just a bit larger than a mallard. These three varieties inhabit our ponds, lakes, grasslands and fields from the coast to the central valleys.

Geese mate for life so within any large flock are family groups of pairs and their young of the year. These groups can be distinguished by careful watching of their habits for the families stay together while feeding or resting. In the spring, the young return with the parents to their breeding grounds where they are finally driven off by the gander. Yearling groups are formed that move several hundred miles from their breeding parents.

There is a pecking order amongst geese that keeps mated pairs without families separate from those with young. this behavior extends downward from mated pairs to single adults and then yearlings, each segregated from the other.

Conversations take place among the birds with their own special language. Scientific study finds that the geese use up to ten different vocalizations responding to certain situations. While the large honkers call is the "ah-honk" or "ahnk" sound, lesser Canada geese give a higher pitched honk that is less resonant. The small cackling geese make an "ank" or "lek-luk" sound.

Canada geese breed throughout Canada and Alaska and in spots throughout the lower 48 states. In recent years these geese have become something of a public nuisance in cities and towns. The problem is not so much the geese as it is the habitat. In planning and designing open spaces and parks, cities have inadvertently constructed environments that are geese friendly. The birds are drawn to the large, open areas of turf grass located near water. In many areas officials are using lethal means to correct the problem when changes to the landscape would more naturally control the numbers of birds. Modifying the habitat by reducing landscape features that geese find attractive and putting in features that make the area unsafe or inconvenient for them will either reduce or completely eliminate the birds.

Another factor contributing to the overabundance of these birds is that people like to feed them. The public needs to be educated that giving handouts to these wild birds can affect their well being and increase conflicts with humans.

Nature affords us many thrilling events and one is beholding flocks of Canada geese flying in v-formations, honking greetings to each other.

Author's Note: Since writing this the gods of bird identification have made changes regarding the species and sub-species of Canada geese, particularly in reference to the cackling goose. For the best information on this change see www.sibleyguides.com and remember, there are no Canadian geese -- they are Canada geese!

Turkey Trot

Wow, it’s not a good time to be a turkey!

Of course you know there is a vast difference between the turkey that hits your table on Thanksgiving Day and the wild turkey. What you might not be aware of is that turkeys are not native to the western states. Back in the days of the pilgrims these birds were abundant in the eastern forests. A truly American bird, they were found only on this continent until the 1600’s when the Spanish explorers took a few birds back to Spain where they bred and expanded. In fact this bird was so American that good old Ben Franklin proposed it be chosen as the national bird and symbol of our country instead of the eagle. Time and extensive hunting practically wiped out the species until massive conservation efforts were put in place. Thanks to transplantation, wild turkeys are now in all the states except Alaska.

These are the largest game birds in North America. They stand about four feet tall and can reach up to 24 pounds. There are gobblers or Toms, hens, Jakes (first year males) and Jennys (first year females). Gobblers are adult males that have bronzy, iridescent body plumage with black tipped breast feathers. Another characteristic of males is the “beard” that protrudes from the breast. They also have an upward curving spur on the lower legs. Gobblers have less head feathers than hens. Hens are smaller birds with light-brown breast feather tips. Hens sometimes develop beards too but they are always smaller and thinner than a gobbler’s.

There are five races or sub-species of wild turkeys in the United States. Eastern, Osceola, Rio Grande, Gould’s, and Merriam’s. Merriam’s turkeys are the ones you will see in California. They are distinguished from the others by the nearly white feathers on the lower back and tail margin.

Adult males have a distinctive mating call – “gobble, gobble.” The head of the aroused gobbler becomes a combination of red, white and blue – pretty patriotic when you think about it.

Male turkeys have other interesting characteristics such as the Snood or Dewbill, a drooping apparatus that hangs down over the beak, and the wattle, a bright red loose bunch of skin hanging from under the beak to just above the beard. Apparently the only function of these items is to cause hens to swoon. A male turkey can change his head from red to blue in minutes and the climax of his performance is when he fans out his tail and puffs up his body feathers to appear huge and round. This just about clinches it for the lady turkeys. Lovemaking is bound to ensue!

Eight to 12 eggs are laid and begin hatching in 28 days. The young are capable of leaving the nest soon after hatching.

Wild turkeys form into flocks based on sex and age. The brood (hen and her poults) forms into hen-brood flocks. Adult males form flocks that rarely associate with hens until breeding season. Young males separate from the brood and form Jake flocks.

Domestic turkeys couldn’t be more different from their wild cousins. They are larger (can weigh up to 75 lbs.) and gain weight quickly. This is not due to hormones or drugs but is a factor of breeding. Domestics are white in color and cannot change their head color. Their snoods are always red. And poor beasts, they are unable to breed, a consequence of having developed over-sized barrel chests that don’t allow the birds to get close enough to mate. Artificial insemination produces all the domestic turkey flocks. Did you know there are two types of domestic turkey – the female line consists of males and females, whose job it is to produce eggs, and the male line, also made up of males and females that are bred to produce meat.

Dumbness is equated with being a turkey but this is only true for the domestic variety. Wild birds are very wily and wary. Ask any hunter. The domestics are so passive they don’t even know enough to come in out of the rain and there are documented cases of turkeys drowning in a downpour.

The biggest difference between domestic and wild birds is that only the wild ones can fly. They don’t much like to but they can, quite well. They can clear a 60-foot tree within 100 feet of takeoff and travel several miles at 50 miles per hour.

The turkey is a successful bird in every sense both in the wild and in the supermarket. Nowadays most of the products on the store shelves are made of turkey – turkey ham, turkey bacon, and turkey pastrami.

So on Thanksgiving Day while you are enjoying that turkey leg or breast, remember the great contribution this very American bird brings to us -- food for our table and a pleasure to watch in the wild.

PHOTOS

Turkeys have made a big comeback in California and are seen far and wide on farms and ranches and sometimes even in town!

Mosquito Hell

If the issue of global warming was ever in question in my mind it was answered on my recent bird photography trip to the national wildlife refuges of the Central Valley of California. It is for certain upon us with all its accompanied plagues.

How do I know this? Never before in the 40 years I have wandered the wilds of this state during the autumn months has the weather been this warm. By now there should have been rainstorms to replenish the waterways that drain into the reclaimed wetlands. By now the nighttime temperatures should have dipped into the teens in the interior valleys and the daytime highs should be reaching no more than the mid-50 degrees or low 60 degrees Fahrenheit. But that is not the case this year and it hasn't been so for several years past.

So it was that a friend and I traveled north and east the first week of November in trepidation for we had been warned already, there were mosquitoes at the refuges.

"It can't be," I told my friend, "I've never seen mosquitoes there. Gnats sometimes, but not mosquitoes." I would later eat those words along with a few mosquito morsels.

We arrived late in the afternoon after a long drive and checked into our motel, reconfigured our gear and outer wear, and piled back into the car to dash off to the nearest wetland area.

This section is marked by large ponds of varying depths that are part of the Grasslands Ecological Area just north of Los Banos, California. An odd assortment of structures line the dirt road on either side through the area where duck hunting club members stake out during the waterfowl hunting season. I have no objection to the hunters, who I find for the most part to be cordial and friendly and have on occasion supplied me with leads as to the whereabouts of abundant flocks of ducks and geese. It's these guys who pay the fees that enable the state to continue to replenish wetlands that have been almost 90% destroyed in California.

The light was fading fast as we drove slowly down the lane. Ponds on both sides showed forms of ducks, shorebirds, and the ever-present ubiquitous coots. Too late for photos, we were using this foray as a reconnaissance for the next morning. We kept scanning the ponds with our binoculars as we inched along. In trying to identify one small bird we stupidly opened the windows. Immediately we were hit with the blast of hundreds of little buzzing insects flying about inside the car. "Mosquitoes!" we both screamed and dove for the button to close the windows.

What is it about being swarmed by little flying bugs? You instantly begin to itch. In between scratching we swatted at the aerobatic dive bombers until the dashboard was littered with carcasses. By this time the sun was really gone and we couldn't make out the figures on the ponds so we headed back to the motel to find some food. We ate quietly at the local Denny's both thinking the same thing. What would tomorrow morning bring? More mosquitoes?

Birding and bird photography requires an early rising. The alarm went off at 5 A.M. and we tumbled out of bed, brewed the in-room coffee and consumed some oatmeal gruel while we pulled on our clothes and gathered up our gear.

Out on the road huge blankets of fog reached across the fields to swallow us on the tiny country road. Suddenly a huge orange globe appeared on the horizon through the mists. We pulled off to the side of the road for a good photo opportunity. As we exited the car to photograph the sunrise, we stared at each other. There were no bugs!

We got to the refuge as geese were taking to the skies to fan out over the countryside in search of lucrative grain fields. We were encouraged that there still was no sight of anything else flying about except birds.

Merced National Wildlife Refuge is one of three national refuges in the area and while it is the smallest it always offers the best assortment of bird life with huge flocks of snow geese and large rafters of sandhill cranes that often number over 10,000 birds. A six-mile auto tour route offers the best opportunity to obtain good photographs while using the car as a blind. In the three hours we spent at the refuge we found ponds full of northern shovelers, pintails, gadwalls, and mallards as well as greater white-fronted geese, white pelicans, snow geese, sandhill cranes, white-faced ibis, great blue herons, and of course, coots. Killdeer raced up and down the side of the dirt road and American pipits flitted by us. A red-tail hawk played cat and mouse along the way and in the distance we watched two northern harriers cruising.

About three-quarters of the way around the route there is a trail and an overlook. Here black phoebes perched in the trees and other small birds eluded us. A large flock of greater white-fronted geese were milling in the water and suddenly took flight giving us good shots of them flying overhead.

The sandhill cranes were not abundant. The usual group that mills about on the open grassland at the end of the auto route was not present. But it was early in the season and not yet cold enough anywhere for them to make their way more to the south. We made note to return for our usual trip here in February when the large concentrations of cranes should be present.

By now it was mid-morning but we decided to stop at San Luis National Wildlife Refuge anyway to see what we might see. The temperature had risen. It was already too warm. As we made our way around this larger refuge on the auto tour route we started to hear the buzzing once again and soon the car had too many flitting insects inside. We closed the windows and turned on the air conditioning. There would be no photo taking here.

"I feel like I'm back in New Jersey," I said. "I can't remember a time when I've ever seen this many mosquitoes in California."

Global warming? Well, today I am sitting in Morro Bay. It is mid-November. The temperature is hovering around 80 degrees. Do I think this is global warming? Yes. There certainly is something very, very wrong with our climate. Morro Bay rarely gets this warm even at the height of summer and by this time of year we should be enjoying those crisp fall days that invigorate the soul. We're in trouble folks. It's mosquito hell!

Photos

Greater white-fronted geese

Killdeer

American Coots

American Pipit















White-Faced Ibis












Sandhill Cranes

Fall Color in California?

We yearned for color – those of us who originally hailed from the shores of the Atlantic missed the yearly autumn display. We wanted to see trees of lemon yellow and crimson red. But we live in Central California and what leaf changes we have here never live up to those memories we hold of the splashy show of the northeast trees. What to do? Take a bus trip north to Plumas County.

We were on the road early on a bright sunny morning in early October with plans to tour and have lunch at the Stewart & Jasper Almond Ranch in Newman, California.
The ranch is a third generation family business that farms more than 3000 acres of nuts and fruits. We watched as assembly line people quickly plucked reject almonds from a moving belt loaded with nuts. After our tour we enjoyed a tasty lunch and spent some time shopping in the gift store.

Overnight was in Oroville and early the next morning we set off up Highway 70, a spectacular scenic drive along the Feather River. The section between Oroville and Quincy is known as the Feather River National Scenic Byway and words to describe the route cannot do it justice. The river, which tumbles over huge boulders, is thousands of feet straight down from the road for most of the drive. People suffering from height phobias may have trouble on this route, but no one can deny its beauty. Waterfalls tumble down the cliff sides and as the elevation climbs we began to see some change of color in the foliage.

The railroad makes it way up this canyon too and was cause for some interesting engineering feats in the building of the line and placement of bridge overpasses. The historic Pulga and Tobin bridges are an example. One is a highway bridge that crosses over a Western Pacific Railroad bridge. Its said to be one of the most photographed sites, but on narrow Highway 70 there is no place for a 40 foot bus to pull over for those of us with cameras to get a shot.

We did get a chance to photograph the river and another Tobin bridge after we descended from the heights and could park in a large open space adjacent to the river. Here a small waterfall cascaded down the hillside into the boulder-strewn water. There was just a hint of color change in the trees but a large scar of previously burned area also was evident. This past fire season a large brush and forest fire consumed many acres in this northern California section.

Logging is still an active industry up here and we saw many large trucks loaded with huge logs barreling up and down the highway. Most of the small towns in the area support the logging industry.

Lunch was in one of these small towns, Mill Creek, at St. Bernard's Lodge. Lunch was great but the best thing was looking at all the artifacts in this old fashioned bed and breakfast. The property contains a small pond and a larger body of water adjacent to it where mallards and domestic ducks paddle back and forth. The pond is stocked with huge rainbow trout. This stop was one place where some nice fall foliage was evident but the dog that the place was named after never showed.

Our tour continued around Lake Almanor, the largest lake in Plumas County. We stopped to admire a nice flock of white pelicans that were floating on the water. Lake Almanor has 52 miles of shoreline and is a popular recreation spot.

Railroads have played a big part of this area's history and part of our trip was railroad oriented. At Greenville, while searching for a restroom break spot, we stumbled upon and old depot building next to a line of tracks. And all up and down Highway 70 we encountered long lines of freight trains snaking their way along the canyon ledges and through the massive tunnels that railway workers had blasted out of the mountainsides. In some places the track loops over itself in order for the trains to gain in elevation along the canyon walls.

The Western Pacific Railroad finished building their line across the Sierra Nevada Mountains in 1909 and was the last transcontinental railway built. Their history and a grand assortment of rolling stock are available to the public at the Western Pacific Railroad Museum at Portola and this was a must-see stop for our tour. Here members of the Feather River Rail Society preserve rail history in a large building housing many artifacts, photos, and equipment. Outside in the yard is 12,000 feet of track and every kind of engine and rolling stock that you can imagine. Visitors can even drive a locomotive through the Museum's Run-a-Locomotive program. Our group got to participate in a train ride in a variety of old cabooses.

From Portola we headed for an overnight stay at Chalet View Lodge outside of Graeagle. This is a very nice upscale resort on large picturesque grounds. There are rooms in the lodge section and individual cabins available. Dining is on site and you can enjoy the pool or the Jacuzzi. A spa, fitness room, Bocce and volleyball courts, 6-hole golf course, a ponds stocked with trout are all on this property. They have wine bar and soon will have a brewery and also offer Starbucks coffee.

After a great night's sleep we drove down a rural byway for a stop at Gold Lake. This small lake is set in a dip in the mountains and a more serene place would be hard to find. We snapped photos and watched as Canada geese flew overhead, squawking on their way.

Then we were back on the road until the majestic Sierra Buttes came into view and our kindly bus driver allowed for me to jump off for a photo opportunity. Here there was a bit more fall color evident in the trees but we had already come to realize that this either was not a spectacular year or we were in the area a bit too early.

The tiny gold rush town of Downieville on a fork of the Yuba River proved to be a great rest stop break and we all visited the Downieville Museum that is housed in a building from 1852 that has thick walls of stone and an iron door. Here docents showed us tools and implements used by miners of old. A stuffed mountain lion resides in the back room and a docent demonstrated a hand cranked washing machine. Then we wandered the plank sidewalks and browsed in and out of some of the shops. Mining for gold in the heydays of that activity was what made the towns in the Mother Lode great. Now they are quiet little hamlets that tourists love to explore.

Gold mining took up the last part of our fall color trip with a tour of the Empire Mine where we enjoyed a miner's lunch consisting of something called "pasties." These are meat-filled doughy pastries that apparently were concocted by gold rush miners in desperation for sustenance. While interesting to see what those times of old brought forth, "pasties" are something I could live without. I did, however, enjoy the ice cream dessert.

The Empire Mine is now a state historic park and encompasses the elegant homes of some of the mine's owners as well as the original mine shaft. This mine produced six million ounces of gold valued at $100 million and was the deepest hard rock mine in California. I don't venture down mine shafts or into caves anymore mostly because of the terrain not being the best and I actually find them kind of creepy, so I enjoyed touring William Bourne's stately residence and clubhouse. Bourne was the last owner of the mine and was an influential person in California history. Adjacent to the gift shop was a great museum display showing how the mine worked and numerous photos of actual miners at work. The Empire Mine State Historical Park is located just outside of Grass Valley.

The last stop on our tour was Nevada City with a knowledgeable historical guide. Beautiful Victorian homes still grace this gold mining town with picturesque white church spires punctuating the hillsides. One can't help but feel the essence of times past and the great amount of history towns like this have given to California and the nation.

We headed home – fall color tour over and not much color to speak of. It is November now and as far as fall color is concerned, the best display locally lies in the salicornia-pickleweed estuary in Morro Bay that has just now turned a lovely shade of crimson and rust. New England has nothing to worry about. We won't be taking over the title of best fall color in the United States!

Fall Color in California!

War Lords, Poppies, Mercenaries and More - Life in Afghanistan Since the Fall of theTaliban

What would it be like for you to drive your car to the grocery and come out after shopping and find your tires slashed? You would automatically suspect gangs or young people doing pranks. Pretty frustrating, right? Well, this happens continuously to Rosemary Stasek, an American who lives in Kabul, Afghanistan and runs an organization called, "A Little Help".

"It's not gangs, like in the U.S., that are doing this," Stasek said, "it's the police."

Life for people in this country that is best described as the forgotten land is difficult and restrictive even since the fall of the extremist Taliban group.

"The Taliban are not the worst threat to life in Afghanistan," Stasek said at a recent Rotary Club of Morro Bay presentation, "I rank them about 4th."

Far more serious and life-upsetting are conflicts between area war lords, the drug trade, and finally the all-pervading corruption that exists at all levels of commerce and government.

War lords from the many tribal groups that live in this country constantly fight each other and these conflicts add to the already crumbling infrastructure.

The growing of poppies that supply the illegal drug trade enlarges daily since this is a ripe source of income for farmers who can get little to nothing for other crops.

But corruption is by far the most insidious and detrimental aspect of life in present day Afghanistan.

"Corruption is present from the lowest levels all the way up to Karzai's administration," Stasek said.

You can't blame them. For people who have nothing, any means to gain money becomes acceptable.

Life is at its poorest in this land that has been ravaged by one conflict after another for generations. The invasion by Russia lasted 10 years. Many of the fiercest freedom fighters during that era solidified into the rigid Islamic group known as the Taliban after an equally bloody and disruptive civil war that occurred after the Russians withdrew.

"When the Taliban first came into power, Stasek said, "They were welcomed because the standard of living arose and they provided security." At that time people could walk the streets unhampered. They had places to live and jobs. Food and water was plentiful. Now, all of that is gone. "Granted that life quickly became more restrictive under their rule and particularly so for women," she continued, "but it was safer. It is the security they provided that the people miss."

Kabul is the capital of Afghanistan and is slowly crumbling. At one time it was a city that could rival the capitals of Europe. Now life is at a standstill. Electricity is only available for three hours a day. This alone has to be crippling both government and commerce. People cannot use even the basic modern conveniences that we here in the West take for granted, such as refrigeration, television, computers, even the electric light bulb. Schools are often outdoor affairs and lack even pads and pencils for the children to write with. Medical care is scarce and in some areas non-existent.

Stasek's organization has concentrated on helping women and girls with the hope that bringing them into the 21st century may begin to alleviate the ills long brought about by a traditional male dominated society. In some areas she has been able to provide tents to be used in place of standard buildings for schools. "It's far easier to replace a tent," she said, "than it is to replace a building that is bombed."

Through her organization, "A Little Help," she has started income small income projects for women to participate in. She has gotten math, English language, and Dari textbooks, lab equipment, and mats for students to sit on at the tent schools. She has obtained medicines and surgical supplies for maternity wards, and construction materials and labor for a hospital.

The organization, in conjunction with other organizations, has supplied funds for piping and plumbing for running water to an orphanage, partial purchase of land for an orphans' farming project, and funds for a pharmacy and women's center in a rural province. Help has been given to women to train at the Kabul Beauty School so they can find lucrative, although non-traditional jobs. A knitting project was begun for blind women with a supply of knitting needles and yarn.

Stasek, who is also an accomplished food preserver, taught a class for Afghan women to make preserves that ultimately became an income-generating project.

Humanitarian work is also done at women's prisons in the country where not only are the women incarcerated, but their children are brought with them to prison.

The list goes on and on. Stasek said that much of what her group does is accomplished with small amounts of funds thereby giving rise to the name of the organization. "Every little bit helps," she said, "even $20 is a sum that can be utilized for a project."

While Stasek and her husband, Morne du Preez, originally from South Africa, now employed with security firms in the country, will continue to work to aid the people of Afghanistan, she is not sure how much longer they will be able to live there. "Things are definitely getting worse, particularly in Kabul," she said. "The major problem is coming from Pakistan." Stasek feels that the United States is going to have to come to grips with this situation and soon. When asked about Al-Qaida, she answered that this infiltration is from Pakistan, not necessarily from the Taliban in Afghanistan.

That the region is becoming more and more unstable daily is obvious even to us here in the States, although we are given only snippets of information from the media mostly concentrating on the Taliban. Very little is reported concerning the devastation wrought by the tribal war lords and the corruption growing like a cancer in civic and governmental sections.

Still, "a little help" can go a long way to make a difference in Afghanistan and hopefully help to bring them from the 7th century into a modern world.

For more information please go to www.stasek.com/alittlehelp.

Morro Bay is for the Birds!

It happens every year. Summer ends, the days become crisp and clear and the birds return to Morro Bay.

The National Audubon Society lists Morro Bay as a Globally Important Bird Area and it is also a part of the National Estuary Program. Fall and winter seasons bring thousands of migratory birds that make Morro Bay their winter home.

Shorebirds such as marbled godwits, willets, curlews with their long curved bill, and tiny sandpipers find a bountiful feast in the mudflats of the bay. Black brant geese migrate from spots on the Alaskan shore to feed on the rich eelgrass beds of the estuary. Fluttering terns, brown pelicans, graceful egrets and herons are also part of the seasonal mix.

One of the best ways to see the birds of Morro Bay is from the water. Outfitters located on the Embarcadero rent kayaks, canoes and electric boats.

For those who don't want to take to the water there are trails and viewing places surrounding the bay. An easy trail is located beginning at the rear of the Morro Bay State Park Marina parking lot and winding out along the estuary.

Morro Coast Audubon Society maintains two special birding locations. The Audubon Overlook is located in Los Osos on the south side of the estuary. From the small roofed deck you can sit comfortably and view the variety of waterfowl foraging in the waters of the back bay.

An excellent area for bird watching is the Sweet Springs Preserve. It is a 24-acre natural site on the southern edge of the bay consisting of one acre of freshwater ponds and marsh, 14 acres

of saltwater ponds, marsh and mudflats and nine acres of upland scrub. Wintering Brant geese and scores of ducks take up winter residence along its shores. There are trails, bridges and benches along the way and many locals make this area their daily stroll.

Another great viewing spot is at Morro Rock where peregrine falcons nest every year. Ospreys are often seen perching on top of boat masts in the harbor area.

A great way to see and learn about the 200 plus species that visit Morro Bay is to attend the annual Morro Bay Winter Bird Festival held over the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday weekend. The festival offers guided field trips throughout the county, workshops on bird identification, photography, how to select binoculars and scopes and more. Special keynote speakers present entertaining and educational evening programs.

Morro Bay State Park Marina is located south of Morro Bay on State Park Road near the entrance to the Central Coast Natural History Museum.

The Natural History Museum is a great place to visit on your birding trip. The museum has a variety of interactive displays and exhibits and docent led walks.

The Audubon Overlook can be reached from South Bay Blvd. by turning west on Santa Ysabel at the traffic light and proceeding to Third Street. A right turn at the end of the street takes you to a small dirt road that leads to the parking area.

Sweet Springs Reserve is located in the 600 block of Ramona Avenue in Los Osos.

Morro Rock can't be missed from anywhere in the town and is accessible from the waterfront by Coleman Drive.

Morro Bay Winter Bird Festival information and registration can be done by logging onto www.morrobaybirdfestival.org or calling the Morro Bay Chamber of Commerce at 805-772-4467 or 800-231-0592.

Bees If You Please

WILD THINGS by Ruth Ann Angus
You've probably heard of it; it's been in the news. Bees are in trouble.

I watch the busy bees every day in my garden and I find it hard to tell what might be going on with them. First of all, there is more than one kind of bee. My big succulent is flowering and large black and yellow bumblebees are all over it. The rest of the garden, with a variety of colorful flowers, is visited by smaller black and yellow bees that I identify as honey bees. There appear to be a lot of them, so what's the problem?

Honey bees have been declining in 35 states and in Europe and South America. As many as 200,000 colonies may have already disappeared. The disaster is a mystery because no one knows what is causing the decline. One day a hive may be full and active and the next barren, with the bees literally disappearing overnight.

"The bees just take off from the hive and never return," one beekeeper said. "We don't even find any carcasses."

So far one-third of honey bees in the United States have disappeared. This phenomenon first came to light in 2006 and has grown worse every year since.

Honey bees are critical to agriculture. You may have seen the white beehive boxes set out in local fields. Commercial beekeepers transport the hives to farmers at their request to pollinate their crops.

One-third of all the food produced in the United States is pollinated by bees. Corn, wheat and rice are not affected but would provide us with monotonous and unsatisfactory nutrition if they were the only crops available.

Because of the needs of agriculture we rely on bees for more than what nature needs. As agriculture calls for bigger and bigger harvests, it bears the question, are we overworking our honey bees and other pollinators, possibly to death?

The life of some of the honey bees in a hive is limited. Worker bees live only 30 days. Some of them become foragers when three weeks old. At this time they communicate with other bees in the hive by performing a special dance using movement and sounds to relay specific sites where nectar may be found. In some cases new foragers are setting out but never return to perform the dance.

If a bee falls ill it leaves the hive to die in order to prevent the rest of the population from getting sick.

There is a name for the mysterious decline now, colony collapse disorder (CCD), and scientists are frantically trying to find out its cause. Everything from malnutrition to AIDS has been suggested.

Bees are adversely affected by toxic pesticides and the Varoa Destructor mite also kills them. But in this case the dead bodies are found. With colony collapse they just disappear. It might be that pesticides, parasites and poor nutrition could all be the cause.

Certain viruses are being explored and one type called IAPV (Israeli acute paralysis virus) has been found in the Israel, the United States, China, and Australia. But whether this is the culprit is not known.

The more hardy Africanized bees appear to be resistant to CCD and beekeepers are now encouraging them to interbreed with honey bees. In the meantime many keepers are using Australian bees to build up their depleted hives.

A new four-year research project will start soon with multiple universities taking part. If the cause of colony collapse disorder is not found soon, it is estimated there could be no honey bees in the United States by 2035.

Busy as a bee freelance writer and nature
photographer Ruth Ann Angus makes her hive
in Morro Bay. Wild Things is a regular
feature of The Bay News.

High School Reunion

Forgotten But Not Lost

by

Ruth Ann Angus

Reunion. The letter said I would be interested in finding out the details of my 45^th high school reunion. I wasn’t.

But something nagged at my mind.

Five of my former classmates were listed along with their e-mail addresses. I kept going back to the letter to stare at those five names. “Who are they?” I asked. “I don’t recall any of them.”

I put the letter aside. I didn’t throw it out. Days passed and I kept shuffling the letter around on my desk. “I really should throw this thing out,” I thought, “I’m not going!”

The reunion is in New Joisey. The Garden State that is not really a garden spot. The class of ’58 graduated from Clifford John Scott High School in East Orange, a town that has definitely seen better times. I know this because I returned there in 2001, forty years after moving away. The street where I lived and the house I grew up in are relatively unchanged and it seemed as if I had stepped back in time. Kind of eerie in comparison to the rest of the town that is barely recognizable in its decay.

More than a year previous, a phone solicitation from Texas came in from someone trying to obtain interesting factual information about moi. Why? To sell me a book listing all my former classmates, where they are and what they are doing. I declined. Why would I want to know?

But now I did.

“My God!” I wrote in my e-mail, “It’s been 45 years since we graced the halls of good old Clifford J. Scott. Amazing! Some of us would just as soon forget those days. But I’ve looked at the names of the committee and, duh, I don’t know any of you! Who are you?”

The three women never replied. The two guys did. It seems I was not forgotten.

“I was in a few of your classes as a quiet underclassman who sat in the back and kept my mouth shut,” one of them replied. He signed it Dave “what’s his name” and attached a photo of himself and another classmate nicknamed “Chops.”

Oh yes, I remembered them! Especially Chops.

Carmine De Gennaro, alias Chops, my nemesis, a sex-crazed adolescent. His obsession centered on the budding protuberances most girls between the ages 14 and 17 develop on their chests. I can still hear the nickname he had for me, which he often loudly called out in the corridors. “Hey, triple A!”

In high school I was five feet tall and weighed 98 pounds “soaking wet” as they say. Nowadays I would be considered anorexic. I wasn’t, but I also wasn’t developed.

It did my heart good to see what he looked like now. “Chops” indeed.

I couldn’t resist a reply. “Tell Carmine I’m a double C now. It just took me a little longer to blossom.”

The e-mail from the other guy was even more interesting.

“We were in Andre Townsley’s French class together as well as several other classes,” he wrote. “I always remember that you had a pretty wicked sense of humor and a great laugh. I went through CJS with one name before one name was fashionable – Archie.”

How could I forget? Of course, Archie, from the comic books. But what did he mean about my “wicked sense of humor?” I thought I was demure and shy in high school! Guess not.

Down memory lane he took me, telling me who lived where and what they were doing and who was no longer with us. Sal Battiato, a Fonzie character, who along with the aforementioned Chops, terrorized me not only all through high school but previously through three years of Catholic grammar school – I think I smacked him a time or two – is now a hair dresser living in North Carolina! Huh! Thought for sure he’d end up in the penitentiary!

Jay O'Neil, who has passed on. Yes, I certainly remember him. We had a good friendship back then. His Mom knew my Mom. Yes, I remember. He became a father before graduating high school. Too much, too soon.

Archie mentioned a few gals who also live in California and yes, indeed I do remember them, Mary Reese, Cathy Dwyer, and Joan Attalla.

Well, now it was all coming back to me and I was getting a bit nostalgic. Was I going to change my mind and go to the 45th reunion? No.

Instead I had Archie send me a copy of the 40th Reunion Program and loved looking at the photos and trying to match names with faces.

Now here it is, 50 years since graduation and another reunion is upon us. Am I going? No. But my reasons aren't quite the same. This past year I battled with breast cancer and am just not in the position to be able to do a trip east. Besides I've developed a "thing" about flying what with the screwy stuff going on with the airlines.

I was saddened to see the names listed for classmates who have passed away. As I read their names I see their faces. Since cancer, I daily check the obituaries to make sure my name is not there. Seems to me we all should have been able to reach the time of our 50th reunion.

Good greetings to you Class of 1958! May you enjoy reminiscing those grand old days. Kiss the New Jersey ground from which we sprang and salute our teachers, long gone now, who tried their level best to make us what we are today. I will be with you in spirit!

Adding Insult to Injury

Life is definitely not fair.

It's not bad enough that I was recovering from massive spinal surgery after battling back problems for years; I had to get breast cancer too.

It's not bad enough that I got breast cancer. Everyone I spoke with said they were only sick a couple of days on chemo. I was sick continuously. Everyone else said they lost weight on chemo. I gained 20 pounds. Everyone else's hair grew back curly. Mine is coming back in straight as a poker.

So I guess I shouldn't have been surprised when I fished out my bathing suit from storage.

Now, in Morro Bay it is a rare day that one puts on a bathing suit for any reason. We only have them at all in case we go on a trip to a warm climate where the hotel has a pool. Generally the temperature in Morro Bay during the summer months is about 68 to 70 degrees with gobs of fog. For those of us who literally loathe the heat and think it is overwhelmingly hot when the thermometer hits 75, this is the ideal place to live.

Every now and then we do get a heat wave and we sit around in front of the fan moaning while the temperature goes up to 85 degrees. Fortunately it only lasts for a few days, so while we hate this, we put up with these aberrant occasions.

But on June 20th the world turned on us. We shared the plight of the arctic polar bear and the Antarctic penguin. Global warming came to Morro Bay with a blast.

It had been hot inland the day before, but it is always hotter several miles east of us every summer. In what we call North County, some of the hottest temperatures in the state often occur. It would be unthinkable to pose a scenario where the coastal towns would beat out the north county town of Paso Robles, or for that matter, the valley city of Fresno, as far as high temperatures go. Morro Bay's population increases by about ten thousand every summer with people escaping the heat of those places. So to say that we were unprepared for the events of the summer solstice would be an understatement. It came upon its full bloom of the longest day of sunlight with a hoary heat blast never before recorded in this town by the Rock.

At 11:30 A. M. a friend from San Luis Obispo arrived at my house for lunch trying to escape from the excessive heat of that city where it had been over 100 degrees the day before.

"My car's thermometer must be broken," she said, "It says it's 108 degrees here in Morro Bay."

Well, I knew it was hot that's for sure. At 3 A.M. that day I awoke in a sweat, leaped out of bed and raced around to close all the windows and vents because blasts of hot air were pouring in. By 8 A.M. I knew we were in for a horrible day.

Turns out my friend's car thermometer was not broken. It did reach 108 degrees in Morro Bay. It is undoubtedly a record but since no data has been kept for a 30 year period for comparison, we can only assume so. But those of us who have lived here for a long time know that we have never experienced anything like the first day of summer of 2008.

The evening news weatherman gave a dire prediction. We would have to endure at least one more day of just about the same before any cooling down would start to occur. I nearly fainted hearing that. I could not endure another day like this. I made note to find my bathing suit.

Now, I wasn't thinking about dousing myself in the ocean, which of course is what you might think since it is right here practically at my doorstep. No, not with a water temperature of 58 degrees. Around here one wears a three millimeter wet suit to go into that. My plan was to use my wonderful new water nozzle and my 50-foot anaconda hose just purchased this week for my garden. Since every time I use it I get a good soaking anyway, I couldn't think of a better solution other than to go out and buy a kiddy pool for the backyard. That was my plan. At least until I fished out the bathing suit and started to put it on.

HA! Remember those 20 chemo pounds? Well, they stood between me and relief from impending heat stroke. I pulled and tugged and forced the suit onto my pudgy body but there was no way it would zip up. It was 11 A.M. and already near 90 degrees in the house. I finally said the heck with it and with it half-zipped and stretched tightly over all my protuberances, I raced out the back door, grabbed the anaconda hose and let the soothing spray of Gentle-Shower splash over me. I could see my neighbors peering at me out of their windows. I didn't care. What a relief! Why hadn't I done that the day before?

All I can say is the entire episode is certainly adding insult to injury. Because now I am sitting on the front porch in a dripping wet bathing suit and a stiff breeze has come up and, you know what? It's cold! The weatherman was wrong. Looks like we're heading back to 68 degrees. Global warming be damned!

Wrestling an Anaconda

I heard the phone ringing through the window but there was no way I was going to get to it. The answering machine picked up and I could hear that it was my friend Barb calling. As soon as I could, I got back in the house and dialed her number.

"Sorry," I said when she answered, "I was wrestling with an anaconda when you called."

It's heartening for me that science and technology have made life easier for us here in our modern society. I take advantage of new inventions that are made to help me with my day to day upkeep of my home. Naturally I like a bargain when I can get one, but I've come to realize after many years of living that the old saying, "you get what you pay for" is true.

I've lived in my house for 20 years now and all that time I never did anything with the narrow strips of dirt outside of my back door. When I first moved here an assortment of lilies would sprout every spring and brighten the barren area for a month or so before dying back and ultimately lie in heap of yellow leaves and brown decaying blossoms. I let nature take its course and after many months the unsightly mess dissolved into the soil.

At one point in a moment of insanity I dumped a litter box full of used Tidy Cat into the brown dust thinking it would meld into the dirt. While the animal matter may or may not have enriched the soil, the Tidy Cat definitely did not. After the first rain of the season the entire section solidified and became like cement. After that, the lilies stopped blooming.

A few years passed and one spring morning as I hauled a pile of laundry out the back door on my way to the washing machine in the garage I was startled to find the entire area aglow with bright yellow flowers. "Well," I thought, "something likes the cat litter after all." I would have continued to be delighted with this outcome except that I found out my lovely yellow blooms were Oxalis, a noxious invasive plant that spreads like wildfire and once done blooming, the entire area is littered with dead brownish-yellow plant matter that eventually dries out and looks really crappy.

Such was the condition of my back garden throughout the ensuing years. Until now.

Don't ask me why but for some reason I have taken to doing a bunch of things to the house that I never even considered doing for the past 20 years. Maybe it's because after enduring a five-vertebra spinal fusion and a 10 month bout with breast cancer, I finally feel like a whole human being for a change. Aside from getting rid of things and buying new furniture and curtains and bedding, I decided to tackle the ugly weed ridden dirt patch out the back door. Spinal fusion doesn't afford me the pleasure of digging in the soil and putting in plants so I hired a gardener to do that. After warning him that he would have to remove the cement-like dirt section where the Tidy Cat still reigned, he agreed to take on the job and ultimately planted a small tree type plant with stringbean hanging foliage, a flowering vine, Mexican sage, and an assortment of yellow day lilies and purple bottle-brush type plants. A nice bark mulch completed the job. "Now, don't forget to water this," he warned me.

I heeded his word and tried using the old hose that had been lying around the side of the house for all the same years that I have lived here, and while it did work, it was worn and patched and apparently the washer in the hose where it connected to the outside faucet had worn away. This produced a huge fountain of water spewing out all over that side of the house, which then also shot inside the house through an adjacent ventilation opening. Since the hose connection was on another side of the house from the garden, this was not discovered until after watering with the hose for a half hour. The next half hour was spent mopping up the flood inside the house.

The old hose had to go.

A trip to Miner's Hardware was in order. I wheeled my cart down the aisle with the sprinklers and the hoses and the wheely things to store hoses on. A vast assortment of hoses greeted me, all in various shades of green and all at various price levels. "You get what you pay for" rang in my head, so I passed up the $9.99 and $14.99 ones and lay my hand on the "Only 8 ply, Flexogen, 50 foot, ¾-inch diameter, with Lifetime Replacement Policy " hose for $39.99. "The Last Hose You'll Ever Buy!" was emblazoned across its packaging. This was the hose for me!

Now, if you've ever purchased a hose you know that they are coiled up in a circle reminiscent of a Cobra in a basket. Held together with three pieces of twine, they are secure in their packaging. When you get them home and snip off the twine the beast stays tightly wound.

I attached one end to the faucet. It had a new washer inserted so I hoped I would no longer have the fountain of youth blasting away when I turned on the water. I then attached the spraying nozzle, a new one, of course, with five different types of spray – Mist, Gentle Shower, Stream, Flood, and Cone-Jet-Full. These were reminiscent of my bathroom shower head with three settings, regular flow, piercing flow, and pulsating massage. If these are good for my body, I figured they would also be good for my plants.

The time had come to turn on the water. I twisted the knob on the faucet and immediately the hose leapt to life, it's ¾-inch diameter swelling measurably but still remaining tightly coiled – all 50 feet of it. I tugged at it and moved a few feet of coil forward and then pressed the lever on my new nozzle. Whammo! Flood came bursting forth. The Mexican sage ducked. The stringbean tree bent over halfway. Flood would not do! I feverishly twisted the dial on the nozzle to Gentle Shower. Ah, yes, this brought forth a nice wide soft flow just like "regular" on my bathroom shower head. Now all I had to do was get the hose to uncoil more so I could water all the way down the length of the garden. Easier said than done.

Flexogen was a misleading brand name for sure. There was no flex and it certainly wasn't gentle. I tugged and pulled and the hose moved forward still in rounded coil mode. I managed to move it about 10 feet so I could aim the Gentle Shower down the length of the garden. The flow didn't reach all the way. I decided to try Stream.

Stream wasn't exactly my idea of what stream should be, but would do well if I was washing caked-on mud off of my car. It was death for the mounds of bark encasing my new plants. Mulch went everywhere. I quickly switched back to Gentle Shower and began to tug at the coiled hose again.

This time the swollen green beast wrapped its coils around my legs and I was sure at any moment I was going to be dragged under water and consumed. The hose was not a hose. It was an anaconda.

"No wonder this is "the last hose I'll ever buy," I mumbled out loud, "it's going to kill me!"

I disentangled my legs and loosened my grip on the nozzle and let the hose swell up from the flow that was no longer being released either by Gentle Shower, Flood, or Stream. It hit me that I better check the hose connection to the faucet to assure that there was no water bursting out. It was holding fine with just a bit of a dribble around the connection. "Good," I thought, "at least that's working out well."

I went back to wrestling with the anaconda and finally managed to pull the coils out as far as they would go and even though they remained basically coiled, I was able to take advantage of the so-called 50-feet of hose. With Gentle Shower working well, I completed my watering chore for the day.

Now it was time to get the hose back to a spot to store it. HA! Before doing that I just had to know what "Cone-Jet-Full" would be like and so switched the dial on the nozzle. Well, use your imagination – at least one side of my house has had 20 years of grime removed.

I switched to Mist and held the nozzle over my head. Ahhhh!

Once again I tugged and pulled and slowly the anaconda moved back into a modified coiled up snake. After shutting off the flow, the beast was a bit easier to handle, still I was thoroughly beat and any idea of coiling it up so it would store neatly by the faucet was out! I lumped the miserable creature in a tangled mess by the side of the walkway. "Oh God," I thought, "I have to do this every day!"

I didn't water the garden yesterday. Today the temperature is 90 degrees in the sun. The stringbean tree has turned yellow and looks limp. The cats have dug holes in the mulch still using it as kitty litter.

The anaconda lies in wait for me, eyeing me each time I look out the window.

Ruth Ann Angus

The Candid Cow