I am on the road for a few days… Friday saw me head out towards Orange County to spend some time with mom. On the way, I did a side trip off to Merced National Wildlife Refuge, because I wanted to hit it one more time this winter before the season closes, and because there had been reports of Mountain Plovers hanging out nearby.

My original thought was to bird/photo my way through Panoche valley to I5, but the reality is that Panoche has been pretty quiet birding this winter, and one of the bird species normally looked for out there hasn’t been seen — the Mountain Plover. This is a small, rather plain looking brown and white bird, rare and who’s population is threatened. It’s also a species that in three winters of heading out to Panoche to look for them, I’ve successfully missed them every time.

So I drive out to Merced and up Sandy Mush drive towards the entrance, look out into a meadow, and there, hanging out next to the road, is a small flock of about 15 Mountain Plovers. Life birds are rarely that painless.

Merced was about as expected; nice collection of sandhill cranes, all outside of photo range, a large flock of geese (mostly Ross’s, many Snow, a few greater white-fronted). A nice surprise were five tundra swan, a fairly rare visitor to Merced, and some Canvasback ducks, which I can’t remember ever seeing there before. I took some photos (unprocessed), tried to take some audio and video (and botched it massively, need more practice), and just mostly hung out and watched the geese. At one point the flock flew, and when 8-10,000 geese all fly at once, it’s an amazing (and noisy) thing.

And then headed out. On the way out, I stopped to get a better look and some bad pictures of the plovers. The problem with where the plovers are is that they are hanging out in a field literally next door to a juvenile detention center (in other words, a prison). So shortly after I stopped, one of the friendly sheriffs from next door wandered over to say hi.

Friendly he was; he just wanted to make sure I wasn’t one of those stupid people who park next to a prison waiting to pick up a friend who leaves the prison without asking permission first. Yes, it turns out that people DO that (well, people do both parts, he said they’d had a couple of escapes in the last year, so they’re being careful; I’m more amused that people park next to a prison and are evidently surprised when the prison guards notice. I KNEW I was going to get visited, and I was ready to apologize for making them come out and check…)

Of course the plovers found a place to be both easily found and a problem to watch… Count me amused. And the guard was amused that I was there watching these tiny birds…

I kept the stop short, then headed out. Spent a nice day and a half with mom, and today, wandered back up to Morro Bay, where I’ll be spending a few days in a workshop on photo printing techniques. More on that after…

Watching the traffic, all paths exiting Orange County for LA sucked, (okay, sucked even worse than normal — the 405, 5 in downtown, 60 in hacienda heights and the 101 from downtown to venice all had 1+ hour EXTRA delays) except for the 210 and 5 over Tejon. That was fine, since I didn’t need to be anywhere today, I took the scenic route, and drove up to Buttonwillow and then to the coast on HWY58, which runs north of Carrizo Plains and past Bitterwater Road and Shell Creek road, two areas that are big wildflower tracts in the wildflower season.

The critter count for the drive included two coyotes, two golden eagles, a greater roadrunner, a ferruginous hawk, and countable infinities of horned larks, savannah and lark sparrows and an uncountable infinity of western meadowlark. And a few other species, but nothing really special. A quick stop at the Carrisa plain school on 58 where a Williamson sapsucker’s been wintering turned up nothing but a nuthatch (oh well).

But that’s an awesome drive. I can’t claim those parts of the state are stunning the way a place like Yosemite is, but I do feel they can be starkly beautiful, and it’s a fun, somewhat tactical but not scary drive. Something that someone in an SUV can do without feeling like they’re holding up people or about to die…

By the time I was done, it was about 7 hours of driving. Worth it, but it’s nice to be in the room and catching up on being unplugged all day. And in the morning, off to school…

Not a bad weekend…

One of the things that has happened while I was off the blog was that I traded in the Subaru for a new beast. The Subaru was the best car I’ve owned in a long time, but at 120,000 miles, it was clear I had to either invest in it to deal with age-related maintenance, or replace it. my estimate was $2-3000 in 2013 for brakes, struts and shocks and the regular maintenance and fluid changes — at best. 

So I decided it was better to put that into a newer car. And then that got on hold when the refi on the house stretched out, because you don’t want to sneeze near anything that might tweak your credit rating. That’s why when the refi closed out on a Friday, I spent Saturday at the Ford dealer, and drove out for Christmas in SoCal on a Sunday in a car I literally hadn’t driven more than 10 miles or filled with gas yet. What’s this button do? Well, we’ll find out as we go… 

But it all worked out. The new beast is a 2012 Ford Escape, bought certified with 30,000 miles on it. Buying certified instead of new dropped the price a chunk, plus it got me a 2012 model, which I preferred over the 2013 — the trend with SUVs is to “car-ify” them, soften the ride and give them curvier lines, so they handle the road more comfortably, but don’t go off-road well and generally don’t haul as much. I wanted an SUV that still acted a bit like an SUV, without having to resort to one of the hard core off road vehicles like the Toyota FJ. 

The Escape fits the bill. Where the Subaru was “two adults and two kids”, the Escape’s a bit bigger, and I can fit four adults into it without feeling like I have to apologize constantly. it hauls a bit more, although with the seats up, the cargo area is actually close to the Subaru’s. So far, it’s been to LA once,  Morro Bay twice (including a stop on the way back from LA) with a day trip into Carrizo Plains, a day trip out to Merced, another day trip out to Colusa and Staten Island, and some short drives around the homeland. 

To my surprise, by buying not-quite-new, I was able to get one with 4WD (and a moon roof! woo!); one thing I really liked about my Subaru was the all wheel drive because in bad weather or on unpaved roads it held traction well. I haven’t put the Escape into snowy conditions yet, but even in some of the legendary Carrizo mud, it did okay with just a bit of sliding — I can’t believe the Outback would have handled it better. 

So the early results are quite positive. It’s a more comfortable drive for me overall; sometimes the Subaru left my knees stiff and sore, and that hasn’t happened with this beast. The upgrade from 4 to 6 cylinders fixes the feeling that sometimes I was a bit under-powered — but the Escape gas mileage is equivalent to, if not a bit better, then Subaru. that I didn’t expect, but I’m seeing 24MPG real world reliably. The gas tank is about a gallon smaller than the Subaru, which is making me have to relearn my “standard” fill up spots on the trips I take. 

As far as I can tell, the Subaru Outback is the standard car for nature photographers who don’t want a truck. I can’t argue, mine got me where I was going without a whimper for years. But this Escape seems to be all that, but a bit better set up for what I want. So far, it’s met all my expectations, and then some. 

So if you see me the beast out at one of the refuges, pop on over and say hi.