Saturday, April 28, 2012 - Caballo Lake State Park, Caballo NM

Rio Grande Riverside Camp, Caballo Lake State Park, Caballo NM, April 24, 2012

Boondocking by the river

Thought I'd throw in a picture that'll give you a hint of the lay of the land here by the river and my relationship to the cliffs across the river where the Great Horned Owls and bees hang out. The cliff isn't as close to the river as it looks. There's a dirt road between the river and the cliff which puts those owls frustratingly far from my viewfinder.

So far neither the weather nor the owls have cooperated to give me another decent shot at them. It was in the 90s most of the week and the uncharacteristic highs mixed at various times with high winds (and a dust storm) and clouds have dampened my enthusiasm and the birds haven't been hanging out on the cliff before sundown either. But I keep watching and hoping.

Night camp

Riverside - Caballo Lake State Park, Caballo NM

Verizon cell phone and broadband service - fair signal if a bit slow
Go to Caballo Lake State Park website
Locate Caballo Lake State Park on my Night Camps map
Check the weather here

Listening

As the poet Gary Snyder said so well, "Beyond all this studying and managing and calculating, there's another level to nature. You can go about learning the names of things and doing inventories of trees, bushes, and flowers. But nature often just flits by and is not easily seen in a hard, clear light. Our actual experience of many birds and wildlife is chancy and quick. Wildlife is known as a call, a cough in the dark, a shadow in the shrubs. You can watch a cougar on a wildlife video for hours, but the real cougar shows herself only once or twice in a lifetime. One must be tuned to hints and nuances." After more than thirty years of living in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada and spending a great deal of that time out-of-doors, Snyder has seen the mountain lion on just a few occasions. One of these sightings was most unusual. Gary had been visiting a neighbor and was walking down from the nearby ridge to his home when he observed a cougar sitting near one of the windows of the house. The animal appeared to be listening intently as one of Snyder's stepdaughters practiced the piano.

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