Staycation Part Deux

After a few days of reflection, and cleaning, Husbandman and I drove up to the snow and then down to the dunes for some plant watching, if that is even a real thing, and bird watching. Yes, that's right, not only do we live on the ocean but we live close enough to an area that it snows every year that we can visit both on the same day.
Check out the hot dune restoration action taking place.
Funny Story: Friends of the Dunes has been attempting a full scale re-establishment of native species to the dunes, which requires the removal of invasive European Beach Grass. However, FOTD has been hampered in their efforts by a lawsuit from a nearby resident who believes that the removal of said grass will expose his home to tsunami dangers. I guess I should mention here that the Manila Peninsula where this is taking place is a quarter-mile wide strip of sand in between Humboldt Bay and the Pacific Ocean, if this man thinks that some beach grass will protect his home from tsunami, well, that's just something special right there.
And now back to the daily grind. Another nice thing about working with animals is that they actually are happy to see you when you've been gone for a while.

The Hammond Hole

We live in Humboldt County, one of the more beautiful areas I have ever lived, and subsequently we love to go out and hike and explore and watch birds and all that crap. Today, we explored the fairly recently addition to the Hammond Trail, which we live very close to. Achille likes to look for rough skinned newts in the puddles along the trail, I like to watch for birds.
Up until last year the Hammond Trail ended just north of the Mad River mouth, now it extends well past the airport and ends at Little River Beach. I believe the path is on the site of a logging train for the Hammond Lumber Mill, but I could very well be mistaken.
One of the new features to our little trail is a half mile interpretive loop that displays the restoration of salmon habitat in Widow White Creek, very cool. And no, we didn't see any whales.
But I did see:
Red-tailed Haw
Red Legged Hawk
Belted Kingfisher
Common Merganser
Song Sparrow
Dark-Eyed Junco
Common Raven
White Crowned Sparrow
Ruby Crowned Kinglet
Swainson's Thrush
Winter Wren -----new to my lifer list

Well, let's just see how long I can keep this up

Achille and I have been birding on Sunday's lately. If we have money we get up around 10, go to Ramone's or Wildberrie's for breakfast and then head out to the Arcata Marsh or the Humboldt Wildlife Refuge.
I never thought I would get into birding, but, well, I did. I'm a birder, just without a silly hat.
Today we saw a peregrine falcon and a couple of meadowlarks, cha-ching! Two whole new birds for my lifer list.