Sneaking in Some Biking

 We are at the point where we're wishing some of those storms in the rest of the country would come and dump on us--it's been a paltry winter! Nevertheless, we have to admit that the warm weather can be nice, and we've taken advantage of it to get Desert Girl some bike riding time. She's hesitant on her own, but with friends, she gets into it.

 She even did some stunt riding one day--going down the curb. That's big stuff for a little girl with training wheels!

 Some of the faces she pulls totally crack me up.

 I caught Ava with a funny face. Her helmet is awesome.

 It's great to be outside!

Here's the line up. Let's go riding!

Desert Survivor's Backyard Bird Challenge--Check In Week One *Updated

*Updated bird identifications--see below

Western Scrub-Jay on feeder

Are you taking Desert Survivor's Backyard Bird Challenge? It's easy: How many birds can you find in your backyard this year? Keep a list (we have one in the sidebar now), and add to it each time you find something new.

The kids and I are having a lot of fun with the challenge. I'm impressed with how well they are learning the common birds in the yard. To help encourage birds to come to the yard, we've been putting out birdseed. Both kids love to spread seed.

The most common birds are pinyon jays, which come in a raucous and rowdy group, and the tiny dark-eyed juncos, which don't seem to mind the commotion and go about their business picking up seeds.

Nevertheless, we did get some different birds to our yard:

Cassin's *House Finch (Updated--thank you, kind birder!) The flash of red caught my eye and I couldn't help but do a little happy dance!

Then I saw the tiniest glimpse of yellow:

A pine siskin.  *I thought it was a pine siskin, but really it's a female house finch. Those tricky females! Pine siskins should be around, so we'll keep looking! Pine siskins live higher up the mountain in the summer, where they like to be in pine trees. But in the winter, they come down to the valleys to find food. Pine siskins are also finches, and they like to hang out in mixed flocks, which explains why I saw both these birds on the feeder at the same time.

We got some great close-up views of those pinyon jays. We enjoy watching how the birds move around and interact.

We started our challenge on February 1, and as of February 8, we are up to 14 backyard birds. We should add a couple more winter birds this next week, as we've seen and heard some close to our yard, but not in/from our yard yet. Keeping a list is helping us keep our interest up.

I'd love to hear in the comments or on the Desert Survivor Facebook page how your challenge is going.
Happy birding!

Traffic Jam on a Seventy-Mile Stretch of Road without Services

 When you're driving on a seventy-mile stretch of road with no services, no stoplights, no stop signs, and only one house, you don't expect to slam on the brakes. But that's exactly what I had to do when I saw that the road was blocked by traffic. It wasn't exactly the traffic you see most places. This was a huge flock of sheep.

Open-range laws are in effect here, where the sheep have the right-of-way. The open range goes back in history. Until barbed wire was invented in the 1870s, it was much easier to fence places where you wanted to keep livestock out, rather than to keep them in. Gradually practices changed, but there are still a few places in the American West where you can find open range.

 I didn't mind stopping and watching the sheep pass by. I think sheep are kind of cute!

 It was a steady stream of sheep crossing the road.

 Occasionally a brown sheep passed by. The sheep owner usually puts in one brown sheep for every 25 or 50 white sheep so they can be counted more easily. Also, an occasional sheep has on a sheep bell, ringing loudly as the sheep moves so that the sheepherder can follow the sheep by sound.

 One sheepherder, along with a couple dogs, can easily move a couple thousand sheep. Many of the sheepherders these days come from Peru and Mexico. About a hundred years ago, many of them came from Basque country in northern Spain, which accounts for the large number of Basque restaurants in places like Elko, Nevada.

After all the sheep had crossed the road, a large sheep dog followed casually. The sheep dogs help protect the sheep and are often a little scary, but this one was friendlier than usual. Still, I wouldn't want to get out of the vehicle.

Well, our little traffic jam only lasted about five minutes. I could easily live with that. Our quick stop also reinforced that you shouldn't go anywhere without your camera!

The Heifers are Calving!

 Last weekend we went out to the Circle Field on the ranch to see the heifers. Heifers are first time moms, and they are starting to calve. In fact, quite a few had already had their babies. I always feel a special connection with the heifers right around Desert Girl's birthday (also this last weekend), because both cows and humans are pregnant for nine months. We don't have too much else in common (oh my, that could be the subject of another post!).

We drove around, checking out the heifers and their calves.

This little calf--reddish in color, caught my eye. Most of the heifers are artificially inseminated with black angus semen, as the black angus do well in our climate. Some red angus genes may be mixed in with this calf.

 It was a cloudy day, and the whole scene was a little surreal.

 Many of the calves were nursing.

 We even found a newly born calf (no ear tag). The mama was licking the calf, cleaning it and stimulating it to breathe well and soon to eat. Those little babies (about 40 pounds) sure are cute!

 This older calf was a little frisky, running through the snow.

Run, little calf, run and play!

I was following along with my camera, not looking ahead, so when I saw this reunion between the calf and its mama, it caught me by surprise. The little calf knew exactly where to go!

Every few days the cowboys move the calves with their mamas to a different pasture so that it's easier to take care of the newborn calves.

Desert Survivor's Backyard Bird Challenge

Hello! Are you ready for a challenge? This is a fun one, doesn't take much time, no money, but is quite fulfilling. 

Join us for the Backyard Bird Challenge! 

Inspired by my friend Kevin, a serious birder in the St. George area, this year we are keeping track of the birds we see in our backyard (and front yard and side yard and over the yard). 

How do you do it? 

Just find a piece of paper, start making a list, and put it in an easy-to-reach place (we're keeping it on the refrigerator). We decided on February 1 as our starting date, as we wanted to keep track of the first date that we see a bird so that if we do this year after year, we'll know about when the spring and summer birds showing up and if they're early or late for the year.

Here's our list after two days:

 And we added three more on February 3: Great Horned Owl, European Starling, and Western Scrub-Jay.

Our goal is to get 50 birds this year. I think that's enough to be a bit challenging, but still doable.

For those of you enveloped in snow, yes, you can begin now! In fact, it's easier to start learning birds in winter because there aren't as many around!

 This Dark-eyed Junco is one of several year-round residents of the Great Basin.

Here are several websites that are great for learning more about birds:
The Cornell Lab of Ornithology
Audubon's How to Identify Birds
National Geographic's Backyard Bird Identifier
Common Feeder Birds

And for even more inspiration, the Great Backyard Bird Count is coming up February 14-17, and is a fun way to join others in a citizen science project from the comfort of your own home!

Good luck counting, and let us know what you find!

 Great Horned Owl mom and baby--in a tree near our house three summers ago! Maybe we'll get lucky again this summer.

Happy birding!