Voyager Open Software

Barry and Ginger start out their Big Day by camping at Coyote Lake
Species count: 135

Ginger and I (The Piratical Flycatchers) began our Big Day by camping Sunday night beside Coyote Lake east of Gilroy. We had never started in the south county before and were curious how well we could do with a route from south to north. We’d also never started a Big Day by camping, so this was a grand experiment in multiple ways…

Barry, Ginger and Melanie lead a 4-hour Birdathon
Species count: 101

Ten of us (Ginger, Melanie, Bill, Kitty, Sue, Sergey, Sergio, Garrett, Gail and me) adventured from Picchetti Ranch, through Stevens Creek Canyon and down to Charleston slough for a four-hour mini-big-day birdathon from 8am to Noon today…

The Piratical Flycatchers zigzag across the county as Barry’s mind zigzags through time
Species count: 130

…this patch of land where we live and the plants and creatures that live here have witnessed a lot of change. I was pondering the different forms that change takes as we explored the parks and open space preserves of our county, crisscrossing the Bay Area Ridge Trail and scouring the edges of the San Francisco Bay in pursuit of birds…

Barry and Ginger bird on a rainy day, and rename their team “The Piratical Flycatchers”
Species count: 115

It was a good day for ducks. Not that it rained on us all that much. I mean, it did rain on us, some in the morning and more in the afternoon, and it was cloudy, with rain clearly visible in the distance pretty much all day, but what I mean really is that we saw a great number and variety of ducks that day. And I mean that it's a good day for duck species, because this winter is the wettest winter California has had since scientists started tracking rainfall data in 1895. This was a winter where dams eroded their spillways and rivers broke their banks and houses flooded right here in the South Bay, not to mention the rest of the state…

Barry co-leads a 4-hour Birdathon with Melanie O’Brien
Species count: 68

A Nuttall’s Woodpecker nibbled at the suet feeder in front of the Audubon Society headquarters at McClellan Ranch when I arrived at 7:30am. I pulled out my camera, attached the telephoto lens, and took his portrait as a way of testing out my equipment. In addition to the camera I had two pairs of binoculars (one of which I would loan to Bino, who was new to birdathons), my iPhone (for taking notes and referencing the Sibley Guide to Birds app) and a backpack full of unnecessary snacks that I never ate and a water bottle that I hardly touched…

In which Barry & Ginger spend a perfectly normal day casually birdwatching for sixteen hours straight
Species count: 115

…There's a moment, as I wake up just before the 3am alarm goes off, when I ask myself "can I do this?" Then I remember why I'm doing this: the excitement of the chase, connecting with Nature and supporting a cause I strongly believe in: environmental education. Then the alarm buzzes and I hit the snooze button: all of that can wait a few more minutes…

In which Barry does a Birdathon writeup composed almost entirely of pictures
Species count: 122 species (107 photographed)

We were approximately twenty minutes into our hike in the dark on a dirt trail in Monte Bello Open Space Preserve along the ridge tops of the Santa Cruz mountains when the first rains of the day started down on us….

Barry and Ginger limit their Birdathon to 4-hours as Barry had been struggling with back pain
Species count: 92 (64 photographed)

We began on the shore of Stevens Creek Reservoir, picking this spot because it had forest, lake, shore and sky, all of which are grand places to find birds. We unloaded from the car all that we would need: binoculars, daypack, jackets, water bottles and a spotting scope. We each set a timer to keep track of our progress…

Barry joins the Varied Twitchers again and tries for the most species photographed in a Big Day
Species count: 170 (125 photographed)

…So, when I describe my birdathon adventure, it might be surprising that all of the Nature that we experienced is right here in the heart of Silicon Valley -- everywhere we went on Saturday is part of Santa Clara County, an easy drive from home and work. And we only touched on a tiny percentage of the vast beautiful natural landscape that our county has to offer…

The Jack Sparrows head out again and Barry tries for a Photography Big Day
Species count: 118 (99 photographed)

It was late Sunday night when we finished packing for our adventure. "Frequent showers" were forecast for Monday, so we would need a change of clothes and extra shoes and plenty of raingear. And since we would not be stopping for food, we needed a full day's worth of provisions: coffee, chocolate, Pepsi -- you know, life-giving necessities -- as well as sourdough bread and cheese, Luna bars, "gorp", fruit and plenty of water…

Barry and Ginger share a glorious day birding the county
Species count: 119

We're writing this on a rainy, windy Tuesday. Exactly the kind of day you don't want to be on a birdathon. The rain makes you miserable, and the wind keeps the birds from being out, and it makes it hard to hear them singing. Which is why we went birding yesterday!…

Barry birds with the Varied Twitchers, but leaves early due to illness
Species count: 120 (The Varied Twitcher’s total was 164)

I have bad news and good news about this year's birdathon. The bad news is that I came down sick Friday afternoon and sadly was not able to complete the birdathon. I left the team at 2pm yesterday and headed home and straight for bed where I slept off & on for probably sixteen hours, trying to fight this cold/flu thing…

Barry and Ginger embark on an environmentally-friendly Birdathon
Species count: 129

The Jack Sparrows, Ginger and Barry Langdon-Lassagne, completed our all-day birdathon yesterday. We enjoyed a successful Earth Day birdathon with the weather holding steady despite the forecast of occasional showers. We strove to minimize the environmental impact of our birding by planning a route that minimized our driving. We supplemented our driving by strapping our bikes to the back of our Prius and using the bikes to cover areas that we might otherwise have covered by short-hop driving. Also, we hiked extensively. And we picked up litter in the parks as we birded…

Barry and Ginger bird together on April 27, 2007
Species total: 126

The dawn chorus was somewhat meager on account of the cold rain, which slowly dwindled as the morning progressed. We were in hills behind the fire station at Smith Creek. First bird heard was a GREAT HORNED OWL. First bird seen was CALIFORNIA QUAIL. On the hike back down, a pair of WOOD DUCKs was seen in a small pond. In a cluster of oak trees next to the gate for the Foothill trail we saw NASHVILLE, ORANGE-CROWNED and WILSON'S WARBLERs as well as all three Goldfinch species. The bridge over Smith Creek did not give us any flycatchers, but we got great looks at a HERMIT THRUSH and LINCOLN'S SPARROW…

Barry and Ginger bird again as “The Jack Sparrows” only this time it’s a Fall Birdathon hosted by the San Francisco Bay Bird Observatory.
Species total: 106

Our plans were humble: this was not going to be an all-out get-all-the-birds type birdathon. We were going to enjoy the birds, and we were going to have a good time out in nature together. For the spring birdathon we had arranged sleepovers for the kids for both the night previous and the night following. This time we had daycare during the day, but our children were ours for both nights, and for lunch, and we would have to retrieve them at 7pm (right about when it was getting dark)….

Barry and Ginger bird together as “The Jack Sparrows” in their first self-guided Birdathon
Species total: 125

At 5:00am we woke to the smell of coffee and the faint song of an AMERICAN ROBIN. Donning our tricornes we hurried to Stevens Creek Reservoir, hearing SPOTTED TOWHEE and WESTERN SCRUB-JAY along the way. A brief scan of the lake in the darkness produced MALLARD (first sighting of the day), while a WRENTIT and SONG SPARROW called from the hillside behind us. Then we drove to our planned starting point: Picchetti Ranch's Bear Meadow trailhead starting on Stevens Canyon Road and climbing uphill to the center of the preserve...

The Varied Twitchers and the Rock Wrens team up for a Birdathon Big Day
Species total: 157

Naturally, bedtime went all the way to midnight, and my alarm was set for 3am to make it to the meeting-place by four. Still, anticipation led me to wake before the alarm and start my day as refreshed as one could on so little sleep. Ginger came to bed as I arose and wished me well as she settled into sleep…

Barry’s joins the Varied Twitchers for his first ever Birdathon
Species total: 158

My Saturday began at 3am when my alarm went off, less than an hour after Ginger came to bed. By 3:40am I found myself sitting in my car in a deserted parking at the edge of the San Francisco Bay. I was the only car there and started to wonder if I had the right location, but discovered I had not brought the instructions with me…

Some of the Flora and Fauna (and a bit of geology and history) of a tiny portion of western Puerto Rico.

Casa Badillo in the Puntas suburb of Rincón, Puerto Rico is a private guest house with a yard sitting in the shade of coconut palms on Sandy Beach. It is located just downslope from La Cadena Hills which mark the western edge of the tropical-forest-covered Cordillera Central (central hills). Nearby habitats include a small pasture (grassland), an empty lot (grass, weeds and short shrubs), forest (acacia, mango and other trees), rural yards (short grass, cultivated plants), and of course a sand beach (coconut palms, beach vine, beach bean, other vines). Sandy beach runs east-west with the AtlanticOcean to the north. The western edge of the beach is marked by an outcrop of eroded Karstic limestone rocks, which we refer to as "Bikini Rock" (maps label the area as "Punta Gorda"), resting on sandstone. The eastern edge is loosely denoted by tidepools set in smooth sandstone lying at a slight angle on the beach…