Ducks and geese GALORE!

Woo! Sacrificed some sleep for writing last night, which paid off. I wrote about 3600 words and made it to 30K!

Anyway, my Waterfowl class was pretty awesome. I'm just going to summarize it, because I don't think anyone here except maybe hitchi is going to appreciate the bird geekery if I go all in-depth on you, haha. I got up early and dad and I headed down to Rocklin while listening to the Once soundtrack loudly. I showed dad Once the night before and, as I expected, he absolutely loved it. :D

Once we got to Rocklin, I got on the bus and went on our waterfowl adventure. The Sacramento Wildlife Refuge is quite nice--it's like Graylodge, but a bit bigger and there's no hunting in the area. First we went out near one of the ponds, which startled a ton of the geese and ducks and they were all flying around and taking up nearly the whole sky over us. :O (See my video later.)

While we were looking at some Audobon's Warblers, we spotted a sleeping barn owl in one of the trees! It was so cute! ♥ We then took off on the bus and did the driving tour, but we made a few stops along to way to observe birds more up close. Some of my favorite things we spotted were a cute downy woodpecker, seven male pheasants and one female, several pelicans, cinnamon and green-winged teals, and cute little grebes.

At one point we stopped at an observatory, and there was a big wasp problem there. Strangely enough, the wasps followed the bus for several miles and were crashing into the windows, and when we got out to observe more birds a bunch of them (around twenty I'd guess) got in the bus. The teacher, Jena, is this petite blond woman and she went on a wasp massacre when we got back into the bus. It was crazy and epic.

( Some pictures and a video! )

After I got back to Rocklin, I ended up taking a bus to the Galleria mall to wait for mom there. I didn't know it, but it turned out the Galleria had just expanded to twice its usual size and there were people EVERYWHERE. It was insane there, and everything was so upscale and expensive looking.

I won't go on about it much, but the contrast between being out there at the peaceful, beautiful wildlife preserve and the crowded, glitzy mall was somewhat disturbing to me; it felt so wrong that the wetlands and wild environments are disappearing so quickly and taking millions of animals with them and the human species does little about it, while the mall spent millions of dollars making this fancy, completely unnecessary mall so people can surround themselves with yet more overpriced shiny material things that they don't need.

It's so sad to me that millions, even billions of animals, are suffering while people spend more and more and more money that could save so many of them, that could save so many other starving and suffering people even, on things like fancy malls and $140 pairs of jeans and $30,000 cars and so on.

Anyway, while I'm at it I think I'll make a separate entry for the pictures I took on my hike with dad last week. They turned out quite nice. :D

Ducks and geese GALORE!

Woo! Sacrificed some sleep for writing last night, which paid off. I wrote about 3600 words and made it to 30K!

Anyway, my Waterfowl class was pretty awesome. I'm just going to summarize it, because I don't think anyone here except maybe hitchi is going to appreciate the bird geekery if I go all in-depth on you, haha. I got up early and dad and I headed down to Rocklin while listening to the Once soundtrack loudly. I showed dad Once the night before and, as I expected, he absolutely loved it. :D

Once we got to Rocklin, I got on the bus and went on our waterfowl adventure. The Sacramento Wildlife Refuge is quite nice--it's like Graylodge, but a bit bigger and there's no hunting in the area. First we went out near one of the ponds, which startled a ton of the geese and ducks and they were all flying around and taking up nearly the whole sky over us. :O (See my video later.)

While we were looking at some Audobon's Warblers, we spotted a sleeping barn owl in one of the trees! It was so cute! ♥ We then took off on the bus and did the driving tour, but we made a few stops along to way to observe birds more up close. Some of my favorite things we spotted were a cute downy woodpecker, seven male pheasants and one female, several pelicans, cinnamon and green-winged teals, and cute little grebes.

At one point we stopped at an observatory, and there was a big wasp problem there. Strangely enough, the wasps followed the bus for several miles and were crashing into the windows, and when we got out to observe more birds a bunch of them (around twenty I'd guess) got in the bus. The teacher, Jena, is this petite blond woman and she went on a wasp massacre when we got back into the bus. It was crazy and epic.

( Some pictures and a video! )

After I got back to Rocklin, I ended up taking a bus to the Galleria mall to wait for mom there. I didn't know it, but it turned out the Galleria had just expanded to twice its usual size and there were people EVERYWHERE. It was insane there, and everything was so upscale and expensive looking.

I won't go on about it much, but the contrast between being out there at the peaceful, beautiful wildlife preserve and the crowded, glitzy mall was somewhat disturbing to me; it felt so wrong that the wetlands and wild environments are disappearing so quickly and taking millions of animals with them and the human species does little about it, while the mall spent millions of dollars making this fancy, completely unnecessary mall so people can surround themselves with yet more overpriced shiny material things that they don't need.

It's so sad to me that millions, even billions of animals, are suffering while people spend more and more and more money that could save so many of them, that could save so many other starving and suffering people even, on things like fancy malls and $140 pairs of jeans and $30,000 cars and so on.

Anyway, while I'm at it I think I'll make a separate entry for the pictures I took on my hike with dad last week. They turned out quite nice. :D

49er Bridge Hike

Not a lot to say about this--my dad and I went hiking over by the 49er Bridge, which is about fifteen minutes from our house. It's so pretty there. ♥

( Picture heavy! Twenty-two pictures. )

49er Bridge Hike

Not a lot to say about this--my dad and I went hiking over by the 49er Bridge, which is about fifteen minutes from our house. It's so pretty there. ♥

( Picture heavy! Twenty-two pictures. )