THE FREE SHOW AND ENDANGERED

THE FREE SHOW

   One summer after I had complained about "nothing to do" my mom said why don't you go outside and just watch the clouds. All these decades later, I'm still watching. 

   Sometimes there is nothing better for you than just watching them.

PEEK-A-BOO PEACOCK

     Difficult photo subject, the peacock.  Looks a bit grumpy

    about being stalked by yours truly.  Hoping for a fan spread but left with trying to spot the retiring bird in heavy foliage.

    His crown feathers are fascinating.

NEARLY EXTINCT

   The Hawaiian Common Moorhen is considered a secretive bird. Experts say the population dropped to only 57 birds in the 1960's.  Today it's estimated there may be 1000.  

    It's a challenge to consider there are only 999 others like him, or her.  

HOOSIER COUSIN

   This little guy, a little soft in focus, is a Red Crested Cardinal. He's a cute variation of the Cardinal, the Indiana state bird and mascot of my alma mater Ball State University.  There the male cardinal is full on red.  As my old friend David Letterman, also a Ball State grad says, the "Cardinal is the fiercest bird in the Robin class!"  This guy gets style points.

WILD CHICKENS

    This fellow is one of what must be thousands of wild chickens in the Islands.  From my limited and somewhat distracted observation there is indeed a "pecking" order and Roosters crow whenever they feel like it, which is often.

     See you down the trail.

WILDLIFE BATTLES

KILLING THE BIG CATS

  

Photo by California Department of Fish and Game

The graphic scene from high in the Eastern Sierra near Rovana illustrates
the centerpiece of an ongoing wild life management debate.
Should big mountain cats, mountain lions, some call them cougars,
be killed to protect the endangered Sierra Nevada Bighorn Sheep?
Wildlife experts say there are maybe 400 Sierra Nevada Bighorn Sheep. They say
at most, there probably has never been more than 1000.  When they were federally
listed as endangered in 1999, the number was down to 114.
The Sierra Nevada Bighorns are a relative to the more common Desert Bighorns with their rounded horns, the type used on Ram trucks and by the football team.

The alpine Eastern Sierra is vast, rugged and a harsh environment.
The Associated Press reports 23 mountain lions have been killed by trappers in the 
last ten years.  There are said to be some 5,000 Mountain Lions in the region. The AP says the cats have eaten at least 59 sheep. In the same ten years 1,079 mountain lions have been killed for threatening livestock or pets.  
THE NUMBERS
5,000 Mountain Lions
400 Sierra Nevada Bighorn Sheep 
Passions run on both sides of the kill issue.  
For the time being the lions can be killed only  if
they are proven to have killed a sheep.  Of course a
lot can happen in the wild that goes beyond monitoring.

DAY BOOK

HAPPY COWS
as the commercial says
"California Cows are Happy Cows."

See you down the trail.