Like others, I have more than one benchmark bird. I grew up in the Sierra
Nevada foothills bordering Yosemite National Park; our ranch ranged from
800' to more than 3500' in elevation, and had a river running through it,
giving incredible ecological diversity. The first birds I can really
remember are California Scrub Jays. We had tame Jays that would come in and
eat Little Friskies from our hands.

I attended a 2 room, 40 student, elementary school that had vast lawns and
HUGE valley oaks. Our first grade teacher was a true naturalist and she
helped us along by putting out long strings of bright yarn for the BULLOCKS
ORIOLES to build their neat bag nests with (along with the hair from horses
tails that was collected from the stables across the road), the yarn was
easy to spot well up in the trees...lots of fun.

Lastly I think it was Ravens that really got me hooked. Every September
Ravens would begin congregating along the bluffs at the ranch and would
sometimes number 100 or more in a flock. I later learned that they were
staging to fly south along the foothills where they would cross the
Tehachapi's to spend the winter in the deserts of California, Arizona and
Mexico. Their croaking voices and playful flight provided hours of
entertainment in an otherwise very isolated world.

Rob Conway
Bellevue, WA / NY, NY

robin_birder at hotmail.com


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