Hi Mountain

The Cal Poly Crew is getting ready to start up another round of field
work at Hi Mountain…we love spring. Towards that goal I spend
Saturday afternoon and evening around the lookout. Things are not as
quiet as that were a month or so ago. Many of the wintering birds have
begun to vocalize. There was an abundance of American Robins working
the Toyon berries. The California Trashers seemed to be much louder and
persistent than last month. A couple of other signs of spring include
lots more insects up and about, many flowering plants (phlox, bush
poppy, shooting stars, lupines, vetch and entire hillsides of Ceanothus
(buckbrush)), and large patches of miner’s lettuce in areas that are
blazing hot and bone dry by summer. We did succeed at setting up
several Owl calling stations that will be monitored for the next few
months. We even got some call backs on our first night out. All in all
it looks like it is shaping up to be a fun and productive field season
up at the Lookout.

Hope to see some of you over the next few months.

Francis (aka Dr. V.)