Hi Mtn. workday Dec. 11th

Hello all, Eight of us put in a full workday at the lookout Saturday. An unrelenting northeasterly -offshore- wind blew throughout the day from 20-35 mph, with a maximum wind gust of 45 mph. Great visibility towards the coast and coastal mountains south into the Santa Barbara backcountry. Two Red-tailed hawks hovered into the wind throughout the day, hunting near the lookout. It was nice to make a...

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Open House 2011 Schedule

Hi Mountain Condor Lookout Project will celebrate its 10th Anniversary on Saturday, October 1st, 2011 Schedule of Activities: Bird Watching Field Trip 9:00am - 11:30am Pozo to Hi Mountain (elev. 3,199 ft), Los Padres National Forest Meet 9am at Pozo Ranger. Car pooling from Pozo is recommended. Easy hiking conditions. Habitats: grassland, riparian woodland (at Salinas River crossing), oak woodland...

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Last intern update

Hello Everyone!We just finished our last week up at Hi Mountain on Wednesday! We ended the yearwith all of the interns up at the lookout for the last few days together. It wasa little squished with all 6 of us hanging out in the lookout but we were ingreat company.I will keep this update short as I am sure most of you will be up at the lookoutfor open house. We will be rehashing our research experiences...

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Field Research Projects

Hello all,This morning Los Padres wildlife biologist Kevin Cooper and I accompanied two ofthe Hi Mountain Cal Poly student interns 2.5 miles along the Trout Creek trailto one of their study plots within the Garcia Mountain Wilderness Area in LosPadres National Forest. Ashley and Natalie checked the 15 small mammallive-trapping stations within the study plot and came up with two newly capturedBrush...

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Intern Update Weeks 7 and 8

Hi Everyone!We have just completed out 8th week up at Hi Mountain and have several updatesto share. In these past two weeks, both groups have been spending their time in a mixtureof oak woodland and chaparral plots. The chaparral plots are proving to beextremely different from one another...depending on location a plot may beextremely diverse (even harbor a few Dipodomys spp.) or extremely bland as...

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pinnacles trip

Hi all,Here is a little update from our trip to Pinnacles National Monument.Working with Pinnacles intern Jess, four of us interns at the HiMountain Lookout were able to explore the flight pen/release site andpractice telemetry while consistently picking up signals. We also sawtwo condors with one flying right over head! It was a very successfuland educational trip and we all wished that the whole...

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week 5 and 6 update

Hi Everyone, We are officially six weeks in to our Hi Mountaininternship, and as Dr. V says “still on a learning curve” (which is a goodthing). We have gotten our hands on so much more knowledge this week!As many of you know, we took our intern trip to PinnaclesNational Monument last Thursday to practice telemetry, see their “cool condorequipment,” drill the senior field tech with every condor question...

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Hi Mtn Intern Update Week 5

Hi Everyone,We just completed our fifth week up at Hi Mountain, wohoo! At this halfwaymilestone we are finally getting in the groove of the "rugged mountain life" andhave learned to appreciate the "simple pleasures" such as traveling to gas upthe USFS Jeep in Santa Margarita and purchasing a diet coke and potato chips(hits the spot)!As of this week, both of our studly field teams have braved the horrors...

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A day in the life of Hi Mountain Interns 2011

Hi Again,Welcome  to the first rendition of "A day in the life of Hi Mountain Interns2011." This will help you gain an understanding of what we do every day. Eachportion in broken into time steps and narrated. Enjoy!SUNDAY/THURSDAY (depending on group)4:00 pm Meet at an intern's house, unload various amounts of luggage/campingequipment/field equipment into extremely packed, fuel-efficient cars. 5:30...

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Intern Update

Hello All,My name is Hannah Tillmann and I am one of the Hi Mountain summer interns. Our teams have been working hard for the past couple of weeks on small mammaltrapping, vegetation analysis and telemetry. We have been focusing ourmammal/vegetation efforts on 30 GPS locations situated in three majorecosystems: oak woodland, riparian and chaparral. Finding the GPS points hasreally let us get...

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ield trip to Hi Mtn. Lookout

Hello all,Photos from the 'Condor Country' field trip to the lookout May 21st are postedat the Hi Mountain Lookout facebook page:https://www.facebook.com/pages/Hi-Mountain-Lookout/133314096701332#!/pages/Hi-Mo\untain-Lookout/133314096701332<https://www.facebook.com/pages/Hi-Mountain-Lookou\t/133314096701332#!/pages/Hi-Mountain-Lookout/133314096701332>10 participants, including much appreciated...

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Hi Mtn. workday summary, 2-12-11

Hello all,I was a passenger yesterday with Dave Berry driving his vintage 1966 Toyota LandCruiser - the high clearance and 4-wheel drive was necessary on the rough roadand many stream crossings along Hi Mountain Rd. driving in from the ArroyoGrande side. At the lookout we met up with meteorologist John Lindsey, withSanLuisObispo.com at The Tribune newspaper, and Chris Arndt, withSLOweather.com, who...

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