July 1 & 2: Fire on the Mountain!

As some of you may have saw in the newspaper we had a fire up here off of hi mountain road on Tuesday. Feeling proud to have spotted a fire from this old lookout and a little uneasy of how close it was I
reported the fire immediately to USFS dispatch and they and CDF were battling the blaze within minutes from both air and ground. Pictures of the fire should be on the lookout website in a week or two.

All in all the first of the month up at the lookout was quite comfortable. Highs hovered in the upper 70s and on Tuesday afternoon and I picked up weak signals from B-164, 167, & 171 to the southeast. At my estimation they must have been over in the cuyama valley area. Other highlights of the day was a gray fox walking down the road with some type of prey in it’s mouth, (it was close to where Kathleen had recently found a mourning dove nest), dove is very tasty if in fact it found the nest. Also on Tuesday a rare Purple Martin decided to fly by the lookout adding a new bird to out Lookout bird list. Wednesday was quiet and I spent a couple hours pulling yellow star thistle.

Mike

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The Fruits of our Efforts

Greetings all,

Spent a beautiful, breezy 24hrs at the Lookout over the 4th with my sister Lisa, one of our new interns. We had some nice views of the Pismo fireworks on the 4th and four car loads of visitors up on the 5th (plus visits from Joe Lucero/USFS and Dr. Holland/CPBIO). I am so impressed with how the Lookout Project is evolving. With the tower all set up for research/living and the Visitor Center filling up with articles, notes, pictures, and all sorts of great stuff, the Lookout really feels like a functional research station and interp center. What an awesome transformation since last summer!!!!! The radio was squawking, telonix beeping, folks down in the visitor center, phones were ringing, and I couldn’t help but think how odd it was to be way out there and surrounded by all that activity.

Having a full time staff of interns, volunteers, and students really makes the place hum. Should be a great summer. I was just elated to see that the apricot tree next to the cistern is fruiting this summer. Just my luck that the free food arrives after I leave…yum…

I wonder if all the water in the cistern is helping this little tree out now. I always thought it originated in someone’s lunch years ago.

How could I ignore the symbolism as I tasted the sweet (but warm) fruit. The Lookout Project has grown into fruition too. Its been to watch it break dormancy, blossom and now……

Cheers,

Paul Andreano

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Hi notes

Monday June 30, 2003. No Condor signals all day. Spend a pleasant day observing the local birds, bugs and butterflies. One of the House Finch nests has 2 ot 3 fuzzy new occupants (couldn’t tell how many, but they were newly hatched). Also found a Mourning Dove nest with two eggs and attendant mother dove anxiously watching me from the nest. The weather was perfect, ranging from the mid 70s to mid 80s.
Bye ’til next installment…
Kathleen

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June 26-30

Hello everybody,

The past weekend was fairly busy with many visitors including the Central California Biological Society. The group came on Saturday with Steve S. in the morning and stayed through lunch. Lisa and I showed them around, talked about Hi Mtn senior projects, and condor telemetry. Many tried their hand at telemetry. Despite the hot weather we had many visitors of all kinds who’s pictures will soon be posted on our web site thanks to Paul. Friday and Saturday the Milky Way was very visible and an amazing site. Lisa and I put up a new sign down by the gate to let people know we are open. We have been having waves of different insects and the most numerous this weekend was the swallow tail butterfly. Other wildlife sightings of interest this weekend at the lookout were a skink, horned lizard, golden eagle, and nuttall’s woodpecker (landed on the catwalk). Unfortunately we did not pick up a single condor the whole weekend but feel that our luck will soon be changing. A highlight for us this weekend was watching all of the hummingbirds around the feeders.

Holly Messer (intern)

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Hi notes

Monday June 30, 2003. No Condor signals all day. Spend a pleasant day
observing the local birds, bugs and butterflies. One of the House
Finch nests has 2 ot 3 fuzzy new occupants (couldn’t tell how many,
but they were newly hatched). Also found a Mourning Dove nest with
two eggs and attendant mother dove anxiously watching me from the
nest. The weather was perfect, ranging from the mid 70s to mid 80s.
Bye ’til next installment…
Kathleen

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June 26-30 at Hi Mt.

Hello everybody,
The past weekend was fairly busy with many visitors including the Central
California Biological Society. The group came on Saturday with Steve S. in the
morning and stayed through lunch. Lisa and I showed them around, talked
about Hi Mtn senior projects, and condor telemetry. Many tried their hand at
telemetry. Despite the hot weather we had many visitors of all kinds who’s
pictures will soon be posted on our web site thanks to Paul. Friday and
Saturday
the Milky Way was very visible and an amazing site. Lisa and I put up a new
sign down by the gate to let people know we are open. We have been having waves
of different insects and the most numerous this weekend was the swallow tail
butterfly. Other wildlife sightings of interest this weekend at the lookout
were a skink, horned lizard, golden eagle, and nuttall’s woodpecker (landed on
the catwalk). Unfortunately we did not pick up a single condor the whole
weekend but feel that our luck will soon be changing. A highlight for us this
weekend was watching all of the hummingbirds around the feeders.
Holly Messer (intern)

Read More