Just a great horned owl on twilight patrol.
A red-tailed hawk with her prey, in pen and ink.
A bark beetle infested Ponderosa Pine.
This story appeared in the LA Times, http://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-dying-forests-20151020-story.html. Biologist Greg Asner uses spectrometer and laser technology to assess the health of California’s forest from the air. He creates 3D imagery that displays the level of stress within the trees. Our forests are under tremendous stress from having too many trees per acre and not enough resources to go around. The drought is the straw to break the camel’s back. It really demonstrates the need for active forest management to help keep our forests healthy.
An acorn woodpecker just pulled a fat grub out of a black oak snag.
I took this picture in an area that burned in a wildfire in 2008. When it comes to wildfires, woodpeckers are the big winners!
Today on Wild Wednesday, I took these pictures of four Bull Elk near Cache Creek.
I see elk in this area along Highway 20 most of the time when passing through.
Seeing these beasts never gets old.
This was perfect for Wild Wednesday!
If you travel down Highway 20 to Clear Lake look for the elk around Cache Creek on the south side of the road.
The view from my work. These are a few pictures from the fall woods last week. I was in Trinity County, the part that didn’t burn. Being out here every week is one of perks of a forester’s life. Somebody has to do it, so it might as well be me!
All in a day’s work.
I see a lot of strange things in the woods, but one day this summer I saw a creature out there that I had never seen before. It was a cat, but not a mountain lion or bobcat and it was pink. I know what you’re thinking, and you’re right, it was the “Pink Panther.”
The Pink Panther up a tree. In case you don’t believe me, here is photographic evidence.
Yep, the Pink Panther was spotted by yours truly along Highway 3 on the west side of Trinity Lake. I don’t make these things up folks. There he was up a tall Ponderosa pine tree, way up!
If you look hard you can see him in the pine on the right side of the road.
He was about forty feet up the tree. I don’t know what he was doing up there. I don’t know how he got up there. He wouldn’t come down and he wouldn’t talk to me. So I took his picture and left him to his business.
I went by a few weeks later and he was gone. Keep and eye out, he may be coming to a tree near you!
Wildfire devastated huge swathes of California. This was taken in a remote corner of the Shasta Trinity National Forest today. This burn was started by lightning strike.
Do you see it?
A dusty cat heading for another turn.
It has been a long dry summer. We had a good rain two days ago, the first in about three months. That brought a bit of relief from the horrendous fire season California has been going through.
A skidder pulling another turn of logs down the hill to the landing in a cloud of dust.
The logging crews have put up with terribly dust conditions, and it’s not over yet. Most of the equipment they run has climate controlled cabs, but it was just a few short years ago when they didn’t. The men would return home completely covered in dirt. Not to say they don’t go home dirty now, because they do. At least they don’t have to breathe in the dust all day.
The processor is making logs, while the cat heads back for more.
There’s no doubt the modern logging equipment has done much to improve the safety, comfort and productivity of the crew members.
Loading the truck isn’t so dusty.
Having the crews out working in the woods during such dry condition might seem risky. However, these people are often the first ones to the fires, because they are already in the woods. They are our first responders when nearby forest fires break out.
Sailor and Bliss say, Sleeping in the pickup isn’t dusty or hot when the AC is running.
The day I visited this operation it was 105 F, dusty and hot.
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