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| Jessica Feis photo |
I’m a long ways from that college kid who worked summers for the Predatory Bird Research Group, helping release Peregrine Falcons back into the wild in The Sierra Nevada. Nonetheless those summers honed my eyes for identifying an eagle or falcon at distance in a glance.
While our Come Ashore adventures didn’t include official birding forays, I kept a good pair of binoculars at the ready under the passenger seat as we traveled through two national parks and more national forests and BLM land than I could count.
Despite time spent in Yosemite and along the East Side of the Sierra, I did not see a Peregrine this trip. Nonetheless, I was pleased with many of the sightings. Following is a list of birds IDed as we drove, hiked and played our way through California, Nevada, Colorado and Wyoming this August (no real order here albeit vaguely grouped by family):
Golden Eagle
Band-tailed pigeon
Common nighthawk
Black-chinned hummingbird
Broad-tailed hummingbird
Deborah Crooks (www.DeborahCrooks.com) is a writer, performing songwriter and recording artist based in San Francisco whose lyric driven and soul-wise music has drawn comparison to Lucinda Williams, Chrissie Hynde and Natalie Merchant.
Singing about faith, love and loss, her lyrics are honed by a lifetime of writing and world travel while her music draws on folk, rock, Americana and the blues. She released her first EP “5 Acres” in 2003 produced by Roberta Donnay, which caught the attention of Rocker Girl Magazine, selecting it for the RockerGirl Discoveries Cd. In 2007, she teamed up with local producer Ben Bernstein to complete “Turn It All Red” Ep, followed by 2008’s “Adding Water to the Ashes” CD, and a second full-length CD “2010. She’s currently working on a third CD to be released in 2013.
Deborah’s many performance credits include an appearance at the 2006 Millennium Music Conference, the RockerGirl Magazine Music Convention, IndieGrrl, at several of the Annual Invasion of the GoGirls at SXSW in Austin, TX, the Harmony Festival and 2009’s California Music Fest, MacWorld 2010, Far West Fest and many other venues and events. She toured the Northwest as part “Indie Abundance Music, Money & Mindfulness” (2009) with two other Bay Area artists, and followed up with “The Great Idea Tour of the Southwest in March 2010 with Jean Mazzei.
