Sunday 4 February 2007

USA trip, day 11 - 3rd February

Clear blue skies again! George thinks a Blog is something you would find up your nose.

We did the usual ski runs, and being the weekend, the slopes were very crowded and soon got icy. One of the small pleasures of skiing is sharing a chair lift with other skiers and riders. Sometimes it's difficult to get more than a grunt out of your fellow passengers, but others can be quite chatty. A guy today had been to the island of Islay a couple of years ago and had sampled and clearly enjoyed a lot of the whiskies there. He had left his two children at the ski school for the day so was now off the leash and going skiing in all the places he enjoyed.


We stopped again again at midday and went birding in the afternoon. Rik kindly texted through the score from the Calcutta Cup - how sweet to avenge our defeat of last year. It's the day before the Superbowl and that's all you hear about at the moment.


We went to somewhere called Fallen Leaf Lake in the afternoon. We'd tried and failed to find it in fading light on our day off. It was worth the walk and beautiful. We saw a small family party of Oregon Juncos and I pished in some cracking Red-breasted Nuthatches - it's remarkable how birds in N. America respond to this noise. The nuthatch sat on an exposed branch, calling just like a Zebra Finch at me and tapping on the wood.



The weather forecast tonight said the weather system is going to break down and allow snow showers though to the Sierra Nevada, and probably high winds on the coast - that threaten the pelagic birding trip we've booked out of Monterey next Sunday.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

hey fellas sounds like you is having fun on the piste although its like that every day here on the emerald isle! Sure, why don't you call in for a nice cup of tea on your way home!

in case you didn't hear, ireland beat wales 19 - 9 so its all to play for!

more anon!

Andy Webb said...

Thanks for the invite, we'll drop in on the way past on 15th, so make sure the kettle's on.

Sounds like an intense game v Wales. Ireland look like the team to beat. An hour to go to kick off in the Superbowl here.