Great Horned Owl

Yesterday’s silt pond level was 640.6' down from it’s highest of 646' not bad, this must be the money maker for the region. Up north, at Lake/Reservoir Mead, the water level was down over a hundred foot.

Cottonwood cove here on the north end of Mojave Lake, east of Searchlight, NV is eerily quite. Campsites abound but less than a half dozen, out of a hundred or so, are utilized at present. Three varieties of non-native eucalyptus trees and a few cottonwoods give shade and scent the air with a pleasing aroma.

Duane the volunteer and camp host is a sort of Hemmingway looking character without beard. He’s one of the bright dudes one meets from time to time. Retired from the post office, 800wpm reader and enjoys letting everyone know he’s a wiz-bang at remembering facts, of which he poured at us like he was reading directly form an Encyclopedia.

The Great Horned Owl remained in the same tree throughout our three day stay and each night would fly to another tree outside our rig to hoot his beckoning call to the female. But alas, the mating time had passed and she was off nest building to hatch the eggs she’d soon be laying.

I keep wanting to find a hummingbird other than Anna's Hummingbird but as yet, no luck.  I thought for sure this was a Black Necked but the folks at whatbird.com assured me it was a Hanna's, even if it looked like a Black Necked.

Came back to AVI a few days ago. It's hard to stay away from this friendly pad, especially when our Native American hosts refuse to let me do other than win at the craps table. It's like we're getting paid to be their guests. Why they even throw in an interweb connection and 99 cent ham, eggs, taters and toast. And....for an afternoon snack it’s 99 cent shrimp or hotdog and a beer.