185: Summer Morning in the Salmon Mountains

This was recorded on a calm summer night beside Sugar Creek in the Sugar Creek Research Natural Area, which is located within the Russian Wilderness, Klamath National Forest, Siskiyou County, California. The creek flows down the east side of the Salmon Mountains, a subrange of the Klamath Mountains, in far northern California. The creek was low for this time of year, owing to a meager snowpack that had already melted entirely. The Sugar Creek Research Natural Area is a unique and special place. According to the U.S. Forest Service it was created "primarily to preserve the richest known assemblage of conifers in the world", in an area that has "essentially remained unchanged by humans since before the European colonization of California". You can learn more about it here- https://research.fs.usda.gov/psw/rnas/locations/sugar-creek

This was recorded on a cold, cloudy, and breezy summer morning in the Salmon Mountains near the Music Creek Trailhead in Klamath National Forest, Siskiyou County, California.

This was recorded on a clear spring night under a full moon beside Summit Meadow Lake in Marble Mountains Wilderness, Klamath National Forest, Siskiyou County, California. I recorded this tree ears style, in which a mic is placed on either side of the trunk of a tree, in this case a Red Fir. Though I recorded all night, this part of the recording is from the wee hours of the night when the frog chorus was starting to die down.

This was recorded on a cold and breezy spring morning near an unnamed pond on the east side of the Trinity Divide in Shasta-Trinity National Forest, Siskiyou County, California. The recording starts a little after 4 a.m., and a little before the birds began their dawn chorus.

I heard my first Hermit Thrush song of the year this week while walking my dog Molly in the forest outside the little town I live in here in Northern California, so I thought it'd be a good time to share this recording I made last summer of a Hermit Thrush singing in the forest in Trail Gulch, just north of the Trinity Alps Wilderness. You'll hear a few other birds singing, but the Hermit Thrush has the spotlight. I hope you enjoy it!!

This was recorded on a peaceful night in early spring atop a rocky outcrop which jutted out into the North Fork of the Salmon River just downstream of Mule Bridge in Klamath National Forest, Siskiyou County, California. The night was clear and unseasonably warm for the time of year. The recording runs from about nine at night till about seven in the morning.Though this was recorded two weeks before the official spring equinox I feel comfortable calling it a spring night after the exceptionally mild and short winter in Northern California. Not to mention that as I lay in my tent at dawn while this was recording, I was greeted by the song of an American Robin, a sure sign of spring. I really want to thank everyone that has taken the time to rate and review the podcast, I deeply appreciate your kind words. And I'd like to thank those of you that have commented on the episodes in Spotify, I very much enjoy hearing your thoughts on the recordings. And I especially want to thank the few of you that have donated to the podcast on my, frankly, pitiful and outdated website. It really, really needs to be updated. I haven't touched in at least a couple of years, and it was built a minimum of effort to begin with. I guess I'd rather spend the little free time I have in the field making recordings, not sitting in front of a computer trying to build a website. So it goes.

This was recorded on a calm and sunny winter afternoon on the beach below Smith Gulch on the Lost Coast in the King Range National Conservation Area, Humboldt County, California. The tide was going out, so I set the mic up near the water in the intertidal zone at the border between an area of rocks and tide pools and a sandy stretch of beach. The sand was very coarse, almost tiny pebbles, and it made a pleasant sound as the waves washed up and down the beach. At the start of the recording the waves lapped at the shore only a few feet from the mic, but the tide receded quickly and by the end of this recording it was nearly twenty feet away.

This was recorded on a sunny winter afternoon on the Lost Coast by the Punta Gorda Lighthouse in Humboldt County, California.The colony was quite active on this afternoon, with many newborn pups, their mothers, and massive males making a myriad of interesting, and at times funny, sounds. Though the wind was very light for most of the day, it started to pick up as I was setting up the recording rig. I didn't bring much in the way of wind protection for the mics, so there is quite a bit of wind noise in this recording. Nevertheless, I thought it was worth sharing with you. I hope you enjoy it,

This was recorded on brisk winter night on the high tide line at Mattole Beach on the Lost Coast in Humboldt County, California. The night began overcast, but the clouds slowly gave way to the starry sky, and it was completely clear by the time the first signs of morning twilight appeared in the east. The offshore wind was light, and it carried with it a bit of extra chill as it made its way down the Mattole River, across the beach, and out over the ocean. The waves picked up a bit through the night, and by morning there was good surf for those willing to brave the cold and sharky water.This recording starts at around 10pm and ends a little after 7am, about half an hour before sunrise.

This was recorded on a pleasant fall day beside the North Fork of the Salmon River at the Mule Bridge Trailhead in Klamath National Forest, Siskiyou County, California.