Ahhhh, Christmas

It was a great Christmas, filled with the goodies a writer/music-lover/reader/gardener appreciates most: gift cards from Starbucks, Borders, iTunes and Capital Nursery. And, yes! Massages too! And from the parents of my son-in-law, a 2-lb. box of See's candy, which Erich and I promptly dove into (and swam around in) shortly before breakfast. In true "Christmas Story" fashion, the four of us (Steve, Maya, Erich, me) finished off the first layer before the evening sky turned "purple and soft."

I also received a small bronze statuette from my mom of a girl reading; she looks like Tinkerbell, and has alighted on my desk, just to the left of my laptop. She's too young to be reading THE COLLECTOR by John Fowles (one of my very early favorites) and too old for the LITTLE HOUSE series. Maybe she's reading GREAT EXPECTATIONS, since it opens on Christmas Eve. I think she will serve as my muse.

Rounding out a great holiday was time spent with my own parents and in-laws; calls from Jena/Jeremy and Pops; and a nap on the floor with Country (Maya and Erich's black Lab puppy), his warm nose buried in my neck. Ahhhh, Christmas.

Riding Shotgun

Here's Maya flying over Cache Creek in Northern California. The team is using radio telemetry to search for elk with radio collars and/or ear tags; once located, Maya and her coworkers plot the GPS coordinates on a map to track the animals' range.

When Steve saw this photo, he said the plane looked like a Cessna 185 taildragger, the aircraft he flew in to count waterfowl as a wildlife biologist in Oregon in the late 1970s. He says he put in 100-150 hours a year at roughly 150 feet and 20 percent flaps. "We went as slow as we could go without stalling." Oh. Well. That's reassuring.

My Little Top Gun

Maya, worn out after a day of tagging elk in San Luis Obispo, heads for the helicopter...

Two More Fat Bears Added to the Mix

Maya and crew released two more male bear cubs in Lake Tahoe yesterday, traveling seven miles to an isolated spot, where Cal Fish and Game employees dug dens for the cubs. They tagged them with ear transmitters too, and will be tracking them regularly. This little guy’s head is on Maya’s lap. He’s already begun his snooze.

Fat Little Bear, Part 2

A couple of readers wrote yesterday to ask about Little Bear's den. (See Jan. 3 post.) Maya sent this picture (taken by Doug Updike), showing its enclosure. It's an igloo, much like the ones available at pet stores, with snow packed on top and hay and pine branches lining the interior floor. Maya is on the left, and Jeff Brown, station manager at UC Berkeley's Sagehen Creek Field Station, is on the right. Little Bear is tucked inside and snoozing through the storm -- as I type this, wind and rain is raging in Northern California. Up to 10 feet of snow is predicted in the Sierra.

Fat Little Bear Tucked Into Bed

Our daughter, Maya, is a full-time student who also works part time for the California Department of Fish and Game. Yesterday, she and her boss (and a truck full of cohorts) drove to Truckee to begin preparations for the release of a bear cub, whose mother was hit by a car and killed. Those preparations included tranquilizing the little fellow (who actually weighs 80 pounds), then snuggling it into a hibernation den – a cozy villa lined with straw and pine boughs – in the hope it will sleep for the rest of the winter. It was tagged with a transmitter, so that biologists can track the bear’s progress when it wakes up.

The cub is the first of five that Fish and Game will return to the wild this winter.