If you did a Venn Diagram of shared interests in our household, that sliver in the middle of the two circles would be mighty slim. Sure, there are the basics - good food and wine, music (though our tastes in symphony programs diverges strongly at times) - but the two biggies seemingly don't overlap much. For me, birds (duh); for him, all things radio. We do both share a strong love for our household birds, of course. And we've each learned more than a little about the other's interest by osmosis over the years. Still, not a lot of overlap.
But there is some. For one thing, radio transmitters tend to be located in isolated areas, often near wetlands or on high points. For another, antenna towers make excellent perches. For whatever reason, the radio people and the bird people get along well at our parties. And thus was spawned a day trip.
Birds and radio go together like, well, birds and radio.
I've talked many times about my volunteer gig as a raptor bander. A few years back, hubby found his own volunteer opportunity to fill those Saturdays while I was playing with birds. The Maritime Radio Historical Society has been working to restore the ship-to-shore radio station, KPH, located in west Marin at Pt. Reyes and Bolinas. There were two separate buildings so that the transmitter's powerful signals would not interfere with the reception of incoming messages. The transmitter is located in Bolinas, the receiving station is on Pt. Reyes. If you're familiar with Pt. Reyes, it's along Sir Francis Drake, just past Johnson's Oysters - you know that double row of cypresses that line a long driveway, next to a field full of antennas? That place.
Birder in unfamiliar habitat. In the years when the building was shut down, ravens and barn owls made it into a home, so we weren't completely out of our element...
We started out in Bolinas at the transmitter building, which is not generally open to the public, although some of the surrounding grounds are. (It shares the site with Commonweal, which uses it as a retreat space, and the public is not allowed in those grounds.) The building is pretty cool, in an early tech sort of way. The lower floor still needs a lot of work, but the upper floor hums with banks of ancient transmitters, fired up once a week, which can reach the far corners of the Pacific from this windy bluff. As we walked around, speakers broadcast the station's steady stream of Morse Code in the background.
Do you see the bird?
After touring the building, we walked the publicly accessible parts of the grounds out to the antenna fields. Nothing too unusual out there, but one sighting confirmed a truism of hubby's: birders and radio people both appreciate antennas - they, because it's how their signals get out to the world; we, because they make great hunting platforms (and nest substrates).
How about now? The redtail perched on the crossbar of the antenna was one of a pair - we saw the other one carrying nesting material and found the nest in a nearby treetop.
The birders left the radio volunteers at this point, and did a little walking around in Bolinas. First we visited the sewage ponds, one of the pioneers of doing water treatment in a way that benefits both wildlife and humans. There was a nice mix of ducks on the pond, some coots ad killdeer, and one surprise snipe. I always love seeing those guys, since it's a rather infrequent occurrence.
Molt geek funtime alert! (the darker feathers in the wing and tail are the new ones)
Also present: a group of five turkey vultures sunning themselves in a row along a fence. One member of our little group was the guy who wrote the book on molt that I did illustrations for. We could not pass up the opportunity to do a quick study of the molt patterns on their nicely spread wings.
After warming up, they went about preening and getting themselves feather perfect for a day of seeking out and cleaning up roadkill. We finished our stroll around the Mesa ponds and headed to Pine Gulch for a bit of birding on Bolinas Lagoon, a great spot for waterfowl, gulls and shorebirds. We spent about an hour there, getting a quick tutorial on gulls from the expert in our midst, then headed off to Pt. Reyes to visit the receiving site. It was mid-afternoon, and we were late getting some food into ourselves, so we stopped to grab lunch in Pt. Reyes Station on the way. We looked up from our bench in the corner park and saw the tree above filled with Cedar Waxwings who were equally intent on grabbing a bite.
A waxwing dangles upside down in search of the perfect berry.
We headed off to the Pt. Reyes receiving station. It's housed in a grand old building of the type that they built back in the day. It doesn't matter that it was out in the middle of nowhere - no cinderblock boxes for them. This building is open to the public every Saturday, and you can watch them in action transmitting on their Morse sets. There's also a room with a display on the history of operations. For a good number of years (decades?) the radio station was the largest employer in all of West Marin.
I loved this clock above the operators desk. It was made in the 30s, I think - you'd slide the stops in and out all around the clock face to set alarms for yourself. Look closely and you can see the hours listed, with fifteen minute increments to choose from.
When we took our Kossacks birding trip to Pt. Reyes last April, we stopped at the radio station and added a barn owl to our tally in the long row of trees out front. If/when I get it together to arrange another trip this spring, this will have to be one of our stops again.