I was not alone on my way South. Surrounded by innumerable drivers, we were all stuck on I 5 behind a garbage truck that managed to blow up and burn out on the middle of a bridge over the Willamette river, with no room to move it aside for people to pass. Firetrucks, police, all on site, with us patiently sitting and waiting for eternity in turned-off cars.

Fire seems to have been a theme of the drive. When I arrived at my motel for the first overnight stop, all fire alarms were blaring, fire police frantically trying to find the source of the alarms. 45 minute wait later, they decided it was just a false signal from a corrupted sprinkler system. I fell into bed, fried.

Surrounded by innumerable water fowl, I saw smoke of a small fire billowing on the horizon. By the time I had left the wildlife preserve, smoke clouds covered the landscape and wafted over the highway, the fire had clearly exploded.

What was really fascinating, though, was the constant change in light in this California landscape, close to Sacramento. All the variations you see in the photographs below were taken during a 45 minute stay amongst my migrating pals.

Rain coming down hard

Some 10.000 white fronted geese and about 2000 snow geese hung out, if we can trust the species lists provided by birders for the day I came through.

Snow Geese

White fronted Geese

I did not focus on many of the other birds,

a large flock of turkey vultures, however, focused on me. One came so close overhead that I thought he’d dive….

There is something interesting about people naming collections of these birds, depending on the activity they can be found in. Mostly they are called a flock or a kettle, but when they rest they are called a committee and when they feed on carrion they are called a wake. Sometimes they are called a venue or a congregation Is that true for other raptors as well? In any case, do migrate as well, sometimes in kettles of up to 10.000 birds. I had no idea that was the case. I sure was surrounded.

I am now near San Francisco, hoping to see gardens new to me. Stay tuned.

Here is some New Music.

“The performers of this work by Canadian composer R. Murray Schafer (b. 1933) imagined that the central figure of Wild Bird (1998) is a vulture, who finding his prey on the ground, tears it to pieces and eats it, before flying off again. The work is full of extreme dynamics, changing tempos and meters, and sharp dissonances. Clearly this is not your cute little song bird. In “Wild Bird” from 1997, the violin embodies the startled fluttering spirit, while the harp creates an echo chamber for it. The exhausting tour ends in audible fatigue.

Perfect parallel to driving south days on end …