The rain is pounding on the yurt, but it still can’t drown out the sound of thousands of frogs singing away. That was a brilliant stretch of beautiful days, but we really do need the rain. Today the wind was coming out of the northeast, weirdly, and the red-taileds were able to kite on the unusual updraft on our ridge.

I’m still catching up from a mini-vacation, a little break before the onslaught. I went on a birding trip to Klamath Basin with a small group of folks. What a treat! I haven’t been on a roadtrip in a long time, and this one was made even better being in the company of other birders. No one found it odd that we had our binoculars out at the ready as we drove up I-5, or that we wore them and used them as we lunched at a rest stop.

Klamath Basin, on the eastern California/Oregon border, is home to a complex of National Wildlife Refuges that teem with bird life throughout the year. In the winter, it’s home to the largest population of Bald Eagles in the lower 48 states, and many other wintering hawks, so it’s a favorite destination for raptorphiles.

I’ve been there before, but really wanted to return this year. If I do leave the country for 27 months, I want soak in as many US hawk experiences as I can, before I go.

So I went on this trip, which consisted mostly of riding around in cars and stopping to look at whatever we found was interesting. Mostly hawks, but also spectacles of tens of thousands of geese and ducks, and a landscape of colors so beautiful it almost hurts.

I kept thinking about Joseph Campbell’s exhortation to “Follow your bliss.” Because that’s what this trip was. Riding around in looking at stuff. Soaking it in. Thinking about life. Letting life in.

Watching a Peregrine Falcon make life nervous for a flock of Snow Geese, pointed wings pumping in powerful flight, catching afternoon light, every detail frozen for a brief second in an image in my mind.

Sorting through red-winged blackbirds to find one yellow-headed one, but having the flock of thousands suddenly lift and come towards us, a massive joyful kaliedescope of black and red overfilling the field of vision in our binoculars.

Eighty-eight Bald Eagles soaring out of Bear Valley at sunrise. Yes, eighty-eight. That we counted in an hour.

Rough-legged Hawks. Ferruginous Hawks. Red-tailed Hawks. Harriers. American Kestrels.

Eight Golden Eagles playing in the wind that kicked up that same afternoon. Eight. Unbelievable….they don’t congregate the same way that Bald Eagles do. And I really needed a good view of Golden Eagles. By this time I was in rapture. There was no stopping the tears leaking out of the side of my binoculars.

And in the Butte Valley grasslands on the way home, all of these plus the most stunning looks at Prairie Falcons I have ever seen.

And, oh, did I mention the bountiful Bald Eagles?

Click to view more trip photos

I don’t know how to follow this bliss. Maybe just to keep birding as much as I can, to keep watching the hawks.

Meanwhile, twenty-four mama goats grow heavier. We’ll probaby have kids by a week from now, and life will be busier than I can even imagine. I remember how grueling it got last year, and I don’t care. I still can’t wait to see kids leaping out of their moms and into life, watch those amazing moments of standing up for the first time, the gushy smell of warm baby goat. Another kind of bliss.