Well I Walked Out Onto the Jetty

After yesterday's success with the Snail Kite, I had high hopes for the morning's birding at Huntington Beach State Park, possibly my favorite birding location in the world. Both the quantity as well as the quality of birds that can be found at Huntington Beach are incredible, and I've never had a bad visit.

Which I suppose means that it was about time for one, and that's just about what happened. This morning's visit was a bit of a disappointment. I only got one life bird, a Wilson's Plover on the beach at the south end of the jetty rockpile. That's a great bird, one I've been seeking for a while, but usually I pick up many more new birds than that. Perhaps I'm just exhausting the park's possibilities or something. It's just that the last time I visited, I picked up Least Bittern, Piping Plover, and Common Ground-Dove, three absolutely fantastic birds that only Huntington Beach could have offered me, and today was just a disappointment in comparison.

Still though, a bad day at Huntington Beach is still better than the vast majority of birding walks I go on. The same beach where I found the Wilson's Plover was also home to Ruddy Turnstones in breeding plumage, American Oystercatcher, Black Skimmers, a feeding Osprey, and a Least Tern nesting colony. The causeway was filled with Semipalmated Sandpipers, a few Greater Yellowlegs, Black-necked Stilts, and various herons and egrets flying around, as well as a few American Alligators to make things even more exciting.

And that was just about it. Sandpiper Pond was completely silent. I couldn't rustle up any Painted Buntings anywhere in the park. The only birds on the walk to the jetty were Sanderlings. I really shouldn't be disappointed, as it really was a great day by my usual standards, but I guess I've just come to expect more from Huntington Beach. Regardless, I will be back for sure.

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This whole trip was made possible by ten hours total of solo driving, but that driving was made possible by the fact that I put together an mp3 cd to keep me sane on the road. In all, I fit seven albums onto one disc, and I really got to know those albums pretty well, if I didn't already.

George Harrison - All Things Must Pass
I'm beginning to believe that I actually like this album more than any of the proper Beatles albums. Isn't that amazing? I'm not even a huge fan of George's output with the Beatles; Here Comes The Sun is probably his only composition that would make my best-of mix. Yet somehow, he was capable of crafting a double album that is completely unmatched in terms of consistent quality over its length. Starostin complained about the Apple Jam on the final third, but I actually really dig that stuff, it makes for great driving music. I guess Starostin just doesn't know anything about driving now would he lol. Guy needs to update his site bigtime, by the way. But really, the only possible complaint I can think of it is that Phil Spector's production is actually the real winner here, and lifts some relatively mediocre Harrison tunes into the transcendent realm. I sometimes start thinking that the album should be credited to both Harrison and Spector instead of just Harrison, as I think Spector's production plays a completely crucial role in crafting the sound of this album, more so than the production on the vast majority of albums out there. Nevertheless, who cares about details like that, the end result is that this is one of the best albums ever. Period.
11.6/12

The Silver Jews - American Water
I didn't like this album much on first listen. Random Rules is of course a near-perfect song, and the thunderous Smith and Jones Forever coupled with the fireworks of Night Society combines for one of the best opening salvos I've heard on an album, but after that I really wasn't a fan of anything in the sequence. But now this record is growing on me more and more, and now I'm a huge fan of quite a bit of the thing. If I still have one complaint, it's this: too much Malkmus. I know, if you've known me since high school, you'd know that the statement I just made would amount to heresy in my high school mind, but really it's just the truth. His songwriting and singing contributions are just embarrassing next to Berman's, and almost upset the mood of the record. Some of his guitar work is nice enough, but I think the Jews would be better off without him somehow.
7.8/12

Wilco - Being There
I think I've discussed this one enough already. See two posts previous.

Yo La Tengo - I Am Not Afraid of You and I Will Beat Your Ass
I still don't know what to make of this. At times, I think it's their best work since their masterpiece I Can Hear the Heart Beating As One, and it's a brilliant way to get out of the corner they'd been painting themselves into. But there's also times where I actually think it's their poorest effort since, well, their debut Ride the Tiger. But I can't really put my finger on why that is. Something about this album sounds...forced. Or fake. Like the band isn't having fun anymore, and is just going through the motions of 'being eclectic'. They pick a few styles to tackle, write a formulaic song-by-the-numbers in that style, and move on, instead of incorporating that style into their own unique world. Sometimes, it just really doesn't sound like an inspired album to me. But then of course, I hear the guitars on Pass the Hatchet I Think I'm Goodkind and I'm all like, forget that, this album frickin rules. I'm completely undecided as to which viewpoint I best hold.
8.6/12

The Beatles - Let it Be
Garbage. Outside of two or three songs, I completely dislike this album, especially in comparison with the rest of their untouchable catalog. Seriously, I think I even prefer Please Please Me. It's good that this isn't really a proper Beatles album, because it's abundantly clear that the thing is unfinished. With a little more time spent on it, I can see Let it Be becoming a sort of concise, poor man's White Album. But as the abandoned project that it really is, I can't take this album seriously as a true Beatles album.
7.3/12

Bob Dylan - The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan
Brilliant. It's amazing what this guy can do with just an acoustic guitar and a harmonica, and his voice obv. I don't understand why it's taken me so long to get out of my indie rock cave and discover all this classic stuff, because it is so, so glorious.
11.3/12

The Court & Spark - Witch Season
Not enough people have heard this album. It deserves more. Great, great album. There is some really beautiful stuff on more that needs to be heard by more people. I can't understand why their followup Hearts sucked so hard, when an album like this can express so much sensitivity and musicality. If you haven't heard this album, please fix that, it really is a lost gem.
9.6/12

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And there we go.

Searching for a Kite

The Carolinabirds email listserv has been on fire lately due to the incredible news that a Snail Kite (Rostrhamus sociabilis) has shown up near Lake Marion, South Carolina. This is the first record of a Snail Kite ever occurring north of Florida. The first ever. Needless to say, the Carolina birding community is really really excited, if that actually means anything at all, haha.

So I figured, hey, I have nothing better to do, why don't I go seek out this creature? It sounds like it's sticking around, and I don't anticipate being in the Florida Everglades any time soon, and they're rare there anyways, so why not give it a shot? I sketched out a quick itinerary, adding a second day to bring Huntington Beach State Park into the trip, and made the necessary preparations.

It was a long and grueling drive down, but after four hours I finally got off I-95 at the necessary exit. From there, I went further and further down unmarked rural roads. Every time I thought I'd gone too far and missed the unmarked turn, I spotted a noted landmark and knew I was on the right track. How in the world this bird was found in the first place, I will never know.

10 miles out from metaphorical Nowhere, I finally found myself at Elliott's Crawfish Farm, where the bird had been spotted. Srsly, how the original discoverer or the Kite itself found this place is a complete mystery to me. I noted a lone birder standing by Pond #1, and after speaking with him, I learned that he'd been circling this pond for the past hour, and had not found the Kite. I helped him search for a few minutes before the eponymous Mrs. Elliott showed up with her toddler in a pickup trick, and gave us some tips on where it'd been seen that morning.

As we headed around, I suddenly noticed a dark bird flying low over Pond #2. Brought up the binoculars, and found myself looking at a slate-gray raptor, white base to the tail, and then the distinctive orange bill. Frickin' Snail Kite, baby!!!

By the time we got to Pond #2, it had flown again and perched itself on a low overhanging branch in plain sight of our vantage point. Beautiful, beautiful bird. We got great binocular views, and it filled a scope view as well. I watched the Snail Kite for a full hour, as it flew to various perches around the pond, and unsuccessfully dove for crawfish several times. I hope this guy makes it okay; the theory regarding why he's up here is that the drought and wildfires down in Florida have driven him desperate and up into this unfamiliar territory, eating crawfish instead of the usual Apple Snails. All indications are that he'll stick around, but hopefully the crawfish diet will suit him just fine. I wanted to get to my hotel in Myrtle Beach in time for a dinner, so I bid farewell to the two newly-arrived birders who had joined the Kite's entourage, caught one last glimpse of the Kite soaring to another perch, and headed back on the road.



Other birds noted: A cooperative Yellow-crowned Night-Heron at Pond #2, replete with long breeding-plumage head plumes, first time I've seen them with those plumes, cool stuff. Also, a soaring Wood Stork on the drive to Myrtle Beach. At first, my heart skipped a beat as I thought it might be a Swallow-tailed Kite, but no such luck. Of all my remaining Nemesis Birds, the Swallow-tailed Kite is the most beautiful, alluring siren of them all...someday, you will be mine...wow that sounds a little creepy, haha.

Being There

Being There used to be my least favorite Wilco album. That award has now been unceremoniously taken by the coma-inducing Sky Blue Sky, but more importantly, I revisited Being There while in Australia, and suddenly discovered that all of a sudden, it may have actually become my favorite Wilco album.

I think the trouble the first time around was that my discovery of Summerteeth placed certain unrealistic expectations on the album, as well as biases on what Wilco were 'supposed to sound like'. The songwriting on Yankee Hotel Foxtrot was too weak, and despite its strong points A Ghost is Born had a tendency to wander, and so the focused and concise pop of Summerteeth totally blew me away when I first got to it. For some reason then, I expected Being There to be much of the same, and my initial listens to the standard 'hits' off the record (i.e. Say You Miss Me, Far Far Away, etc) only confirmed this.

And of course, I got something really different. Stuff like Outtasite (Outta Mind) was reminiscent of the driving pop of Summerteeth, only far less developed, and that was disappointing. Meanwhile, the rest of the record wasn't concise power pop, and so it got ignored. Which is tragic, really.



Nearly every song oozes of a confidence that was lacking in parts of AM, and they use that newfound confidence to explore a wide palette of sounds and styles, nearly every one of which works fantastically. Traditionally, I like to critique albums based on their overall cohesiveness and consistency rather than on the basis of individual songs, but when discussing Being There, you absolutely cannot help but talk about the qualities of each and every song, just because of the sheer diversity that's present, and in the end all you're left with is one of the greatest slices of Americana produced in the 90's.

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1. Misunderstood - The whole 'NOTHING! NOTHING!' section is what everyone digs into, and maybe the rest of the song is weaker by comparison. But it's a great, great peak, and I dig the tortured guitars at the end, really compliments the screaming quite well. You can't knock on this one.
   
2. Far, Far Away - Heartbreakingly beautiful. The quiet harmonica lines that hide behind the guitars...gorgeous. Perfect song.
3. Monday - This is definitely the most Uncle Tupelo that Tweedy would go on this record, and it frickin rocks. The brass is such a perfect production touch, and really this whole record is immaculately produced.
4. Outtasite (Outta Mind) - was a favorite on first listen, probably because of the massive riff and the catchy hooks in the verse, but I like this song less and less every time I listen to it. It still sounds like an something that they could of tossed off onto tape in about 10 minutes later on during the Summerteeth sessions.
5. Forget the Flowers - Just a little too simple for me, but it's a clever melody.
   
6. Red-eyed and Blue - It's all about the underwater reverb-drenched piano, this is the most atmospheric that Wilco would get until A Ghost is Born, even. Very good song.
7. I Got You (At the End of the Century) - Mindless fun, but man it is so marvelous. Listen to those vocal harmonies! You absolutely can't help but smile when you hear this song.
   
8. What's the World Got in Store - In my opinion, this is the underappreciated gem of Being There. From a simple introduction, the song builds and builds, with more instruments entering the mix, and finally we hit that final chorus. The vocal harmonies are even more crucial here, and the last thirty seconds or so are possibly the most sublime moment on the album for me.
9. Hotel Arizona - Wilco has never done anything like this, but I think it's one of their best songs. A really intriguing and mysterious melody suddenly gets burst open by sunny and catchy falsetto backups, yet by the end of the song all that optimism collapses and we get the most of Tweedy's angst and distortion until we hit At Least That's What You Said eight years later.
10. Say You Miss Me - Typical and predictable pop structure, but this is another perfect song.
    
11. Sunken Treasure - If you sit down and analyze each part of this song, it seems wholly unremarkable, but taken as a whole, I think the consensus is that this is one of, if not the best song on the album. The delivery of the chorus (I am so out of tune...with you...) is pretty heartbreaking.
12. Someday Soon - Similar to Forget the Flowers, it's just a simple clever melody, but the song itself isn't great shakes.
13. Outta Mind (Outta Sight) - I like this version more than the rock Outtasite on disc 1; I think it's the really nifty swing rhythms that come up unexpectedly.
14. Someone Else's Song - Not all that interesting to me personally, and where the album begins to drop off.
    
15. Kingpin - A live fan favorite that doesn't work as well on record.
16. (Was I) In Your Dreams - Charming country/honky-tonk number that doesn't do much for me.
17. Why Would You Wanna Live - My least favorite song on here. The intentional pairing of the sunny harmonies with the bleak lyrics just doesn't sit well.
18. The Lonely 1 - The lone bright spot in the final half of Disc 2. The lyrics are silly, but seriously, who cares? A nice, peaceful, beautiful way to bring Being There to a close.
    
19. Dreamer in My Dreams - A shambling and drunken romp, kinda fun, but definitely a throwaway.
    
    

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Though Wilco would explore their pop leanings next on Summerteeth, I never realized how much this album could also foretell the angst and the atmospherics of A Ghost is Born, while also reaching back for the alt-country of AM and Uncle Tupelo. In that sense then, it's almost the Quintessential Wilco album, neatly summarizing all of the band's directions, save for perhaps the shortwave radio and blasts of noise on Yankee Hotel Foxtrot or the sheer boringness of the unfortunate Sky Blue Sky. Both of those, though, are minor points, and that's why it's become apparent to me that Being There actually represents Wilco with their most archetypical sound, simultaneously diverse interests, and ultimately, their most quality songwriting.

Score: 10.7/12

Photos from Royal National Park

An hour's train ride south of Sydney
Hiked 10 km on the famous Coast Track
Probably one of the most beautiful parks I've ever visited











I believe those flowers are Heath Banksia (Banksia ericifolia), though I could definitely be wrong.

Anyways, it was just a fantastic walk. Coming to visit this park again may have actually become the #1 reason I would want to come back to Australia, overshadowing anything in Sydney or tropical north Queensland. Actually, the Great Barrier Reef comes close as well, but who knows how long that'll be around. But yeah, my walk covered only the tiniest sliver of the park's territory, and there's some really different habitats in the other corners that I'd love to see someday. Just a great park in general, it gets my highest recommendation.

As for Sydney, I browsed through a Sydney Food Guide in the bookstore, and have now singled out some completely clutch hole-in-the-wall restaurants in the labyrinth commonly known as Sydney Chinatown. For dinner today, I walked into what looked like one of those apartment/business building complexes that nobody actually uses, went up one floor, and suddenly found the best Japanese ramen noodles I've ever had, for five dollars total. Swish.

But I'm also leaving for home on Sunday. Honestly, my fond memories of the program are much less intense these days, so it feels like the right time to head home. I had a great time on this mini-vacation, but it's definitely time for me to dive back into the real world. See you there!

Wanderlust

Elegans

Mentioned this earlier, but the past month has been really hectic, as I’ve worked on my Directed Research project. All said and done, I have a 24-page document on my hands, clipped into a nice professional-looking binder, and one of the best achievements in my academic career so far, I really couldn’t be prouder.

Some interesting results were teased out, and there’s been talk of publishing it, probably joined along with some of my classmates’ research and some further research to be conducted by next semester’s group. More interesting was a conclusion I reached from my results, which I assumed to be completely logical and already part of common knowledge, but may actually represent a revolutionary concept in plant evolution. What. I refuse to believe that this is actually a radical new idea, but my research professor seems convinced that it’s new. So we’ll do some reading up in our free time, to find if that’s truly the case, and publish that too. I’d rather not discuss it on here, for fear of mischievous bandit scientists publishing before us, so ask me about it in private if you really care. No offense taken if you don’t, haha.

I had to give a presentation on my research as well, and the professors liked it enough to give me a shot at presenting it to the public, at the semester-end Community Night. I didn’t stress out much, figuring that the audience would mostly be the local yokels or kind senior citizens without the slightest comprehension of what I was talking about. The day before the presentation, I learned that this assumption was actually false, and that the audience would essentially be a panel of scientists from the local universities. Gulp.

Fortunately, my high school debate training proved useful, and so I spoke with my best speaking voice and made a pretty powerpoint, all so that people would be bowled over by the presentation skillz and wouldn’t actually listen to what I was saying, haha. Nah jk, I did actually stick some content in (unlike some of those local debate tournaments years ago, good times). I got some good compliments afterwards, some of which were surprisingly laudatory and sincere, so I’m glad that all went well.

And then, suddenly, that was it. The program was over. There was barely enough time for a farewell dinner, and then we left the rainforest forever, in the darkness of three in the morning. Before I realized it, we were standing in the Cairns airport hugging out our goodbyes and laughing over jokes a few final times. A solid group of us were on the same flight to Sydney, but three of us were staying in Sydney while the rest were flying on to the States. That produced a particularly preposterous farewell, as three of us went to the baggage claim while the rest went to the international terminal, with those two destinations in opposite cardinal directions, 180 degrees. Final hugs and goodbyes, and then we turned our backs and walked away. Straight out of a movie, I tell you.

Cultural Vertigo

The experience of being in Sydney was utterly overwhelming. That’s the blunt way to put it. To spend three whole months hiking through the lush rainforest, completely immersed in the wonders of nature, and then to suddenly emerge into a tree-less skyscraper metropolis, swimming through massive hordes of businessmen, shoppers, and tourists was possibly the biggest shock of my life. I was totally overwhelmed. I met with a friend from the program for dinner, and she had been overwhelmed to the point of wandering through the city until she found a park with trees, and collapsed in its shade to recover. I really cannot emphasize enough just how overwhelming Sydney was.

Over the next few days, we slowly adjusted to the tempos of city life, and I can say that after three days, I was pretty much acclimated to civilization once again. But it wasn’t satisfying. Walking for 30 minutes through a city is absolutely nothing like walking for 30 minutes down a forested path. The long walk from my hostel to downtown Sydney is more stressful than I thought any walk could possibly be. It’s the crush of people, the blaring traffic, the flashing lights: there’s no room for solitude, reflection, or an appreciation of one’s surroundings. In any other context, I can tell that I’d probably love Sydney, there’s a great range of interesting shops (including one of the best record shops I’ve ever seen), lots of interesting people to observe, and of course incredible architecture and art, Sydney Opera House being just one obvious example. But coming here right after this program felt totally wrong.

Wonderland in Alice

And it was in that mindset that I escaped to Alice Springs, near the very center of the continent, the Red Centre. Most visitors to the Alice use it as a base camp for excursions to Ayers Rock/Uluru, that famous red monolith that’s in the Outback Steakhouse logo, among other places. Uluru and the Sydney Opera House are undoubtedly the two biggest landmarks in the country.

But I didn’t come to visit Uluru. It seems like the type of landmark that is completely overrated, and not worth the significant resources required to visit it. It’s just a large red rock, after all. Granted, I’ve talked with not one, but several people who were of the same mind before they visited the Rock, but were totally blown away once they got there. That weighed on me very heavily. I may never be in this part of the world ever again. Sydney and Cairns perhaps, but not the Red Centre. So this may be the literal Chance of a Lifetime to see a Global Landmark, such as if you were in Egypt and refused to go see the Sphinx or the Pyramids of Giza. But in the end, I made the decision to forgo a visit. It was either going to be too expensive, take up far too much time, or both.

My plans for Alice Springs were first, to see the famous dry Outback landscape that I didn’t get to see in tropical northeast Queensland, and subsequently, to see the impressive array of new birds associated with that environment. The latter point may have been more important. Predictable, I know, haha. Birds are probably the subconscious goal of every trip I do, everything from a walk on campus to an airplane flight to an Outback outpost.

The trip to Alice Springs was immediately therapeutic. It was the perfect marriage between the natural immersion of my program and the cultural values of the big city. I got wireless internet in my hostel, and three blocks away I was out of the city and into the Outback. Being able to go on long hikes helped immeasurably to clear my mind and relieve all the stress I’d accumulated from the shock of city life. On Tuesday morning alone, I hiked over 14 km of the Larapinta Trail, which stretches for over 200 km in total. I wanted to go longer, but I forgot to pack a lunch, haha. I could have gone all day, even despite the heat, and the swarms of flies.

On a side note, if you’re ever in Alice Springs for whatever reason, I would strongly recommend staying at the Alice’s Secret Travellers Inn. It is the best hostel I have stayed at anywhere in Australia. Great rooms, great location, and the friendliest staff ever. Best hostel. Also, the Italian restaurant Casa Nostra is extremely delicious and relatively cheap. I haven’t even found anything that good in Sydney yet. So go there.

Cheers

And now I’m back in Sydney. Perhaps it’s because I knew what to expect this time, but I wasn’t so overwhelmed this time around. However, I do plan on taking long train rides out to the nearby National Parks, which should be great. I’ve given up on taking photos of the Sydney Opera House, first of all because it’s impossible to capture its full beauty, and secondly because it’s not like you guys haven’t seen pictures of the thing before. Trust me though, the pictures don’t do it justice. Sydney Opera House = best house ever. I can also now say that I’ve seen an event inside the Opera House. I would’ve loved for it to be some orchestra performance or, heck, an opera, but I settled for an Aboriginal film festival, which was incredibly well done and mostly quality, worth the price of admission (free) and definitely then some for sure.

So with my remaining three days, I’ll be searching for birds, sweet records at the record shop, and gawking at the Opera House some more. Really what I should’ve been doing in the first place. I can’t even remember what I did the first time around in Sydney, other than stagger around confusedly and then gawk at the Opera House some more.

Alright, got some photos left over:

Brainstorming for my research paper topic

Forty Mile Scrub National Park, where we did a lot of our sampling

Standley Chasm, in the West MacDonnell Ranges outside of Alice Springs