The Elephant Seals of Piedras Blancas

6FPS V1#9

Welcome to the new issue of 6FPS. As I write this, it's February, and California has been seeing a series of storms dumping a lot of rain in the area and a lot of snow on the mountains. This is good for our water table and to build up the water reserves that have been badly depleted by the years of drought, but it means there hasn't been as much opportunity to bird or take the camera out for a spin as I'd wanted.

On the other hand, what we're seeing in terms of winter weather this year is, basically, how it used to be before we hit that long string of drought. It's just we're not used to it actually raining here any more...

Upcoming Birding Events

Assuming it's not raining, I've got a couple of birding outings scheduled where I'll be leading groups, and you're welcome to join us if you can:

  • February 17, 2019: Drop In Birding, Coyote Valley OSP. From 1PM to 5PM I'll be hanging out in the parking lot at Coyote Valley OSP helping visitors find birds and talking about whatever topics happen to come up. This is a great location for raptors, especially winter, and we've seen some interesting other species, including resident Rock Wrens and even last year a Lewis's Woodpecker. This is a big-sit style outing, no hiking, so accessible to all, and you can come for all or just a part of the outing, no need to be there the entire 4 hours (unless you're me). Rain cancels.

  • February 23, 2019: Merced National Wildlife Refuge. Rescheduled from January due to the government shutdown, we'll meet at 9AM at the front Observation platform of Merced NWR for a four hour exploration of the refuge. Sandhill Cranes, at least three species of Geese, White-faced Ibis and various ducks and shorebirds will be found and enjoyed. Rain cancels

I can also pre-announce that I'm going to be trying a new photowalk outing at Palo Alto Baylands in March, and that starting March 30 will be the annual Santa Clara Valley Audubon Birdathon, one of the big fundraising events the chapter does every year (and which I'm committee head for again this year). The kick-off dinner is March 30, and I'll be holding 2 bit sits (Shoreline and Coyote Valley OSP) and doing a solo outing or two as well, and perhaps a third group event during the birdathon. More details on this as soon as we release it.

Broken Camera Update

The Fuji X-T3 is back from repair. I'm evidently really good at dropping things, since it cost around $700 to fix. Fuji turned it around in about a month. I talk about this in more detail in What it was like Getting the X-T3 repaired by Fuji, and while I think Fuji overall did a good job, I have some suggestions that could improve the experience.

Of course, because of the rain, I haven't really gotten to use the thing since it came back, but hopefully this week...

My 2019 not really a big year challenge

For 2019 I set myself up with something like a big year birding challenge. If you want to follow my progress, you can monitor Chuq's 2019 Santa Clara County Kinda Big Year Challenge. One month in, I'm at 71 Species at six different locations in the county, vs. 49 species in that time in 2018 (in part because I was spending a lot more time in the central valley refuges last year, which I haven't done this year because of government shutdowns and rain). My photography challenge is lagging, mostly due to time, but I'll be trying to ramp that up now that the X-T3 is back.

New Flickr group!

When I started 6FPS, I wanted an easy way for people to chat and communicate back to me. Over the holidays while digging into Flickr and trying to sort out how I want to organize my images there, I realized that they're doing some interesting work on their

So I decided to experiment a bit, and I've created the 6FPS-Chat Flickr community group.

If you use Flickr, you can join us here:

  • https://www.flickr.com/groups/6fps-chat/


Wander on by, ask me to add you to the group, and let's see what happens.

And with that, on with the show! And thank you for being part of this.

This issue brought to you almost live, from a secret lair deep within a secret volcano in the bowels of Silicon Valley...

What's New?

Here is what I've written since the last issue:

  • Consuming Fire, by John Scalzi

  • I Upgraded the Site to Wordpress 5, and...

  • Grinding it Out

  • Upcoming Birding Events

Photo: Northern Elephant Seal



The primary purpose of my trip to Morro Bay was to spend some time photgraphing the elephant seals that come to Piedras Blancas every year to give birth, mate, and carry forward the cycle of life for another year.

When I got back, I put together a piece on the location and the seals to try to help you understand what it's like being there watching thousands of these animals on their annual migration back to this beach. I find it a fascinating experience and the animals and I wanted to share it with everyone, so I encourage you all to take a look at:

The Elephant Seals of Piedras Blancas

and let me know what you think.

One Thing: Spider Robinson - Our Daughter's Book

Spider Robinson: Our Daughter's Book. 

Author Spider Robinson has written a review of a book he hasn't read. That book is Graceful Woman Warrior by Terri Luana da Silva. And here I am, writing an essay about a review of a book I haven't read, either. 

Terri Luana da Silva was Spider and Jeanne Robinson's daughter. Two years after Jeanne died of cancer, Terri found out she had metastatic breast cancer, stage 4. Graceful Woman Warrior is the collection of the writing she did about the battle she fought, and ultimately lost with the cancer, and about winding up her life and settling her affairs and all that has to happen when you realize you're in a battle you aren't going to win. 

I have bought a copy of the book, and I fully intend to read it. Some day. I can't, not now, because I know it'd crush me. As I've written about a bit, I lost my sister to lung cancer a couple of months ago, but what I haven't really talked about is that my mom was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2010, had a double mastectomy, but the cancer had already spread, and it's what killed her when it landed in her bones and colon. None of which we knew about until after, because she chose not to fight it, not to tell anyone in the family of that decision, and swore her doctors to secrecy. 

So to put it mildly, cancer isn't exactly on my Christmas card list. 

But why this book? And why did it hit me so hard when Spider wrote about it?

Set the Wayback machine back to 1974 for a moment. I'm a sophomore in high school, puberty has hit me like a ton of bricks, my first serious girlfriend dumped me, a very close friend had died in an accident after having a few beers and driving home, and life was over and in general, my head was in a really bad place. I'd failed at two weak suicide attempts and was working up to a third, when the new issue of Analog SF hit the books store, and in it was the story Time Traveler by Spider Robinson. 

If you're not familiar with it, it's the story of a religious man who goes to South America with his wife and gets throne in jail to rot and isn't released for ten years, during which time he had to watch his wife die in prison with him, and he had no access to any outside information: no newspaper, no books, no television, nothing. And then he's released and brought home and basically dumped on the street with no context of any of what's happened for the last decade. 

He ends up at Callahan's Bar, unable to cope and unable to fit in, desperate and pushed to the point of robbing the bar to get money to survive -- or, if you read it a bit deeper, looking for someone to end the pain for him -- and the Callahan's Bar crowd does the only possible thing: they basically adopt him and welcome him into the family. 

The story struck me in just the right way at just the right moment, telling me that it didn't matter how bad and hopeless everything seemed, there was always a way out, if you could find the right place and the right people. It stabilized my spiral back into that dark place long enough to find the things I needed to drag myself out of the darkness and back into life again. Without getting too dramatic about it, there's a really good chance we wouldn't be having this conversation today if I hadn't run into that story when I did. 

So Spider's always been an important influence in my life, and his Callahan's Bar series strongly shaped my worldview of how people should treat each other, and how I should try to treat the people in my life. 

Despite all the time I put into SFWA and the Nebulas back in the day, and the years I was active in fandom and going to SF cons, one thing I was never able to do was be in the same place at the same time as Spider, so I could shake his hand and say thanks, and maybe buy him a Tullamore Dew (which I still drink to this day). But it never happened. 

And when I heard about Jeanne I was crushed, because if there's anyone who deserves happiness in life, it's Spider, and it was being denied. And now I've run across this, and it's happiness denied again, but personally, it's a lot more personal, now that I've lost my own family to cancer. 

I know if I read this book now, it'll tear me apart, so I've picked up my copy for later, when I'm stronger and more ready for it. I also know, from talking to so many people over the years, that this book is also exactly what some of you need to pull it back together again from the struggles you may be suffering. This book could be someone's Time Traveler, and I want to make sure that if it is, that you hear about it and have the chance to find that hook to grab to pull yourself back out of the darkness. 

I wanted to talk about this in hopes the book does find the person who needs it when they needed, because as Spider wrote about in another story, The Law of Conservation of Pain and Joy, the pain a person suffers in life cannot be prevented, but under the right circumstances, it can be transmuted. 

And if there's a chance of doing that, it's a chance I want to take. 
 

Forward

For Your Consideration

About 6FPS and Chuq

6FPS (Six Frames Per Second) is a newsletter of interesting things and commentary from Chuq Von Rospach (6fsp@chuqui.com).

Coming out about every two weeks, I will place in your inbox a few things I hope will inform and delight you. There is too much mediocre, forgettable stuff attacking your eyeballs every day you're online; this is my little way to help you cut through the noise to some interesting things you might otherwise not find.

See you in a couple of weeks


And with that, I'll see you in a couple of weeks with the next issue. I'd love feedback on this, what you like, what you want more of, what you want less of. And if you have something interesting you think I might want to talk about, please pass it along.

Until then, take care, and have fun.

Chuq

Copyright © 2019 Chuq Von Rospach, All rights reserved.