Tuesday, June 5

1) Stopping by my polling place on my way to work to vote in today’s primary election. It was not crowded at all and indicative of the expected low turnout… I didn’t think that was necessarily a bad thing because if people aren’t interested in taking the time to become informed they have no business casting a ballot…

2) Birding at Playa del Rey after work… It was so windy and the waves were so treacherously crashing against the jetties that the Brandt’s cormorants that are usually sitting out on the rocks were in the water huddled together in a large flock…

3) Monitoring the election returns late into the night… I was pleased with many of the results, particularly in my congressional district where Brad Sherman came out ten points ahead of Howard Berman despite being outspent by two million dollars. Unfortunately, they are going to have to face each other again in the November run-off election, an event that my mailbox is definitely not looking forward to…

Monday, June 4

1) Knowing today would be unusually busy, I made it to the office earlier than normal…

2) Having lunch with a new intern…

3) I drove up to Little Tujunga Canyon after work hoping to find black-chinned sparrows and mountain quails. I didn’t find either, but it was a nice drive. I hadn’t been that way in over a year. I liked it because there were hardly any people there, probably because the road to get there is so steep and windy…

Sunday, June 3

1) Running this morning, my first time in two weeks… I haven’t been getting enough sleep to wake up on time to do it during the week before work, and I may have gotten a bit lazy about wanting to do it too…

2) Vietnamese food for lunch…

3) Watching 6 more episodes of season 4 of “True Blood”... Yes, I’m quite addicted, and I also have to say that “True Blood” has the best opening sequence and theme of any TV show ever…

Saturday, June 2

1) Birding in the San Gabriel Mountains most of the day (see the collage of photos I took and note that the bird in the upper left is a Williamson’s sapsucker). I added red-breasted nuthatch (species #279), Clark’s nutcracker (species #280) and dusky flycatcher (species #281) to my 2012 Los Angeles County year list…

2) While on the Throop Peak trail I met Frank and Susan of the Pasadena Audubon Society. They were really nice. I knew of them from their eBird contributions. It’s always fun to meet fellow eBirders…

3) As season 4 of “True Blood” was now on DVD, I had to watch the first three episodes tonight… I had been waiting a whole year for it to be available on DVD…