A couple of months ago I signed up for a 6 hour long truck tour in the mountains right behind us. It’s an area that is not open to the public, but the Irvine Ranch Conservancy organizes programs there that you can attend. I was very excited about this truck tour, but unfortunately it had to be cancelled due to rainy weather. Luckily, I was able to sign up for a different day for a 4-hour long tour on June 8th.

The group met Donna, our driver, and the other 4 volunteers at the Augustine Staging area, where we started our trip on this truck:

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In the past week I attended 5 programs organized on Irvine Ranch Natural Landmarks. I will post about the first four in a day or two; today I am only writing about today’s program. I joined a lovely group of volunteers and visitors in the morningĀ  to look for birds that live in the canyon. This was my first birding experience, and although we didn’t see a lot of birds during the short hike, it was a very pleasant experience.

I do not own any lenses that are ideal for bird photography, but I still wanted to take a few images. I’ll share them with you despite of not being great pictures. But they are wonderful memories of today’s hike. Here they go:

2 Ravens perching on a dead branch

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