[Leica] Trip to Collinsville - this time with GOOD URL's

[abridge at gmail.com (Adam Bridge)]

To find Bird's Landing and Collinsville on a map, well you'll need a
pretty good one. The easy way is to find the cities of Pittsburg and
Antioch which are on the south side of the Sacramento River.
Take a point half-way between them along the river and go due north.
That will be Collinsville, or as close as no never mind. Birds Landing
is about 5 miles north of Collinsville.

If your map shows Dixon and Hwy 113 running south from Dixon you'll
certainly see where 113 meets highway 12 that runs from
Fairfield/Suisun to Rio Vista and then Lodi. Birds Landing Road starts
at the southern part of that intersection and runs south and then west
to Birds Landing. It's a crossroads, really, with a bar, maybe 10
houses, the pheasant club that has some rather vast land holdings, and
some interesting scenery.

You can actually see this area pretty well using Google Earth. The
location for Birds Landing is wrong, however. As soon as I figure out
how to share locations and views in Google Earth I'll post that
information so you can find it.

Yes, the drive up to Clearlake is really a nice one although we don't
go up that way very often. One of the primary drives is through the
Capay Valley where, unfortunately, they have built an Indian Casino
without bothering to widen the road so eager gamblers drive one way
and disgruntled and drunk ones drive the other which makes it
unpleasant.

Thank you for your comments. It was a beautiful day.

Adam

On 2/6/06, bruce <bruce@ralgo.nl> wrote:
> Hi Adam,
>
> The colours of 9324 are real Kodachrome, but the head-on and profile
> of the jack-rabbit are electric (taking the air before the off).
>
> Great composition of the pipe-line, snaking across the
> floor ................... and the windmills ............ for me
> 9358 ............. different from the implantation outside Mojave?
>
> Unable to find Bird's Landing in Rand McNally ............. where is
> it, please?
>
> Now, for me that was also "a walk in the park" ................ you
> must do it more often ........... maybe from Davis up to Clear
> Lake ................. supposed to be very lovely too.
>
> Thanks,
> B.
>
>
> On 6-feb-2006, at 5:33, Adam Bridge wrote:
>
> > (my apologies for posting twice but I made an error composing the URLs
> > and I didn't check them before sending.....ab)
> >
> > Today, while the world was watching the infinite pre-game shows
> > before the
> > Super-De-Duper Bowl we drove down to Collinsville, one of favorite
> > areas.
> >
> > Driving south from Davis about 30 miles the plains of the Central
> > Valley
> > abruptly begin to roll and then form a set of hills which bound the
> > Sacramento
> > River to the north, herding it, along with Mount Diablo to the
> > south, toward the
> > Carcinez Straits and San Francisco Bay.
> >
> > The rolling land is farmed - wheat, sheep, and goats being the most
> > often found
> > but there are still many small water courses and copses of trees,
> > usually
> > eucalyptus imported in the 1860's from Australia. The valley oaks
> > don't find the
> > terrain to their liking, I suppose.
> >
> > We drove to Bird's Landing and then west along a narrow partially
> > paved road
> > where we encountered this specimen strutting along the road as if
> > he owned it:
> >
> > <http://www.adambridge.com/Photos/2006/02/05/_L3U9324.jpg>
> >
> > I've met many roosters who were more skittish.
> >
> > As I was taking this picture, it's nearly full-frame, there was the
> > constant
> > sound of shot-guns being fired on a trap shooting range to the
> > south within easy
> > sight. It was the base for, yes, of course, a pheasant club!
> >
> > Later on we found another but he was in bad shape - I think West
> > Nile had hit
> > him. He walked listlessly, his tail feathers were partially gone.
> > He hid along a
> > fence-line:
> >
> > <http://www.adambridge.com/Photos/2006/02/05/_L3U9341.jpg>
> >
> > Just up the road this jack-rabbit, I'll leave it to those steeped
> > in the lore of
> > such things to identify the species. He watched warily as I snapped
> > these two:
> >
> > <http://www.adambridge.com/Photos/2006/02/05/_L3U9342.jpg>
> >
> > His profile just before he took flight:
> >
> > <http://www.adambridge.com/Photos/2006/02/05/_L3U9343.jpg>
> >
> > Further down the road I found this vast snaking pipeline, draining
> > land north of
> > our road into the wetlands. The entire area is administered to
> > control salinity
> > in the wetlands and tulle marshes. I believe this represents a
> > portion of the
> > work. Cows roam the field through which this fast serpent wends:
> >
> > <http://www.adambridge.com/Photos/2006/02/05/_L3U9346-bw.jpg>
> >
> > We saw four different ring-necked pheasants during our drive today
> > - none of
> > which were in the least bit alarmed. In the autumn there are NOT so
> > easy to
> > approach.
> >
> > There is another kind of farming in this area as well: wind farms.
> > Old wind
> > turbines, the bane of raptors with their fast-turning blades, are
> > being replaced
> > with new larger ones whose blades make long, slow, stately arcs
> > across the sky
> > as they generate their power.
> >
> > I liked very much the reflections in this vernal pool. A few months
> > from now it
> > will be gone leaving only a damp patch of wild flowers. The
> > hillside will turn
> > golden as the wheat matures, hawks will circle looking for ground
> > squirrels and
> > other rodents.
> >
> > <http://www.adambridge.com/Photos/2006/02/05/_L3U9354.jpg>
> > <http://www.adambridge.com/Photos/2006/02/05/_L3U9358.jpg>
> >
> > All of the animal images were made with the 560 Telyt and Canon 1Ds
> > Mk II. I
> > hope the images don't appear to be made of silly putty. ;-}
> >
> > The landscapes were made with the 24-70 F2.8L Canon zoom.
> >
> > I also took along an M6 and will have a different interpretation of
> > the pipeline
> > and perhaps a stand of windmills both very old and very new to show
> > in a few
> > days.
> >
> > Comments are welcome and invited.
> >
> > Adam Bridge
> >
> >
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>
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