In no rush at Rush Creek

Considering the jolt I put my legs through yesterday, they were in decent shape today. Went for a leisurely, ten mile shakeout on Test Station Road around 6pm, then walked about a mile down to the Rush Creek Delta. I've never been disappointed there. Downy, golf ball-size spotted sandpiper chicks were peeping in the salt grass, bobbing their featherless rumps just like the adults. I oh-so-cruelly cornered one, and it calmly hid under a small log where I took its photo.


I also saw a gadwall with sixteen ducklings on a reedy back pond and, later, accidentally surprised the mother. She started doing a broken-wing song and dance routine, awkwardly sculling through the water in a plashy fit to distract me, the menace, from her brood.

Finished my stroll just at dusk--to the elation of the birds, I'm sure. But I then managed to spook three poor poorwills off the road on the way back to town. Almost a complete moon over the Basin. Driving home after ice cream (dinner) at the Mono Market, the mountains and craters were faint-gray aglow. Tomorrow, I'm planning on several late, easy miles beneath the full effect.


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10 mi, 70 min; Test Station Road (a kind of modified Tufa-to-Tufa)