Great Gray Owl Extravaganza

We are settling into a schedule and are all figuring out our places at the house and in the group. There are 3 bedrooms - 2 guys in 1 room, 2 gals in another and 3 gals in the last. Our leader Bob sleeps in the office by himself. We get up early (~4.45 am), drive to a meadow (this usually takes about an hour), bird watch/listen for several hours and then return to the house by about noon. Eat some lunch, study in the afternoon, then group dinner (we each take turns cooking), group review and to bed around 9 p.m. I am up with the sun and to sleep when it sets. I kind of like it. The group seems to be roughly splitting along age lines - there are 4 people who are 19-20, and then we older ones who range from 28-38. We were laughing the other night because all the elders were out on the porch drinking beer. I said, "There's nothing an old person likes better than a porch." Everyone concurred.
Yesterday was a bit different as we did our first camp out. This past weekend was Memorial Day, so the park was packed. (We drove by a mile-long line of cars waiting to get in the gate on Sunday.) Monday we figured we could get a site, so we went birding in the morning and then went to the campground in Wawona. It is along the South Fork of the Merced, and it's very pretty. After dropping our camping gear there and carefully stowing all our food in the bear box, we decided to go looking for Great Gray Owls. Bob decided we should try to find the owl Lynn & I found last year. We were driving out Glacier Point Road and missed the turn off for the trailhead to the owls, so we had to turn around. When we did that, we missed the turn again, and then we realized that the second part of our group wasn't following us. As we drove around looking for them, we saw them stopped on the side of Glacier Point Road, not even completely pulled over, as there was no shoulder on which to do so. We drove to where we could find parking and Bob went to get the others. Five minutes later, Bob comes back saying, "They found an owl." It had flown right over their car! We ran down the highway and get the best look I have ever gotten of a GGOW. She was very impressive, perched on the tippy-top of a stick, peering down at the meadow looking for food. I meant to take a picture, but in my excitement, completely forgot to. She flew off after about 15 minutes. That satiated us, so we decided to head back to camp with the drinkers stopping by a market to buy some beer first. Myself and one of the other gals was in charge of dinner - it was burgers/veggie burgers. What started off as a potential disaster (just ask Mark about me & charcoal) turned out ok. I think we didn't have enough coals, until we decided to dump the whole bag on there. When in doubt, create a bonfire. We played a few camping games (which I haven't done since I can't remember), and we elders (who had been drinking) noticed that we were doing very poorly on the games that involved reaction time. Oh, well. I decided to give up and went to bed at 8.30 p.m.
This morning we did more training at Wawona Meadow, and we saw another Great Gray Owl. I was stunned as I spent my entire summer last year without seeing any (until the very end when I came to Yosemite) and now I see two in two days.
We are being tested Thursday morning on the 17 birds we have to know by sound and sight (males and females). If we don't pass, we can't survey. We have to keep studying until we pass. We'll see how I do. I have been studying a lot as I do not have the training that most/all of my co-workers. I think listening to a birdsong CD on the way to/from work for a couple of weeks before I arrived is paying off now.
Mark comes to visit Friday. I am going to take him camping and show him Yosemite. I think we are definitely going to have to take a trip to Rainbow Falls, a swimming hole with its own rock slide over the falls. It is going to be a whirlwind tour as he has to leave Sunday and I have to go out on Sunday for my first solid week of surveying. I am really excited - it's going to be difficult work, but it is such a privilege to daily be in this park. The weather is gorgeous, and it is a beautiful piece of earth.