Two bird dudes, 3 days, and a car. Unlimited freedom. A recipe for some epic birding.
But it was more than just birds which we seeked. Our whirlwind journey sought grizzly giants, crippling cascades and trees older than Christ. Lustrous coppers, mountain lupines, the gems of the mountains were within our reach.
The journey began after work. The plan was to get to the famous Wowona Meadow (famous amoung great gray owl enthusiasts), before dusk to try and find this rare phantom. Unfortunately, like bono gazing to the horizon among the joshua trees, I did not find what I was looking for. Simply, it is my arch-nemesis of all birds. Of course, one needs fresh quarry for the next adventure...
We stayed at the luxurious Wowona Hotel, conviently across the street so that at dawn we could look once more. (well actually, we car camped in the parking lot). Nick forgot to set his alarm...
After the fail, we decided to look for something requiring less strategy, the Gy-mungulus trees in the Mariposa Grove. Upon ariving, however, it was more than trees that we found. I heard a familiar tapping up the hill. Luckily the air was still because the tourists were still in a deep sleep. We followed the sound to a burned area and behold! A black-backed woodpecker. Many search for this rare carpenter of the Sierra. Many fail.
We soon discovered that we had entered not only the domain of the black backed, but a fortress of woodpeckers! There was:
1 Pileated
2 Flickers
2 Red-breasted sapsuckers
1 white-headed woodpecker
1 hairy woodpecker
1 black back
We walked like tiny ants through a forest of ancient giants. And holy mother, there it was. The Big Daddy of all trees: THE GRIZZLY GIANT.
Back at the parking lot, there were 50 cars! The tourists had woken up.
We spent the rest of the day in the Yosemite Valley, hicking many miles and visiting 5 jumbo waterfalls. Bridalveil falls was the first, which was saturated with tourists, some of them exceptionally stupid:
On to Vernal falls, then Nevada falls. We felt the strange presence of being near a black swift fortress, but despite our vigilance saw only the also awesome but less ranked white-throated swift.
The greatest falls required a very trudgy zig-zag up the side of the valley, from which we saw one of the tallest waterfalls in the US, the Upper Yosemite Falls and the more lowly Lower Yosemite falls. I practiced what I would exclaim if a black swift flew over when a very high black swift-like white-throated swift flew over.
More car camping in Tuolomine Meadows, still throngs of people. Cold! That was fine with me. We got up real early this time and had some excelent birding, including a female hermit warbler at 9000 feet!
Tioga pass is the east gate of Yosemite. I scoped out a real nice trail up to the land where only the hardiest tiny plants grow. First, 2 red crossbills flew over. Clarks Nutcrackers bellowed in the hills. The alpine meadows were full of great flowers, which had surprisingly few butterflies but some good ones, such as this beauty, a lustrous copper:
Up higher, it got rocky, and a squeak caught my attention. I found the originator, a Pika! Pikas are are actually a type of rabbit, sort of.
A little higher, I spotted 2 rosy finches flying in the distance with their distinctively strange calls. Then all of the sudden, about 20 flew in and started feeding on the ground in front of us!
We reached the crest of the ridge, which was quite high (11-12000 feet or something). There were very few birds up there, except a prairie falcon whiched zipped over the ridge.
The way back down had more of the same stuff, an icy stream drink, ~50 more rosy finches and the sounds of a Blue Grouse.
Heading down the mountain, I found this real beauty but have no idea what it is?
We have reached the sagebrush, a very neat habitat that sort of gets boring quickly. Destination: Mono Lake. Mono is a terminal basin for several mountain streams, so it has become super salty and alkaline. The water feels quite weird. The shorebirding was very disapointing here (killdeer and wilson's phalarope), so we didn't spend much time. We did drive around the sage and picked up brewer's sparrow (it was touch explaining to nick that it has NO field marks, he couldn't understand that), sage sparrows, and Sage Thrashers (lifer!). More than could be shaked at with a stick. The next stage of our journey was to be the most anticipated segment yet.
The ultimate target for this trip was Greater Sage-Grouse. Really hard to find other than in March when they're lekking (displaying on traditional displaying grounds). So basically they're just walking around somewhere in here:
Many advised not to bother looking for Sage Grouse. They're just too hard to find, they said. That didn't stop us. My strategy was to drive a lap around Crowley Lake in the evening, since this area is well known for its sage grouse (ebird, birds of California). Then, if we didn't get 'em, which I really didn't think we would, get up really early and do the lap again. We did not find them that evening, although 50 common nighthawks were amazing. Nick really wanted to sleep in a campground for some reason so I let him at least try to find one that was not full, which was impossible plus way too expensive (20 bucks!), so we wasted some gas and then went with my original desire of sleeping in the sage beneath the stars. While Nick stayed in the pseudo-protective coccoon that is the tent, I fell asleep to some world-class stargazing. When I woke up, it was freezing. We slugged ourselves out at 510 and started slowly driving around the lake. It was that magical time, that calm time at the break of dawn when you feel like anything could be just walking out on the road, like these:
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
To the White Mountains! The final stage of our journey: to enter the most ancient forest in the world, the bristlecone pine forest. The trees there have growth rings only a fraction of a milimeter thick. They grow in a place thats at about 10-11000 feet, and get maybe 5 inches of rain per year. They are REALLY old. One is about 4800 years old actually, and many are older than Christ.
We headed out of the sage and into the Pinyon-Juniper forest. We found some neat White mountain specialities like Juniper Titmouse, Pinyon Jay and Plumbeous Vireo. While driving I spotted a soaring raptor. It was a beefy adult goshawk! We pulled over and watched in amazement as it circled over us.
The ancient pine forest was one of the most strange and awesome places I've ever been. It was just amazing, my life is a tiny blink of an eye compared to these geezers.
The birding wasn't bad, either. Lots of gray flycatchers, pygmy nuthatches, mountain bluebirds and a ruby-crowned kinglet.
So we birded back down the mountain and our journey faded to a satisfying end. Some birds we didn't see. Some we did. The trip complete, I can now say that even without the skills of Neil or Matt, this trip was well executed. 110 species and 2 lifers, plus Pika (an honorary bird).
Next time, for our final voyage, Neil and I will be sailing to mysterious waters in search of deep-sea wanderers from the distant reaches of the Pacific. Cook's Petrel, prepare to be destroyed.
Trip list: 110 species
Yosemite/white mountains Aug 3-6
1. Great egret
2. Great blue heron
3. Cattle egret
4. Canada goose
5. Mallard
6. Cinnamon teal
7. Turkey vulture
8. Osprey
9. Cooper’s hawk
10. NORTHERN GOSHAWK
11. Red-tailed hawk
12. American kestrel
13. PRAIRIE FALCON
14. California quail
15. GREATER SAGE-GROUSE
16. SOOTY GROUSE
17. American coot
18. Killdeer
19. American avocet
20. Spotted sandpiper
21. Wilson’s phalarope
22. California gull
23. Caspian tern
24. Mourning dove
25. Eurasian collared dove
26. Rock pigeon
27. Band-tailed pigeon
28. Great horned owl
29. Burrowing owl
30. Common nighthawk
31. White-throated swift
32. Rufous hummingbird
33. Anna’s hummingbird
34. Hairy woodpecker
35. White-headed woodpecker
36. BLACK-BACKED WOODPECKER
37. Red-breasted sapsucker
38. Northern flicker
39. Pileated woodpecker
40. Western wood-pewee
41. Willow flycatcher
42. Dusky flycatcher
43. Gray flycatcher
44. "Western" flycatcher
45. Ash-throated flycatcher
46. Loggerhead shrike
47. PLUMBEOUS VIREO
48. Western scrub-jay
49. PINYON JAY
50. Clark’s nutcracker
51. American crow
52. Common raven
53. Steller’s jay
54. Horned lark
55. Tree swallow
56. Violet-green swallow
57. Cliff swallow
58. JUNIPER TITMOUSE
59. Mountain chickadee
60. Bushtit
61. White-breasted nuthatch
62. Red-breasted nuthatch
63. Pygmy nuthatch
64. Brown creeper
65. House wren
66. Canyon wren
67. Rock wren
68. Ruby-crowned kinglet
69. American dipper
70. Golden-crowned kinglet
71. Mountain bluebird
72. American robin
73. Townsend’s solitaire
74. Hermit thrush
75. Northern mockingbird
76. Sage thrasher
77. European starling
78. Orange-crowned warbler
79. Macgillivray’s warbler
80. Yellow warbler
81. HERMIT WARBLER
82. Black-throated gray warbler
83. Yellow-rumped warbler
84. Western tanager
85. Lazuli bunting
86. Black-headed grosbeak
87. Spotted towhee
88. Green-tailed towhee
89. Chipping sparrow
90. Brewer’s sparrow
91. Sage sparrow
92. Savannah sparrow
93. Fox sparrow
94. Song sparrow
95. Lincoln’s sparrow
96. Dark-eyed junco
97. White-crowned sparrow
98. Bullock’s oriole
99. Western meadowlark
100. Yellow-headed blackbird
101. Red-winged blackbird
102. Brewer’s blackbird
103. Brown-headed cowbird
104. GRAY-CROWNED ROSY-FINCH
105. Red crossbill
106. Cassin’s finch
107. House finch
108. Lesser goldfinch
109. Pine siskin
110. House sparrow
Tim, I think that butterfly is a Tailed Copper...nice!
ReplyDeleteGood work on the Sage Grouse, you're now two up on me!!
ReplyDeleteEpic visit to the White Mountains Tim...such a unique place in our world.