September in Mono County

The Grub directed us to camp at the Lundy Canyon Campground, operated by Mono County. We had a great site and it was nice and quiet EXCEPT for the first night, when some woman at the edge of the campground made terrifying shrieks and screams at the top of her lungs...she sounded like she had just come upon a grisly murder scene, or was getting stabbed over and over again. It really sounded animalistic and was very unnerving. Grub and I investigated but did not actually go knock on her camper as things still seemed very weird, but at least we discerned that no one had been stabbed to death (or stabbed at all). I think she was having a bad trip on something - Grub pointed out it was Burning Man season, and this location was in the post-burn dispersal path - but who knows what the truth is? Anyways, lots of Mountain Chickadees at the campsite...unlike hallucinogens, Mountain Chickadees are always pleasant.

How is that for an opening caption? Some more explanation is required...in September we took a family trip to the east side of the Sierras to hang out in one of my favorite parts of the state, Mono County. It's a weird place (see above, for example). There is good birding, facemelting scenery, and aside from a few places, not a whole lot of people. We met up with a couple friends of the blog: Alexis (Arexis), who is responsible for entirely shaping my fate, and famed east side financer, The Grub, who BB&B has spoken with at length (most recently here). Mono County is the part time home of The Grub, everyone's favorite venture capitalist and bitcoin miner, who lives in a junkyard there during the warm months. I don't mean to say he has a shitty house there (his house is in Nevada), I mean he lives in an actual junkyard. The Grub is, of course, the richest person you and I know, but he shuns the mansion and the Mercedes for a tent and Pinyon Jays. He is, after all, an artist, and that just complicates things further.

Despite all of The Grub's financial success, he would be nowhere without The Great Ornithologist Felonious Jive, which at least he readily acknowledges. Knowing how close I am with Felonious, Grub was more than happy to help us track down a Black-backed Woodpecker, so he took us to Inyo Craters, where they have reliably seen most of the year. It was my first time there, and was a fruitful stop.

The White-breasted Nuthatches at Inyo Craters are the interior subspecies (Sitta carolinensis tenuissima), which sound very different from my backyard birds here in San Jose (S. c. aculeata). You may recall that it wasn't long ago when the AOS considered splitting WBNU three different ways, these two subspecies and the eastern birds...I suspect that this potential split may be revisited at some point. In the meantime, for a nice breakdown of the distribution of S. c. tenuissima and S. c. aculeata in California, look here.

Here in California, it's a Red-breasted Nuthatch invasion year! What a relief, it has been a while. I've only had a few in my 5MR but they were very common at many sites in Mono County during our visit.

Williamson's Sapsuckers are a true high elevation specialty bird and just too great to ever really get accustomed to. They are more distinct than the other sapsuckers in plumage, genetics (they don't hybridize willy-nilly), and habitat preferences. This one was more cooperative than most.

After not seeing one in about a decade, it was relief to not wait very long to find a Black-backed Woodpecker near the parking lot. We would go on to see a total of three, and heard two more! My personal Black-backed dam that has been building for the last decade has finally burst. I thought it was interesting that this area has so many Black-backeds, as there is no sign of any fire, and these birds are known fire followers. Other birds of note here included Red Crossbills and a Band-tailed Pigeon.

See? Scenic. Not that phone photos really do the place justice. This is Minaret Vista, just outside the entrance to Devil's Postpile National Monument.

Green-tailed Towhees were abundant...which is ideal, considering they are the best towhee and one of the few green birds in the west. Still hoping to get the ultimate crush of one of these, maybe next time.

We were too late for most wildflower species, although rabbitbrush was blooming all over the place. Here is one of the year's last blazing star blossoms, somewhere in the sage flats near Mono Lake.

This aquatic thing was blooming mightily up in a few patches at the Lundy Canyon beaver ponds. Nerds, tell me what this is please.

Annie had her Mono Lake baptism, which she really enjoyed. Once she realized all the black stuff was a mass of flies she was slightly put off but was happy to wade around nonetheless. She did appreciate the brine shrimp.

Other than Black-backed Woodpecker, this is the bird I had my heart set on seeing. Like the woodpecker, I had only seen Greater Sage-Grouse once before, about a decade ago. After dipping hard on Gunnison Sage-Grouse earlier this year, I had a serious grouse itch (grouse-itch) that just had to be scratched. Luckily, Arexis found a flock for us at Bodie, which allowed for great looks.

So, so sick. Behold the majestic grouse surveying its domain. A supremely satisfying birdwatching experience.

Bodie State Park is an isolated ghost town, way out in the sagebrush north of Mono Lake and not far from Nevada. It was my first time there, and pretty fun to walk around in despite all the tourists. We also saw another distant group of grouse.

The cloudscapes were brilliant during out shortish visit.

It was pretty windy too, but some birds were still out making the best of it. The "town" was littered with not only Europeans, but also Mountain Bluebirds.

Brewer's Sparrows were the most abundant Bodie bird other than Mountain Bluebirds. I assume this very fresh looking, warmly colored individual is a Hotel Yankee.

Other birding highlights included Pinyon Jay flocks, a Mountain Quail loitering in the road, and a huge crossbill flock at June Lake. The water level of Mono Lake was extremely high at the time, which is generally a good thing except it made for poor conditions for shorebirds and the such - consequently, the number of species we actually saw using Mono Lake was pretty pathetic.

But with GRSG and BBWO in the proverbial bag, the trip was Great Success! Hopefully we will go back next year, maybe getting into the White Mountains...who doesn't want to camp in the bristlecones?

Wolves Writing Rivers

In our ongoing coverage of that bowel quaking range, shaped like a trash picker's sclerosis, that splits this country in two, here's a piece that is completely out of season but may provide some respite from the recent heat wave. All photos by the irredeemable J. Felis Felis. 

Winter in Yellowstone. Ribbons of water, liquid helices, winding through a frozen, smoking whiteness. A buried clockwork of thermal rivers roiling away beneath. Brown bears snoozing somewhere between the pines and this sulfuric underworld. A profound serenity is washing over me as we move through this magnificent landscape which contains, among its many wonders, a bison calf, it’s lower half stuck in a mud pot, its face and upper body eaten off.

Later we visit a bobcat who has been living inside a buffalo carcass, its adorable face poking out the top of its edible winter home. Snowflakes disappear as they land on its nose.

Thermal pools rimmed in emerald and cobalt. Diseased eyes searching the heavens, their vision obscured by vapors weeping upwards. Bacterial mats, ancestral life, edge the springs. Hyperthermophiles thriving. Another bison calf, this one alive but with rear legs burned, flesh bright red raw from having momentarily slipped into scalding waters, closely trails its massive mother.

Among these myriad wonders is the singing of wolves.                                      



We  are out floating atop the snow on skis, shoes and sleds following this singing, searching for the pack and learning what we can in the wake of their kills. Amongst our gear is a small butcher kit, used to take pieces of the dead back with us. Cutting out mandibles to get at the storied teeth. Hacking at rounds of bone for to see the marrow within. Samples that will help researchers divine the relative health of the prey at the time of its death. This fieldwork is a small piece of a great puzzle, a body of work that is being built that seeks to understand the profound impact that the wolf is having upon Yellowstone. The puzzle suggests that the wolves have the power to move rivers. That fish and amphibians thrive in their footfalls. That birdsong follows them wherever they roam.

In the aftermath of the wolves return to Yellowstone, after some 70 years of absence, the fauna and flora of this region is being reshuffled. Their presence has modified the behavior of elk, who spend less time grazing the willows and cottonwoods along the waterways where they are vulnerable to an ambush. These riparian trees and shrubs thrive with less browsing pressure on them, resulting in a population boom of the North American beaver.

The beaver, Castor rodent, paddle-tailed engineer, through its industrious woodworking, has re-written the valley bottoms of Yellowstone. They’ve braided the waters of this world into a network of oxbows and side channels. Through their dam building and tree felling they have inundated thirsty floodplains, flats that haven't tasted standing water for decades. Fish and amphibians thrive in these diverse waterways. Hydrophilic plant life find footholds here, while ducks and shorebirds hunt and nest in these backwater refuges. Wolf as landscape architect.

An elk kill has been located and we go to investigate. Bundled, teary-eyed detectives stumbling across this ice planet. Graceless bipeds picking their way through the boiling vents pockmarking the flats surrounding them. Ungulates gather around the heated pools, their silhouettes regal against the fuming landscape. Great curls of vapor erupting from their nostrils.

The heat from these thermal features melt the snow surrounding them, which allows the bison, deer and elk easy wintertime grazing. The geothermal waters of Yellowstone also render the vegetation surrounding these features rich in silicate.

Over time this mineral ruins the grinding molars of the grazers. Later in their life, after years of eating this glass-like forage, they are unable to feed optimally. They are thus weakened by these springs that are providing them warmth and easy meals throughout the winter. This weakening is in turn exploited by the wolves, who prey on the less fortified.

As we come upon these kills, invariably there are other animals working the carcass. A fox is startled as we approach and bounds away to the cover of nearby pines. As we hammer away at the dead animal, the fox cautiously lurks back to its corner of the animal, and we all work side by side for a time.

We  notice small teeth marks on a bone we're handling. The bone has been scraped by a small rodent, who has raked the skeleton for the minerals it contains. A mountain chickadee alights upon an exposed rib and begins feeding on the small, frozen sinew stuck to the bone. Later, as the light fades from the day and the temperatures plunge below zero, this bird will join others of its species in a tree cavity, a dozen or more of them huddled together in a feathered orb, the micromeat burning warm in its birdbelly through the night.

We take a breather after packaging the samples for transport. Tea is poured, frozen cookies are dipped. Sitting there in the low angled sunlight, watching the chickadee work merrily. Dozing lightly, an image begins to coalesce in my sinking brain.

A wolf with a large ring in its mouth, keys of various makes hanging from it.  Behind the wolf stand an elk, deer and calf bison. Trinity of Prey. In the neck of each of these animals there is a keyhole. The wolf walks over to the elk and, with its teeth, lays the key in the lock. With a quarter turn of its head, the wolf rotates the key until it clicks, as light bursts from the neck of the elk.

With grizzlies underground for the winter, wolves are the only predators awake who regularly take down big game, unlocking the energy inherent in the large herbivores. After the pack is done with the carcass, the remains of the dead animal continue to nourish the inhabitants of the valley, from fox to mouse. Eagle to
chickadee. These remains are crucial feed during this harsh and barren season. Sunlight banked in the form of flesh and bone. Wolf as key.

Samples packaged, we salute the fox and leave it to its scavenge. We are moving again, towards another kill site. Flying over the frozen earth on a snowmobile, following the pings emanating from the collared alpha female of a nearby pack. The telemetric signal gets us close but it is the ravens who lead us to the doorstep of this next banquet, their croaking from the treetops defining the perimeter of the site.

Wolfbirds, as ravens are sometimes known, have long been seen as allies to the wolf, circling high in the sky and calling to alert the pack to an opportunity for another hunt. In return, the birds are allowed the leftovers. It is an ancient partnership between bird and mammal. Elemental alliance between land and sky.

Beyond the pragmatic relationship these two species have with each other, there appears to also exist a genuine friendship between them. There are reports of these animals engaged in a version of tag, where a raven dives at a wolf, lands just out of reach, and takes to the sky as the wolf lounges for the bird. If the wolf tires of the game, the raven calls raucously until the wolf indulges it again. Wolf as friend.

Beyond the cackles of the raven, other songs have trumpeted the wolves return. The explosion of willow and cottonwood habitat has allowed for a greater density of riparian nesting neotropical birds. Tendrils of salix reaching up and snagging migrants, coming from Mexico or points further south, who would instead be passing over these rivers in search of more suitable habitat. Birdsong has grown along the rivers, in symphony with the babbling waterways and the howling of the pack. Wolf as conductor.

The roaring engine of the snowsled is cut. Our ears accustom to a world without the whine of combustion. A different cacophony fills the air. It is the chorus of the hungry.

The wolves are still here. Fox, squirrel, weasel, magpie, snow bunting and junco are lining the periphery of the kill. All waiting their turn to take part in this feast that the wolves and elk have laid out. We will wait our turn as well. More tea and daydream. I indulge in my keychain fantasy, the wolf making the rounds, in turn unlocking each ungulate. The light from the animals flooding the air, pouring onto the earth. From out of the ground sprouts a lush carpet of wildflowers, rivulets of water running amongst them. Tangled willow shoots climb the legs of the dispatched elk. The sound of birdsong and frog chorus is deafening.

The watery croaking of ravens bring me out of my reverie. The pack is moving, the wolfbirds trumpeting their departure.

Meat drunk and muzzles red with gore, the pack emerges from the timber. The young wolves are exuberant and prankish, sledding down the hill, nipping one another playfully. The elders sluggish and content, lumbering towards a midday nap. Tolerant of the shenanigans of their sons and daughters, nieces and nephews. They disappear into another stand of trees. The faint sound of keys ringing can be heard. A dinner bell, announcing to the other denizens of this valley that it is time to eat.

Sierra Summer Birding Part I

Back in early June, Billy and I ditched the bay area and headed east into the Sierras. We were destined for Mono County, but to get there we had to endure the grotesque and horrible Yosemite National Park. Most people go to Yosemite Park, but I have a habit of just driving through it on the Lee Vining-Oakland commute. There are worse places to have to endure...in fact, most places are worse. We did stop and walk around a few random spots...no complaints about Mountain Quail, Olive-sided Flycatcher, Townsend's Solitaire, Nashville and MacGillivray's Warblers, Green-tailed Towhees...not to mention delicious, fresh mountain air. A few Mountain Bluebirds were taking in the air at Tuolumne Meadows (above).

This yellow-bellied marmot was holding it down at the meadows as well. Good luck getting this as a lowland vagrant.

Nothing was blooming in the meadows yet...a good portion was still under water. The marmot was probably still groggy from being asleep for months, unlike their Pika relatives who stay awake through the winter.

That afternoon and the following day was spent bouncing around Mono Basin...Vesper, Brewer's and Sagebrush Sparrows were quality year birds, and what I think was a Black-throated Sparrow (only sang once from a great distance away) was almost a nice year bird as well. Some Brant at Mono County Park (later seen at Rush Creek Delta on the south side of the lake) were pleasantly rare, and a bewildering number of Virginia Rails made a cacophony of unfamiliar sounds...they do more than just grunt, take that to heart. A couple random Geris (not birders) pointed out a Golden Eagle nest up Lundy Canyon, and thus I got my lifer Golden Eagle chick. The Grub showed us what he had been doing with the DeChambeau/County Ponds...I think he is determined to pull in some kind of meguh vague runt there some day, but he is currently content to nurture the sizable Yellow-headed Blackbird colony; a lone ibis and Blue-winged Teal were deec county birds for me. White-breasted Nuthatches of the Great Basin flavor were fairly common and scattered about, patiently waiting to be split into their own species. Looking for Black-backed Woodpeckers at a burn along Owens River Road was fruitless, but we did get White-headed Woodpecker, Bank Swallow and a weird sunbow (above).

That night I got hammered at the Mono Inn, which was entirely predictable.

The next morning we headed up to Virginia Lakes, which is heck of high, hella scenic and features one of the few decent Geribirding spots in the entire state. Mountain Chickadees were there (not shocking), and I hung out with this particularly confiding bird for a bit as it foraged close by.

Mountain Chickadee is my favorite chickadee...maybe from birding Lockwood Valley (Ventura County) as a kid, but I'm not entirely sure why. They sound superior to all other chickadees, in my opinion, and they've got that white eyebrow that sets them apart from everything else. Boreal Chickadees are cool, but all the others haven't built a cavity nest in my heart like Mountain Chickadees have. I guess I can't comment on Gray-headed Chickadee, but when the fuck am I going to see one of those?

Where there is Geribirding, there will be finches of some kind. Because Virginia Lakes is so damn high, Cassin's Finch was the only finch on the menu while we were there.

Living in Oakland the past few years, I don't get into high country often enough, so Cassin's Finches are still fun to look at...familiarity breeds contempt and all that. Note the classic streaking on the undertail coverts.

Take a gander at the length of those primaries...that is a bird built for wandering. You wouldn't want to get into a dispersing contest with a Cassin's Finch.

Clark's Nutcrackers were raging...I'm not sure if I'd seen so many at once before. It looked like whole family groups were coming in to eat peanuts.

Nutcrackers, as some of you know, are vital to the health of whitebark pine forests. It's not often you see a bird that essentially manages the forest you are standing in.

Judging by the short bill, this is a hatch year bird. It looks like there are a bunch of very fresh tertials growing in as well.

While Virginia Lakes is always dependable for nutcrackers, birders come here for another reason...Gray-crowned Rosy-Finch. There is no better place in the state to see them in the summer without burning a few thousand calories in the process, which is very unappealing to most birders.

The Rosy-finches finally came in to the resort's feeder after almost two hours of waiting, and promptly got down to the business of gorging. It's not the most "natural" setting, but rosy-finches are crippling birds and they are damn hard to get to (at least in this state) so I'm not going to complain if they want to frolic in a pile of seed right in front of me.

Why there are so few pink-feathered birds is unbeknownst to me. It's a very fetching color on birds, especially passerines. Rosies are just killing it with the pink-black-gray-chocolate brown combo.

Speaking of combos, here is a Gray-crowned Rosy-Finch-Least Chipmunk combo. Of all the avian and mammalian visitors to this Geribirding oasis, rosy-finches are probably the least wary of humans. It warmed my small, shriveled nerd-heart to see these creatures close up once again...so much so that I am going to Colorado this month just to look at Brown-capped Rosy-Finches to keep that rosy flame burning. Well that is not the only reason, but it would be a damn fine year bird, no doubt about that. If I had a dollar for every day I've seen Brown-capped Rosy-Finch, I would have...one dollar.

I would prefer to have two.

My Face Is All Melty...More from Grand Teton National Park

On my second morning in Grand Teton I arrived at Signal Mountain before dawn, hoping to find a non-run-over grouse on the road. Because I am the #7 ranked birder in the nation, my plan worked brilliantly. Out of the 3 grouse I located, I had the most serious hang-time with this Dusky Grouse. At one point it was within 3 feet from me...I'm glad it didn't come any closer, or I would have had a heart attack. These fearsome predators have been known to chase packs of wolves and grizzly bears off kills, and a charging grouse would stop the angriest bison in its tracks. Known for ruthlessly disemboweling their prey (while said prey is still alive), I was lucky to escape intact.

Beware of grouse in the grass.

Especially if you happen to be grass. Obviously grouse don't eat animals, but it would be cool if they did.

Sunrise at Signal Mountain, looking south towards Jackson. Lots of smoke in the air from wildfires.

Juvenile Black-billed Magpie.

Pronghorn doe and calf. Scenic.

Grand Tetons. Looming.

Mountain Chickadee. Hello Mountain Chickadee.

Pictures don't do the Tetons justice, but I think this one manages to get the point across. Look at this place! Fuck! You need to go there.

So Long North Dakota...enshrouded in Lark Buntings....The Road to Yellowstone

This Tiger Salamander was crossing the road as I was leaving Lostwood for the last time. Nice smile.

Sleepy Lark Bunting.

The moment you have been waiting for has arrived. Not only am I unemployed, I am back in San Francisco where I have nothing but time. The halcyon days of five blog posts a week (is that overkill?) are once again within reach....as is almost anything the heart desires...this is San Francisco, after all.

Right. In the spirit of catching up, I left North Dakota a couple weeks ago as my seasonal job monitoring Piping Plover productivity (i.e. numbers of nests that hatch and chicks that fledge, for you nonbirders) was finished. Since I was going back to California, I decided it was best to make my way to Yellowstone National Park...alternately known as "The American Serengheti" (according to the National Park Service) and "A Fucking Zoo" (according to a friend, referring to the tourists).

Another Lark Bunting. Not something a Californian sees much of.

Juvenile Grasshopper Sparrows are pretty striking...for a sparrow.

After living in rural North Dakota for months, I was totally ready for large mammals and not afraid of tourists...I hadn't stood in a crowd all summer. Intrepidly, I set out westward, back through Montana...

And there was not much to tell about that. I took one random road in the hope of finding some McCown's Longspurs, which I haven't seen in a few years...I think I may have flushed some with a flock of Horned Larks, but identifying birds flying directly away from you is not a terribly accurate strategy. I did run into a bunch of Lark Buntings though, which are not very common in North Dakota, and a good number of Grasshopper Sparrows to boot.

Horned Lark. They don't usually appear so shrunken-headed.

The next day I was en route to Yellowstone, heading towards the northeast entrance, going through the facemelting Gallatin National Forest en route. The scenery was phenoms. And so began my constant wishing that I had more time to bird/explore the area...

More on all that next time. Until then, perhaps you should brush up on whats happening over at 10,000 Birds or at my friend Dan Maxwell's blog right here. He is living just a few miles from me on the Farallon Islands, but will probably see, how do you say, "hella" more rare birds than me this fall because that happens to be one of the best places to bird on the West Coast. Don't let his blatant misidentification of a Blackburnian Warbler put you off, he is typically not a sketchy birder.

Day breaks above treeline. Crushing scenery northeast of Yellowstone, easily comparable with whats in the park. Gallatin National Forest, MT.

A strange creature from another kingdom. Gallatin National Forest, MT.

Golden-mantled Ground-Squirrels. Squirreling. Gallatin National Forest, MT.