Eastward For Birds

 Mid-July already and Jeanine has had a cancerous part of her insides removed and I'm one rabies shot into a regimen of four. She's recovering and I'm reflecting on how glad I am that the operation was successful. On further reflection, I'm also glad that rabies shots no longer require an injection into the abdomen. These days, it's like other vaccinations, albeit quadrupled. No, I didn't get bitten, but I did come into contact with a bat up past its bedtime. Yes, I tried to remove it from a busy pathway at work without touching it. No, I didn't succeed. In fact, it marched right up my arm and ended up tangled in my hair, just like the ridiculous old stories claim they are wont to do. On the helpful advice of my old naturalist mentor Garth, who faced a similar situation once (although his bat actually tested positive for rabies), I've decided to go on my current vaccination adventure. 

So, all in all, an exciting summer so far. Jeanine has cleared her calendar for a bit, and I've done only a week and a half of actual summer camp group leading, with two weeks of behind-the-scenes prep work.

This week, thanks to low Trailblazers registration, I'm off, so I decided to go on a quick solo trip up to Mono County. The last time Jeanine and I went there it was in 2018 to visit Bodie and Jeanine had a fierce bout of altitude sickness, so this time I went alone with the intention of birding for a couple of days. I've set myself the fun goal of birding in every California county. I've not set a deadline or anything like that, but any goal that inspires travel is a good goal in terms of opening up new mental pathways to accompany the physical ones traveled in pursuit of achieving it.

I started my engine a few minutes before 7:00 AM on Monday this week and made good time up into the hills beyond the central valley. Discounting a quick stop for gas in Oakdale, my first stop was Pinecrest Lake in Tuolumne County, where I immediately found a cooperative Townsend's Solitaire and some Mountain Chickadees bouncing around in the trees and undergrowth near the half-empty day visitor parking lot across from the general store. I happily wandered around a bit, finding other birds not common this season down in the Bay Area. There was a bedraggled young Hermit Warbler in a tree with a Yellow-rumped Warbler dressed in his summer finery, an Osprey patrolling the lake, an irate Douglas's Squirrel scolding me from a low branch, and a little coffee shop (the Serene Bean, I think it was called) which produced an acceptable Mexican mocha and some sort of pastry to fuel my push over the summit.

In addition to the advertised view, Donnell Vista finally gave me an opportunity to actually see (and photograph) a Dusky Flycatcher, a bird which I had previously only heard mocking me with its dry double-chip call from points unseen. I'm one step closer to achieving my goal of photographing every bird I've reported on eBird. True, it was a scraggly looking specimen, but this time of year a lot of the birds are. 

Down the hill a bit, I pulled off to the side of the road and marched around near a stream. The first bird of note was a Black-backed Woodpecker who alighted on a tall, partially burnt tree for a brief moment before disappearing again. The other best birds here were a lone MacGillivray's Warbler and a pair of Chipping Sparrows.

Kennedy Meadows was a spot I'd seen on the map, and I was picturing a nice mountain meadow habitat. What I found was another campground. Maybe there was a meadow somewhere, but I never saw it. Nor were there any birds of note. 

I had intended to stop at Sonora Pass but it looked crowded, so I soon found myself driving downhill into Mono County. My first stop provided a rather disturbing look at a Violet-green Swallow peeking out of a nesting cavity in and old snag across a river, which in and of itself isn't disturbing until one notices the dead Common Merganser, its head wedged into a split at the top of the snag. I'm not sure if the merganser got stuck and died trying to free herself, or if somebody put her there post-mortem. Or maybe the swallow left her there as some sort of warning. Life is full of mysteries.

My first hint of traffic was a sudden roadwork slowdown on 395 a mere mile from my hotel which lasted for longer than it should have. It was okay though because while waiting for the guy with the stop sign to beckon us onward, I saw my first Black-billed Magpie of the trip as it vanished over the hill above the road. 

Arriving at the Willow Springs Resort, I was informed by the man sitting on the porch in front of the office that the ghost of the roadwork wasn't done with me yet because it somehow also involved and interruption of local service. To wit, the power and water were both expected to be out until 6:00 PM. Check-in involved him finding my name on the piece of scratch paper he was clutching and giving me a key. Given that it wasn't even 4:00 yet, I put a few things inside the room, got back in my car, and headed for the Virginia Creek Beaver Ponds just up the road. I was navigating from memory due to local service being next to nonexistent and my expectations of wi-fi at the hotel not a currently viable backup plan, I managed to drive right by the beaver ponds without finding them. Heading up north on 395, I saw the turnoff for Virginia Lakes. Since my inspiration for this trip was a recent report of Gray-crowned Rosy Finches at the Virginia Lakes Resort, I took a right and headed uphill.

Little Virginia Lake is an idyllic spot of blue reflecting the snow-spotted mountains looming above. Most of the people wandering around seemed to be there for boating and fishing. Tiny chipmunks darted everywhere - probably Least Chipmunks, but it's hard to tell chipmunks apart. Golden-mantled Ground Squirrels, seeming huge compared to the chipmunks, were also in abundance. It didn't take me long to find my target bird, mostly thanks to a feeder outside one of the cabins which also attracted chipmunks, Cassin's Finches, and Pine Siskins. The Gray-crowned Rosy Finches proved to be one of the more cooperative species in terms of photography, sometimes hopping so close that I had to back up in order to keep them in focus. I had a brief conversation with a man who proved to be the provider of birdseed. He wasn't exactly a birder himself, but he had field guides and was interested in the birds attracted to his feeder. I helped him identify a nearby Red-breasted Sapsucker while we talked and thanked him for helping make my quest easier than it might have been. 

Heading back downhill, I had a brief glimpse of what was probably a Mountain Bluebird (an ID bolstered after the fact by seeing that one had recently been reported on that road). Next, given that it was still nowhere near 6:00, I headed down the hill toward Mono Lake, briefly stopping at the overlook and seeing no birds there. The Mono Lake County Park entrance I remembered from our trip there seven years ago was looking a little depleted and barren due to a fire having burned many of the nearby trees, somehow necessitating the closure of the path down to the lakeside tufa formations. I shifted gears and scanned the nearby burnt remnants and quickly found a Lewis's Woodpecker as it alighted on a charcoaled tree. I got a few photos later as it flew back and forth across the road. 

Seeing that I had service, I texted Jeanine to let her know I'd more or less arrived and then headed back to the hotel. Eureka! Power and water had been restored. I made myself a sandwich and went outside to see what birds were hanging out around the resort. High up were bunches of of Violet-green Swallows, and after a while, I managed to spot a lone Common Nighthawk which was a California first for me, my only other sighting having been a couple of months ago in Ohio.

On day two, I awoke early with a bit of a headache, possibly due to the altitude or too much craning my neck the day before. I was greeted by a Mountain Bluebird outside my door and would be again the following morning as well. The ground roiled with chipmunks.

With the benefit of hotel wi-fi, I rechecked the location of the beaver ponds and was able to find them. They are just downhill from a historical plaque marking the location of Dog Town, the first gold rush mining settlement established in the eastern Sierra. All that remains are some rock walls at the base of the hill across the creek. Somewhere up the hill the map claims there is a cemetery too, but I never crossed the creek. A nearby Peregrine Falcon glared down at me from atop a power pole, Yellow Warbler chased each other in frenetic figure eights, and a Spotted Sandpiper perched incongruously at the top of a dead bush. There was a Brewer's Sparrow quietly watching me from a nearby bush, which was a nice addition to the morning. They are tiny and not at all flashy, but quite rare in the Bay Area, so I'm always happy to see one. The day was already heating up and I hadn't even had breakfast yet.

Breakfast could wait a little while longer because the next stop was Dechambeau Ponds, or so I thought. Despite having written down directions, I found myself following a dirt road that didn't seem to be going anywhere helpful. That said, I did find a pair of Sage Thrashers, and American Kestral, and what would later prove to be my first Sagebrush Sparrow of the trip. I say "later prove" because when an animal is tiny, distant, and backlit, ID in the field can be hard. I took photos of course, and once I uploaded them to my laptop and lightened them up, all was revealed. Quality-wise, such photos are horrible, but they can help with ID or serve as proof when proof is needed. 

Giving up on finding the ponds, I headed into Lee Vining for breakfast. The first (and I think only) breakfast spot I saw was an old-school diner called Nicely's, which was old-school enough that it has been around longer than I have. The coffee and garden omelet fortified me... nicely. My headache had disappeared as well.

Next stop was eastbound Highway 120, which if followed long enough will spit the weary traveler out into Nevada. I planned to follow it long enough to get some photos of Sagebrush Sparrows, still unaware of course that I'd already gotten some.

I quickly discovered that 120 provides access to the South Tufa area of Mono Lake, so I detoured down yet another dirt/gravel road to the parking lot, paid my three dollars to park there, and walked down to the lake. The first bird of note was and excited Savannah Sparrow hopping around on the beach in what proved to be a cloud of Alkali Flies. I guess they must be tasty. I don't think I've ever seen so many flies in one place. 

The nearby tufa towers soon proved to be a good place to see Ospreys. There were several nests, at least one with visible chicks, the latter seen with the help of a docent with a spotting scope. On the way back to 120, and side quest down the road to the boat launching area revealed a pair of Loggerhead Shrikes. 

Back on 120, I made several stops, none of which definitively revealed any Sagebrush Sparrows. One of the main frustrations of the trip (and birding in general) is the tendency of sparrows to immediately vanish and bury themselves in the bushes, never to be seen again. I've always said that birding is a good hobby for helping one learn to deal with frustration. That said, I did find a female Williamson's Sapsucker, which is another hard bird to find in the Bay Area. 

Heading back to 395, I made a brief stop at Panum Crater, saw one bird on the way to the parking lot (a sparrow that immediately did that frustrating thing mentioned above), and none on the brief hike which I aborted halfway through because it was so windy that I literally had to chase after my hat and sunglasses more than once. My next stop wasn't much better, so I decided to undergo a second attempt to find Dechambeau Ponds. I turned down the road toward the Mono Lake County Park entrance and then saw the name of the road... Cemetery Road. This was the road I had been looking for during my first attempt to find the ponds. I hadn't realized that it was the road leading to the park entrance. Problem solved, although I was starting at the far end. 

After long, slow drive down yet another dirt road, passing the actual cemetery on the way, I finally found the bend in the road near the path toward the ponds. I parked and walked, although in retrospect I probably could have driven because it was not much narrower than the road I had been on. I could see a huge flock of California Gulls wheeling around in the distance which I (correctly, it turned out) guessed was the ponds. I took yet more photos of a backlit sparrow as I neared my destination, and they would turn out to be my best photos of a Sagebrush Sparrow this trip. At the pond itself, there were many gulls, some American Coots, and a couple of frustratingly elusive Yellow-headed Blackbirds. The male immediately vanished into the reeds on the far side of one of the ponds and the female remained steadfastly backlit and mostly angled away from me. I was also getting hot, tired, and thirsty at this point, so I headed back to the car. Almost back, I saw a small bird alight on an upright post. I took a quick photo to look at later. It proved to be the only Black-throated Sparrow of the trip.

At this point, I headed back toward my hotel, remembering that there was a restaurant nearby that advertised pizza. 

After a nice, cool sarsaparilla and a 10-inch jalapeño and garlic pizza, not to mention some air-conditioned photo processing time, I headed north to Bridgeport Reservoir. Once there, I saw a Black-billed Magpie before I even got out of the car. Of course, it had buggered off into the foliage by the time I was ready to take photos of it. Brewer's Blackbirds and American Robins, not to mention cottontails and ground squirrels, populated the lawn area near the boat ramp. Down by the shore, I found more magpies and got some photos, plus a couple of Killdeer and the sudden appearance of a young Bald Eagle who had evidentially been perched near the shore just out of sight until my presence inspired it to relocate. I then drove down to the end of the reservoir and on the way back, up Masonic Road a half mile or so, finding nothing up there but dust, grit, and a busy little flock of Bushtits. At this point I was getting tired, so I headed back to the hotel.

Day three saw me up early and packed. I said hi to the Mountain Bluebird and headed back to the Bridgeport Reservoir to try again in morning light (conditions in the evening the day before were such that everything on the water was backlit). I was also hoping to find some Pinyon Jays, which had eluded me on this trip. Long story short, I didn't find any Pinyon Jays, but I did see some magpies eating roadkill, a Common Merganser family, the expected large amount of Brewer's Blackbirds, lots of Spotted Towhees, and a truly beautiful White-faced Ibis. 

In Bridgeport, I got gas but chose poorly, since the gas station a couple of doors up the road is the one the male Yellow-headed Blackbirds chose to visit. They of course flew away before I could walk over there. The first spot I tried for breakfast was busy and expensive, so I bailed before anybody even noticed I was there and found a restaurant called Chiles & Milagros which provided me with a large breakfast burrito and coffee (the hotel room coffee was like hotel coffee everywhere, weak and tasteless).

Leaving town, I promptly got stuck in another roadwork backup which lasted around ten minutes. I was listening to Kathleen Yearwood's newest CD, "Apokalypses" which went a long way toward mitigating being stuck in traffic. This is music best head in the mountains or deserts. I followed it up with Steve Von Till's new "Alone in a World of Wounds" disc, which is another CD I reserved for a more uninterrupted mountain listening experience.

Other music listened to on this trip:

Alison O'Donnell & Gayle Brogan "A Colloquy of Birds"

Nurse With Wound "Contrary Motion"

The Rowan Amber Mill "Never Meant to Displease the Fields and the Trees'

Laibach "Opus Dei Revisited"

Paul Roland "Morbid Beauty"

Ghost "Skeleta"

Lownote "The World Won't Turn"

Chirgilchin "Japan Tour 2022" (absolutely excellent listening for driving slowly down dirt desert roads)

Buck Curran "Morning Haikus, Afternoon Ragas"

WITCH "Sogolo"

Howard Shore "Anthology - the Paris Concerts"

Sainkho Namtchylak "Lost Rivers 2"

Carla Kihlstedt/Present Music "26 Little Deaths"

On the way back, I remembered to stop at Sonora Pass. I had initially flirted with the idea of returning through Yosemite but had failed to remember that apparently one has to buy a pass online to take that route now. The docent at South Tufa had mentioned it, saying that it's free if you enter after 2:00, but I didn't want to wait that long, so here I was, back at Sonora Pass. There wasn't a whole lot of bird activity though, so I soon continued my journey. 

My next stop revealed some distant Clark's Nutcrackers and a colorful insect I later identified as a Nuttall's Blister Beetle

My final birding stop for the trip was inspired by what I thought was a marmot tragedy. There was a Yellow-bellied Marmot lying motionless on the ground in the middle of a paved pullout, with another marmot perched on a boulder looking down at it. I though the first marmot was roadkill and the second one possibly its mate. I made a U-turn and parked, causing both marmots to jump up and vanish into the scrub. It's a good thing I stopped though because this is where I saw the only Green-tailed Towhee of the trip. As a bonus, I got more Dusky Flycatcher photos too. One of the marmots creeped back out onto the boulder before I left, so I got s marmot photo as well. It's nice to see one in the right habitat because my last marmot photo was taken at work in the Bay Area, which is very much not marmot habitat. How it got there is a mystery, but it definitely involved human agency. 

My final non-birding stop of the trip was at Oakdale Cheese Factory so I could get Jeanine some black pepper gouda. We had stopped there in 2018, and I ended up inadvertently eating her cheese instead of the one I picked, so I made up for it by getting a huge block of the proper cheese for her this time.

The traffic gods mostly smiled down at me, and I was home by mid-afternoon. The last couple of birding stops were in Alpine County, so I checked off three counties on this trip. Only twenty more to go.

Full eBird trip report here