From: Rudy Darling, Barney Kroeger
Email: darling@nccn.net
Date: 3/26/02
Time: 6:45:58 PM
Remote Name: 63.195.151.53
First, thanks to those who created, maintain, and post to this website. Your efforts helped two out-of-area (Nevada County) birders to enjoy a most rewarding trip to Death Valley and back. As a result I added two life birds to my list - GC Rosy-finch at Aspendell and BB Woodpecker thanks to Kristie Nelson's post - and 95 species to my previously non-existant Inyo County list, 43 to Mono County, 103 for the trip as a whole. Barney added several life birds as well. Thanks.
Being from out of the area, I am not sure what birds are worthy of mention here. What impressed me were: Black-throated Sparrow (in the sage on the north side of Klondike Lake); Bald Eagles (Topaz Lake); Rock Wrens, including an out-and-out brawl between two rival males (far end of Baker Creek Meadows); a GH Owl sitting on a nest (in cottonwoods on the west side of the road into Warren Lake - dry at the moment) and another roosting in a nearby tree (locals told us the nest had been used by hawks for some years, but this year the owls showed up there); Cedar Waxwings in downtown Bishop; Verdin at Death Valley; Roadrunner at the (dry) Farmer's pond north of Bishop; Dunlin and Virginia Rail at Cottonwood Marshes on Lake Owen.
Speaking of Lake Owen, we ran into Mike Prather there with a group of birders, who kindly let us tag along with them. Thanks Mike.
Our Sierra Foothills Audubon Society has a fledgling website that I hope will someday grow into something like yours. Any search engine should lead you to it if you ever find yourself headed our way.
Rudy Darling Sierra Foothills Audubon Society Grass Valley CBC compiler