Another Winter season has passed and we are now watching spring migration, one of the most interesting and exciting seasons of the year. OK, each season has its own interesting and exciting avian events! Now that the book is closed on the Winter season, it is always...
[Originally appeared in the Sierra Wave newsletter, Vol. 28, No. 2, Nov-Dec 2009 – click here for original with photos] With the approach of fall and winter in the Eastern Sierra, we bid farewell to species that arrived six months ago and won’t be seen for...
[Originally appeared in the Sierra Wave newsletter, Vol. 28, No. 1, Sept-Oct 2009 – click here for original with photos] Many of the older birders said they could not remember a spring like this one for decades, while the younger ones experienced for the first...
[Originally appeared in the Sierra Wave newsletter, Vol. 27, No. 3, Jan-Feb 2009 – click here for original with photos] “Wow, I wouldn’t have put that bird on the list of what I would see today!” “Me either!” This conversation is...
[Originally appeared in the Sierra Wave newsletter, Vol. 27, No. 2, Nov-Dec 2008 – click here for original with photos] Longspurs are a small group of small LBJs, a.k.a. “little brown jobs,” closely related to sparrows in the family Emberizidae. They get their...
Those of us who live in the Eastern Sierra are fortunate that we are relatively close to the largest National Park in the contiguous United States. Death Valley National Park offers great opportunities to explore a myriad of habitats that begin with desert scrub below...
As happens every season, some birds arrive exactly as expected and, happily, some very unexpected birds arrive to add warmth and excitement to our cool months. The only Pacific Loon of the fall was at Owens Lake 22 Oct while Common Loon was scarce although one at...
The energy output required of birds to molt, migrate and mate is so great that these events usually do not occur simultaneously. A bird’s year is spent balancing the energy needs so that these events do not interfere with each other. It is no surprise that birds...
Fall begins early in the bird world. While the non-birder may think fall begins in late September, the birder recognizes fall not as a particular month but the period of time when birds start to leave their breeding grounds and move to their winter grounds. These...
by Tom and Jo Heindel There are four species of longspurs in the world and all four have been reliably documented by specimens or photographs as having occurred in Inyo County. What is a longspur? It is a sparrow in the genus Calcarius that has a long hind claw, hence...
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