Favorite birds of the Great Basin

Last year I prepared a similar post to showcase favorites from my birding ventures. Since it's hard to get good pictures during surveys, here are some species in Nevada I really enjoyed seeing.

                                                                    
Left to right, top to bottom: northern flicker, mountain chickadee, Wilson's warbler, yellow-rumped warbler, Steller's jay, lazuli bunting, chukar, black-headed grosbeak, western tanager, violet-green swallow, ruby-crowned kinglet, dark-eyed junco

Adrift in Tahoe



So a few days ago I officially finished my work as a birding technician in the Great Basin. Since I finished earlier than I expected, I got to fill in some time before I pick up my sister from the airport and go ramble around California. That's fine with me. While I've been all over Nevada, gone to some very beautiful places in the Spring Mountains, Toiyabes, Great Basin NP, there have been some places I've not had the chance to see. One of the big ones is Lake Tahoe.

 



A morning panorama of Chimney Beach and Lake Tahoe

     So some impressions of the famous vacation destination. Without a doubt, it's a beautiful landscape. The waters are crystal, the pines and rocky beaches intriguing, the vistas magnificient. With a few exceptions, the little communities are charming. And Steller's jays everywhere!
     On the flip side, a famous vacation destination is going to have its downfalls. From having so many visitors, even the most basic campsites are horrendously expensive, if you can get them. Being the tough-living, car-camping adventuress that I am, I found ways around it, finding a quiet pull-off spot or a remote, fee-less campground. Making a clockwise circuit of the lake, I enjoyed the views but lamented the overcrowding of beaches and scenic overlooks. Again, I avoided that and found some equally inspiring overlooks and romps.

Lovely, dream-like Chimney Beach

 

Balance the pros and cons if you will, but my best find definitely tips my opinion of Tahoe decidedly into the positive. Were this blog in danger of being read by everyone and their dog I would bleep out the name properly, for fear of this wonderful, overlooked place being overrun.

     Driving into Tahoe country in search of a camping spot, I began to despair of ever finding one to suit me. Getting dark, I spied a trailhead parking lot. The next morning I walked the trail, further intrigued by its name. Under fragrant pines, the sloping track took me to a place out of my imagination. Calm waters lapping at the coarse sand shore, smooth boulders made for hopping and scrambling, mountains rising across the horizon. The peace and the beauty of this place brought to mind the "Chimneys" in Jules Verne's Mysterious Island, where the Union castaways find their first shelter and freshwater. Even complete with the kiln they eventually make to fire pottery! I spent several hours there, and had to return to explore some more. Not quite as mysterious when other people started showing up, but truly a piece of a dream.

 



Close up of the namesake Chimney

So where next am I bound? Not entirely sure yet, but I'll begin a southerly journey.

Summer in Ruby Mountains

Larkspur (Delphinium spp)

Unknown

Aster

Unknown 

Unknown

Penstemon (Penstemon spp)

Elegant death camas? (Anticlean elegans)

Elephant heads (Pedicularis groenlandica)

Cushion buckwheat (Erigionum ovalifolium)

Sticky purple geranium (Geranium viscosissium)?

Purple fringe ? (Phacelia sericea)

Summer in Great Basin NP

Manzanita (Arctostaphylos spp)

Wild blue flax (Linum lewisii)

Yellow salsify (Tragopogon dubius)

Unknown

Darkthroat shootingstar (Dodecatheon pulchellum)

Unknown

California fucshia (Epilobium canum) ?

Monkshood (Aconitum columbianum)

Creek to caves, pinyons to bristlecones

Another ten days, another set of sites. After quitting Fallon and finishing up Kingston area of the Toiyabe Range, us bird technicians have migrated to the environs of Great Basin National Park. My first transect in the area was a little outside the park, on BLM land near Sacramento Pass. Not especially new or different, rolling hills of staunch pinyon pine and juniper. Few birds calling, but mostly in black-throated gray warblers, dark-eyed juncos, and juniper titmice. Nearby town of Baker has provided some welcome breaks, with food, drink, and gas to be had. I drove through to get to my next site in Snake Creek, bought myself a hot shower for $5.00, which seems rather steep compared to Kershaw-Ryan SP.

Snake Creek has definitely been my favorite place so far. Within a somewhat isolated area of Great Basin NP, a dirt road winds along the creek with some basic campsites and a few trailheads. A couple of stream crossings, a little steep at the end, bothersome flies at camp, but all well worth the beauty and challenge of transect. It's everything you'd imagine for a mountain creek, a quick cool snowmelt running through pale trunks of aspens, pillars of pines, spruce and fir. Intermittant deer meadows, shadowy forests. Besides favorites of cheeky calls of ruby-crowned kinglets and otherworldly hermit thrush songs, the place is bursting with robins, juncos, chipping sparrows, western tanagers, turkeys, flickers, Cassin's finches, and mountain chickadees.

 

Aspens and conifers along the trail following Snake Creek

Re-entering the meadow above the Johnson Lake trailhead.



 

My last site of the run was the as yet unfinished Lehman Creek. It's a lot like Snake Creek, but oddly not quite as diverse and comes with some stipulations, notably a long walk to the first point and an annoyingly steep trail. Still, very beautiful and quiet, away from the tourist traffic (although many aren't active at the crack of dawn).

So now I'm on my days off in Baker. Although the lack of wifi is lamented, a trip to not-so-close Ely's library and McDonald's provide some contact. Not a jot of phone service though, curse it be the name T-Mobile. Was able to eat actual fruit and vegetables, have some cooked food I didn't make myself, and otherwise enjoy a comfy night's sleep though.

The other day I did some further exploration of the national park, doing more in the line of typical tourist stuff. Had to see the semi-famous Lehman Caves, an ethereal system of stalactites, stalagmites, columns, cave popcorn, cave bacon, shields, and other strange formations. They had some rules in place to prevent the spread of the dreaded bat menace, white-nose syndrome, the disease that has killed millions of hibernating bats. Since I haven't been in a cave for a long time, it wasn't an issue. Definitely need to do some more caving though, it's a rare treat.

 



Miscellaneous stalagmites and stalactites in Lehman Caves

Rare, mysterious shield formations in the Grand Palace room

After lunch at the visitor center, I drove up the scenic drive, then hiked up to see the bristlecone grove in the shelter of Wheeler Peak. Even though I was racing the promised storms, the trail itself was very pleasant. Not too steep or easy, provided enough exercise to satisfy my vacationing self. Sometimes a little rain or hail, but not enough to turn back. The grove itself is quite remarkable. Living on the edge, withstanding hard winds, polishing ice and sand, and little nutritional reward, the bristlecone has the greatest longevity of all known living things. Thousands of years are possible in its lifetime, and even dead they remain standing for hundreds more. Amazingly, the pines living in the harshest conditions are the oldest, growing very slowly. They definitely give you some perspective. Anyway, the adventure continues!

Little snowmelt stream running across Bristlecone Trail

Bristlecone pine, tenacious and wind-sculpted even after death

 

New growth on a struggling bristlecone

Spring in Nevada: Toiyabe Range

Beehive cactus (Escobaria vivipara)

Unknown larkspur (Delphinium spp.)

Hooker's onion (Allium acuminatum)

Woods's rose (Rosa woodsii)

Red columbine (Aquilegia formosa)

Death Valley adventure

So among my side trips while staying in Goldfield was to Death Valley National Park. When I arrived late afternoon on the first day, I toured some of the major sites south of Furnace Creek Visitor Center. Saw the vast, jagged salt flats of Devil's Golf Course, and made it official by flocking with the bus groups to the lowest point in Badwater Basin, and then moseyed back along Artist's Drive.
I'd originally thought to visit the Racetrack, the long-mysterious site of the moving rocks, but the drive would've eaten up a lot of time and been pretty hazardous even with 4x4. And the epic heat was not helpful: up to 115 degrees F.

 Panorama at Devil's Golf Course

 Me at Devil's Golf Course, no cart or clubs required

Supersaline pool at Badwater Basin, lowest point in the United States

So instead I headed up in elevation, taking a lonely road past the Charcoal Kilns and up to Mahoghany Flats campground. Much cooler up there, and a great place to see the stars. The next morning I hiked Wildrose Peak, taking in some wonderful vistas. I didn't feel the need to conquer the mountain though, so I headed down to see some wild burros and some clucky chukars (birds). After lunch in Stovepipe Wells, I headed back to Goldfield, my mini-adventure complete!

Trail through pinyon pines and juniper to Wildrose Peak

Vista of Death Valley salt flats on Wildrose Peak trail

Curious beehive shapes of the Charcoal Kilns, built to create long-burning charcoal for ore-processing in the Valley