A List of (Western) Birds: August Road Trip 2012

Jessica Feis photo

I'm a long ways from that college kid who worked summers for the Predatory Bird Research Group helping release Peregrine Falcons back into the wild in The Sierra Nevada. Nonetheless those summers honed my eyes for identifying an eagle or falcon at distance in a glance. So while our Come Ashore adventures didn't include official birding forays, I kept a good pair of binoculars at the ready under the passenger seat as we traveled through two national parks and more national forests and BLM land than I could count. Despite time spent in Yosemite and along the East Side of the Sierra, I did not see a Peregrine this trip. Nonetheless, I was pleased with many of the sightings. Following is a list of birds IDed as we drove, hiked and played our way through California, Nevada, Colorado and Wyoming this August (no real order here albeit vaguely grouped by family):

 

Crow

Raven

Wild Turkey

Turkey Vulture

Ferruginous hawk

Red Tail hawk

Swainson's Hawk

American Kestral

Bald Eagle 

Golden Eagle

Osprey

Great Egret

Great Blue Heron

Magpie

Steller's jay

Scrub Jay

Clark's Nutcracker

Loggerhead Shrike

Western Flycatcher

Western Kingbird

Western Meadowlark 

Brewer's Blackbird

Red-winged Blackbird 

Common Grackle 

Gambols quail

Mourning Dove

Band-tailed pigeon

Cliff Swallow 

Rough Winged Swallow

Cave Swallow

Avocet

Spotted Sandpiper

American Pipit 

Killdeer

Canada Geese

Mallard

Gadwall

White pelican

 Brown Pelican

Western grebe

Pied bill grebe

Sandhill Crane

Cormorant

Common nighthawk

Brown Towhee

Black-chinned hummingbird
Broad-tailed hummingbird

Robin

Chipping Sparrow

Song Sparrow

Pine Siskin 

Dark-eyed junco

Mountain bluebird

American Goldfinch

Lesser Goldfinch

House finch

Yellow-rumped warbler

White-breasted Nuthatch

White-faced Ibis