Thursday, August 16, 2012

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





2 comments:

Sally said...

Impressive! Hey, I thought of you the other day when I was working in Alamaden Valley and a couple of Western Bluebirds starting flitting around our job-site. I have never seen them live. xoxo

Bird in the Tree said...

Yes, we went through a lot of varied terrain. Real treat to see the Cranes, especially, and then, yes, the Mountain Bluebirds. Something about blue birds in general...I haven't seen Western Bluebirds in a while--very cool you saw them!