Tuesday, June 1, 2021

The Thrasher Tour - Spring 2021

Jeff, Me & Michael w/ Shirlene

My mother-in-law was giving us a quizzical look as we sat around her dinning room table. As always she provided a delicious spread for her guests which, this time included Jeff Manker and Michael Morris who met me and Danette at her home in Bakersfield. I think she was wondering if we were slightly crazy in our obsession with chasing birds across the Mojave Desert and she was probably right. However, this was the kind of crazy I happily plead guilty to. Our plan was to meet up in Bakersfield, pile into one vehicle and head for the desert while Danette and her mom went back to Napa. For many years we have come to Bakersfield during our spring break and I have dragged Patrick with me to Butterbredt Spring for a chance to see some early spring migrants. This year I brought the pros from Dover with me. After a great meal and a gear swap we began our trip with a drive up and over Breckenridge Rd. This has always been a reliable place to see Long Eared Owls and would be our highest elevation on the trip. While the owls were a bust we did get a few high elevation species and a soaring Golden Eagle to whet our appetites. From here we made our way to the top of Butterbredt Canyon where we camped and shivered in the clear night air of the desert. Near morning we heard both Great Horned and Screech Owls calling across the early dawn stirring us into action. We spent much of our morning at the spring but it was still early for migrants.
Scott's Oriole

I am bound by the whim of my school district as to when they decide to give us our spring break and am anxious for retirement when I can make that call. A highlight at the spring was a pair of Scott’s Orioles.
 

     From here we headed north towards the Owens Valley, even more interesting to me as I had just re-read Cadillac Desert, the Marc Reisner masterpiece on the history and politics of western water development. Again, the season was early so we saw mostly the usual suspects but did manage a Black-chinned Hummingbird and a number of Bell’s Sparrows at Red Rocks SP, a few good water birds at Klondike Lake, and visited new area for me, Summit Creek in the area of the Olancha Pass trailhead. We ended our birding day at the 5 Bridges gravel ponds at the northern end of the town of Bishop, adding a number of good water bird species to our list.

     After spending the night in Bishop we headed east over the White Mountains, it was here that we picked up a life bird for both Jeff and Michael, a Woodhouse’s Scrub Jay near top of the climb. Searching around the junction of Hwy. 168 and White Mtn. Road again we found it to be too early for much activity. Continuing on the road took us into Deep Springs Valley, a place I have long wanted to see. We spent a good deal of time scanning the fields near Deep Springs college where saw many Sage Thrashers and desperately tried to turn one of them into a Bendire’s. Also making an appearance for us was a weasel, surely a surprise.

Deep Springs Valley

Continuing on, our goal was Death Valley National Park and to get the authentic experience, we planned our arrival at Furnace Creek for 12 noon, a target, I am happy to say, I hit with perfection. Prior to entering the park Jeff found us a great lunch/birding spot along Hwy. 95 using ebird to locate hot spots. Torrance Ranch turned out to be a really interesting riparian area where, along with sandwiches we picked up a Virginia Rail. Then it was off to Furnace Creek where, like the 3 morons we are, we figured that birding the golf course at 12 noon was a capital idea and sure to net us some good birds. I think our best sighting there was bats flying around hawking bugs in the middle of the day. To be fair we did pick up some birds for the trip list but probably should have skipped it. We decided that our best bet for a campsite was as high as we could get on the west side of the park so we travelled the park roads to get to Wildrose Campground where we were lucky enough to snag the last campsite (there are only 20 or so of them).

Wildrose Canyon

This canyon was a great place to camp and had a good variety of birds including a Roadrunner coming to a seep in the road to drink. We picked up another target bird the next morning by driving up the valley a ways and found an active flock of Pinyon Jays (as Michael predicted we would).
We left Death Valley NP via the Wildrose Rd. going west and got down to the business of locating the one bird that was the theme of this trip - the LeConte’s Thrasher. Just about everything we did until returning to Bakersfield was in pursuit of this devil bird. We used recent sightings in ebird and staked them out in the hopes of seeing this slippery customer but all we ended up doing was to prove the adage that, “you don’t find a LeConte’s Thrasher, they find you.” And on this trip they didn’t make the effort. We passed through Ridgecrest, California City and Mojave without any luck and only a few other species.
We finished up the final day of our trip with a return to Butterbredt Spring hoping for some different birds. We added Chukers and a lone Mountain Quail that Michael found and Jeff could not quite get into his line of sight. This bird could very well be Manker kryptonite as he keeps missing it but comes tantalizingly close every time. From here we followed Kelso Valley out to Hwy 178 and the Kern River Preserve which was still closed due to covid. We were able to bird along some of the edges of the preserve and we did pick up an early migrant, a bird we determined to be a female Prairie Warbler. An uncommon sighting but one that after careful deliberation we were confident in. Down the Kern River we drove to emerge at the bottom end, back at my mother-in-law’s house. Even though our trip list was not substantial (I think we were just short of 100) the camaraderie and the simple fact of being on the road, looking for birds with two of the best people I know was the tonic I needed to see out this school year. I hope Shirlene will have us back again soon. All birding trips should start on a full stomach and she certainly sent us on our way with three of them.


The Crew

2 comments:

  1. Fun trip, and good post. Wish I were there on this trip.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Your oriole pic is fabulous! Glad you saw the roadrunner we'd hoped to see when we went to Death Valley a couple of years ago, though we certainly weren't aggressive about looking for it the way y'all Bird Nerds (TM Danette) are :)
    Can't believe you saw a weasel, too--cool!!!

    ReplyDelete