Fourth of July

Sometimes you go looking for a certain bird, and you don't find it.  Such was the case this last fourth of July weekend.  We left Friday evening for Fresno with the goal of finding Great Gray Owl in the early morning in Yosemite, and then Sooty Grouse in the later morning at Glacier Point.

Well, it didn't quite turn out that way, but it was a great excuse to drive through beautiful Yosemite, and to enjoy the flooding waterfalls and late snow.

We woke up at 2:30 in the morning to get a good early start.  Our goal was to be at McGurk Meadow, a grassy patch off of the Glacier Point road, well before sunrise.  We parked the car around 4:30, and hiked in the gloom of the early morning down the short trail to the meadow.  We got there in the first light of morning, hiking through the forested meadow edges and intently watching for any large nocturnal predators.  Nothing hooted, nothing flew by, and so we admitted defeat around 7:00 in the morning and headed back to the car.  On the way we flushed a Junco from the ground and wondered at its tiny little nest in a scrape in the duff.


Then it was off to Glacier Point, where we enjoyed the spectacular waterfalls in the light of the early morning and from a thousand or so feet above.

 

Unfortunately, no Sooty Grouse.  We did enjoy a Pileated Woodpecker, some Nuthatches, and I got to see a deer bed down for the day in a thicket just off the beaten track.  That was a treat.

Then it was off for Tioga Pass.  We didn't want to brave the crowds in the Valley, but we did stop briefly at Bridalveil Falls because it was on the way.

 

Quite a soaking standing at the base of this sometimes ribbony falls this Independence Day weekend!  

Our next stop was the Crane Flat Chevron Station.  The meadow there sometimes hosts Great Gray Owls.  We decided to take a late morning stab at them, without much hope, and wandered off through the bordering woods in vain.  The meadows themselves were all well inundated with the recent melt, so we decided not to brave their miry depths.

Unsuccessful, we headed for a short hike to the Tuolomne Grove of Giant Sequoias.  This is a cool 3 mile round trip hike, and we had a great time admiring the enormous trees.

 

Lots of cool birds on this hike, too.  Down in the grove, there were a couple of feisty Pacific Wrens singing their heads off.  Their incredibly long and fast tinkling songs are always a pleasure to hear, and this was our first time encountering them in the Sierra.  Along the trail up there were a couple of singing male Hermit Warblers, too, and I always love to encounter my favorite little hooded parulid.

On our way out, we were hoping to hike out to May Lake, but the trailhead road was still snowed in.  Not relishing doubling our hike at the latish hour, we passed along and did a little touristing at Olmsted Point and Tuolomne Meadows.  We still had enough time for another hike, though, so we took off for Dog Lake from the trailhead below Lembert Dome.

 

On the way up we ran into a couple of Japanese girls who were in distress.  One of the girls had fallen down on Lembert Dome, and had suffered a concussion.  Some other hikers on the way down said they would help them on their way, so we shared our water with them and headed on.  We ran into them again on our way out, and a member of their party had come up to help.  It was a short hike, but it's a good reminder that bringing your "essentials" can help someone beside yourself.  It made me wish we'd had our daypack so we could have been of more assistance, but we thought such a short hike could be done lightly.

Then it was off over the pass, where there was still a lot of snow on the ground.  On the far side of the pass, we had a Mono Cone, and then made for the cabin.  Lots of snow meant another hike in, but we were just happy to be there regardless!

While the trip to Yosemite was a real highlight, it wasn't the sum of our experience.  We still had Sunday and Monday to spend around the cabin.  On Sunday, we hiked to Barney Lake.  From a little way above Emerald and on, we were always walking on snow.

Skelton still had a bit of lake ice, but not too much.  The trail was under the snow, of course, but we're familiar enough with the way that we didn't need it.  We saw a back-country skiier come out from the pass at Skelton.  We didn't talk to him, but I guess he'd been at Purple.  Sort of an unusual activity for the fourth of July!

Barney was pretty much ice free, too, though the pass wasn't. 

The next morning we were off for Hammil Lake in the morning.  I had only been there once before, so I had only a vague notion of how to get there.  Nevertheless, we made it, and found the lake hard to recognize under its thick covering of snow and ice.  In fact, I have to admit I didn't recognize it.

All in all, it was another highly enjoyable trip to the Sierra Nevada.  It's such a remarkably late year in regard to snow that I was always trying to drink it in and make the most of it.  More pictures of snow at Flickr, of course.

Opening the Cabin, 2011

Big snow in the Sierra this year.  Record-breaking amounts of snow!  Piles and piles on feet upon yards of the white stuff in big rolling drifts.

So, when we went up to open the cabin in the last weekend of June this year, we were all tingly with expectation to see the extent of the mountain frosting.  Last time we were there was back in February, when though there was a lot of snow, it wasn't yet at record-setting levels.  Now we knew there would be less, but we also knew there would be a lot more than normal.  Normal in late June for the immediate area around the cabin being none.

We drove up Friday night, got in around 9 or 10, hiked up to the cabin and dropped into bed.  In the morning we awoke to a brilliant spring wonder-land.

 

It was great!  Lots of snow, warm days, and the constant murmur and rush of the big melt going on all around us.  Much of the trip we spent our time opening and cleaning the cabin, but we also found some time to do some sledding.  That led to a pretty hairy accident.  Here's a smaller foreshadowing of that disaster.

The long and the short of it is that Dad hit a tree going much faster than above, and he was OK.  Thank God.

On Sunday morning, we took a hike up to Hart Lake.  We figured that trail would be fairly open due to its open treeless slopes and more southerly exposure, and we were right.  To get there, we hiked up the Coldwater Creek Campground road, which was still closed, enjoying the Pine Siskins and Cassin's Finches busying themselves in the trees around us.

 

Up on Red Mountain, we were serenaded by Dark-eyed Juncos, Green-tailed Towhees and Thick-billed Fox Sparrows.  At a meadow, an Orange-crowned Warbler was foraging in the willows.  I'm always surprised to encounter this species, which breeds in our local park, at high altitudes.

The best part of Hart Lake was that it was still frozen!  There was a thick coating of snow and ice over much of the lake, along with a scattering of trees swept in by an over-winter avalanche.

 

That afternoon, we headed home.  It was a short trip, but a fun one, and we'll long remember this extraordinary year of late spring snow.  Lots more pictures, and some videos, from the trip can be found on our Flickr page.

Wonderful Wednesday

As the first glow of a new day's light tinted the murky dark of an east Texas April night, we pulled into a weed-grown side road. A long and slow train, a difficult search for an open restroom, and a much-needed stop for doughnuts had stretched our long drive north-east to the Big Thicket from Winnie so that we were now in danger of running out of sufficient darkness for owls and nightjars.

Stepping out of the car into the cool, damp morning, our hopes were set on Barred Owl and Chuck-will's Widow, but our attempts in the pre-dawn gloaming netted only a responsive, but essentially unseen, Eastern Screech-Owl and a snuffling skunk. The owl flew in over Libby's head, and then simply disappeared in the dense understory.

And so began our morning of birding in the Big Thicket area of eastern Texas. This region is full of southern pinewoods and humid bayous, and our primary goal was to find a Swainson's Warbler. We were acting on the advice of a local, and it was perfect. Soon after dawn, we had our first look at this skulky brown southern specialty.

 

Libby at Gore Store Road

We continued on down a road called Gore Store, finding Yellow-breasted Chat, and our only Prairie and Hooded Warblers of the trip. We didn't know that there had been a fire in the area immediately before we arrived, and that they were still mopping up the after-effects. We found out soon enough, as the road turned into a muddy quagmire. We somehow navigated through the sludge in our little economy rental.

On the other side, we stopped at the headquarters of the Big Thicket National Preserve for a stroll down the Kirby Nature Trail. I was hoping for some more southern-style birds, but it was very quiet in the middle of the morning. Still, we enjoyed the lizards and trees of the walk. There were, of course, a few birds. Red-eyed and Yellow-throated Vireos sang unseen in the high canopy, an Ovenbird charmed us in the undergrowth, a Northern Parula sang circles around us when we entered his territory, and most exciting of all, a Red-headed Woodpecker flew into some snags near a Cypress swamp! That was a much-anticipated lifer, and we had fairly good , if neck-craning, views of the bird.

As we made our way back to the parking lot, a cool breeze from the north began whispering in the still humid air, rustling the oak leaves and pine needles. We set the wind to our back and made for High Island.

Hours later, when we arrived, we knew to expect good things. The parking lots and streets were packed with people. This was the first good weather for birding that season, and as it was right at the peak of migration, crowds of traveling and local birders had settled in to meet the birds. Before we even entered Boy Scout Woods, we were seeing warblers: multiple Northern Parulas and Black-throated Green Warblers were working the edges of the lot. After entering and paying, we soon picked up the first of several Blackburnian Warblers for the day. Red-eyed Vireos, Warbling Vireos and Philadelphia Vireos - the latter a lifer - also moved through on their way north.

After so many days of waiting, it was sweet to enjoy this parade of colorful neotropical migrants. Finally the birding was easy and the pickings good!

Our camera's not too good to take pictures of any of these birds, and it's hard to describe the joy of such a visual experience without images, but I can say it was a fantastic afternoon and evening!  Here are a few pictures we took during the day, but no bird pictures: http://www.flickr.com/photos/rowleypics/sets/72157627019081679/