BIG TRIP 2012 Day 9: Idaho and Craters of the Moon!

We got up bright and early in Twin Falls, Idaho, and hit the road. The sun looked like it should be setting, due to the haze and smoke in the air from eight separate wildfires that had been started in the state by lightning. This haze and smoke would follow us for a couple of days.

We were en route to Craters of the Moon National Monument, the place I've wanted to go since I was a child, and along the way we saw several flocks of what we figured out were Sage Grouse on the sides of the road! I never got pictures because they moved so fast, but we had another lifer! At COTM, the ranger told me they were probably females hanging out on the side of the road. How he knew that, I don't know.

Anyway, as the sun rose and the day began but before we got to park entrance, we came across this little oasis:

This pond is located at the Goodale's Cutoff historical marker on Hwy 26E/93N, the road that takes you from Twin Falls to the park. I jumped out of the car (AB took a nap) and got the following photos:

Mystery warblers:

 These can't be just female Common Yellowthroats, can they?

That's the closest match I could find in my guide but there were no males and no witchety's going on. Any help from you western birders?

Also present was this White-faced (updated from Glossy - note the red eye) Ibis, who doesn't have much white-faced on him -- perhaps it's a her?:

 And several Wilson's Snipe:

 along with a ridiculous number of very noisy Yellow-headed Blackbirds, which are so beautiful!

Also saw a Great Blue Heron, dozens of Common Nighthawks and Red-winged Blackbirds, and American Coots. If I'd had a scope with me, I might've picked out some ducks or whatever, but all I had were my bins. Dangit!

I spent about an hour at this place then got back in the car, and we made our way to COTM. I've been dreaming of this place since I was in fourth grade, wanting to be an astronaut and hearing about how the astronauts trained for the moon at COTM. I don't know how moon-like the landscape was, but it was definitely other-worldly.

After stopping at the visitor center and getting all kinds of doo-dads and a Kaufman's field guide!, we started exploring the park:

Me at the sign

flows of chunky aa lava

fields of ropy pahoehoe lava

 a Limber Pine, of which there were many here. Note that in the background you can see the mountains and prairies that surround this giant field of lava. 

The divide is sudden and rather disorienting.

a collapsed lava bubble

tall lava spikes

We then walked the Devil's Orchard Nature Trail looking for birds. It was probably around 9am at this time, so there was some good bird activity and I got some cool lifers!

 Clark's Nutcracker on some lava formations - these

guys were everywhere, and they were very noisy!

 a cute little chippy

 not a lifer - but a nice pic of Say's Phoebe, which were also everywhere

Then I saw my first mystery bird:

the beak is wrong for a sparrow;

and I don't think it's a flycatcher because of the streaky-spotty on the sides of the breast. I thought it might be a female Say's Phoebe, but none of the photos online look like this. Again I need help!

After this relatively easy trail, we headed for the giant Inferno Cone, the only place in the park where you're supposed to walk right on the features:

It's a long way up! But you can see the lighter path where you're supposed to walk up. The entire cone is made up of lava "cinders" that look like this:

Aren't they beautiful? They were so rainbow-shiny and lightweight. Here's the view from the top of the cone:

Pretty cool!

By now, the sun was well up and the heat was coming on. It was then that we decided to hike the Tree Molds trail. Wish I'd noticed this sign BEFORE we started:

Notice that it says it's ONE MILE just to get to the first set of tree molds! I didn't see this sign until AFTER I almost died of heat stroke, though. Of course. Still, we saw lots of birds and formations:

a lava bomb! spewed from who knows where, 

but it was probably three or four feet in diameter!

a mold of a tree that imprinted itself on the lava during the flows

a hole where a tree was standing when the lava flowed

I mentioned there were lots of birds, and there were; however, I was either too hot and dying to get good photos or the birds were too fast for me. However, I noted a strange chickadee with a mask that turned out to be a Mountain Chickadee! All my pics of him, though, are just a bunch of leaves and branches. Hmph.

I also saw this bird:

I thought it was a bad photo of the Sage Thrasher I know I saw, but now I'm not sure what the heck it is. But I do know I saw the Sage Thrasher -- lifer!

Also seen but not photographed: Mountain Bluebird (lifer! no photo yet but just you wait!), Rock Wren (lifer again! terrible photos, but again - later photos will justify), and Sage Sparrow (lifer!). Meanwhile, I had to stop at one point to wait for the blood to stop pounding in my ears. I never stopped sweating, so I know I wasn't in real danger of overheating, but it was HOT! Still, I survived, so now I'm convinced I could hang with Bear Grylls OR Dave and Cody of Dual Survival. No problem.

This place was just so amazing; COTM would be one of many places we went on this trip that completely surpassed my expectations of it. The very idea of a giant eruption and lava flow, right in the middle of otherwise flat plains, was mind-boggling. You're driving along the highway, watching the mountains in the distance and mile after mile of prairie-like pasture, when suddenly these black crumbly areas just interrupt the pastoral scene, and you realize you're in a field of LAVA. Then you walk around and it's like you're suddenly in Hawaii or someplace, walking on LAVA. In IDAHO. Wow.

I highly recommend to anyone going out west that you stop here. There are great birds, great scenery, and the risk of death -- what more could you ask for?

Next up: The Grand Tetons!

Big Trip 2012: NEVADA

After leaving Matty and the wine country of Sonoma, we headed back east across Nevada for the first leg of our trip back home. Having done a little research about the birds of Nevada, I kept my eyes peeled for water and other good desert habitat.

I thought we were seeing salt flats, as they looked so chalky; however, a little taste of the dirt yielded only... dirt. No salt. Blegghh! I looked everywhere for birds but found none on the ground.

Still, the skies yielded some nice results:

Update: I was pretty sure this is a Rough-legged Hawk soaring over the Nevada desert, but my first call of Red-tailed Hawk was actually correct, per John of DC Birding Blog in the comments. Still, it kinda looks like the dark variant in my Kaufman Field Guides to Birds of North America, which is one of the best field guides I've ever used! More on that later. But I figured -- every time I think I have a cool hawk, it's just a red-tail. Hmph.

I stopped at a nice little creek bed:

the Salmon River in Nevada, where I saw some holes in the banks where (maybe) Bank Swallows roosted -- but I never saw any -- and a Spotted Sandpiper bobbing along.

One of dear Niblet's cousins posed for me.

By now, we were nearing sundown, and birds were getting a little more active in the cooling temperatures. Near the border of Nevada and Idaho on Hwy 93 near Jackpot, Nevada, there's a rest area called the Salmon Falls Creek Rest Area -- what a great place to bird! The rest area had rocky hills blocking the setting sun and the creek flowing through it:

It was beautiful, and it was alive with bird life!

I saw several Black-billed Magpies -- lifers!

What a great bird -- just look at those ridiculously long tailfeathers!

Also saw lots of Common Nighthawks -- not a lifer, but I was excited to get a decent photo for my lifebirds collection:

And although I didn't get a photo, there were several White-throated Swifts there -- another lifer! Their little white throats and body-long white belly lines were obvious, but danged if I could get a photo. I didn't even get a blurry one. Dangit! Still, I was now on two lifers for the rest area, and up to seven for the trip -- for a total of 346! Almost to 350!

We didn't stop a lot in Nevada, as we weren't going anywhere near any known hotspots for the state (we traveled I-80 to Hwy 93), and our real destination was Twin Falls, Idaho. Still, two birds during the blistering pace wasn't too bad and the scenery was beautiful.

Next time: we visit a place I've wanted to go since I was a kid watching the moon landing and wanting to be an astronaut (until I ran up against a mean math teacher in 5th grade who turned me off to the math/science track).

Bodega Bay

Not a lot of time to blog but I had to post some pics from the beach!

We went to Bodega Bay yesterday and again today, and I got some lifers and some new photos!

First off, I believe this is a Marbled Godwit!

The top photo shows the bicolored upturned beak; you can also see the dark eye-stripe and crown stripe. When I saw the bird, the cinnamon underwings were obvious, but I didn't get photos of it in flight. (I would have yesterday but for my dead camera battery!) The second photo shows (from left) another Marbled Godwit, a Willet, and another Marbled Godwit. LIFER! But I counted it yesterday, so I'm still at 341.

Next, I am pretty certain this is a Whimbrel!

In the first photo, you can see the striped crown, the decurved bill, and the smaller body size than a Long-billed Curlew, with which I am very familiar and which doesn't have the striped crown. In the second photo he has his wings up; here again, no cinnamon underwing patches, just brown, which is again unlike the Long-billed Curlew.

Do I have a Whimbrel? Is this lifer 342?

Speaking of Willets, check out these photos of them in flight!

Beautiful!

Next, I have photos of a loon that I'm not sure about at all:

There are parts that look like a Red-throated Loon, but the throat is wrong, isn't it?

His whole head is dark. What kind of loon is this?

Help!? Is it just a Red-throated? Then why is his whole throat dark?

Finally got a photo of Brewer's Blackbird:

 They're like starlings out here, everywhere!

I also saw some Elegant Terns on the left:

 and lots of Caspian Terns, which are HUGE.

We also stopped at the Bodega Country Store and I bought a cool hoodie with the Hitchcock profile cartoon and "The Birds" on it! Here it is, along with me and Hitchcock himself!

Thanks to Matty McMatterson for taking the photo!

We leave tomorrow for the first leg of our trip back home. We'll drive over the Sierra Nevadas over to Elko, NV, and then up to Twin Falls, ID. We'll stay the night there and then go to the Craters of the Moon National Monument. Note the great birding checklist! I'm hoping to get Red-shafted Flicker, Western Kingbird, Clark's Nutcracker, Rock Wren, Mountain Bluebird, Brewer's and Lark Sparrows, Western Tanager, Bullock's Oriole, and Violet-Green Swallow. I also found my Stokes birdsong CDs for western birds, so you can be sure I'll be listening to these calls in the car on the way there (much to AB's chagrin, but she's a good sport).

Big Trip! Days 4-6 UPDATED

Back in Oregon, here's the place where we stayed:

If you're ever in Gold's Beach, OR, stay here! Curt, the owner since the 1950s, was a wonderful host; the room was clean and the bed was comfy; and the tab for two was only $59!

Earlier that night, we saw dinosaurs!

Here's Li'l Nib, watching the coastline:

Here we are in Klamath, CA, at the Tour-Thru Tree!

Some redwoods:

This little beardtongue-looking flower:

had mint-like leaves, so I pulled a little leaf off and smelled it. BAD. MOVE. It smelled like corpse! And so did my hand! Watch out for this flower!

After watching several of these for a while and thinking they were something exotic, I've concluded they're probably Song Sparrows:

Curses!

We saw more elk, and this time I got a pic!

So we finally got to Matty's house in Cotati, CA, where he and his partner live. Matty has a hummingbird feeder out back, and we've been treated to several Anna's (I think) Hummingbirds:

His chin looks rather dark, and it's hard to see the red in it or on top of his head, but the only other hummer in this area (according to Peterson's) is the Allen's, but he would have a rufous belly. So I'm guessing Anna's; it was hard to see the red because of the cloud cover.

We walked around the Sonoma State campus and saw this Black Phoebe:

And on our way back home, we saw this beautiful Red-shouldered Hawk:

This morning, AB and I drove up onto Sonoma Mountain - the mountain I used to see from my bedroom window when I lived here.

We saw a few cool birds, including Eurasian Collared Dove:

At least ten White-tailed Kites:

and a bunch of Wild Turkeys:

Today, went to the Jack London Historic Park:

We didn't go to the cabins or anything, but we did hike some nice trails -- okay, I didn't hike. I stayed in the same place birding for like an hour while Matty, Jeff, and AB actually hiked around. I saw (and finally photographed) a California TOWHEE (not a thrasher):

Some California Quail:

AND MOST EXCITING! Acorn Woodpeckers! Bunches of them!

So cool!!! Lifebird! So for the trip so far, I have Chestnut-backed Chickadee, Acorn Woodpecker, and apparently California Thrasher which I'd already seen when I lived here but didn't count on my spreadsheet! That leaves me at (to this point) 341 birds!Oh so wrong! That wasn't a CA Thrasher; it was just a CA Towhee; I always mix those up. So now my count is wrong by 1! Oh the ramifications of this. Gotta change the sidebar, the spreadsheet, and the brain. Sigh. (updated 12/31/2012)

Today we went to Bodega Bay, and OF COURSE I didn't charge my camera battery or my phone, so I took no pics. However, I think I saw a Marbled Godwit and possibly a Pacific Loon!! But I can't be sure on either count, and so we're going back tomorrow with a fully charged camera -- we're hoping to see a whole bunch of things. Sadly I don't have my Shorebird Guide, which sucks -- I forgot it.

Until tomorrow, then, I'm hoping to see you again with a few more lifebirds!