June is the Busiest Birdiest Month

The month of June in the Mono Basin brings flocks of birds and birders alike. In the first few weeks, vagrants (birds that have strayed from their normal migrating route) popped into the Warbler Thicket and in random copses of aspens and willows around the Basin. On June 2, a prominent Mono Basin birder found a Prothonotary Warbler along the highway. I have only ever seen one individual in a swampy creek in Western North Carolina, and I wished I had been able to find this particular individual but I struck out. There was an Indigo Bunting in the Warbler Thicket (a particularly magnetic stand of aspens, cottonwoods, willows, and wood rose that stuck around for the first week of June. There was also a Hooded Oriole by Tioga Lodge and a Hooded Warbler up a remote creek (lots of Hoods in the east, but not normally in the west!).

Sadly, I did not see a single one of these birds because, as I said, June is the busiest month and I was working almost every morning and most of my days off I used for exciting things like doing a Breeding Bird Survey in the Deep Springs Valley (well, really up Wyman Canyon Rd from Deep Springs Valley to White Mountain Road and the Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest), attending a family birthday event in Marin, and leading field trips for the Mono Basin Bird Chautauqua! The days rolled on by, quicker than imaginable.

On June 14 we had a massive fallout event: Birders descended on Lee Vining in a cloud of binoculars, wide-brimmed hats, and quick-dry pants. Birds, not so much. June 15-17 was the Mono Basin Bird Chautauqua, an annual birding festival hosted by the Mono Lake Committee. I have been a trip leader for two years now and it has been wonderful. Birding festivals are a great way to meet other birders, network within the birding community, and have an all out grand time watching birds in a new place or with someone knowledgeable about the area.

The week after the Chautauqua, it was back to work! Unfortunately, it was also really windy, so I didn't get much work in. I also lead a fantastic 2-day private birding trip for some great folks from Santa Barbara who I've known for some years now. Now I am half-way through my last week of bird work for the summer. Speaking of being busy in this busiest month, I've got to run off and finish up some data! I promise a more natural history related post soon.

I also just found out that I will be spending 8 weeks on Southeast Farallon Island (SEFI) starting October 6 as a volunteer intern for PRBO. More about that soon!

A Song From the Nest

One of my favorite local breeding birds is the Warbling Vireo, Vireo gilvus. A lot of people describe these little songbirds as drab because they are all gray and have few distinct markings. I, on the other hand, have had many close looks at Warbling Vireos and feel that they are in no way drab. Their gray body feathers are often highlighted by a yellowish cream-colored belly and sometimes even a hint of jade green. They have a light streak across their face that gives them a bit of personality, and once you hear their spunky nasal "eeayah" call you wont be able to call them drab again. These birds have sass.

This is the only photograph I have of a non-blurry Warbling Vireo, but at least it is artsy!

After conducting an Area Search today (another PRBO project monitoring BLM treatments of Aspen/mixed conifer groves), I spent some time with a pair of vireos who seemed to have a nest nearby. They zipped back and forth between a few small Aspens, vigorously chasing off other birds and gleaning insects from the chalky white bark of the trees. They stuck together mostly and kept in touch by calling. I didn't find their nest, if they made it yet, but I found another Warbling Vireo nest on a different plot. I found that nest when I followed the male's quick, accented song until he stopped singing. I looked up and there he was, singing from the nest. Most birds sing from the tops of nearby trees or shrubs to claim their territory edge. Singing while sitting on the nest seems a little silly and dangerous, but Warbling Vireo males do it often.

Here is a video I took of a Warbling Vireo singing from the nest last year.

A few weeks ago I had the distinct pleasure of watching a male build his nest in a tiny Aspen up Bohler Canyon. Usually they build their nests high in trees (most nests that I have found have been over three and a half meters high, or more than twice my height), but this guy was building a mere four feet off the ground in the tiniest of Aspens. I watched him hover a few inches off the ground while he plucked dry sedges from a colorless tuft of vegetation. He flew with long strands of grasses and thin aspen bark back to the nest and artfully tucked them into the structure of his almost complete nest. It was woven together with tent caterpillar web strands twisted together to make strong threads and lined with softer cheat grass and feathers. Their nest building skills amaze me. They build these intricate little woven cups every year, year after year. No one teaches them how, they just know.

The unfinished nest, with fibers still dangling before he tucked them in.

The tent caterpillar webs (or tents) hold it together pretty nicely!

Part 2: Chaos of the Senses

I stink of night sweat and gull shit, of salt and Tempera paint. My hair is matted with wind and crusty gull filth. My feet and hands are stained with peacock colored paint—green, teal, blue, purple—and speckled with blisters, caked with Mono. I am happy. The clouds are surreal. I am listening to the incessant cacophony of gull sex and the illusion of crickets. I just counted California Gull nests all day, everyday for three days. I was shit on, dive-bombed, smacked in the head by angry dads, and screamed at by protective parents. The stimulation of counting nests is monumental. Gulls screaming in our ears, eyes scanning for nests that blend in perfectly with the white and grey rocks, paint caking on our hands as it leaks from the squirt bottle, the strong stench of shit and salt—the smell is sometimes so bad we can taste it. All five senses slammed for a few hours and then—peace. Up on Krakatoa—the field station, home base—the breeze chills us, the rocks warm us, the Violet-green Swallows gracefully swoop around, chirping while they scrabble over floating gull feathers that they then snap up in their tiny bills and fly into a crevice in the jagged jumble of volcanic rocks. By night we are pirates, drinking whiskey and warm beer beneath a tattered skull and crossbones flag. We listen to the moonlit night, still thick with the unending but oddly comforting gull noise. We see no city lights, no artificial sights, only the silhouette of the ever-silent Sierra. When the earth revolves to morning once more, I awake to the ghostly song of the Rock Wren. Lonely, he sings and sings and sings to attract a mate but no return call can be heard. He is on an island, a vacant pile of volcanic rock, in the middle of a salty desert sea. No one will hear him but us.

California Gulls, Larus californicus, some sitting on nests, some standing at attention.

The result of many angry gulls. Hot, sour shit grenades. Very, very smelly.

Female Violet-green Swallow, Tachycineta thassalina, (whose scientific name means swift mover of the sea). Females have a smoky face and less vibrant colors than the males.

Male Violet-green Swallow. Crisp white face and vibrant green and violet, quite fitting.

Close-up of the under-wing.

Two eggs and a...rock? Often we will find rocks in nests, which presumably helps keep the gull balanced while incubating. Males and females share incubation of the nests, in shifts.

The beginning of gull copulation. The male stands on the female's back and wiggles is tail end around while grunting until she becomes receptive and he then maneuvers himself to a position where he can reach beneath her tail and touch his cloaca to her cloaca, a "cloacal kiss". He then hops off (or she starts to walk away while he's still trying) and they stand beside each other a little awkwardly (or she ignores him completely).

Sunrise from my sleeping bag.

Krakatoa, the name of both the islet and the fake volcano atop it.

Krakatoa was built in the early 1950s as a movie set for the 1952 movie A Fair Wind to Java. It is made out of 2x4's, nails, chicken wire, and asbestos-y papier-mâché. The field researchers fixed it up and have used it as a field station since the 80s. It has a kitchen, a livingroom/dining area, multiple sleeping areas, a storage shed (loving nicknamed the "Hanta Hut"), a basement, a "crow's nest", and down in the rocks below the volcano is the "honey pot"--a bucket toilet with the best view you'll ever have sitting on the john.