Record Backyard Bird Year!

Killdeer

 We've been keeping track of the bird species in our back yard for many years now. For the last five years, we've had a total of 35-36 different bird species seen. That's pretty good, more than most people can get. It certainly helps that we live on a ranch near a creek with good meadow and riparian habitat within view of the house. We also have some nice, tall trees around our house.

This year we started our count on January 1. We started seeing a variety of bird species. In April we realized that we were seeing more than we had in past Aprils, and by early May we reached our 35th species!

May is a month of migration, so we knew we would surpass our record. Especially when we saw unusual birds like this osprey.

 

What a cool bird. They generally like water, as they hunt fish. We have seen them before, but they are not an annual bird.

In May, the American Kestrels returned to our yard. With their loud call, they were easy to find. And not only did we find them, we found a mated pair with a lizard for lunch! They are nesting in one of our trees, and we can't wait to see the young.


Not far from our house is a tiny reservoir. Desert Boy and I went down one day and found this beautiful Black-Necked Stilt. It's not counted on our Backyard Bird list, but I just had to show off this beauty.

As the sun set, the reflections were amazing.


 This photo is a little ways from our house, but it shows behind the red-tailed hawk the very snowy mountains. I think the extra water, plus the kids getting older and being able to identify more birds, very helpful to our elevated number.

Here's a red-tailed hawk in our yard.

My goal is to keep the sidebar list updated (although in doing this post, I found I hadn't been so good at that!). On my phone, I can't see the sidebar list, so here it is, what we've seen in our backyard so far:

1. Common Raven (1.1.19)

2. Black-billed Magpie (1.1.19)

3. Pinyon Jay (1.1.19)

4. Chicken (1.1.19)

5. European Starling (1.1.19)

6. Northern Flicker (1.3.19)

7. Eurasian Collared Dove (1.7.19)

8. Dark-eyed Junco (1.8.19)

9. American Robin (1.8.19)

10. Great Horned Owl (1.9.19)

11. House Sparrow (1.10.19)

12. Bald Eagle (2.17.19)

13. Red-tailed Hawk (3.1.19)

14. Canada Goose (3.2.19)

15. Sandhill Crane (3.4.19)

16. Killdeer (3.24.19)

17. Turkey Vulture (3.24.19)

18. American Kestrel (3.30.19)

19. Western Meadowlark (3.30.19)

20. Pine Siskin (4.8.19)

21. American Goldfinch (4.12.19)

22. Yellow-rumped Warbler (4.14.19)

23. Sharp-shinned Hawk (4.15.19)

24. Great Blue Heron (4.23.19)

25. Barn Swallow (4.27.19)

26. Western Kingbird (4.27.19)

27. Brewer's Blackbird (4.26.19)

28. Yellow Warbler (4.27.19)

29. Mallard (4.27.19)

30. Yellow-headed Blackbird (4.27.19)

31. Rough-winged Swallow (4.27.19)

32. Osprey (5.6.19)

33. Bullock's Oriole (5.2.19)

34. Northern Mockingbird (5.10.19)

35. Hummingbird (4.12.19)

36. Western Wood-Pewee (5.12.19)

37. Thrush (Swainson's or Hermit) (5.12.19)

38. Western Tanager (5.12.19)

39. Western Bluebird (5.12.19)

40. Cattle Egret (5.24.19)

41. Common Nighthawk (6.7.19)

42. Common Poorwill (6.7.19)

43. Long-billed Curlew (6.12.19)

And even though they aren't wild birds, I have to say that our chickens are pretty amazing! Aren't they cute?

I hope your backyard birding is going well too! 

Sacramento Pass Trails, White Pine County

 

An often overlooked, but awesome place to go, is the Sacramento Pass Recreation Area trail system. It's right off Highways 6 and 50 between Ely and Baker, NV. Along with trails there are two camping areas and a fishing pond. I went one Saturday to enjoy the trails. I wanted to get in a long run, so my plan was to run all the trails and make a big loop. 

I drove to the upper campground area and started on the trails in a clockwise direction. I enjoyed the beautiful wildflowers, including this phlox.

The trails are open to hiking, running, and mountain biking. I've done some mountain biking, and it is not easy, but it is fun and technical, with lots of tight turns and rocky sections. The Sac Pass Trail is the easiest of the three sections, but even that requires me to get off my bike many times.


For my run, I ran the Sac Pass Trail until I got to the junction with the Lucky Boy Trail. Then I took the next junction to the Mine Shaft Trail.


The trails are relatively well marked, but I was glad some bicyclists had been on a couple days before, leaving marks on the trail. 

Here's the beautiful dwarf lousewort. Not a pretty name, but a pretty flower!

And some nice twinpod.

The Mine Shaft trail makes a circle around a rocky hill. You head a ways south before the loop begins.

Then it's time to go towards the north, with Mt. Moriah in view.

After going through a pass to the east, you see Highways 6 and 50. Even though the highway is relatively close, you still feel pretty far away from civilization.

Some beautiful Astragulus (Milkvetch) was blooming.

And then you head south again and feel really isolated.

The trail gets really rocky in places.

The views are so great.

As the trail turns, it heads to some neat rock formations. This is an area with a wash, and if you need to bail, head up the wash for a major shortcut.

Instead, I kept going, and at the south end of the loop found this sturdy-looking gate.

Coming back around the west side was this impressive juniper.

This long rocky section is part of the trail.

And here's the cool rocky section from the up-wash side. This could make a cool camping area.

Next was a sagebrush area that was straighter and faster than many other parts of the trail.

It was nice seeing the snow-covered mountains.

Back on the Sac Pass Trail.

A few more rocky sections and twists and turns...

...going past a rocky alcove...

...and then it was back to the trailhead!

 

The campground amenities are nice.

Here's a map of the entire run. If you'd like to download the kml or gpx files, check out the Snake Valley Trails website.

Other things you can do at Sacramento Pass:

Fish

Mountain bike ride

Enjoy the night skies

Admire the amazing views

 Relax!

It's a great place to go, and relatively still undiscovered, although the campsites will fill up on holiday weekends.

An Underwater Trip through Duckwater Hot Spring, Nevada

 The kids are always delighted when I say, "Let's go to Duckwater!" That's because they love going to the largest geothermal spring in Nevada, Big Warm Spring on Duckwater Shoshone Reservation. It's located about an hour and fifteen minutes southwest of Ely, Nevada. The water is a very pleasant 91-93 degrees Fahrenheit. You can learn lots more about the spring at this previous blog post.

We went in March, and although the air temperatures were chilly, we felt great in the water. We brought an underwater camera. Here's a view of the deepest part, with a hole leading into the bowels of the earth.

And here's Desert Girl, ready to go on an adventure floating downstream from the springhead.

And here's Desert Boy, also ready to go.

Apart from the springhead, most of the water is not particularly deep. There's a sandy bottom to start with, and algae on the sides of the channel. 

 

If you look at the bottom near where the channel starts, you can see little vents where more water is coming up from below.

Desert Girl went with a pool noodle to help on her float, and I have to say it was a nice addition. If you look at the bottom of the photo, you can see where the silty bottom has been stirred up.

Meanwhile, this is what it looks like on the surface. It sure is a different world underwater!

 A bit further on the kids spotted a can at the bottom of a deeper section.

Then it became a challenge to dive down and retrieve the can.

The viewing platform was nearby.

I switched it up for a bit and enjoyed the above water views.

And then it was back to underwater. The algae changed, becoming more filamentous.

It was also obvious that fewer people came this far.

 Cool-looking algae!

Now we were near the USGS stream gauge. 

Approaching from underwater.

Another view of approaching.

 They wanted to continue, so we kept on drifting.

 Another kind of algae.

We were at a diversion.

It looked like we could keep going, so we did!

We wanted to get to the waterfall, but it seemed like it would take forever. 

So we got out and walked back. The elusive waterfall will have to wait for another day!