July 14, 2004
East Sierras trip day 2: birding nightmare!
The main aim of today was to walk to the snow-covered scree slopes at the top of Lee Vining Canyon in search of two high-altitude species: Gray-crowned Rosy Finch and the introduced White-tailed Ptarmigan. It was a warm, still day, there were still plenty of snow patches around to scan and I was looking forward to hiking in this fantastic scenery.
Shortly after starting the walk, I noticed a fair number of mosquitoes around. I duly sprayed on some DEET and assumed that things would improve as we headed for the snow line - how wrong I was! All day I was plagued by a cloud of snow-melt mosquitoes, and received several bites on my face, neck and hands. So preoccupied was I with trying to swat the darn things that I didn't put on nearly enough sunscreen - by the end of the day my red, blotchy face was a pretty horrific sight!
We spent a total of 8 hours walking, scambling and climbing on the scree, which was hard work at this elevation. The final approach to the ridgetop involved a precarious looking climb up a snow-covered boulder field, which I gave up on halfway up. Marcel carried on.... and you can guess what's coming next! While I was navigating a safe climb down, Marcel spotted a White-tailed Ptarmigan on the other side of the ridge. Kind soul that he is, he brought down a couple of white ptarmigan feathers to show me - needless to say, I was not amused!
In spite of the pain of being gripped off and savaged by mosquitoes, the climb was not without reward. We did get excellent views of a smart male Gray-crowned Rosy Finch (a life bird for me), saw breeding White-crowned Sparrow and American Pipit, and a host of wildflowers.
My luck didn't particularly improve on a return trip to Yosemite - we dipped Black Swift for a second time, and had to turn back on Glacier Point Road before we reached good Blue Grouse habitat in order to dip Great Gray Owl again at dusk!
The dipping didn't end there either - I was awoken by loud voices and crashing at the campground at 3am. I put this down to inconsiderate campers and went back to sleep, only to discover next day that the source of the commotion was a Black Bear - the second time I've missed this species in two weeks. All in all, not a great day for me, but at least we got the Rosy Finch!
Posted by rjhall at July 14, 2004 6:59 AM