Round Lake - 7/02/20
Nature heals. This past week we've gone up to the Lakes Basin several times to hike and surround ourselves in beauty. It was welcoming and wonderfully peaceful as always. Up in the Lakes Basin, there are many lakes to hike to, many miles of trails, lots of blooming meadows, and a variety wildlife to observe. It is our home away from home. We are SO lucky to have this beautiful natural area in our "backyard"!
Off-trial view of the Sierra Buttes - 6/30/20
I never get tired of seeing the Sierra Buttes.
It changes all the time and never diminishes in beauty!
Tamarack Lake - 6/30/20
There are so many lakes in the Lakes Basin, we sometimes get confused in our memory of where each lake is located. Some are small silty ponds, others are large, clear, deep, rock-bound lakes. They are all edged by forests and flowers, and lovely to explore!
Black-backed Woodpecker - Picoides arcticus
Birds of the Lakes Basin
Last week I went back to the Black-backed Woodpecker nest to see if it was occupied. I watched it for 45 minutes but no woodpeckers showed up. However, I was hiking in a different area a week later when I saw an adult, male, Black-backed Woodpecker pecking on a dead tree! WOW!!! I could tell it was a male because it had a yellow patch of feathers on its forehead! These birds are uncommon to rare in our area, which is the southernmost limit of its range! It was so exciting to see one!!
White-headed Woodpecker (female/male) - Dryobates albolarvatus
On my way up to the Black-backed Woodpecker nest site, I watched two White-headed Woodpeckers chase each other around a dead tree. The male is distinguished by the small patch of red feathers on its head. This uncommon woodpecker is found year-round ONLY in mixed coniferous forests dominated by pines, in the mountains of far western North America, from south-central British Columbia to southern California, and no where else in the world! Apparently they live here year-round, surviving mainly on pine seeds and insects! How lucky to see a pair of them!
Hairy Woodpecker (juveniles) - Dryobates villosus
On a different hike I saw a pair of juvenile Hairy Woodpeckers probing for insects on a dead tree! The patch of colored feathers on their forehead, distinguishes them as juveniles. When they are adults a patch of red feathers will be located on the back of their head, if they are males, and the forehead patch will molt and be replaced by black feathers. If they are females they won't have a patch of red feathers anywhere! I have never seen juvenile Hairy Woodpeckers before, how interesting!
Bufflehead female with ducklings - Bucephala albeola
In Birds of the Sierra Nevada by Edward C. Beedy and Edward R. Pandolfino it is stated that, "Most of Calfornia's Bufflehead population breeds in the forested mountain lakes of the Cascades and farther north, but recently they have been confirmed nesting in the Sierra." Most bird field guides list Buffleheads as breeding across western and southern Canada, as well as up into Alaska. However, we see Buffleheads on almost all the ponds and lakes in the Lakes Basin, usually only one or just a pair. In the spring we always see females with ducklings! Apparently they have found the Lakes Basin to their liking!
Clark's Nutcracker - Nucifraga columbiana
I was also lucky to see a pair of Clark's Nutcrackers up near one of the lakes. They were busy getting seeds out of the pine cones, and making quite a racket!!! They are in the Corvid family of birds and have a really interesting life style! We only occasionally see them at the higher elevations in the Lakes Basin. The following information was from the website allaboutbirds.org at the Cornell Lab.
"High in the mountains of the West, gray-and-black Clark’s Nutcrackers swoop among wizened pine trees, flashing white in the tail and wing. They use their dagger-like bills to rip into pine cones and pull out large seeds, which they stash in a pouch under their tongue and then carry away to bury for the winter. Each birds buries tens of thousands of seeds each summer and remembers the locations of most of them. Seeds they don’t retrieve play a crucial role in growing new pine forests.
The Clark's Nutcracker feeds its nestlings pine seeds from its many winter stores (caches). Because it feeds the young on stored seeds, the nutcracker can breed as early as January or February, despite the harsh winter weather in its mountain home."
The Clark's Nutcracker feeds its nestlings pine seeds from its many winter stores (caches). Because it feeds the young on stored seeds, the nutcracker can breed as early as January or February, despite the harsh winter weather in its mountain home."
Mountain Heather - Phyllodoce breweri
Flowering Shrubs
I often mention the wildflowers and skip the shrubs, but there were so many of them in bloom I had to feature them this week! The shrubs are woody and perennial, unlike the annual wildflowers. Some are fragrant, some are minutely flowered, all of them are gorgeous! The Mountain Heather pictured above has a heavenly fragrance, and grows in thick hedges with tons of bees flying around!
Sierra Laurel - Mahala Mat - Western Labrador Tea
Leucothoe davisiae - Ceanothus prostratus - Rhododendron columbianum
Mountain Spirea - Sulfur Buckwheat - Greenleaf Manzanita
Spirea densiflora - Eriogonum umbellatum - Arctostaphylos patula
This year the Mountain Pride is prolific everywhere you go! There are hundreds of them growing in clusters nestled against rocks, on granite ledges, and along the trails! Their glowing magenta color is gorgeous against the gray granite and blue sky!
Black Bear - Ursus americanus
As I was going home from one of our Lakes Basin hikes, I pulled off the road to check out a small creek that had lots of flowers growing along its edge. I was about to get out of the car when I noticed a Black Bear was looking right at me from a creek side bank! It was BIG and cinnamon in color in the sunlight! I grabbed my camera and got a quick photo, but it had already started walking away into the forest. It's not a great photo, and the bear looks black in color, but that's because he was in the shade. Wow!!! That was wild!
Are the Bullock's Orioles still around?
Where are the foxes, deer, and bears?
What bugs are buzzin'?
Check back next week for the answers to these questions and more!
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