A Gray-Headed Dark-Eyed Junco on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon

Our trip across the Colorado Plateau last month was a geology field studies course, not a bird-watching expedition. But when I could step away from teaching duties I found what birds I could. On Grand Canyon's North Rim, it's been a very dry year and I didn't see all that many birds, but there were a few. The most unfamiliar was the Dark-eyed Junco (Junco hyemalis), which is ironically one of the most common birds in North America.

The reason that this particular bird was unfamiliar to me is that it doesn't look much at all like the Juncos that I see elsewhere. There are quite a few regional subspecies of this bird, and the Gray-headed subspecies (Junco hyemalis caniceps) is not found in my region. The genetic code of these little sparrows must be rather malleable! One does wonder why the variants aren't considered separate species.

Western Tanager and Tourons at the North Rim of Grand Canyon

Photo by Mrs. Geotripper

Being in a national park can cause people to do things they normally wouldn't in any other place. For example, if you ever have the privilege to explore Yellowstone National Park, you will encounter people who are fine drivers everywhere else. But if an elk or bison is seen at the side of the road (or Heaven forbid, a Wolf or Grizzly Bear), they will screech to a stop, disregarding all other traffic, and get out to take pictures. It doesn't matter if they are blocking traffic, others will get out to see what the commotion is about anyway. After awhile, a ranger has to come along and break up the traffic mess. No wonder they've secretly adopted the term "touron". But at least I never do that kind of thing...

Can you see what caused me to stop in the middle of the highway? Photo by Mrs. Geotripper

I was at the North Rim of Grand Canyon National Park these last few days, and there were thankfully no tourist traffic jams, the reason being that there were hardly any tourists (the North Rim gets only about 10% of the park's visitors; it's one of the great charms of that section of the park). And so it was that I was the one trying to start a traffic jam...and it wasn't for a wolf, or an elk, or a bison. No, it was for a bird. It happened to be the only bird that would have caused me to hit the brakes and stop in the middle of the highway: it was a Western Tanager (Piranga ludoviciana).

Photo by Mrs. Geotripper

There were actually two tanagers, a male and a female. It says something about the relative drabness of the female that neither me or Mrs. Geotripper caught a shot of the girl. We were under pressure though; we weren't stopping traffic, but we were on a blind curve. We grabbed our cameras and snapped as many shots as we couldn't in 45 seconds or so.

I was glad we got the pictures we did, but they can never add up to the tanager we saw back home in California on the Clark Fork of the Stanislaus River in the Sierra Nevada a few years ago. You can check out those pictures and a short video at this link: http://geotripper.blogspot.com/2014/05/up-close-and-personal-with-western.html

Great Blue Heron on the Colorado River in Grand Canyon

It's a rainy day outside, so no walks along the river today, and it's been a few weeks since a birding trip, so I didn't have a lot of new material. I was going over some older pictures when I found a few bird shots taken during the greatest adventure of my life, a 17 day rafting trip down the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon. It was in August of 2013. I wasn't exactly birding at the time, but I was keen to observe any living things along the river as we floated along. On the third day out we passed a Great Blue Heron (Ardea herodias) lurking in the grasses and sand along the riverbank.

The Herons are such stately creatures, and it seemed extra special to see one in such a dramatic setting. We were a mile or two downstream from Vasey's Paradise, a spot where small waterfalls burst out of the canyon walls. We were in the Redwall Limestone, a layer that is riddled with caverns and fissures. When exposed along the river, the groundwater flowed freely at the surface

A Look at California Condors on International Vulture Awareness Day

California Condors on the North Rim of Grand Canyon National Park

It always sneaks up to me, but today is International Vulture Awareness Day. We do need to appreciate the scavengers and cleaners of our world, but my appreciation goes a little deeper, more like admiration. My favorite member of the vulture family is a real survivor, despite our worst abuses, and great changes in their world: the California Condor (Gymnogyps californianus).

California Condor soaring over the Big Sur Coastline

California Condors are one of the few direct links we have to a world that disappeared 11,000 years ago. At that time, California and the American West played host to a diverse and fascinating megafauna that included mammoths, mastodons, giant ground sloths, giant elk, bison, horses, and camels, , and a frightening array of predators, including dire wolves, American lions, short-faced bears (bigger than grizzlies), and saber-tooth cats. All gone now, lost to an extinction event that is still not understood: it could have been predation by humans, climate change, even an unfortunately-aimed asteroid impact. The condor, one of the largest of birds, was the clean-up crew when the giant predators of the giant grazers were done eating. When the megafauna disappeared, the condors went into a decline, and the largest species of condors went extinct. Their near-extinction was not necessarily the fault of humans; there may have been only 300 or so when the Spaniards first explored California. Still, we in the modern era didn't help matters. We shot them, or poisoned them with lead buckshot to the point that there were only about two dozen left in the 1980's.

Wildlife biologists stepped in at that point, capturing the last remaining wild birds in 1987, and beginning a program of captive breeding. It has been a reasonable success, with 435 birds alive today. 268 of them have been released into the wild, with populations in Grand Canyon (top picture), the Zion Park region, the Coast Ranges of California (second photo), and part of northern Mexico.

Take a moment to thank the scavengers of our world!

(Note: this is an edited/updated version of one of my earliest posts at Geotripper)

Dark-eyed Junco (Red-backed/Gray-headed) at Grand Canyon, North Rim

The Dark-eyed Junco (Junco hyemalis) is one of the most common birds in North America (so why has it taken me so long to photograph one?). If the name of today's bird seems a little strange (Red-backed/Gray-headed), it's because the classification of the species is a bit muddled. There are more than a dozen subspecies or races, and some of these are considered separate species by some bird researchers. They range from northern Alaska and Canada to central Mexico. Although I've seen the Oregon Junco subspecies in my neighborhood, these were a first for me. These birds were hanging around our camp at the North Rim of the Grand Canyon during our late May journey across the southwest. I didn't even know they were Juncos at first.

Today's bird is either the Red-backed subspecies (Junco hyemalis dorsalis), or the Gray-headed subspecies (Junco hyemalis caniceps), or both (figure that out!). It's interesting that they are all generally considered a single species, based, I assume, on DNA similarities. I've seen other bird species that were literally identical in appearance, but were not only separate species, but different genera. This kind of thing is probably the reason I became a geologist rather than a biologist!

They may be one of the most common birds in North America, but it was a privilege to see them in such a spectacular setting. The North Rim is the uncrowded side of the canyon, receiving only about 10% of the visitation in Grand Canyon National Park. It is 1,000 feet higher, and therefore cooler and greener than the south side.

Spotted Towhee at Grand Canyon National Park

We were having our last presentation at Desert View in Grand Canyon on our recent trip, and while the students were having stage fright about what their professor was thinking about their performance, their professor's attention was instead drawn to the top of the nearby Utah Juniper. The strange looking red-eyed bird perched on top is a Spotted Towhee (Pipilo maculatus). It's actually a large member of the sparrow family, and is well adapted to southwestern deserts. They are beautiful birds, but I find those red eyes a bit disconcerting.

The Grand Canyon is a marvelous backdrop for bird watching. The Desert Watchtower is patterned after the towers of the Ancestral Pueblo people, but is much larger than any of the towers built in ancient times. Situated at the east end of the canyon, it fills a bit less crowded and busy than the main tourist centers of the park. 

Let's Play a Search Game! Not "Where's Waldo?", but "Where's Warbler?"

We were on the north rim of Grand Canyon last week enjoying a spectacular sunset when I noticed rustlings in the underbrush. I snapped a couple of shots, hoping to see what kind of bird it was, and as I went through the pictures later, I noticed that I had indeed captured a few images of a Yellow-rumped Warbler (Setophaga coronata). You would think that a bird with bright yellow spots would be easy to see, but not when the shrubs are just coming into leaf with yellow sprouts!

So here is our brief little game of "Where's Warbler?" There really is a warbler in each of these three photos. In one of them he is looking right at you. How quickly can you find all three?

Luckily, the warblers hopped out of the bushes to forage in the pine duff, so here are some more easily observed Yellow-rumped Warblers at Point Imperial in Grand Canyon National Park.

Yellow-rumped Warblers are one of the more common of the warbler species, and indeed are pretty much the only kind I've seen so far, both at home, on campus, and on the road in both Yosemite and Grand Canyon National Parks.

The birds have a range that extends from northern Alaska south to Panama. They have more muted colors in the winter; the bright yellow spots are for show during the breeding season.

The warblers eat lots of insects, including some pretty serious forest pests like budworms. In the winter they can switch to berries and other food sources.

All in all, a colorful addition to the landscape when you can actually see them!

Clark's Nutcracker on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon

It's the first time on my blog, but not the first time I've ever seen a Clark's Nutcracker (Nucifraga columbiana). I've known these birds since I was a teenager on my first backpacking expeditions in the Sierra Nevada. They are raucous members of the higher mountain elevations, familiar to anyone who ventures towards the treeline, the realm of the Limber and Whitebark Pines. It's the first I've been able to photograph with a good camera. I saw it while walking out to Cape Royale on the north rim of the Grand Canyon last week. It was chasing another Nutcracker through the trees.

The birds are a an important part of the high elevation ecosystem. They spend their days collecting pine seeds and burying them all over the forest, storing them for later consumption. They have an amazing memory for remembering where most of the seeds are buried, but they usually miss a few, and those are the seeds that germinate and perpetuate the forest.

It took me a while to realize it, but one of the two Nutcrackers chasing about the trees was a juvenile loudly demanding food from mother. I guess teenagers are the same all around, no matter the species.