Mammoth Lakes
|
The Eastern Sierra offers dramatic beauty and great birding. Mono County has an abundance of public land, which offers excellent birding. The flight of the Bald Eagle or Golden Eagle may be observed. Eastern Sierra birds you will see are the Peregrine Falcon, Prairie Falcon, Red-tailed Hawk, Cooper's Hawk, Cliff Swallows, Evening and Pine Grosbeaks, Yellow-rumped Warbler, Belted Kingfisher, Dark-eyed Junco, Hummingbirds, Mountain Bluebird, Western Tanager, American Goldfinch, Bullock's Oriole, Killdeer, Red Crossbill, Spotted Towhee, Great Blue Heron, Osprey, American Dipper, Clark's Nutcracker and the ever popular and noisy Steller's Jay.
Several other species in the Inyo National Forest include American Kestrel, Northern Flicker, Hairy Woodpecker, Downy Woodpecker, White-Headed Woodpecker, Williamson's Sapsucker, Mountain Chickadee, White-Breasted Nuthatch, Brown Creeper, House Wren, Pigmy Owl, Great Horned Owl, Flammulated Owl, Saw-whet Owl, Sapsucker, Black-backed Three-towed Woodpecker, Tree Swallow, Plain Titmouse, Red-breasted Nuthatch, Pigmy Nuthatch and the Mountain Bluebird.
Mono Lake is wonderful when it comes to birding. It is a salty, alkaline inland sea home to brine shrimp, alkali flies, and the millions of birds that feed on them. One of the best-known birds is the California Gull. Mono Lake is home to the second largest California Gull rookery in North America (Great Salt Lake is the largest). Approximately 50,000 California Gulls arrive in spring and will feed, mate, select a nest site and lay their eggs. By early fall, most will have migrated back to the coast. If you visit a beach in California and you see a California Gull, there's a high probability it was born at Mono Lake.
Other birds that live and visit the Mono Basin include the Snowy Plover, Eared Grebes, Wilson's Phalaropes, Common Snipe, Red-Winged Blackbird, Song Sparrow, Common Yellowthroat, Killdeer, Snowy Egret, Green-backed Heron, Loggerhead Shrike, Red-tailed Hawk, Northern Harrier, Common Nighthawk, Magpie, Sage Sparrow and Meadow Lark. If you explore some of the less-visited stretches of Mono Lake during shorebird migration, you may see for yourself the lakes' importance to birds. See a wide variety of waterfowl at Mono Lake, mostly in the fall.
Canadian Geese, Mallards, Northern Shovelers, Northern Pintails, Gadwalls, Ruddy Ducks, Cinnamon Teals and Green-winged Teals are locally common around the lakes. You may even encounter the occasional Bufflehead, Lesser Scaup, Snow Goose or even migrating Tundra Swans in the late fall. The Mono Basin is a fascinating place to visit. Every year in the month of June, the town of Lee Vining hosts a weeklong event called the "Mono Lake Bird Chautauqua".
The Mono Lake Committee offers a "Birding Trail Map". The goal of this map is to share the birds of the Eastern Sierra with you. Whether you're just getting started in birding or an expert new to the area, this map will be your guide to finding the birds of Mono and Inyo counties. This map covers the most dramatic scenery found anywhere along Highway 395.