Naturalist Notes
A Mono Basin Chronicle
January: iced-over ponds moan and echo through canyons and the cold and dry weather means a good year for ice skating … eight Sage Grouse spotted on the bluff above Mill Creek … poconip fog shrouds the lake and fills in the bottom of the basin until it burns off to blue skies … Mountain Quail on Williams Butte … egret tracks in the ice on the beaver ponds up Lundy Canyon … a clear sky for the total lunar eclipse and the land goes dark as the moon goes red … evenings of snowfall bring mornings of snowladen sagebrush, sparkling snowdrifts, and a white Black Point reflected in the glassy lake …
February: birds are singing but it is still snowing ... the first California Gull sighting over Rush Creek ... the sound of Red-winged Blackbirds back in town make it sound like spring ... Oregon Juncos chatter and flit in soft snowdrifts ... Mountain Bluebirds out on the north shore make one wonder if spring is here ... and Mountain Chickadees singing their mating call confirms it ... two Killdeer running along the highway during a whiteout ... Tree Swallows shiver in a thicket of willows ...
March: warm sunny days with summer clouds make it feel like summer ... nauplii, the larval stage of brine shrimp, freshly hatched from the brine shrimp’s overwintering cysts, are begining to surface around the lake ... an American Kestrel in bright plumage sitting in wait ... a Golden Eagle hovering above Lundy Lake ... large flocks of bright white California Gulls on their return pilgrimage from the coast ... alkali flies already in their long black swaths on the north shore ... 15 species of birds heard down at the County Park in one afternoon ... American Avocets, dowitchers, a phalarope, Lesser Yellowlegs, Sage Thrashers, Savannah Sparrows, Horned Larks, a Loggerhead Shrike, two Northern Harriers, a pair of Gadwall, and several hundred Eared Grebes down at the lake ... if there is one thing letting you know that spring is here, it is the chattering chorus of birds ...
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|