Birds of Arnold, Bear Valley, California - Pt. 2 of our Birding Trip

April 30, 2007 on 6:09 pm | In Birding Afar Report |

April 26, 2007
Angel’s Camp, CA.

The call of Hwy 4 proved too strong to ignore, so we again made our way northeast from Angel’s Camp to this enchanted road with its rich birding habitats. Our first stop: White Pines Lake and Community Park. This interesting little place is located just a mile or so to the north of the town of Arnold. Willows, oaks, and evergreens encircle the lake which is, for Sonoma County locals, a bit larger in size than, say, Lake Ralphine in Howarth Park. There are picnic tables and a good path here. I don’t know how populous this park gets on weekends, but our mid-week visit showed us a quiet, peaceful place with only a few fishermen out on the water.

Today was lovely and sunny, reaching about 75 degrees by mid-afternoon, and something made us feel that the willowy habitat might yield some exciting birds. Bullock’s Northern Oriole was the first super sighting. A really vibrant male was perched in a willow just beside the water. This was our first oriole of the year, and it’s funny that we’ve been so eagerly waiting to see one at home so I could post a bird alert about the orioles having arrived, but here we’ve gone and seen the bird at the other side of California! Never fear, I’m sure the orioles must have reached Sonoma County by now, and I will definitely be posting a complete post about them once we have a sighting at home.

While I was honing in on this fiery bird with my binoculars, my husband kept trying to draw my attention to a second bird he was seeing a few trees over. His description made me think it must be the female oriole, but I couldn’t manage to see it with my own eyes, and bird sightings don’t count unless we can confirm what one another are seeing. There were abundant Red-winged and Brewer’s Blackbirds here. In point of fact, I’d say all of Calaveras County is peppered with these two species in really remarkable abundance. They appear to be everywhere we go and their songs fill the air from before dawn until sunset. Mallard ducks were out on the lake and also waddling in a small stream that runs parallel to the lake path near the parking lot.

We saw an unidentified sparrow much to our chagrin, but few birds can be harder to confirm than stripey brown sparrows flitting for a brief second through dense foliage. We sat down for lunch when we were hungry. As with yesterday, we were joined by Brewer’s Blackbirds and a pair of Stellar’s Jays, but these birds are not as used to people as the birds in Big Trees State Park.

I had just gotten a few bites deep into a pasta salad when a call from the willows made me drop my fork like a hot potato. Sweet sweet sweet little more sweeeet This unusual snippet of birdsong rang a bell in my mind, and as we abandoned our picnic to locate the source of the song, I managed to get my memories in order. I knew that a warbler makes that call, but I couldn’t remember which one. The bird calls we’ve listened to over and over again on the DVD published by John Feith - Birds, Birds, Birds - was what was coming to my mind as I tried to collect my thoughts. And then we saw him. There in the brush, more yellow than your symbolic idea of a canary, and with the faint striping on his breast was the Yellow Warbler!

We’ve been waiting for this moment for so long, and I wish it could have lasted for hours, but I’m afraid we flushed the stunning little bird and we didn’t get a second chance to admire him. The Yellow Warbler, Dendroica petechia is the only overall yellow warbler in North America. Though this bird puts in appearances through most of the United States in the warm season of the year, we had never been lucky enough, to date, to see him in Sonoma County. Now we can say, with relish, that he is an unforgettable, unique bird. It is such a thrill to add him to our lifelist, and this sighting will always earmark White Pines Lake as a special place for us.

Continuing to wend our way up Hwy 4, we couldn’t help stopping in again at Big Trees State Park. Today’s visit just goes to show how much luck is involved in birding. Yesterday, the forest was a tapestry of tree clinging birds. Today, our only sighting was a pair of Hairy Woodpeckers, high up in the evergreens. We could hear Red-breasted Nuthatches in the distance, and the charming Chickarees were everywhere, but the woods were like a completely different place today. Where were all the birds? Resting? Called away on business in another part of the forest? Who can say? We only stayed for a short time, before getting in our car again and continuing northeast on Hwy 4.

Unfortunately, Calaveras County birding simply isn’t documented as well as it could be. We were only able to find two websites on the subject, each containing a couple of pages of general information, but this was enough to go on to let us know we might be in for some treats if we headed up toward Bear Valley. Just past Vista Point, with its awesome view of the snow-capped Sierras, the sight of some finches (unidentified) clustered on a rocky place at the roadside was enough to make us stop the car again to see what we could see. Good idea.

Mountain Chickadees were such a welcome sight here. We first identified this species in 2006 in Yosemite, and it was awfully nice to see them again. In Sonoma County, we have the Chestnut-backed Chickadee, and these also live in Calaveras County, but the Mountain Chickadee loves altitude and you won’t see him back home. Two unique features set him apart from the Chestnut-backed Chickadee. The back is a soft grey, not russet, and he has a white eyebrow that is completely unique in the North American Chickadee kingdom. The Mountain Chickadee, Poecile gambeli, is listed as being about half an inch larger than the 4 3/4″ Chestnut-backed in my Sibley Guide. I don’t know if I can agree. The chestnuts are constant visitors at my feeders at home, and they strike me as the larger and leaner of the two birds. I could be wrong about this, but feel its worth it to mention this observation.

White-headed Woodpeckers and Hairy Woodpeckers were diving amongst the conifers, but we had moment of birding agony in this little roadside spot. We saw a bird that I believe was Williamson’s Sapsucker. A good-sized woodpecker-like bird gave us a breathtaking glimpse of his yellow belly, and I believe his head and back were predominantly black, but we just can’t be sure. The bird could potentially have been a Yellow-bellied Sapsucker or the very similar Red-naped Sapsucker. We just didn’t see the bird’s head well enough and, because of this, couldn’t make a positive identification. Nothing drives us as crazy as moments like this, seeing a bird we’ll almost certainly never see at home, but not getting a clear enough view of it to register its wonderful name on our lifelist. I can only say about this…GRRRR! I’ll spend the rest of my life wondering who that bird was.

Audubon’s Yellow-rumped Warblers were catching insects by skimming just inches above the road. We’d never seen them do this before. A chipmunk darted out from under a bush for a moment, was completely startled to see us, and hurried back under cover. From somewhere lower in the valley, the continuo of Red-breasted Nuthatch song played on. I could gladly have spent several hours in this spot which seemed so rich in bird life, but the sun was starting to sink and we wanted to make it to Bear Valley before it got much later.

Bear Valley is a skiing resort, and even now at the end of April, the snow was lying pretty thick everywhere but on the surface of the road. Two huge wooden bears guard the entrance to the lodge on the lefthand side, and on the right, there was a very large white meadow and a mirror-like lake with Canada Geese floating on it. Brewer’s Blackbirds, Red-winged Blackbirds and American Robins seemed to be having no problems with the snow or the 7000+ ft. altitude, but other than this, Bear Valley was a little like a ghost town because the skiing season has ended.

We felt a million miles away from everything up there, a little lightheaded from the thin atmosphere, and amazed to be standing in the midst of so much snow without feeling even remotely compelled to put on coats. The warm, glistening surroundings were simply beautiful. We would have liked to have continued on the road to Lake Alpine, to get to know the birds of Alpine County, but there were warnings about a pass being closed, and though our little compact car has done just fine up to this point of our exploration, we have no illusions about the fact that we are not piloting a 4 wheeler. Coming back down the highway, into the setting sun, a beautiful, golden-red coyote gazed out at us from the shadow of the pines. Bats flitted across our horizon and our heads began to clear a little as we came back down to our customary altitude. One new bird for our lifelist, and another unforgettable day for us here in Calaveras County.

Go to Part 3 of our Calaveras County Birding Trip Report