My husband and I just returned from a weekend trip to PiPi Valley in the
Central Sierra. It was ostensibly a mushroomer's weekend, but it is hard to
ignore all of the wonderful birds, busy in their mountain spring.
Our first stop was at the uniquely managed, historical and real-time
Indian Grinding Rock State Park. This vastly underused park has the largest
group acorn grinding rock ever found in North America, and the only one that
also showed petroglyphs amongst the grinding holes.
But it's not all about dusty history, despite a wonderful visitor center that
has plenty of good info and beautiful artifacts. It is also a modern day Native
community. We passed by a sweat lodge taking place along a creek, and saw a
beautiful old ways (but still used) meeting hall.
But that is just the setting; this is really about the birds. Right outta the
visitor center is a grove of ancient oaks, and everywhere amongst the bark and
branches were Sierran birds. Western Tanagers, Bullocks Orioles, Western
Kingbirds, Cedar Waxwings flycatching, Vireos, Warblers, Acorn Woodpeckers, a
pair of testosterone poisoned Lark Sparrows in a flying death roll, Western
Bluebirds, the biggest Red Tailed Hawk I had EVER seen (the local Native docent
and campground host considered that one HIS spirit bird. Big spirit.), and of
course the now onmnipresent turkeys, in this case nearly grown, fully feathered
young with a smattering of down on their heads, walking through the tall grass.
There was apparently a big, recent hatching of oak worms; their cobwebby threads
were everywhere, and the birds were taking advantage of the feast. There were so
many birds it was hard to pick just one to zoom in on.
Two thumbs up.
At the lovely PiPi campground, a bit further down Hwy. 88, the fungi were scarce
but the local birds and flowers made up for it. We drove into PiPi in
mid-afternoon and I walked along the Cosumnes River to see what I could see. The
mountain rhubarb had its pink flowers on long stalks proudly waving in the
riverbed, and seeps were covered with Mimulus and Five-Spot Flowers.
I heard an unfamiliar screeching in the willows along the river, and stopped to
see what might be making that noise. Turned out to be dipper pre-fledges. Three
birds were still in a buried nest, on a moss covered rock across the river. The
nest was a hole in the bottom of a rock shelf, whitewashed below, and when the
parents arrived with beaks stuffed with insects (after madly foraging along the
banks, catching many insects, one after another, before swishing them thru the
water and stuffing those great maws), the young stuck their beaks down right
outta the hole, and one maw completely occluded the space. Man, that's a hungry
baby! Lemme tell ya, those parents looked a bit frazzled.
Two days later, David spotted two dippers fledged on the river rocks, feathered
and fluffy downed all at the same time. Awwwwwwww. Mom Dipper let David know
that he was NOT welcome, and he beat feet in retreat.
We should all be so polite to our fine feathered friends, working hard to
survive in a tough world.
Tis a good time to head for the hills. Visual feasts await you.
Debbie Viess
Oakland, CA