Ah, the deep thinking that goes into making a successful Big Year when the rostering decisions determining your destinations are made by someone else. Suppose for a moment that your scheduling department had sent you to Los Angeles for the first time in 2008. Would you go flat-out for the common species first (which almost by definition are easy to find and take less time to move on from) to build your list up quickly? Or would you aim for a mix of common and unusual species, pledging precious time to those harder to find birds that - let’s face it - are more interesting simply because we haven’t seen them so often? Do you gamble on a return trip later in the year which may or may not come, or ignore the really common birds because you’ll undoubtedly (you hope) see them somewhere else? Or do you just think to yourself, “You know, I haven’t been to the desert for a while, there’s some lovely birds out there, and while I’m at it I’ll try to see some mountain birds on the way following the route Corey took last week?” If you’re me you decide on the latter, leave before dawn to be in position as the sun comes up, and just have a hugely enjoyable day (whilst keeping a metaphoric eye in the rear-view mirror for your rival in the game in case he races up to overtake you while you weren’t looking).

Which - in a nutshell - is how I found myself following in Corey’s tyre-tracks driving the San Jacinto Loop, about 100 miles east of LA shortly after dawn on the 29th of January. I’d actually only arrived in the US the night before and spent a few short hours in a motel at Calimesa, my little lurid yellow compact rental-car shivering in a misty, cold rain in the car-park as I fretted about the weather and tried desperately to get to sleep. When Corey had driven through the mountains he’d had reasonable weather, but - as he said - had still not seen many of the hoped-for species (no sapsuckers or Pinyon Jay for example). Corey had been with his family on a combined birding/sightseeing trip so had taken a more leisurely approach to the journey, whereas I planned to cover the loop more intensely plus spend the afternoon visiting the Desert Palm “Living Desert Reserve” and the Indian Canyons on the Agua Caliente Reservation. However, if the rain was still falling the mountains would be covered in low cloud making birding uncomfortable and unrewarding, and the desert would be cool and quiet…And if I went too fast I’d miss birds anyway…

Ah, decisions, decisions. One thing I should have learnt by now is that the one thing that all the planning in the world can’t change is the weather. The weather will come and go no matter how loud you praise or curse it. Days will be splendid or days will be lost whether you worry all night or drift into a relaxed sleep. There are no Gods watching specifically over birders no matter how hard we pray to them, and when I woke up it was still cloudy, dark, and cold. However an hour later, as I waited by a wash full of sagebrush by Cabazon the clouds parted, the sun came out, birds sang, and all was well in the world. Three hours after that as I slid all over the road on a thawing and slippery climb into Idyllwild my nerves were fraying and I was beginning to wonder if I’d have been better off staying out on the valley floor instead.

I’m getting well ahead of myself. Back to Cabazon…

Readers may well be asking how I - a UK birder - would know to go to some place called Cabazon? Because it’s mentioned in Lane’s “A Birder’s Guide to Southern California” which my good buddy Jack Cole lent me, that’s how. And it’s mentioned because the author of said book reckoned it was a good place to see Le Conte’s Thrasher, and in winter - which the chilly morning certainly felt like - it was also a good site for Sage Thrasher, Sage Sparrow, and Prairie Falcon. Four rather good birds I wasn’t likely to see elsewhere during the day (which proved to be right).

Appropriate and very classy…

My edition of Lane is from 1990 - an aeon ago in terms of desert real-estate development - and didn’t mention anything about a whopping great big casino dominating the natural landscape. It didn’t mention all the housing and abandoned trucks etc either. But, what the hey, go with the flow I say, so as the the sun came up I turned off the I10, drove down some rather scruffy side-roads, and pulled up by a rusty wire fence - and listened as the unmistakeable sound of a thrasher’s song rose up out of the sage…

Being able to say “unmistakeable sound of a thrasher’s song” is NOT quite the same as being able to say with any certainty which thrasher was singing. Local birders would know of course, much in the same way as I could tell you which particular warbler was singing from the bramble bush on my local nature reserve, but I felt absolutely sure that here was my first ‘lifer’ of the year, a Le Conte’s doing just what it should be doing at dawn - ie singing and greeting the morning before scuttling back under the sage for the next twenty-three and a half hours. What a start to the day!

Somewhere out there is a thrasher…

I hopped over the fence (apologies if I was trespassing but it really didn’t look like I was) and made my way towards the so far still hidden vocalist. Crossing the wash I suddenly saw it, perched half-way up a bush, beak half-open, its orangey undertail-coverts glowing in the morning light…”It’s what”, I hear you ask? “Le Conte’s don’t have orangey undertail-coverts, they’re pale and grey and essentially unmarked. Sounds to me that you’ve just found a California Thrasher, a much commoner species that…” I’m going to stop you right there, because you’re absolutely right. It was indeed a California Thrasher - a lovely bird of course, but not a Le Conte’s which lovelier or not is the one I really wanted to see. Oh well, at least I saw it properly and kept my Big Year list nice and pure…and there was still the Sage Thrasher and Sage Sparrow to find…

“There’s no way this is a Le Conte’s, Charlie.” Yes, thanks, I know that…

Now I have no data to show that building a neon-clad high-rise in the middle of the sagebrush necessarily means that the neighbouring birdlife will alter, but after 45 minutes I had seen (and heard) neither sparrow nor thrasher. I had seen plenty of Northern Ravens drifting over, found a Western Meadowlark and a flock of White-crowned Sparrows (which surprisingly contained two Lark Sparrows as well), had what I had hoped was a Costa’s Hummingbird but seems in fact to be an Anna’s with a ragged gorget (see below), and seen both Black and Say’s Phoebe - but of the sage specials there was not a sign. Hard as it was to admit I was 0-4, with an hour down.

Anna’s Hummingbird Calypte anna

While I’d been walking around getting cold the clouds had begun to gather over the distant San Bernadino mountains and I had to make a decision: go up Highway 243 from Banning towards Idyllwild and risk running into cloud and rain, or forget the pull of the mountain specialities and concentrate on the desert birds instead. Years ago I was in south-eastern Brazil birding with a friend of mine when we were faced with a similar choice. It was bucketing down in the lowlands (so impossible to bird anyway) and the road up the mountain we wanted to explore was greasy and a river of water (which looked dangerous and very tricky). We opted to go up, and after a long drive we suddenly - literally - emerged out of the clouds into the most glorious weather. From a scenic parking point, which looked back the way we’d just come, there was the most amazing view of forests, hills, and the clouds we’d just driven through. It was if we were standing on the lip of a huge bowl filled half-way up with steaming soup which was still settling and rippling and finding its correct level. Back down the road there’d been no birds, lines of cars with their headlights on, and a treacherous surface we could feel the car slipping on. Up here we were standing in t-shirts under a cobalt blue cloudless sky with birds calling all around us. Maybe, just maybe, it would be the same today…

Maybe - but then again maybe not. And all because of one tiny difference between Brazil in the summer and the Californian mountains in winter: ice. When it rains overnight here the water just doesn’t trickle off in a myriad of tiny streams on their way to the Atlantic, it coats the road, the trees, the ground - everywhere in fact - in a layer of ice. And, as most people will be able to tell you, lurid yellow compacts are not designed to be driven over ice.

On the road up to Idyllwild

As utterly beautiful as the drive to Idyllwild was - and as startlingly bright and sunny once the clouds cleared - I have to say right now that from a birding point-of-view the next few hours were a touch disappointing. I spent most of the morning gripping the steering-wheel like my life depended on it (perhaps it did) which I’m sure didn’t help, and seeing vehicles coming back down the hill covered in so much snow that they looked like mobile snowdrifts did little for my confidence. I stopped several times at pullouts on the way up and found little flocks of Mountain Chickadees and “Oregon” Dark-eyed Juncos almost every time (just how hardy do birds that size have to be to cope with the cold up here?) and the occasional Californian Towhee, but I really saw very little else. One stop brought me a Band-tailed Pigeon teed up on a snag while a troupe of Acorn Woodpeckers played around the trunks further down, and Western Scrub Jays flashed across the road occasionally - but, like Corey the fortnight before, I just couldn’t find the hoped-for sapsuckers, Mountain Quail, or White-headed Woodpecker.

Mountain Chickadee Poecile gambeli

Band-tailed Pigeon Columba fasciata

As most of San Jacinto’s upper roads were just not navigable without a 4WD with snow-chains - unfortunately ruling out some good chances to find woodpeckers etc in the thicker forest areas - I opted to speed through to Hurkey Creek Campground (HCC), which at 4,400′ /1340 meters is below the snow-line. Hurkey Creek is a well-known birding spot (according to Lane’s Guide) where Pygmy Nuthatches are virtually fighting for the last inch of free space in trees packed with woodpeckers, Steller’s Jays, Band-tailed Pigeons and Clark’s Nutcrackers (”in winter”) while Pinyon Jays clatter nosily around the picnic-tables below. Exciting birding for sure!

Doubtless I’m going to be coming across as a whining Brit who doesn’t know how lucky he is (I’m really not, and I really do), but the HCC was much more like Corey had found it on his trip: very pleasant, beautifully situated, carefully looked-after - but a little disappointing in terms of birds. Like Corey I paid my entrance fee (a very fair 2USD for the whole day), was asked what I was looking for, and was told that the Pinyons move down the mountain in the winter, and that though a pair of White-headed Woodpeckers had bred in a copse of trees by the creek itself they hadn’t been seen for a while…

Looking from HCC north.

Oh well, now that I was here (and out of the car and on foot at last) I wasn’t going to be put off by a little bit of negative news. There were still the Pygmy Nuthatches, which I could hear giving their odd, high contact calls as they moved through the pines in the picnic-area. I haven’t seen this particular species for a long time (my ex-wife is from the Okanagan Valley in BC and I used to see nuthatches there when we holidayed with her parents, but - perhaps unsurprisingly - I haven’t visited them for a good few years) - and to be very honest I’ve hardly seen them now. The trees here are very big indeed, and the nuthatches are very small: a very small bird moving through the top of a very tall tree looks very, very small from the ground (even through binoculars) and despite following the flock around for a while they never came any lower.

I did however almost trip over two “western interior” Steller’s Jays grubbing about in the grass, picked up a pair of Brown Creepers looking remarkably like moving pieces of sun-flecked pine bark, and saw my only Fox Sparrow of the trip scrabbling about with juncos and House Finches underneath a pair of feeders put up by the park staff (where I took the perfectly-timed photo below of an Acorn Woodpecker flying back to the trees - okay, yes, I’m being ironic, it was a lucky shot…).

Brown Creeper Certhia americana

Acorn Woodpecker Melanerpes formicivorus

Steller’s Jay Cyanocitta stelleri

I have no doubt at all that in spring or autumn/fall the trees and creekside vegetation at the HCC would be dripping with exciting birds, but in the winter things are a little bit different. I stayed for about an hour, but apart from the birds I mentioned above I really saw very little. With the time marching on, it was now 13:00, I had to make yet another decision: stay longer and find a White-headed Woodpecker - a bird I’ve not seen since my Okanagan trips in the early 1990s - or cut my losses somewhat and head down to the desert about an hour away…

The desert birding won, and that particular post is online at Deserts, Palms, and big-eared Bunnies…

Day List: (includes the desert areas, new for the Year underlined)
Red-tailed Hawk Buteo jamaicensis 2-3; Mourning Dove Zenaida macroura 50+; Band-tailed Pigeon Columba fasciata 2; Greater Roadrunner Geococcyx californianus 1; Anna’s Hummingbird Calypte anna 2; Costa’s Hummingbird Calypte costae c)10; Acorn Woodpecker Melanerpes formicivorus 3-4; Ladder-backed Woodpecker Picoides scalaris 1; Northern/Red-shafted Flicker Colaptes auratus cafer 2; Black Phoebe Sayornis nigricans 1; Say’s Phoebe Sayornis saya 2; Ruby-crowned Kinglet Regulus calendula 2; Phainopepla Phainopepla nitens 5; Cactus Wren Campylorhynchus brunneicapillus 4; Bewick’s Wren Thryomanes bewickii 1; California Thrasher Toxostoma redivivum 1; Western Bluebird Sialia mexicana 7; American Robin Turdus migratorius 5-6; Black-tailed Gnatcatcher Polioptila melanura 2; Mountain Chickadee Poecile gambeli c)10; Oak Titmouse Baeolophus inornatus 2; Pygmy Nuthatch Sitta pygmaea c)10; Brown Creeper Certhia americana 2; Verdin Auriparus flaviceps 3-4; Steller’s Jay Cyanocitta stelleri 2; Western Scrub Jay Aphelocoma californica 10-12; American Crow Corvus brachyrhynchos 50+; Northern Raven Corvus corax 15-20; Common Starling Sturnus vulgaris 20+; House Finch Carpodacus mexicanus 30+; Lesser Goldfinch Carduelis psaltria 3; Yellow-rumped Warbler Dendroica coronata 3-4; California Towhee Pipilo crissalis 4-5; Lark Sparrow Chondestes grammacus 2; Black-throated Sparrow Amphispiza bilineata 4-5; Fox Sparrow Passerella iliaca 1; White-crowned Sparrow Zonotrichia leucophrys 10+; Golden-crowned Sparrow Zonotrichia atricapilla 1+; Dark-eyed Junco Junco hyemalis oreganus 20+; Red-winged Blackbird Agelaius phoeniceus 2; Western Meadowlark Sturnella neglecta 2; Brewer’s Blackbird Euphagus cyanocephalus 5+