Pika Town

 

Pika Bounding With A Bouquet

We awoke to a sunny morning after a rainy night in Lee Vining, and I looked forward to using my new Z8 and 180-600mm to photograph the pikas along the Nunatak Nature Trail on the way home via Tioga Pass. We'd gone out via Sonora Pass so we could check out Twin Lakes near Bridgeport.

At the nature trail I walked through a patch of meadow still frosted after a cold night and found a likely spot at the base of the scree slope to await the arrival of a pika. Their alarm chirps had already greeted us, so we knew they were still there. It didn't take long for a couple of rock-rabbits to come down the hill and cast a wary glance my way.

In the not-too-distant background I watched a long-tailed weasel bound downhill over the talus and feared for the safety of one of the pikas when it scampered over that way to gather greens for the coming winter. The pika soon returned to stash the goods in its lair beneath one of the larger boulders, and I never saw the weasel again.

I've long been intrigued by the dramatic peaks you can see to the south as you drive through Bridgeport, and I figured Twin Lakes would get us closer to them. This is the view from the second lake. They actually look more imposing from Bridgeport because you can see more of the Sawtooth Ridge and Matterhorn Peak.

I've been to the Nunatak Nature Trail several times, so this time I concentrated on trying to photograph the pikas as they moved over the landscape.

Smiling Pika

After stashing the goods in a midden below the rock, the pika returned to its lookout point and struck a wary pose before bounding back up the hill.

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Bristlecones to Mono Lake

 

Bristlecone Pine & Mormon Tea, Schulman Grove

After camping overnight we headed back up the mountain to hike the Shulman Grove's Methuselah Trail the day after visiting the Patriarch Grove. It was sunny and cool in the morning, making the four-and-a-half-mile hike about as comfortable as it gets at 10,000 feet of elevation.

This was the view from my camp chair the morning we drove up to the Patriarch Grove.

I couldn't resist trying to photograph the birds that passed through our camp, like this Blue-grey Gnatcatcher.

The only familiar face from San Francisco was this Hairy Woodpecker.

Gray Flycatcher

Juniper Titmouse

Western Warbling Vireo

This was the view at a pull-out above Grandview Campground the morning we drove up to hike at the Shulman Grove. Later in the day we'd break camp just ahead of a storm.

Morning Light on the Methuselah Trail

The bristlecones thrive wherever the soil is at its most hideously dolomitic best.

We were finally caught in a hailstorm as we drove up I-395, and I was amazed that our windshield didn't shatter under the assault. We stopped by Mono Lake since we were an hour early for our 4 o'clock check-in at the Lake View Lodge in Lee Vining. The osprey above was still occupying this lone burnt tree when we left.

There were several active osprey nests on the tufa towers, including one that you can just make out on the left-most tower above.

A few people were exploring the tufa formations despite the rain, but we took in the view from (mostly) inside the car.

P.S. I first visited the Bristlecone Pines in 1985, five years after I was a sailor aboard the USS Eisenhower when it set a record of 152 consecutive days at sea during a different crisis with Iran. That record stood until the USS Roosevelt beat it in 2002, only to be regained by the Ike during the 2020 Covid-19 pandemic. 

Now in the midst of Trump's war on Iran, the record has been blasted to pieces by the USS Lincoln with a massive 260 days and counting. 

Back in my day, many crewmembers, especially those with families, were so eager to return to Norfolk after setting that 1980 record that the captain cancelled a brief liberty port call at Mombasa, Kenya. We'd even already gotten all our necessary vaccinations for the trip. I was sick of being at sea too, but I still voted to make the port call. 

Anyway, congratulations to the resourceful and resilient crew aboard the USS Lincoln for setting a record that will hopefully last forever.

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Bristlecone Monsoon

 

Patriarch Grove, Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest

We got the tent down just ahead of the rain, then stopped the car on the way out of Grandview Campground to watch the heavy weather front coming in. Almost immediately two jagged bolts of lightning sizzled to the ground, one right after the other, setting off a torrent of sky-rending thunder that gave a dramatic and beautiful end to our visit.

We've made the pilgrimage to the bristlecones every few years for a couple of decades, but we'd never experienced them during monsoonal weather. As a photographer I'd been hoping for interesting clouds, but what we got was a totally stormy sky that unleashed a fair amount of rain -- and a lot of hail!

Heavy Weather in the Mountains

Some of the bristlecone pines pose with an air of drama fit for one of Mother Nature's most long-lived actors.

The grain of bristlecone pine wood, exposed to the elements for a couple thousand years, always entices me to admire the details of these amazing trees.

Ancient Wind Dancer

Exposed to the Ages

Fallen Bristlecone Pine Cone

My wife and I met back at the car as another rain squall drifted toward us, and she showed me a phone picture of this downed log that had collected a puddle of rainwater, something we'd never seen before at this grove that thrives despite poor soil and desert-like aridity. I took my camera over there as soon as the squall passed.

We waited to see if the clouds would open up to let the sun build a rainbow or two, but eventually realized it wasn't going to happen. Because we hadn't gotten anything but rain while up at the Patriarch Grove, we were perplexed to see so much white in the hills as we drove back down White Mountain Road.

On closer examination we saw that the "snow" was composed of little balls. It was hail, and there were gobs of it.

The unpaved 12-mile route to the Patriarch Grove was in the worst shape I've ever encountered. We can usually crawl along at 12 mph to avoid getting a flat tire (the ranger station had tallied 11 flats already this season), but this time I rarely broke 10 mph. A guy driving a Cybertruck down the mountain stopped next to us as we were on the way up and said, "Are you sure you want to be going up there in that?" I told him, "This car has been up a few times before. You don't need all that. It might be nice, but you don't need it."

Thunder in the Patriarch Grove

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Cooper's, Take 2

 

Cooper's Hawk, Golden Gate Park

It's so rare that I get to see Cooper's hawks up close that I decided to head down to the AIDS Memorial/Lily Pond area again this morning. (A phalanx of joggers trundled by while I was in the woods above the pond when one guy asked another, "What do they call that down there?" The other guy said, "It's called 'Random Swamp'. There's a bunch of 'em.")

The hawks were fairly easy to spot since they were calling out so often. They must hold their counsel once they reach adulthood. Although red-shouldered and red-tailed hawks can be heard screeching year round, I almost never hear an adult cooper's hawk, with the exception being around nesting season. Last spring I heard a pair in a tall redwood across from Mallard Lake, but it was not the same sound made by the begging juveniles.

This morning I stuck around longer in the hope of seeing an adult bring the juveniles some prey to share, but that never happened. One of the young hawks went after a squirrel, but the squirrel darted about and escaped up an oak tree. A little later the same hawk dove after a black phoebe, but that one also got away. A few minutes after the foiled phoebe foray, another squirrel ambled across the grass directly below the hawk and right in front of me, but the hawk didn't try again, even when the squirrel turned its back.

Pygmy Nuthatch

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