Venturing out

Although I stayed pretty close to home during the spring, avoiding Covid-19 and all, by June I couldn’t stand it anymore.  So I June 1st, I packed up the car and headed into central Nevada to record the sounds of the wild.  My first stop was Stillwater National Wildlife Refuge, near Fallon.  Breeding activity was near it’s peak, and many birds already had chicks, including this pair of Clark’s grebes:

I love the way the chicks ride on their parent’s backs!  And even though it was mid-day, there was still a lot of vocalizing going on, including the hilarious calls of the Black-crowned Night Herons:

After driving around and enjoying all of the bird activity (plus a coyote and muskrat or two), I headed over to the Desatoya Mountains for the night.  I had hoped for a better recording of the Great Basin spadefoots than I got last year, as their was a lot less snowfall this last winter which I thought might translate into a less noisy stream.  The stream was down a little bit, but I heard not a single spadefoot.  It had not rained for awhile and clouds partly covered a 3/4 moon.  Some spadefoots respond to rain (coming out, calling, and breeding), but Great Basin spadefoots seem more ambivalent about the rain.  Moon phase affects breeding activity in many amphibians, with some more active and some less.  I can’t find any studies relating Great Basin activity to moon phase.  So their lack of activity on my night in the Desatoyas remains a mystery, and provides more incentive to return in the future.

The birds were very active, and in addition to a lovely evening chorus, I also woke to a wonderfully melodic chorus of Brewer’s Sparrows, Western Meadowlarks, California Quail, Chukar, Lazuli Buntings, Sage Thrashers, Brewer’s Blackbirds:

After a lovely morning listening to the birds, I packed up and headed south to a little spot in the Paradise Range NE of Gabbs that I call Raven Rock.  I discovered it last fall on a trip to Berlin-Ichthyosaur State Park.  When I stopped to check it out, a large group of ravens was circling a large rock outcrop not far off the highway.  I discovered some dispersed camping sites about 1/2 mile in, so thought it would be a nice place to come back and check out in the spring.

The skies had mostly cleared when I arrived this time, so I squeezed my CR-V in between a couple of pinyon pines so I would have some shade.  I should have known better – pinyons are really pitchy trees so I had a lot of sap to cut out of my dogs fur when I got home.  But the pinyons and junipers were busy with bird activity – lots of chickadees and jays, warblers, and yes, ravens.  The afternoon breezes died down at dusk, and as night fell, I heard poorwills, Northern Saw-whet and Western Screech-owls calling in the distance.  The owls, later joined by a Great Horned Owl, called off and on through the night, but always quite far away.  A Spotted Towhee woke me just before dawn, when he landed near my mics and proceeded to sing out a rather amazing repertoire.  Here is a short segment, where he is joined by the owls and mountain bluebirds:

I checked out a couple of other spots on my way home, both in the Toiyabe Mountains in central Nevada.  I’ll share those stories in a future post.

References:

Grant, R., T. Halliday, E. Chadwich. 2013. Amphibians’ response to the lunar synodic cycle – a review of current knowledge, recommendations, and implications for conservation.  Behavioral Ecology 24: 53-62.

Haringh, P., B. Benton, D. Bornholdt. 1985. Aquatic parameters and life history observations of the Great Basin spadefoot toad in Utah. Great Basin Naturalist 45: 22-30.