We finally got out of Hodgdon today!!! Jeff, Alan and I decided to go to Tuolumne Meadows to do some birding and alpine hiking. Tuolumne Meadows is amazing. We saw White-crowned Sparrows and Red-winged Blackbird in the meadow. At the visitors center I got a new book, Introduction to the California Condor, by Noel and Helen Snyder. I am really excited to start reading it; I love condors.
We went hiking to a lake at GaylorLake where we were looking for Rosy Finches. We didn’t find any, but I did get to see the Clark’s Nutcracker!!! It’s the bird at the top of the blog. I was so excited to see such an amazing bird.
After our hike we drove just a bit further to MonoLake. There is a nice restaurant there where I got the infamous fish tacos that everyone has been telling me about. MonoLake is beautiful. There are beautiful calcium carbonate deposits called tufa formed by freshwater springs. These springs must be few and far between because MonoLake has three times the salinity of sea water. The birding there was great. New on my Yosemite list were Canada Goose, European Starling, Wilson’s and Red-necked Phalarope. The birds’ feathers are really matted because of all the salt. Phalaropes are amazing; they feast here on brine shrimp during the summer before a grueling migration to South America.
I am currently a graduate student at William & Mary studying the effects of mercury on birds and bird populations with The Institute for Bird Behavioral Studies (iibbs). I started this blog before summer 2009 to keep people up-to-date on my summer internships with the Institute for Bird Population's MAPS Program. I will be using this blog in graduate school to stay in-touch and blog about science.
Wow it looks so beautiful there!
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