My son Liam is a terrific birder. We had camped the night at the Sardine Lake Campground, in the Gold Lakes district of the Sierra’s. By the time I woke up, which was still pretty early, Liam had already been prowling around the campground checking out calling birds. When he saw me up and around he motioned to me silently to come check out a bird.
At the head of a trail adjacent to campsite # 17, I could hear erratic drumming in a tall pine. Liam pointed but I had to go back to the car to get my binoculars. Upon my return I was treated to wonderful, close up views of a stunning black-backed woodpecker. The bird was not at all shy and gave us many great, long looks.
Liam informed me that there was another great bird sighting to be had on the ground. Backing the few feet down to the road we peered around the cars and tents in the site. There, picking around in the dust was a whole family of mountain quail, two adults and four young – looking (as we did) like they just rolled out of bed!
Standing around the morning fire a little while later we heard a long, lovely song which jumped out at us as one we don’t hear daily. Sure enough, we found a very assertive Townsend’s solitaire singing from the top of a nearby pine.
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