Skip to content
  • Home
  • About Us
    • About Us
    • About Our Staff
    • About Our Board
    • Our Commitment to Diversity
    • GGAS Code of Conduct
    • Strategic Plan
    • Annual Report
    • Job Opportunities
    • GGAS in the News
  • Blog
  • Osprey Cam
  • Contact Us
    • Contact Us
    • Join/Renew
    • Donate
    • Other Ways to Give
    • Planned Giving
    • Member Login
    • Corporate Partnerships
    • Violation Report
Golden Gate Audubon Society
Golden Gate Audubon Society
  • Education
    • Speaker Series
      • Past Speakers
    • Eco-Ed for Kids
    • Classes
      • Birding For Everyone Scholarship
    • Rotary Nature Center
  • Conservation
    • Conservation Info
    • Christmas Bird Counts
    • Bird-Friendly Coffee Club
  • Volunteer
  • Bird With Us
    • Birdathon 2023
    • Field Trips
    • Classes
      • Birding For Everyone Scholarship
    • Christmas Bird Counts
    • SF Bay Ospreys
    • Travel with GGAS
    • Birding Sites
    • Birding Resources
  • Archives
    • Trip Reports by Year
    • Past Speakers
    • The Gull Archives
    • GGAS Press Releases
    • Travel with GGAS – Past Tours
  • Log In
  • Donate
  • Become a Member
Golden Gate Audubon Society
  • Education
    • Speaker Series
      • Past Speakers
    • Eco-Ed for Kids
    • Classes
      • Birding For Everyone Scholarship
    • Rotary Nature Center
  • Conservation
    • Conservation Info
    • Christmas Bird Counts
    • Bird-Friendly Coffee Club
  • Volunteer
  • Bird With Us
    • Birdathon 2023
    • Field Trips
    • Classes
      • Birding For Everyone Scholarship
    • Christmas Bird Counts
    • SF Bay Ospreys
    • Travel with GGAS
    • Birding Sites
    • Birding Resources
  • Archives
    • Trip Reports by Year
    • Past Speakers
    • The Gull Archives
    • GGAS Press Releases
    • Travel with GGAS – Past Tours
  • Log In
  • Donate
  • Become a Member
 

My first GGAS Yosemite trip

  • June 22, 2014

By Maureen Lahiff
It’s taken me quite a while to combine my love of Yosemite and my love of birds. I get to Yosemite several times a year for day hiking, High Sierra Camp stays, and snowshoeing. I’ve always enjoyed the birds that are easy to see, and I’ve had several fortunate encounters with not-so-easy-to-see-birds – a Sooty Grouse with chicks in the open forest high on the flanks of Half Dome, a Mountain Quail performing a broken-wing injury-feigning display on a trail deep in the Hetch Hetchy backcountry. But only recently have I walked in Yosemite specifically to hear and see birds.
The Golden Gate Audubon Society trip led by Dave Quady and Dave Cornman the weekend after Memorial Day was an amazing experience. Both leaders, who clearly have long-term experience birding in Yosemite, did a great job scouting and locating active nests a few days before our trip started. They filled us in on the changes in the parts of the Park affected by last summer’s Rim Fire, especially around Hodgdon Meadow. I’m truly grateful for leaders like these two Daves, who know and love Yosemite’s habitats and birds.

Lawrence's Goldfinch / Photo by Donna Pomeroy
Lawrence’s Goldfinch / Photo by Donna Pomeroy

Pygmy Owl at Yosemite / Photo by Donna Pomeroy
Pygmy Owl at Yosemite / Photo by Donna Pomeroy

With some patience and a lot of help from our fellow birders, we all got a good look at a Warbling Vireo working on a well-concealed nest. I knew Mountain Chickadees were cavity nesters, but I didn’t know that they would nest in a stump! We got close looks at them flying in and out making food deliveries to a tiny hole in the center of a stump no more than two feet high. We saw a juvenile Pileated Woodpecker looking out of its nest hole. A majestic oak harbored both a male Bullock’s Oriole and a male Western Tanager, in full breeding plumage and in perfect sunlight.
We were all looking forward to the possibility of seeing a Yosemite Great Gray Owl. Great Gray Owls, North America’s largest owl by size, range across boreal forests in Alaska, Canada, and the Pacific Northwest. The Great Gray Owls in the Sierra are geographically separated from other Great Gray Owl populations. There are only about 200 of these birds in California; they are listed as a California Endangered Species.
Yosemite National Park is the center of this population. Dave Quady gave us an account of his experiences finding them in the Park, from being almost a certainty in the right habitat in the 1980s to today’s rare experience to be savored. A bit before sunset, we split into two groups and walked slowly at a meadow’s edge.
My group’s first brief sighting of a Great Gray Owl was a classic demonstration of Jon Young’s main point in What the Robin Knows. Dave Quady walked on ahead of us to see why robins were persistently fussing. Before any of us spotted it, Dave got fairly close to the owl, which was perched on a slender branch no more than 20 feet above the ground.
Great Gray Owl (in California but not at Yosemite) / Photo copyright by Steve Rottenborn
Great Gray Owl (not at Yosemite) / Photo copyright by Steve Rottenborn

Just as some of us glimpsed it, the owl pooped and took off back into the tree cover. We then sat quietly on a downed log to watch and wait. This owl did not return; however, Dave spotted another owl at the far edge of our meadow, radioed Dave Cornman’s group to join us, and eventually we all got a look through Dave Quady’s scope. For me, and for many of us, it was a memorable life bird.
Great Gray Owls fly low. Auto collisions are a major source of Great Gray Owl deaths in Yosemite; over a dozen deaths have been documented in the last ten years. Because in California they nest mainly in broken-top dead firs and hunt for voles and other small mammals in near-by meadows, their breeding success is affected by logging practices in the National Forests and on private land. Great Gray Owls may not nest every year, even if prey is abundant. They need our help and our voices.
When John Muir spent his first summer in the Yosemite High Country in 1869, Yosemite Valley and the Mariposa Grove of Giant Sequoias were protected, thanks to the June 30, 1864 Yosemite Grant, but the High Country was not. Its meadows were heavily grazed by cattle and its streams were polluted. As Muir recounts in My First Summer in the Sierra, he spent summer 1869 shepherding one such flock of what he came to call “hooved locusts.”
That first summer in the Sierra led to Muir’s life-long commitment to saving Yosemite and many other places. My Yosemite experiences, especially this birding trip, renew my commitment to preserving Yosemite, and its habitats and birdlife, for the next 150 years and beyond.

———————————

Golden Gate Audubon Society offers over 100 field trips each year, mostly in the Bay Area but some further away like Yosemite. GGAS’s next field trip to Yosemite National Park will be May 29-31, 2015. Sign-ups will begin in November 2014; watch the GGAS website for further information.
Maureen Lahiff plans to continue day-hiking in Yosemite to see waterfalls and vistas, to visit the High Sierra Camps when she’s fortunate enough to get a reservation, to snowshoe from Badger Pass to Dewey Point every winter that the snow permits, to add to her informal collection of 100 views of Half Dome, and to see the stars, the Milky Way and the Perseid Meteor Shower on clear Sierra nights. Now she also plans to do more birding in the park.
 

PrevPreviousProtect the Mokelumne River & its bird habitat
NextForming a national network for bird-safe buildingsNext
Facebook Instagram Youtube Twitter

Follow Golden Gate Birder by email

Click to follow our blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Subscribe

Loading...
Bay Birding Challenge Returns on April 1st
March 20, 2023
From new birder to Birdathon maven
March 15, 2023
The Audubon Name Issue Heats Up
March 8, 2023
One Step Closer to Bird Safe Buildings in Berkeley
March 3, 2023
San Francisco Christmas Bird Count 2022
January 18, 2023
Calling All CBC Yard Watchers
December 16, 2022
Meeker Slough
December 6, 2022
Lands End
December 6, 2022
Corona Hill
December 6, 2022
California’s 30×30 Goal
November 15, 2022

Our Mission

The Golden Gate Audubon Society engages people to experience the wonder of birds and to translate that wonder into actions which protect native bird populations and their habitats.

Home page photo of a Bald Eagle by Rick Lewis. Home page photos rotate on an occasional basis. If you have a Bay Area bird photo you would like us to consider, email us at rnakano@goldengateaudubon.org.

Home page bird illustrations by Tex Buss. We are grateful for her generous donation of time and talent!

Facebook Instagram Youtube Twitter

Contact Us

Golden Gate Audubon
2530 San Pablo Avenue, Suite G
Berkeley, California 94702

Phone: 510.843.2222

Office hours: Monday-Thursday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

The Golden Gate Audubon Society  is a not-for-profit 501(c)(3) organization. Our federal tax ID number is 94-6086896

Manage your GGAS account online

Now you can manage all your GGAS business online — renew your membership, update your contact information, view past donations, or sign up for events such as classes, Birdathon or the Christmas Bird Count. Click here to access your account. (You’ll need to create a login name and password if you don’t have one already. If you forget your password, click on the “forgot your password” link.) You can also sign up for our new GGAS Chat to get updates on trips, talk with other members, and more!

© 2023 Golden Gate Audubon Society | All Rights Reserved
All photos on this site belong to the photographers and may not be used without written permission.
  • About Us
    • About Our Staff
    • About Our Board
    • Our Commitment to Diversity
    • GGAS StrategicPlan
    • GGAS in the News
    • Job Opportunities
  • Education
    • Speaker Series
      • Past Speakers
    • Classes
      • Rotary Nature Center
    • Eco-Ed for Kids
  • Volunteer
  • Conservation
    • Bird-Friendly Coffee Club
  • GGAS Archives
    • The Gull Archives
    • GGAS Press Releases
    • Travel with GGAS – Past Tours
    • Past Speakers
  • Bird With Us
    • Field Trips
    • Travel with GGAS
    • SF Bay Ospreys
    • Christmas Bird Counts
    • The Gull
    • Golden Gate Birder Blog
      • Birdathon 2021
    • Corporate Partnerships
    • Member Login
    • Trip Reports by Year
    • Contact Us
      • Join/Renew
      • Other Ways to Give
      • Planned Giving
    • Member Login
    • Volunteer Hours Reporting
    • Birding Resources
      • Conservation Info
  • Blog
  • Donate