Birding at Joshua Tree National Park

    I seem to have a double life (maybe we all do).  My life at home, and my life away.  I am now back home after spending a little over a month away.  During that time I spent nearly a week at Joshua Tree National Park with my husband, Ky.  It is a place where two deserts converge - the high and cooler Colorado and the low and hotter Mohave.

      I have enjoyed hiking for some time but now that I've been introduced to birding, a new dimension has been added our hikes.  In Joshua Tree dry and deserted as it was, in January birds find a winter home (those that migrate).  We met up with some common faces: mockingbirds, ravens, mallard ducks, rock pigeons, & turkey vultures. We saw some old favorites:   American kestrel, coot, blue-gray gnatcatcher, flicker, Says Phoebe & yellow-rumped warbler.  And we saw some life birds (those we've identified for the 1st time in our lives): cactus wren, rock wren, verdin,  Gambel's quail, roadrunner,  phainopepla, & Loggerhead shrike.  http://www.nps.gov/archive/jotr/activities/birding/birding.html

     Being the vain female that I am, I enjoy nothing more than a sincere compliment from my husband.  We had planned our longest hike for the last day at the park - the "Lost Oasis" hike - 7 miles round trip.  On that day the reasonably pleasant weather we'd been enjoying had changed into a cold strong incessant wind.  But we headed out anyhow, ours the only car parked at the trailhead - were we crazy?  One thing the birds were all taking cover too.  But we were well clad enough and so proceeded on - mile after mile across a dessert with no sign of an Oasis in sight - I began to wonder if we were going to the sight of a previously existing oasis or if this were some joke.  Even as we got to the 3 mile marker there were no towering palms that I could point to saying we're almost there.  Finally, we came to a canyon where we walked down into the eroded ground - there were our trees not showing themselves on the horizon but hidden in this crack in the earth.  The little canyon Tee'd into a larger canyon and there were palms up and down that canyon and only a trickle of water.  The wind was less severe down there.  We'd walked around a bit & Ky said "you ready to go?"  "No, said I, there's more birds to be had here."  As we waited and meandered around, birds & other people started to appear.  The tall unmanicured palms provided large areas of protection for birds.  Several of the California Fan Palms all with their older fronds dried and leaning down like grass skirts made a seeming common trunk at least 25 feet across. They were grand.  As we sat on a rock we discovered a rock wren and then another and another - they deserve their name as they ran across the rocks and hid in crevices and then peeked out again.   We said our hellos to one group coming in as we were leaving and one of them called after us (seeing that I had binoculars) - Hey ther e's a loggerhead shrike over here.  We hussled back to observe this beautiful bird and share our binocs with him.  He sat for us and let us soak up the view of him as some birds do not.  And later as we were walking out he flew right in front of us and again let us look at him close up for awhile http://www.mbr-pwrc.usgs.gov/id/framlst/i6220id.html .   A handsome bird. 

   Oh yes, the compliment - it came later back at the motel.  Ky says to me, something like "You're quite the birder.  You were right we saw 2 more life birds.  Even I didn't have the patience and that's what it takes."   Maybe I don't have a double life so much, but like the birds, a life of migration.  Gotta fly now.