Flight – Page 2 – Birds of Bishop

Bald Eagles

The Bald Eagle is low-hanging fruit for a photographer. These big birds (10 pounds, wingspan 6.5 feet) often perch on a bare limb. With just a smartphone you can capture a classic pose: the fierce bird surveying its realm. The distinct white head makes it simple for the casual observer to spot and identify this bird. Even when flying, getting a photo is not hard due to the bird’s large size and straight path.

Bald Eagles show up at the Buckley Ponds near Bishop in November and depart in February. People get excited if they spot an eagle. When they see me walking with my camera, they love to tell me about this bird. I try to cheerfully thank them, suppressing a grumpy urge to say that I’ve been photographing the bird for weeks. Eagles so excite the public that I own five guidebooks that feature a Bald or Golden Eagle on the cover: The Audubon Society Encyclopedia of North American Birds, Smithsonian Birds of North America, National Geographic Complete Birds of North America, The Crossley ID Guide Raptors, and Birds of the Great Basin: A Natural History. Publishers know that eagles sell.

In winter, Bald Eagles can be found in several areas close to Bishop: Airport Road, Warm Springs Road, north of Dixon Lane, the alfalfa fields near the dump. I’ve seen them year-round at the Pleasant Valley Reservoir. They show up near Big Pine, Tinemaha Reservoir, and Mono Lake. In summer they can be found at Sabrina Lake (9200 feet) and Convict Lake (7900 feet).

Classic Poses of Mature Eagles

I’ll start with photos that show mature Bald Eagles in a classic perched pose. These birds are impressive. They look muscular and fierce. You can think of them as gangsters of the avian world. The first eight photos were taken at the Buckley Ponds and were selected because they also show some of the surrounding landscape.

Take another look at the last two photos. They show the same bird. Did you notice the scattered white blotches on the back of the bird? This bird has excrement on its back, undoubtedly from another Eagle that was flying above it. This majestic bird needs a bath.

The next 6 photos show Eagles at the Pleasant Valley Reservoir. They dine on fish and sometimes other birds. The first photo, showing an eagle surrounded by tree branches, is one of my favorites.

The Eagle below is at Sabrina Lake in August. A nice fishing spot for Eagles and people.

Eagle below checks out the electrical grid north of Bishop.

The next five photos are all Eagle portraits taken at the Buckley Ponds. It is often possible to get fairly close to these birds. Of course a telephoto lens helps.

Bald Eagles Have White Heads, Right?

In February of 2022, I saw a mature Bald Eagle near the Bishop Creek Canal. Then Roberta spotted a dark-colored eagle nearby. I examined my photos and realized that the second bird was a juvenile Bald Eagle, with a pale belly and scattered white feathers on the neck. Until that encounter, I thought all Bald Eagles had white heads.

Bald Eagles take about 5 years to develop their dramatic white head and tail. In their first year, they have dark brown heads and bills that are black. This change with age was worked out by bird artist Charles Wilson Peale in 1797; by the 1820s this was well-known to bird experts. Two centuries passed before I got the message. I lived in Seattle for over a decade and saw many Bald Eagles. Not once did I notice a juvenile Bald Eagle; this shows that you see only what you look for. Young Bald Eagles can be distinguished from Golden Eagles by several features; a pale belly, no golden feathers on the neck, white wing pits, lots of white color under the wings, a tail with messy-white feathers, lower legs free of feathers, brown eyes that become yellow with age, dark beaks that become bicolored and then yellow, massive beaks with a sharp hook at the end. Bald Eagles hang out with other Bald Eagles. Bald Eagles favor water and prefer to eat fish. Golden Eagles like cliffs and rabbits. In 2022, looked through my photo library and realized every “Golden” eagle in my collection was a young Bald Eagle.

Below I show photos of Bald Eagles ordered, approximately, from age one year to age 4 years. If you are a birding expert and think my age estimates are off, let me know.

One year old

The massive, hooked beak, below, tells you this is a Bald Eagle.

Alfalfa fields near the Bishop dump, below.

Age two years

Age 3 years

Age 4 years. By now the head is almost white, the eyes yellow, the beak nearly all yellow.

Flight

Below, an Eagle over Convict Lake, October, looking for fish. This was one of my first eagle photos: 2018. I did not even need a telephoto lens.

White Mountain in the background below:

Below, a young eagle hunting at the Buckley Ponds. When the Eagle takes off, dozens of American Coots go wild trying to fly or swim away from the Eagle’s path.

In December of 2022, I was walking on Warm Springs Road. I saw two birds flying toward me and I started shooting. These were two young Eagles. As they flew past, one Eagle braked and slowed, while the other bird did a barrel-role and displayed its talons. This behavior is sometimes described as a mating ritual. Or were they were just having fun? These are some of my favorite photos. How I wish I could see something like this again.

Below are 4 photos that show a young Eagle landing in a Cottonwood at the Buckely Ponds. It overshoots a bit, failing to stick the landing; then it balances properly. In the last photo you can see the bird’s tongue.

A young Bald Eagle takes off at the Buckley Ponds and swoops low over the ground.

A young Bald Eagle soars above the Pleasant Valley Reservoir.

In January of 2025, a 4-year old Eagle takes off at the Buckley Ponds. One of my favorite Eagle photos.

Eating

Double-crested Cormorants catch fish at the Pleasant Valley Reservoir. The Eagle below caught a Cormorant. You can see the Eagle is tearing apart its prey.

The Eagle below was perched at the Buckley Ponds on Dec 18, 2021:

A few days later, on Dec 22, I walked alone at the Ponds. It was 26 degrees and the Ponds were mostly frozen. I rounded a corner and found a Snow Goose on the road. I was surprised and so was the Goose; it flew off before I could get a photo. An hour later I came back to my car and saw an Eagle eating on the frozen lake; the fluffy stuff on the ice is white down, the remains of the Snow Goose. Blood, flesh, and bones were mixed with the down.

The Eagle flew off. You can see it below and even make out blood on the beak and feet. Some snow is on the ground.

The next photo, below, shows the Eagle perched, with blood on beak and toes. Compare with the picture shown above for Dec 18. This is the same perch and probably the same Eagle.

A Northern Harrier then arrived and tried to steal some of the remaining flesh; the Eagle chased the Harrier off. Later in the day, I came back to the Ponds and found a Red-tailed Hawk had managed to get some of the Goose meat. So three raptors dined on Goose that day. I wondered if my sudden appearance caused the Goose to carelessly fly into the path of the Eagle?

Below are 2 photos of the Red-tail, with Goose feathers on its beak:

The next picture shows a young Eagle flying near the Buckley Ponds. The bird is clutching something and seems to be pecking or biting whatever was in its talons.

Miscellaneous

The photo below shows a group of Crows harassing a Bald Eagle near Airport Road. The Eagle looks downcast.

The next two photos show a Crow chasing a Bald Eagle.

The next 4 photos show a Bald Eagle cleaning its beak on a branch near the Buckley Ponds. The bird cries out in the last two pictures.

The final photo shows the talons of a young Eagle.

A Fictional Eagle

Kenn Kaufman’s new (2024) book, The Birds that Audubon Missed: Discovery and Desire in the American Wilderness, describes how John James Audubon created a fictitious bird which he called the “Bird of Washington, Falco washingtonii.” Audubon claimed that this was a newly discovered species of eagle, 25% larger than a Bald Eagle, with a wingspan over ten feet. He did this to sell subscriptions for his expensive book series, Birds of America, which was printed in Britain starting in 1827. Audubon knew that Eagles sell. Recently, historians discovered that Audubon’s painting of this counterfeit bird was plagiarized from an illustration of a generic raptor in a book by Abraham Rees.

Coastal Birds – Fort Bragg

My blog is focused on birds of the Eastern Sierra, from Owens Lake to Mono Lake. But this post focuses on the coast near Fort Bragg, about half-way between San Francisco and Oregon. The geography here is simple: from west to east is the Pacific ocean, then a shallow shore with rocky islands, sometimes a strip of beach, followed by cliffs topped by flat headlands. Then the earth rises into low coastal mountains that are covered by wet forests. Fort Bragg lies on a narrow stretch of flat land between the ocean and the forests.

Roberta and I walk paths on the coastal bluffs. To the north of town is an old logging haul road that leads to Mackerricher State Park. To the south is Mendocino Headlands State Park. A timber mill used to occupy the scenic land between Fort Bragg and the ocean. The mill closed in 2002, leaving the bluffs with rusted buildings, waste, and weeds. In the last few years the town cleaned up some of this land and built the Noyo Headlands Park, which provides gorgeous walks overlooking the Pacific. The new trails have benches and signs that describe the area’s history and wildlife. The coast is alive with wildlife; birds, deer, rodents, seals, Grey whales, shellfish, etc.

These photos were taken on trips we made from 2021 through 2025; a cumulative period of about 20 days. I’ll periodically comment about whether a bird can be found in the Eastern Sierra.

Brown Pelicans in Flight

Decimated by DDT in the 60’s, populations have recovered. Weight 8 lb, wingspan 6.5 feet. Awkward on land, but graceful aeronauts. When they plunge-dive for fish, their beaks can fill with 10 quarts of sea-water. Easy to identify; no other creature looks like this. Easy to photograph in the air because of they are so big and they have a predictable flight path; a few wing-beats lift them up, then they glide down, then up again, with little change in direction. The Brown Pelicans are birds of the coast and the Mississippi River valley. (In the Owens Valley, we have the much bigger American White Pelican; weight 16 lb, wingspan 9 feet.)

The young pelicans are browner, with a brown and grey head. The mature pelicans have white heads and necks.

Below two Pelicans look ghostly as they fly over the forest.

Large number of Pelicans flying south in a V-formation.

Pelicans on Land

On land, Pelicans obsessively preen their feathers. Occasionally one takes off, flies over the waves, and lands again in a different spot. Are they just visiting other Pelicans? Are they testing their feathers, checking if the preening is satisfactory? There are hundreds of them in the area in fall, but they vanish in winter. These photos were taken at the Mendocino Headlands in the fall.

There were probably 100 Pelicans in the scene below and maybe 1000 more on nearby bluffs. The black birds on the right are Pelagic Cormorants. A few Western Gulls, very white, are scattered about.

A close-up of preening behavior.

Brown pelicans and Pelagic Cormorants.

Everyone is busy.

Cormorants

The Double-crested Cormorant has yellow-orange color around the bill. This bird lives on the coast and is the only cormorant found inland. Near Bishop, this bird hangs out above the dam of the Pleasant Valley Reservoir. They also appear at the Buckley Ponds.

The Pelagic Cormorant swims on the water, then dives up to 120 feet for fish.

Brandt’s Cormorant has a blue patch under the bill when in breeding plumage.

White plumes on the neck are part of the breeding wardrobe of Brandt’s Cormorants.

Western Gulls

Western Gulls are common here. Immature birds are dark, adults white and grey with pink legs. (A warning: gull identification can be difficult. The species often look similar. And these birds change their look as they grow older. I have met birders who say: “I don’t do gulls.” If you think some of these are not Western Gulls, let me know.)

Young gull.

Northern Harrier

This raptor hunts rodents by cruising low and slow over the ground. It often flies looking straight down, sort of like a person who is looking at their phone instead of watching where they are going. While it appears they might run into a tree, they are agile flyers, able to navigate confined areas and turn on a dime. I once saw a Harrier fly at speed under a low strand of barbed wire. When they spot a rodent, they drop quickly. They sometimes hunt in pairs. At the coast, they cruise the coastal bluffs. This bird is common over the fields near Bishop.

The Harrier below is looking down.

Note the white rump in the image below. The Harrier is the only raptor with this distinctive butt.

Another feature is the ruff of feathers around the face.

The view below may be the last thing a mouse sees.

Black Oystercatchers

Clownish in appearance, with yellow eye, red eye-ring and bill, dark feathers, and pink legs. Toes seem to have toenails. A bird created by a comedian. They can chisel mollusks off rocks and then pry the shells open.

White-tailed Kite

White-tailed Kites live on the West Coast, in the Southwest, and along the Gulf of Mexico. They rarely visit the Owens Valley; I have never seen one near Bishop. They hunt by hovering, ready to drop and grab small rodents. The white wings look angelic, but the red eyes look devilish. For the last 3 years I’ve seen these birds at the coast.

Hovering, ready to grab a vole. A mixture of angel and devil.

Other seabirds

Snowy Plovers, shown flying below, appear sometimes in the Owens Valley. I resent these birds. Humans are banned from many California beaches, to protect the eggs that stupid plovers lay on the sand. If you leave your iPhone on a beach and someone steps on it, I feel that is on you. I feel the same way about plover eggs. (Ok, I agree we should protect the Snowy Plover. But still…)

The Black-bellied Plover, seen below, breeds in the Arctic. In non-breeding plumage, the black-belly is absent.

Black Turnstone below. Breeds in Alaska, winters on the coast.

A colony of Common Murees.

Pigeon Guillemots, below.

Surf Scoter is a sea duck. The male is very colorful.

Other Water Birds

The next 3 birds are common both on the coast and in the Eastern Sierra.

Western Grebes are famous for doing a water dance. A mating pair will join each other in “walking” on the water surface. The bird below was single, but practicing this dance in the surf.

Canada Goose posing with ice plants.

A Great Egret at a pond in Mackerricher State Park.

Other Land Birds

The next group of “land” bird photos shows birds that are common to both the Coast and the Eastern Sierra.

The Turkey Vulture is a bird that only a mother could love. But they are terrific flyers who sail gracefully on the wind. The bird below was with a vulture group on the beach.

A White-crowned Sparrow eating vegetation.

A Song Sparrow doing its thing. You can see the bird’s tiny tongue.

The Savannah Sparrow has a yellow eyebrow.

A Western Meadowlark.

California Quail (male).

Black Phoebe.

Female House Finch.

Red-tailed Hawk amid ice plant.

Common Raven. They are big on the coast. People feed them and this makes it easy to get close for a portrait.

The coastal ravens remind me to the large and aggressive ravens in Death Valley, particularly at the Stovepipe Wells Campground. Those birds will hop about on the picnic tables, trying to eat your food. Years ago I composed a limerick about Death Valley Ravens:

There once was a Raven named Bruce

Who was almost as big as a goose.

He would knock over campers

To steal food from their hampers.

And I’m afraid he is still on the loose.

Animals

Mule deer on the headlands.

California Ground Squirrel. They dig thousands of holes on the headlands and beg for food.

California Ground Squirrel eating ice plant.

Black-tailed Jackrabbit. Note tattered ears.

Brown Garden Snail.

Northern Sea-lions.

Harbor Seals. Why do they have mustache whiskers and eyebrows?

Miscellaneous sights

The Mendocino Coast Botanical Gardens always have something interesting. Below is an Opuntia – prickly pear cactus.

Rhododendron.

Point Cabrillo Light Station.

When you visit the coast, it is good to have a guide. Especially someone with sharp eyes who can find birds and other wildlife. I highly recommend the guide below. Her vast knowledge and cheerful attitude will make your walk more enjoyable.

A Little History

Fort Bragg (pop 7000) was founded in 1857 as a military post to oversee the Mendocino Indian Reservation. The government later opened the area to settlers, forcing the Indians to abandon their coastal property for a smaller area in the forests. The officer who set up the new camp named it for another officer that he knew from the Mexican-American War: Braxton Bragg, a man from North Carolina who never saw the California town that bears his name. Bragg enslaved people on his Louisiana sugar plantation and was later a Confederate General. Wikipedia says he was “generally considered among the worst generals of the Civil War.” He was hated by many troops because of his rigid discipline and disliked by many superior officers for his bad temper and quarrelsome habits. Bragg lost nearly all of his battles. The better-known Fort Bragg, the U.S. Army base in North Carolina with 50,000 troops, was renamed Fort Liberty in 2022. There has been some effort to change the name of Fort Bragg, California, but Braxton Bragg continues to be memorialized here. Signs saying “Fort Bragg Forever” can be seen in some yards around the town.

On February 10, 2025, at about the time I published this post, the name of Fort Liberty in North Carolina was changed to Fort Bragg by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. The Secretary says the new name is to honor Roland L. Bragg, a private who was awarded a Silver Star in World War II.

Wilson’s Phalarope

These shorebirds birds are 9 inches long, have a wingspan of 17 inches, and weigh 2 oz. They mate in the Dakotas and Saskatchewan in May. The females lay eggs and promptly leave, heading south to the saline lakes of the Great Basin: Great Salt Lake, Abert’s Lake in Oregon, and Mono Lake north of Bishop. The males look after the eggs, but once the chicks are hatched, the males also head south. The chicks are born with feathers and find their own food; soon they also go south. The birds show up at Mono Lake from mid-June to August. Surveys at Mono Lake done 35 years ago estimated up to 80,000 phalaropes in a year, but survey methods then and now are pretty crude. The females arrive first, then males, then juveniles. They hang out for a month doubling their weight on brine shrimp and alkali flies — an unlimited, but monotonous, buffet. They use the time and food energy to molt, discarding their old feathers and growing new ones. Then they fly south – a 3-day non-stop to South America, about 3000-4000 miles. They spend the Boreal winter at inland saline lakes near the Andes Mountains of Argentina, Bolivia, and Chile. In spring of the next year, they fly north and do this all over again.

Below are photos of Mono Lake, where thousands of Phalaropes gather every summer. The first photo was taken from the Mono Craters, a group of volcanos south of the lake. In the foreground is volcanic ash and rubble. In the middle distance on the right is an island called Paoha. Most California Gulls migrate from the coast to this island in the summer, nest, and raise their chicks. In the far distance are the snowy summits of the Sweetwater Mountains, which straddle the California-Nevada border.

Mono Lake from Mono Craters. Looking north.

The winter view below, looking south, shows the Lake from near Conway Summit. The large road is Highway 395. The town of Lee Vining is in the distance on the right. Rain and snow are coming down from the clouds.

Sunrise from the Lake’s south shore.

Lightning started a fire just a few years ago. It burned off sagebrush and rabbitbrush from a large area on the Lake’s south shore.

Mono Lake south shore. South Tufa area on left, Navy Beach on right. Burned from lighting fire.

Another view of the burned area.

Below are pictures of Wilson’s Phalaropes floating, preening, and feeding. These images were taken from the South Tufa area of Mono Lake, which has easy road access and a boardwalk that leads to the water. The female birds have a black facial stripe that morphs into a cinnamon color on the back of the neck; very elegant. Colors for the males and juveniles are muted; a blah look.

Wilson’s Phalaropes. Mono Lake. Two bird on the right are females in breeding plumage.

Wilson’s Phalaropes are wading birds, but also happy swimming about.

Lots of preening here. These birds are molting, getting entirely new outfits.

The image above shows some birds feeding. All they have to eat here are brine shrimp, which are less than a half-inch long, and small alkali flies. They grasp brine shrimp or flies with the tip of their bills, then open the bill so that a water droplet containing the food moves up to the mouth using surface-tension. Two California biologists studied this with high-speed cameras and their article shows photos of water droplets moving up a bird’s bill from tip to mouth in 0.01 seconds. (Rubega MA, Obst BS. Surface Tension Feeding in Phalaropes: Discovery of a Novel Feeding Mechanism. The Auk: A Quarterly Journal of Ornithology. 1993;110(2):169-173.)

Until 2021, I knew nothing about this bird. Roberta and I visited Mono Lake’s South Tufa beach early on July 2 and found thousands of them at the shore, floating on the water, and flying about in flocks of hundreds, even thousands. We came back on July 6 and 13 to get more photos. The birds made little noise; just faint gurgling sounds. At the shore they seemed restless, either eating or preening themselves. The scene was one of the most exciting wildlife events I’ve ever seen, comparable to seeing animal herds on the Serengeti.

Below are two images of Phalaropes landing.

This is a different bird, also landing. As they come down, they take a few steps on the water.

Every few minutes a flock of hundreds or thousands took off, zoomed about (at speeds up to 50 mph) near the water surface or high above the water, and then landed on the water. Large flocks made a “whooshing” sound as they went past. The landings looked like a controlled crash; the birds spread their wings, put out their feet, and take several steps on the water before flopping down. Their bellies are white, backs are a mix of browns. So depending on their angle in flight, they make look white, brown, grey, or black. As they change direction, the color of the flock changes — a fast moving plume of black smoke seems to turn white. Sometimes a dark-appearing flock crosses the path of another flock that looks white.

We see the bellies, so these birds look white.

In some photos, individual birds are upside down! Does air turbulence from the flock tip them over? Or are they just banking a turn very hard? How do they avoid crashing into each other? As they land, they seem to touch at times.

At the top of this group, right of center, one bird is upside down. Feet point into the air.

The more you magnify this photo, the more birds you can see. Could there be a thousand birds in this picture?

Why do they fly about so much? I assume they are getting their muscles in shape for the 3000-mile trip to South America. They are training, just as a human trains for a marathon. Are they also practicing how to fly as a group? When they head south, they usually lift off at night, head for the coast, and fly over the ocean. I wonder what it would look like to see a flock pass overhead against the stars or the moon?

Who was Wilson?

Alexander Wilson (1766 to 1813) was born in Scotland. He moved to America in 1794 (age 27) in the hope of escaping poverty. He lived in Pennsylvania. Before his death at age 47, he published 9 books of bird illustrations; American Ornithology (1808-1814). His name is attached to Wilson’s Storm-Petrel, Wilson’s Plover, Wilson’s Snipe, Wilson’s Phalarope, and Wilson’s Warbler.

In 2023, the American Ornithological Society announced a plan to revise North American bird names. Instead of naming birds for people (all white males of European heritage), names will be revised to describe the birds. They plan to revise 10 names in 2024, including Wilson’s Warbler and Snipe. Europeans did not discover these birds; they were known to indigenous people for thousands of years.

A couple of additional photos remind us that Phalaropes are not the only creatures at Mono Lake. Roberta spotted this Desert Cottontail on April 2, 2024.

Takeoff

Gravity binds humans to the earth. We travel freely in two dimensions: back and forth, side to side. But our ability to move up and down is limited. We can climb a cliff or descend a cavern, but we must cling to a surface or tether ourselves with rope. Without equipment, our muscles can only lift us into the air for a moment. The ballerina, high-jumper, or gymnast is focused on landing even before they take off. Balloons, wingsuits, hang-gliders, Piper Cubs, jets, and rockets let us stay aloft longer. With a boarding pass, any human can fly faster and higher than a falcon. Yet clever engineering provides only temporary and complicated release from the ground. Our usual lives are earthbound.

Birds, however, live in three dimensions. Hundreds of times a day, herons and hummingbirds take to the air using only muscles and feathers. They make this transition as easily as we step off a curb. Some can fly for days without landing. Some sleep in the air, fight in the air, and eat in the air. Not all birds fly. Some birds near Bishop prefer the ground; Roadrunners and California Quail. But the essence of most birds is flight.

To photograph a flying bird, I often start with a non-flying bird on a branch, on the ground, or floating on a pond. I aim the camera and let it automatically focus and set the lens aperture. I take pictures of the perched bird. Then I wait.

If nothing happens in a minute, I continue my walk. But if the bird takes off, or seems likely to do that, I depress the shutter button and keep it down while panning the camera to follow the bird. This method sometimes captures the moment of takeoff, when a bird transitions from earth to air. This blog article displays photos of bird launches.

Bald Eagles appear at the Buckley Ponds from November to February. They come to eat fish and American Coots. Below are images of a juvenile Bald Eagle at the Buckley Ponds in January of 2024. The bird used a common liftoff routine: leap and flap. First the legs crouch and the wings start to rise. The wings unfurl as high as possible. Then the legs push off the branch as the wings come down to push on the air. If the bird starts high enough, it may dive to increase speed. Faster airflow over the wings produces lift, so the bird stays aloft using less energy. In this sequence of photos, the time from first movement to leaving the branch was one second. The time from the first photo to the last was 4 seconds.

By pushing off with its legs, the bird gains airspeed to produce lift. There is another advantage to a push; it lets the bird get clear of branches or wires before using the wings. This may prevent injuries.

Juvenile Bald Eagle takes off. Buckley Ponds. January 2024.

A Great Egret uses a similar leap and flap technique, pushing off the bottom of the Bishop Creek Canal with its long legs.

Another Great Egret crouches to start flight from the shore of the Buckley Ponds. The area between the eye and bill, the “lore,” is green. This color appears during mating season. The filamentous feathers (plumes) that trail behind are also part of mating plumage.

Belted Kingfishers are common along the Bishop Creek Canal. They don’t like my approach and the photo below shows a typical response. The bird always flies off away from me. For a moment it seems suicidal, plunging down. Then a burst of flapping lifts it up.

Red-tailed hawks push off hard with their feet, then a couple of wing flaps gets them into forward flight and the feet retract up.

Below are several photos that show songbirds blasting off from brush near the Bishop Creek Canal.

Northern Mockingbird. Gus Cashbaugh Lane, near Bishop Creek Canal.

Yellow-rumped Warbler. Bishop Creek Canal.

White-crowned Sparrow. Bishop Creek Canal.

The Osprey below did not push off. It daintily stepped into space, like a person stepping into a jacuzzi. It fell for a moment and then the wings grabbed the air.

In the morning shade, a Ferruginous Hawk launches.

Ferruginous Hawk. Gus Cashbaugh Lane, near Bishop Creek Canal.

The next two photos show a Red-shouldered Hawk leaping from a tree. In the second photo you can see a feature of this bird; “windows” in the wings. The wings have long primary feathers near the tips. In the near wing there is a band of white color several inches from the tips of the feathers. This colored band is somewhat translucent; in the far wing, light shines through this “window.” Also note the landing gear retracting upward to streamline the bird.

Red-shouldered Hawk. Warm Springs Road near Bishop Creek Canal.

Great Blue Herons crouch, then jump up, as shown in the next three photos. For a moment it looks as if the Heron will crash, but powerful wing beats keep them aloft. In the third photo there are white specks in the air; those are mosquitos in the morning light.

A female American Kestrel has just left her perch. Her wings are rusty-brown. In the second photo, a male Kestrel has started to crouch and spread his wings. His wings are blue-grey.

American Kestrel (female). Bishop Creek Canal.

Lots of birds are at the Buckley Ponds. A Red-winged Blackbird uses the leap and flap method. These birds gather in the hundreds in spring and stay for months, raising their young.

Red-winged Blackbird leaps from Rabbitbrush. Buckley Ponds.

The Common Raven does not like to be photographed. They depart when I point the lens at them. This one springs from a wooden barrier.

A Wood Duck uses webbed feet to shove off the water at the Buckley Ponds.

Double-Crested Cormorants are the only cormorant species in the Eastern Sierra. This one vaults over the water and then shoves on the water with its webbed feet. Each push is synchronized with a wing downbeat. The second photo shows preparation for a push; I think the bird looks like a dragon from Game of Thrones.

Double-crested Cormorant. Buckley Ponds.

About three hundred American Coots winter at the Buckley Ponds. Their green feet propel them on the surface, splashing like mad to climb into the air. The whole operation is noisy and graceless. When a Bald Eagle swoops over the Ponds, dozens of panicked Coots try to slosh their way to safety.

American Coot. Rawson Canal next to Buckley Ponds.

The House Finch below leaves the fence that surrounds the Bishop Sewage Ponds.

A male Northern Flicker blasts off on South Airport Road.

Many birds, such as Kestrels, Kingfishers, and Harriers, can fly in place for a while, but they need some wind to do this. According to Sibley, only hummingbirds can truly hover. The hummingbird can flap its wings so fast that it just rises up, as demonstrated by a Black-chinned Hummingbird.

Black-chinned Hummingbird. Green Gate road off Dixon Lane.

A Steller’s Jay on McGee Creek starts to fly.

This Violet-Green Swallow is cleared for takeoff from a tufa tower at Mono Lake. These pocket-rockets are hard to photograph when flying, so I try to focus when they land on the tufa. Their rest breaks are short and they soon rocket off to hunt bugs in the air.