Juncos are commoners in Rocky Mountain National Park/Kirby Adams
A recent National Parks Traveler survey asked how far travelers ventured from the parking lots at national parks. I had some trouble answering that, given that I believe too many people are bound to their vehicles, while on the other hand I tend to hang out in parking lots.
It’s not a secret that great birds are often found in parking lots, behind visitor centers, or at other artificial locations. Several factors contribute to that phenomenon, not the least of which is that the clearing around such areas makes birds much easier to see. There are also a lot more eyes looking at the trees near the restrooms than there are six miles down the trail, so things get noticed and reported.
But I’m more than just a birder, and the wild does call to me from beyond the roar of shuttle buses in the parking lot. In this third, and final (for now) report from Rocky Mountain National Park, I actually slung a daypack on my back and walked a couple miles away from the car. My earlier exploits involved looking at American Pipits almost within sight of the Alpine Visitor Center and watching a nest of Williamson’s Sapsuckers a mere hundred yards from the Upper Beaver Meadows parking lot. My last birding highlight in the park was, while still on the beaten path, at least not within sight of roads and buildings.
In pre-trip planning, a birder friend familiar with the park told me to do the Dream and Emerald Lake hike, not because any of my target birds were guaranteed there, but simply because it’s too beautiful to miss. With that in mind I ventured out without a single bird expectation, often the recipe for a highly rewarding walk. The trip to Emerald Lake is essentially a visit to four different lakes with short walks between each. Bear, Nymph, Dream, and Emerald lakes each have their own personality, and I was pleased to score some nice birds at each, culminating with the best birds and best scenery at the end.
Bear Lake wasn’t particularly productive, but a few of the usual suspects, such as Mountain Chickadee and Audubon’s Warbler, were hanging around the shoreline and entertaining to watch. Since I didn’t get as early of a start as I wished, there were also enormous numbers of people hanging around, so I hustled on up the trail.
Our intrepid birder left the parking lot at Rocky Mountain National Park to search for birds near Emerald Lake/Kirby Adams
If Nymph Lake were anywhere else, it would be a typical water lily-choked pond. As it happens to be high in the Rocky Mountains, it’s a different lily pad viewing experience than I usually have in the summer. The Mountain Chickadees just above the lake were joined by a flock of Golden-crowned Kinglets – winter birds in most of the places you’d find a pond like this, but squeaking through the canopy here on the summer solstice. I thought I might catch a heron of some type fishing the edges of the pond, but none was to be found. That’s not surprising, given that only a few herons have been seen up there, and the most recent was a Great Blue Heron in 2012. My Midwestern brain just had trouble dealing with a lake that looked like that not having a resident heron.
Higher up and farther along the trail, things get real. There’s snow on the ground and the birds are not just the “winter” birds of the East, but the ones you have to travel far to the north in the winter to see. Crossing a small snowpack and stepping up to the shore of Dream Lake, I caught sight of a Gray Jay flying across the lake and briefly perching. The last time I’d seen a Gray Jay in summer was a continent away, in Terra Nova National Park in Newfoundland.
Some squawking from the conifers lining the lake betrayed the presence of one of my targets, the Clark’s Nutcracker. This bird is a member of the corvid family, along with jays, crows, and ravens. They’re one of the iconic birds of the Western mountains, but one I had never gotten a good look at.
After a half hour at Dream Lake, I still hadn’t gotten that good look, although it was clear at least a few were in the pines. Waiting for them to appear was hardly difficult work, reclining on a sunny lakeshore rock, watching Dark-eyed Juncos playing in the snow and listening to the haunting song of Hermit Thrushes all around me. Eventually I decided Dream Lake owed me no more bliss, so I moved on - and almost walked right into an elk.
Astute readers of this column may remember that I once almost walked into a bison (literally) in Theodore Roosevelt National Park while looking up at a singing Yellow-breasted Chat. This time I was thinking about Hermit Thrushes and looking off to the side at some Audubon’s Warblers. I stopped to watch a cow elk browsing just off the trail where my warblers were. That may have been providential, as another hiker came up to me and said, “Do you see this?”
I said that I did see it, thinking he meant the elk I was looking at. It turns out he was talking about another big, burly, female elk that was standing in the trail 10 yards in front me. Once she finally let us pass, we discovered several females and a few young ones relaxing on a ledge above the trail. I began mentally lecturing myself about walking forward while looking at birds not in front of me, when the pine on my right erupted into commotion. It wasn’t another elk, thankfully, but rather the best encounter I’ve ever had – or likely will have - with Clark’s Nutcrackers.
A family group of nutcrackers was shaking the tree, using their dagger-like bills to attack some old cones. One bird appeared just to my side and perched on a dead branch. A second later, another came over and fed it just a few feet from my face. What a surreal experience to be let into their world that way, and so much better than being stomped by an elk!
The nutcracker family followed me over a snowfield and right up to the shore of Emerald Lake. The mountains are real up there. Raw, gnarly, brutal rock faces, not the majestic and texture-less mountains of pictures. Cascades from Tyndall Glacier tumble down the saddle between Hallet Peak and Flattop Mountain, right into the frigid lake. For anything approaching a deserving description of the place, you’d need a poet, not a birder. I took in the scene, allowing myself to glance down below my feet where a Gray-headed Junco hopped around on some partially submerged pine boughs. Nature’s macro-scenic glory was spread out above my head, while a micro-scenic play was acted out at my feet. I snapped photos of the two different worlds, without moving, fifteen seconds apart.
Sighting of a Clark's Nutcracker made our birder's trek far from the parking lots at Rocky Mountain highly worthwhile./Kirby Adams
A bird buzzed low across the surface lake. I immediately thought it might be a Spotted Sandpiper, a proposition almost as ridiculous as my non-existent heron at Nymph Lake. No, this bird was another of the quintessential western mountain denizens, an American Dipper – known by many as the Water Ouzel. Two of them walked along the shore, frequently performing the deep knee bends that gave rise to their modern name. They flew under an overhanging ice and snow ledge on the shore. I could see them splashing about through the foot-high gap, then they disappeared.
A cloud slipped in front of Hallet Peak, the vanguard of a group of its more ominous looking cousins behind the mountains. It was time to go. Nutcrackers and ouzels at a lake in the cloudy mountain peaks is almost cliché, but it was the perfect end to one of the best birding hikes I’ve ever had on one of the best short visits to a national park I’ve ever had. I decided on the hike out to hang up my binoculars, because I’d seen the best birds in the best spot I’d ever see. That idea lasted until half-way down Bear Lake Road, when I stopped to look for some Dusky Flycatchers.
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