Birds of Tahoe

Last week, I drove up to Tahoe in search of bears. I spent all day wandering the woods, carefully looking and listening and walked over ten miles in the process. I didn’t find any. Once upon a time, that might have been a colossal disappointment, and obviously, I would have loved to have seen one, but it turned out to be a fantastic day for two reasons. Firstly, a day in the woods is never a bad day. And secondly, there were the birds.

It took me a surprisingly long time to develop an appreciation for birds. Sure, I always liked charismatic birds of prey, but I largely ignored the smaller birds that make our ecosystem so rich. However, a couple of years ago, I read a book called ‘What the Robin Knows: How Birds Reveal the Secrets of the Natural World’ by Jon Young. It woke me up to their fascinating behaviors that previously seemed random at best and boring at worst. I don’t know why I stayed ignorant for so long, but there was so much more to their lives.

Naturally, as I developed a deeper appreciation for the birds surrounding me, I began photographing them. I started to post the images on iNaturalist to help identify them, and before long, it became a game. Everywhere I go now, I’m looking to either test how rapidly I can remember the birds or find species I haven’t photographed before. So, to make a long story short, in Tahoe, although there were no bears around, I had a lot of fun photographing the birds (and the chipmunks, squirrels, bullfrogs, and snakes).