Learning to Love the Desert – An ABA Young Birders Essay

By ABA Young Birder, Steven Cavros

I got out of the car and, almost immediately, thought I had made a big mistake. The air was much cooler, all of a sudden, and all the houses looked too crammed together; the only bird in sight was a single scrub jay in a leafless tree above my new house. This was a jarring change from even seven hours ago, when I had been wandering the warm, sunny trails of Desert National Wildlife Refuge outside Las Vegas, and that had been a jolting change from the previous day, when I was birding at Hassayampa River Preserve, a riparian park in Maricopa County, Arizona. 

I had made my way from rural North Florida to Reno, Nevada, over a long series of seven-hour drives, first from Florida to Louisiana, then to central and then southern Texas, then to Arizona, and finally to my new home state. I greatly enjoyed my overnight stay in McAllen, Texas, and the opportunity to see Green Jays, Altamira Orioles, and Great Kiskadees. I enjoyed birding from the deck of my Airbnb along the bayou in Central Louisiana, watching Eastern Kingbirds, Cliff Swallows and even an Inca Dove or two. Arizona had, similarly, been a blast, and so had southern Nevada. After several years of isolation due to the pandemic, despite Florida’s great birding, I was excited to head out to Reno, pursuing an opportunity at a gifted school, away from the isolation of rural North Florida. I guess I hadn’t realized how different Reno would be, and how the lack of American Redstarts, Hooded Warblers, Rose-breasted Grosbeaks and Roseate Spoonbills, and the massive life change, would soon wear down on me. But, during my whole trip cross-country, I was more than excited, never considering that there could be any negatives to this move; it seemed incredible.

I was ever hopeful and happy as I began to bird at one of our small neighborhood parks, even excited by the year-round presence of wild Mallards, a strictly winter bird for me in Florida. Having kept both our houses, we had plans to visit Florida in winter, and so I felt nothing at all bittersweet until I stepped out into that cool May afternoon in my new front yard. The whole space felt so contained and the houses so close together. I felt a sense of dread creeping over me as I helped haul boxes and boxes of packed items into the empty house, which didn’t look terrible, but could certainly use a few fixes, I noted, as I checked it out for the first time. I’d already moved once, but this house was empty. Empty, dirty and a little cold. I hadn’t thought that much about the local birding because I had been so occupied with birding on the road. So, I had very little knowledge of any of the local hotspots, and hadn’t yet consulted eBird, since I knew I couldn’t get anywhere far away tonight. This sense of dread grew, assuaged briefly by the presence of California Quails and Bushtits, but ultimately growing and growing.

I quickly came to miss the eastern birds and the southern climate. Having come to the height of summer, the birding in my neighborhood at all parks was quite slow. The occasional trip into the mountains was often the most exciting birding adventure, as many more birds stayed up there all summer long. Most of my days were empty, with little to do except walk between a few local parks every long, hot day. But one thing was still there – the birds. Even after a 1,000-mile drive, I could still hear a Killdeer now and then when I was walking past an overgrown field, or a Canada Goose whenever I passed some water. Not much, but certainly something; a little spark of something during long, dry days in my crowded local parks.

Fall rolled around. This was something I had thought about a lot. I had waited for the migrants for months. I had only recently seen my first Townsend’s Warbler in May of 2022, in some mesquite in Cochise, Arizona. Mid-September, I had a very strange dream. I was sitting on a porch, by a big mossy oak tree. A Townsend’s Warbler landed on the railing, maybe four feet from me, and flew away. That’s all I remember, but it was enough to tell me how much I’d been thinking about new migrants. Since this was my first fall in the West, I knew I was in for a change.

It was certainly a change. Birds could make Nevada feel more like home, but they could do the opposite, too. The lack of redstarts and Black-and-white Warblers didn’t go unnoticed by me. These species were about as familiar as it got in northern Florida, many passing through or wintering in my yard or neighborhood. At the same time in Nevada, Nashville Warblers, one of my biggest nemesis birds, were common in the last weeks of September, and I heard Yellow Warblers singing, something I’d never really heard in Florida, where they’re only a (scarce) wintering species and migrant. The Yellow Warblers were briefly ubiquitous, and so were the Orange-crowned Warblers once the temperatures dropped. Of course, these migrants would soon be gone, but I didn’t know it yet.

I headed out to Tonopah, Nevada, in mid-October of 2022 after weeks of encouraging my parents; this was because I had seen numerous Eastern U.S. migrant species reported from the spot, although I wasn’t quite sure why. All I knew was that it seemed to be the closest place to see many familiar Eastern species. I hadn’t seen the place yet with my own eyes, but it became quite apparent when my family first rolled into Miller’s Rest Area after a three-and-a-half hour drive.

For the last hour or two of the drive, we were surrounded by nothing but dust and sage; as far as the eye could see were high, rolling hills without even a single scraggly juniper or pinyon. Tonopah, despite not being particularly lush, was an oasis, with the irrigated lawn of the well-treed cemetery and Miller’s rest stop, about ten miles from town, rising up out of nothing. With only a handful of trees and a damp lawn, the rest stop was nevertheless a massive trap for vagrants. Though I didn’t know it at the time, just over the Nye County line and a few miles south were more important hotspots, including a handful of small parks and the wet ballfields of the local high school. This was, perhaps, the first time that I began to realize one of Nevada’s biggest strengths: desert vagrant traps.

The year continued with a couple of nice late fall rarities but winter was creeping in, and it would be a harsh one. The last few months of 2022 I spent waiting for my month-long winter vacation; when it finally came, my family immediately flew out to our Florida home where I was delighted to bird again. I was incredibly excited to finally see cardinals, Pine, Palm and Black-and-white Warblers, Clapper Rails, Vermilion Flycatchers, Limpkins and many, many others. I birded there until late January, by the end of which I was understandably less than ecstatic to head back to cold, wintry northern Nevada.

I birded patiently all winter, mainly an activity of sorting through juncos, Yellow-rumped Warblers, goldfinches and ever-present Song Sparrows. A small seed feeder outside one window of my home was one of the few comforts of winter. Very little was familiar, but a fairly irruptive year for Cassin’s Finches in the Washoe Valley and the constant stream of Lesser Goldfinches were like the sunshine during heavy snows. Handsome Evening Grosbeaks, rather scarce around my feeders, nevertheless made it feel like spring whenever I noticed one perched in the small, leafless cherry tree in front of our house. The occasional Myrtle’s or hybrid Myrtle’s x Audubon’s Yellow-rumped Warbler was always a fun surprise, as was a mixed flock of different junco subspecies or a Yellow- and Red-shafted Northern Flicker intergrade, but really, throughout most of the winter, nothing truly rare showed up. Rare ducks were the main highlight of the deep winter months, but even these were scarce after late November.

Sledding, skiing and other things took precedence in these winter months until about mid-April when I finally stumbled upon my first of season Orange-crowned Warbler, and then later in April, my first of season Yellow Warbler, a clear and true harbinger of spring. A host of other neotropical passerines followed, and the first days of May were, by Nevada standards, wildly productive; almost everywhere I went, I was able to pick up dozens of migrants. It was a productive spring especially for Wilson’s Warblers, by far the most common migrant for most of early May; in good habitat, I was always able to count at least ten if I really tried. On the last weekend of May, I made a short spring trip down to Tonopah area to look for some of my favorite eastern migrants, but this trip was, altogether, not very successful. An Indigo Bunting, now a fairly common sight in the Southwest, probably capped this trip, with a few other nice but fairly common species including Swainson’s Thrush and significant numbers of Wilson’s Warblers. However, I really felt like I had found what Nevada had going for it – and I was determined to continue birding these desert traps.

Nevada had started to feel a lot less like an urban wasteland and more like a place full of generally unacknowledged potential. I was excited to go out every day, to pick through small mixed flocks at my neighborhood parks. Even on very cold or very hot days, in the most unpleasant of circumstances, I still loved to go out and enjoy small groups of Wilson’s Warblers trickling through any good riparian stretch I could find. I’d never seen Wilson’s Warblers in Florida, but they became one of my new favorite birds because of their liveliness, color and little black caps. It didn’t matter where I was in those last days of May; I was always with the energetic little Wilson’s Warblers, like tiny beacons in the still-leafless trees and dark tangles of brush.

On a warm, dry July afternoon, I was wandering around Tonopah’s newer cemetery on my way north from Arizona, among irrigated grass and a few clumps of trees. It was a bit early  in the season for anything much, but I figured I’d look. Wandering around the entrance road to the cemetery, I found very little. I packed up and took one last look at some peewees and a cowbird in a snag near the car, when I heard a quick chip note. I raced down the row of trees that line the cemetery entrance road and discovered a nice young Lazuli Bunting sitting a few yards above my head. A pretty bird, but certainly one I’d seen many times before. Just as I was about to head back up to the car, I saw a little bird moving quickly and quietly, a few inches behind the bunting, throwing its tail open and closed. Fixing my binoculars on it, I was treated to an unusually good view of a young or female American Redstart, routinely flashing the distinctive yellow panels in its tail. Redstarts are scarce migrants through the state in fall, and pretty easy to get at any desert trap. Still, it meant a lot, being one of my favorite eastern warblers and the first Eastern U.S. warbler I found in Nevada. It had been at least eight months since I’d seen a redstart, and, perhaps more importantly, it had been about a thousand miles away, flitting just the same as this one now, through oaks and sycamores in the transitional forest behind my Florida home. A thousand miles away, in fact, was probably the closest I’d ever seen a redstart before. Driving back towards Reno, I really felt much closer to Nevada than I had before. 

I headed into the rest of a long and quiet July feeling a bit more invigorated and motivated to bird all summer. In the last, drawn-out days of July and early August, I wandered sewage ponds around Reno, and migrating shorebirds always kept me ready and excited to spend hours scoping the waters’ edge, sometimes without success. Every once in a while, I got lucky; my best shorebird of the fall came at a wastewater treatment plant outside Goldfield, the seat of Esmeralda County. Driving between Arizona and Reno, I asked my mom to quickly stop at the plant, a spot I’d seen reported only once before on eBird.

It was late August, and water in the desert is a magnet for lost migrants. Following the pin and then the directions of some city workers, we made our way several miles out from the town, until we were surrounded by nothing but sage and two small, fenced ponds. Standing along the edge of the fence, peering in, I was happy to see a few phalaropes and an ibis or two; not rare, but not birds you see every day in the desert. Working my way further along the edge, I noticed a Solitary Sandpiper bobbing, along with some Leasts; once again, common birds, but still out of place. Then finally, a long-legged sandpiper came gliding in. It drifted quickly down and disappeared below the rim of the sewage pond, but my quick in-flight view had been good enough for me to identify it as a Stilt Sandpiper. Running along the edge of the sewage ponds, I was able to finally secure a view of it moving elegantly along the water’s edge. I’d seen Stilt Sandpipers for the last time several hundred miles away in southern Texas, just minutes north of the United States’ southern border.

Stilt Sandpipers are considerably rare throughout much of the interior West, but the thing that struck me most about this bird was how rare of a sight it really was to see a Stilt Sandpiper in the high desert, against the backdrop of seemingly endless sage and dust. It was a hot day, and I was hundreds of miles from the coast. There was something a little magical about seeing this bird here in Nevada, something I never thought would happen and yet another one of my happy surprises in my new home state, to find this bird wading in a sewage pond, in a place I never would have been eight or even six months ago. Water treatment plants and sewage ponds have certainly, in the strangest way, found a fond place in my heart, like so many other things I never thought would.

September was generally quiet, although I tried very hard to produce some good birds at a variety of parks all along the Truckee River, from the valley up into the mountains, and all the way up to just south of Lake Tahoe. The highlight of the month was a Black-and-white Warbler at a thickly treed spring outside the town of Gerlach, about an hour north of Pyramid Lake, in the middle of miles upon miles of very empty desert. I spent at least two and a half hours searching the trees around the spring, until I finally noticed a small, delicately striped bird creeping along a stubby branch – a bird I hadn’t seen in about seven months, since the last time I’d been around Florida. Black-and-white Warblers are not a terribly difficult bird to find in riparian areas around the state, but they never get old, no matter how many times I see them, no matter where I am. After perhaps ten seconds, the bird disappeared and never reappeared. I headed back towards Reno, knowing I had seen probably one of the last rare migrants of the year before October set in.

I was standing by a small cluster of tamaracks along crystal blue Pyramid Lake, just north of Reno, watching several scoters dive in front of me, when I really thought about the way my outlook had changed. Just about ten minutes ago, my family had parked our RAV4 on a small dirt road leading off the highway and walked about ten minutes down to the stand of tamaracks. I almost enjoyed trekking down the muddy road, if you could even call it that, with my scope over my shoulder, fifty miles north of Reno in what an earlier version of myself would have called the middle of nowhere. I had come to see my home state differently. Once, I would’ve seen nothing but the dust and dryness. Now, I have come to enjoy the rugged, dusty and very, very under-birded habitat that surrounds me. Sometimes, I’m still not used to the snow or the sage, but the birds have connected me in a way I don’t think anything else could.

When I first drove through the endless deserts of the Southwest I saw it as emptiness. I hardly looked out the window. Now, driving through any kind of desert, I always keep my eyes out for a stand of nice trees, anything that could trap a favorite eastern warbler. All across the state, birds have brought me so much more appreciation for the habitat they share, from desert retention ponds to the mountain forests. They have taken me, in Nevada and beyond, to places I never would have gone otherwise. This is one of the reasons birding is so important to our world. Although birds are amazing, birding isn’t just about birds; it allows people to connect with the habitats they share, and better understand the nature around them. Ultimately, birding has helped me to feel closer to my home state and has made me look twice at the things I used to walk past.

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