On this unassuming trail near LA, bird watchers see something spectacular

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Last edited Wed May 29, 2024, 01:23 PM - Edit history (1)

https://www.npr.org/2024/05/13/1250248970/birds-migration-la-bear-divide-california-science-environment
(8 min. audio, pics, more, at link. From May 13)

On this unassuming trail near LA, bird watchers see something spectacular

MAY 13, 2024 5:01 AM ET
By Kai McNamee



Lauren Hill, a graduate student at Cal State LA, holds a bird at the bird banding site at Bear Divide in the San Gabriel Mountains.
Grace Widyatmadja/NPR

It's early morning in the San Gabriel Mountains and we're standing in an unremarkable dirt parking lot. The hills around us are dotted with chaparral vegetation, and Los Angeles sprawls just south of here. To me, this looks like any other trailhead in the greater LA area.

But we're here, at Bear Divide, to witness an incredibly rare spectacle of nature: this is one of the only places in the western United States where you can see bird migration during daylight hours.

When our NPR team arrives, Kelsey Reckling is already here, scanning the horizon for birds. She is a PhD student at UCLA who studies bird migration.

Bear Divide is unique because it's like a passageway through the wall of the San Gabriels. Birds are funneled through, Reckling says, and fly low enough for researchers to identify, catch and study the species as they pass. On a really good day, Reckling says, you can see up to 20,000 birds zooming by as they travel north for the summer.

[...]

[AllaN01Bear]

1. wow.

[2naSalit]

2. Up where I live...

The sandhill cranes and the trumpeter swans from the area spend about a week of gathering the flock up and down a certain valley then they all take off together and fly about halfway down the valley and off through a certain gap in the mountains and they are gone until the next year. It's amazing to watch.

[Probatim]

3. Bird banding is amazing to watch.

You have this image of a bird in flight, sitting on a branch, or feeding through the leaves and it gets blown away when you see them this close.

First of all, they are so much smaller than you'd imagine. I held a Yellow Warbler - similar in size and shape to the Wilson's Warbler pictured - and you realize you can hold four of them in the palm of one hand. And they're virtually weightless.

Second, you realize how fragile and how beat up they get during migration. In your mind, you see the bird in the field guide or other photos but in your hand you realize these birds have been through some things. They're flying at night, feeding like mad during the day, and dodging predators. It takes a toll on them.

The people manning these stations are doing great science - checking age and sex of the bird, their relative health, and then banding them before sending them on their way. The bird bands provide a way for other banders to identify previously caught birds and this allows them to piece together some bits of information if they're ever caught again.

If you have a station near you, I'd highly recommend visiting it.