Poecile gambeli

A Mountain Chickadee foraging in a lodgepole pine near Vogelsang High Sierra Camp. We hiked into the backcountry yesterday to visit with my former coworkers and do some climbing of mountains and birding of the alpine slopes. This morning was bright and clear--and made me miss my time working in the high Sierra--though by the afternoon an imposing thunderstorm had set in and pushed everyone into the kitchen for shelter and warm drinks. I instead opted to bird the surrounding trees, dodging the pelting rain whenever I could. This is a rough image because my lens was covered in rain drops practically before I had the lens cap off.

The Mountain Chickadee inhabits the mountain west and is easily distinguished from other chickadees by its white eyebrow and presence at high elevations. It is closely related to the more widespread Black-Capped Chickadee, and gives similar vocalizations: the nasal "chick-a-dee-dee-dee" and the plaintive "cheeeese-bur-ger," which is used in courtship. (The latter call is so frequent and recognizable in Yosemite that the most common question I get from people here is "What is the cheeseburger bird?")

Interestingly I stumbled onto two very unusual birds during my misadventures today: a Western Kingbird and a male Lazuli Bunting. Both of these species breed below 5,000 feet (Vogelsang is above 10,000) and I've hardly ever seen either of them in the park. They are both very colorful (bright yellow and deep blue/red respectively)--a feature you rarely find in alpine species--so I was even more impressed by the sight of them at this high elevation. After having experienced similar bizarre sightings at Sunrise HSC last year, I looked into it and learned that low elevation species are known to migrate through the high mountains on their way south in the fall. This is likely what these two bizarro birds were up to. Even with that sensible explanation though I still feel like I'm getting away with something when I find a migrant moving through an environment in which it looks dazzlingly out of place.