About the Tahoe Big Year Project
The “Big Year” is a bird photography project that takes place over the course of 2018. After attending a seminar at REI on birding in the Lake Tahoe area, I joined the birding activity that is being coordinated by the Tahoe Institute for Natural Science (TINS). This is sort of a contest to see which birder can observe the most unique species of birds during the course of one year. Of course, photographing the bird sighting is not strictly required by TINS, but for me to document what I’ve seen, as well as enhance my bird identification and wildlife photography skills – I consider a photograph a strict requirement. So every bird I claim to have seen (and have logged on the TINS site) will have an associated photograph on my website. Please note that this means not all the photos may be of the quality I’d enter in a camera club competition or that I’d offer for commercial sale.
If you are interested in learning more about the Big Year project being run by TINS, please refer to the Tahoe Big Year website.
Click on any blog entry below to get the detail of that day’s field trip and what birds I saw.
Ruby-crowned Kinglet (Cove East / South Lake Tahoe, December 2018)
NOTE: For miscellaneous sightings of birds I’ve observed that don’t merit a full blog page, refer to the Miscellaneous TBY Page.
Cove East TINS Walk
I met the TINS (Tahoe Institute for Natural Science) group at Cove East in South Lake Tahoe for a very-well attended walk – about 20 birders were present and in high spirits. This was the last event of the year, so everyone was trying to get a few more birds for their...
Taylor Creek TINS Walk
Don and I headed out for South Tahoe on 580. Unfortunately, we discovered the 580 was closed from north Washoe Lake to Carson City. This forced us to backtrack and drive over the Mt Rose Highway to Incline Village and then south on the 28 to 50. In short, we were late...
South Tahoe
Today I drove to South Lake Tahoe to stop at some of my favorite locations and look for more unusual ducks and shorebirds. First I swung by Rabe Meadow, arriving around 9:15 am. The light on the pond was beautiful, and it was just partially frozen. I saw several ducks...
Upper Truckee Marsh
It’s getting late in the year, and colder now. My goal for today was to find some more ducks. I know I’ve got gaps and am missing quite a few. So I first stopped by the eastern end of the Truckee marsh, parking at Lily Lane to access the wetlands. I ran into my fellow...
Boca Reservoir
Today I met the TINS naturalists Will and Sarah and a few others for a birding tour around the Boca Reservoir, north of I-80 near Truckee. We started near the Boca dam, and observed some waterfowl from quite a distance. One new bird I saw was the Western Grebe. ...
Pomin Park
Today my friend Suzanne and I joined the TINS birding walk in Pomin Park which is near Tahoe City, and just off Lake Tahoe. Right when we showed up, the group had already identified a small flock of Cedar Waxwings. This is a species we typically see in Fall to...
