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Today my husband Don and I drove to the Taylor Creek \/ Fallen Leaf Lake area of South Lake Tahoe, meeting my brother Chris who is an avid outdoorsman.\u00a0 We started at the Taylor Creek SNO-Park parking lot (near where Highway 89 crosses Taylor Creek), and hiked southish, roughly following Taylor Creek until we reached Fallen Leaf Lake. It was a gorgeous day, and we could hear lots of birds such as chickadees and red-winged blackbirds.\u00a0 I spotted a wren, but it was shy and I didn’t get a great photo (see below).\u00a0 Spring is just beginning to burst out, as willows and the like had mostly buds and only\u00a0a few small leaves on their branches.\u00a0 After 10 minutes we heard woodpeckers, and over the course of the trip identified several white-headed woodpeckers in the area, including one female that was low on its tree and\u00a0only about 15 foot away (see photo below).\u00a0 We also saw a Williamson’s sapsucker – a new bird for my life list!. Nuthatches were abundant in the conifer forest area at the North bank of Fallen Leaf Lake, where we stopped for lunch.\u00a0 After lunch we followed Taylor Creek downstream across a heavily wooded area where several dead trees are being cleared, probably to make the nearby campground more fire safe.\u00a0 After reaching Highway 89, we crossed over into the Taylor Creek marsh area.\u00a0 The marsh is just starting to green out, and the creek area was beautiful.\u00a0 We took the guided nature hike, and saw a few blackbirds but not much.\u00a0 We observed a common merganser with a very bright orange beak swimming strongly upstream (see photo).\u00a0 We look forward to returning here when the visitor center opens; visitors can see the fish traveling through the stream via a special glass window.<\/p>\n
Today I added\u00a04 species to my Tahoe Big Year\u00a0list.<\/p>\n
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Fallen Leaf Lake Reflections<\/p>\n
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Taylor Creek and Marsh with Mt. Tallac<\/p>\n
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Busy Chipmunk near Taylor Creek<\/p>\n
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