Turkeys, Turkey Vultures, and Talus Caves

Thursday, February 21, 2013

The sun was just coming up. You don't wake me at that hour without good reason, but Greg had one! “Quick, there are wild turkeys all over our campsite!” We looked out our windows to see two dozen females and seven males just hanging out. The males were displaying in a mating ritual trying to impress the females. They had all their feathers spread out and were slowly parading in a line. Then they circled around and then they stood in a line with their backs displayed! We were snapping photos through the windows like mad. Mine turned out pretty bad. I was still half asleep, but Greg got some better shots. Check out the photos at the end. They paraded around for quite a while. Occasionally a female would get all wound up and the females would start running off. The males remained calm until several started fighting. Eventually the whole group moved across the road and up the hill. Later we saw them off in the distance behind the visitor's center. Our neighbors slept through the show. For once I was glad that Greg was up at the crack of dawn!

The day started out cold, in the 30's, but sunny. The temperature was forecast to be 57 degrees, a good temperature for a hike. We put on our hiking gear and drove a few miles to the Bear Gulch area. We started hiking up out of the valley on the Bear Gulch Cave Trail. The trail took us along a path with a stream and moss covered rocks. The trees were beginning to bud out. The birds were singing and the chickarees were scurrying about. They look like squirrels, but they burrow in the ground. While squirrels hop along, chickarees slink. They flatten their tails and scurry low to the ground. We arrived at the talus caves. They house a maternal colony of Townsend's big-eared bats year round. Part of the cave was closed off so as not to disturb them. Talus caves were formed when large boulders fell into a narrow canyon. We had to have flashlights to go through them. The trail went through them, so in order to get to the reservoir, which was our destination, we had to go through. Miss Claustrophobia actually got through without a panic attack! They were really beautiful as the stream became a waterfall inside. The sound of the water echoed through the caves. There were only a few tight spots and we got through to the other side where we had to climb steep steps assisted by a railing in order to get out of the canyon and reach a beautiful reservoir.

The next stretch of trail took us along the Rim Trail and high above the canyon. We saw the first few wildflowers in bloom. We circled back down to the stream bed and back to the RV. After a lunch break where we watched Acorn Woodpeckers, who drill holes in the bark and deposit acorns in them for eating in the winter, we were ready for more hiking. We took off up the Condor Gulch Trail. One mile of walking up a steep trail to reach an overlook where railings had been installed on a narrow rock outcrop. Greg decided he wanted to continue farther up the trail, so I sat and soaked up the beauty. I saw several nesting pairs of condors flying overhead, listened to and saw lots of smaller birds and watched a momma rabbit run by with a baby in her mouth. She was relocating her nest. Greg returned and we hiked back down to the valley floor and drove back to camp.

We sat again and watched the condors flying overhead. Greg got out the bird guide to identify the Steller jays and magpies that we saw on the hike. He decided to look up the condors and discovered that they are almost identical to turkey vultures. Their wingspans (up to 9 feet) are wider but their silhouettes are very close, but the white or silver markings on the underside of their wings are slightly different. To our dismay, we realized that the birds we thought were condors were ordinary turkey vultures! The nesting pairs we saw on the Condor Gulch Trail were probably condors, but we couldn't see them well enough even with the binoculars to be sure. The park is so understaffed and the nature center was closed, so we couldn't find anyone to ask about them. We like to believe that at least a few of the birds we saw were condors, but we'll never be sure. That was a disappointment, but we loved Pinnacles anyway. We would stay longer, but we are paying $36 a night to camp here, which is high for only an electrical hook-up, and two nights is enough. Tomorrow we head for the coast!