Lance
1. My ability to identify trees to species is very poor. I definitely know
they were not Jefferies, but after that anything goes.
2. I did have cross bills that tells me that I forgot to include them on
the list.
3. I’m going to have to download those apps that you were suggesting
because I did not succeed in getting any recordings
Thomas Geza Miko
Claremont CA 91711
909.241.3300
On Mon, Sep 21, 2026 at 2:27 PM <lbenner...> wrote:
> Hi Tom,
>
> Thank you for posting this. The ongoing irruption is pretty exciting
> and it wouldn't suprise me if the nutcrackers and pinyon jays show up in
> many other areas. Did you happen to get any recordings? Please remember
> that any sound recording app on your phone probably has sufficient
> sensitivity to get something useful. I normally use Song Meter Touch and
> Voice Record Pro, because they're the most sensitive apps I've found, but
> Merlin could also work.
>
> Regarding the nutcrackers, every now and then Cathy McFadden and Paul
> Clarke find some on Sunset Peak near where you found some. After one of
> their reports (maybe in 2019...?) I rode my bike from Cow Canyon Saddle to
> Sunset Peak and heard some in the same area where they had reported them.
> So there's a history of them showing up in that area.
>
> Also, if you find any evening grosbeaks and red crossbills, please record
> those too!
>
> Finally, I've been by that grove of trees you mentioned. There are a
> number of bigcone Douglas-firs and incense cedars, and perhaps Coulter
> pine, but I don't remember any sugar pines.
>
> Regards,
>
> Lance
>
>
>
> --------------------
>
> From: "<tgmiko...> via groups.io" <tgmiko...>
> Reply-To: <tgmiko...>
> To: "LACoBirds" <lacobirds...>
> Sent: September 21, 2026 at 1:48 PM PDT
> Subject: [LACoBirds] Pinyon Jays Glendora Ridge Road
> Hi,
> Yesterday I tried to go to Barrett Stoddard because I wanted to look for
> Pinyon Jays (and normal fall migrants) there and it was already so
> incredibly crowded at 8:15 in the morning (a huge number of cars were
> parked illegally in spots that have large, easy to see No Parking signs. I
> wonder how many parking tickets were issued yesterday?) that I gave up and
> drove further uphill to a spot that does not have a useful or sexy name but
> it’s a great spot to park and walk uphill through a couple miles of
> chaparral until you get into a bend in the forest, where remarkably a small
> stand of pine forest survived the fire. The pines in this area are Sugar
> Pines, not Jeffries, and I didn’t think about that when I started walking
> to that spot but I think that may have had some negative influence, but I’m
> not sure. While I was still walking uphill in the open chaparral, however I
> had a small number of Pinyon Jays flying over me and calling. Remarkably
> when I first got out of my car I had a Clark’s Nutcracker flying overhead
> and calling. A first for me at that location.
> So I think that the Pinyon Jays and the Nutcracker flew past that open
> chaparral where I had them and flew further south to an area that has a
> mixed species group of pines which was probably better habitat albeit
> inaccessible to hikers like me.
> Because eBird doesn’t like it if you keep running the same checklist when
> you walk back towards your car, I stopped that list, thinking, “Well, you
> can’t top that” and only started a new one on the way downhill When I had a
> mixed flock of three species of swift, floating directly overhead causing
> me to ruin my dumb decision to not haul my camera with me. I had recording
> equipment because I figured I need to record the Jays. Little did I think
> that I would wind up with Black Swifts cooperatively, posing, and demanding
> that I take their picture. Sigh.
> There were quite a number of vaguely finch sized songbirds flying around
> that I didn’t get good enough looks at while walking uphill in the
> chaparral. By the way, when it is foggy and dark in the coastal cities or
> even in Claremont, when you drive up here, you’re above the cloud layer in
> blue skies.
> Another reason I wish I had had my camera with me was that there were
> quite a number of interesting and cool insects, including Pale
> Swallowtails, California Sisters, 4 dragonfly species (including Red Rock
> Skimmer) and some kind of bizarre, small moth that looked like a
> combination of a very small skipper with a moth whose posterior wings were
> all black— along with four species of lizard, including a Coast Horned
> Lizard.
> https://ebird.org/atlascalifornia/checklist/S394734181 > and
> https://ebird.org/atlascalifornia/checklist/S394735073?continue >
> Tom
>
> Thomas Geza Miko
> Claremont CA 91711
> 909.241.3300
>
>
