Nevada is more than Las Vegas. The range and basin topography of the state creates majestic views and striking western landscapes. The North America page on this site includes volumes 5 & 6 of Birding the Western U.S. and Canada - those volumes include material from Nevada. There is also a video portfolio of bird species, which includes material from Nevada, The Birds of the United States and Canada.
Nevada contains images from Great Basin National Park and other locations and Nevada Birds is a photo gallery with several species found in Nevada depicted. Rock Art - Nevada on my www.earlypeople.org website contains photos from the south of the state and from the Hickison Petroglyphs.
GREAT BASIN NATIONAL PARK
I have been to Great Basin National Park on three occasions. The road video of the drive into the park, below, was taken on my last trip to the area.
On May 1, 2008 I made a short visit to the Park, I was unable to reach the high trailheads because the road was blocked with snow.
Mt. Wheeler, Great Basin National Park, Nevada
THE RUBY MOUNTAINS AND HIMALAYAN SNOWCOCK
I was recently reminded of an adventure that Rebecca and I took to the Ruby Mountains of northeast Nevada in the late 1990’s. The effort was - you guessed it - centered around taping the Himalayan Snowcock which had been introduced by the Nevada Department of Fish and Game into the Ruby Mountains.
It was an interesting trip all around. As we drove through the night toward Winnemucca I discovered that I had broken the dimmer switch for the car lights. Our options were limited to brights or no lights at all - making it very awkward for ourselves and for oncoming traffic. Luckily, it was northern Nevada - only two cars that night.
We overnighted in Winnemucca and had a wonderful breakfast at a little restaurant which we have since stopped at several times.
We hiked into the high country in the northern Ruby Mountains that day, camping by snow drifts in mid-July - sighted Snowcocks before dark, but far off. The following day we would hike higher, our camp was at about 10,000 feet and coming from sea level (Portland, Oregon is only about 50 feet above sea level) we were moving a bit slow. The early evening was spent melting snow and watching Mountain Goats on the ridge above us. That night we both got terribly sick - never quite sure what that was about - and hiked out the next morning. No video.
Heading back to Portland we stopped in the Black Rock Desert in northwestern Nevada to tape Sora -- a bit of water in miles and miles of desert and there were Sora.
Living in Hillsboro, I was pleasantly surprised that my friends Harley Shaw and Patty Woodruff knew the guy at Nevada Fish and Game who was responsible for introducing the Himalayan Snowcock into the Ruby Mountains and had hiked those mountains with him.
STILLWATER NATIONAL WILDLIFE REFUGE
As I journeyed north (Feb 29) through Nevada (USA), on my trip home from New Mexico, I decided to take a quick look at Stillwater National Wildlife Refuge. Stillwater is a hard long day’s drive from Portland but I had never ventured into that part of Nevada for a visit -- so this was new ground. This time of year, nearly all of the lakes are dry and the bird populations are down. I did have an opportunity to take some photos of common birds like Killdeer, Great Blue Heron, and the Great Horned Owls pictured below.
