Personal thoughts heading down highway 395
May 24 & 25, 2026 – Eastern Sierra Nevada and Lake Tahoe
High up in the White Mountains in eastern California on a quiet, dusty trail I heard the sound of a bird I never had previously. My Merlin app gave a sound ID of a Gray Flycatcher. I scanned around and spotted it, perhaps 50 meters away atop a tree. I went scurrying after it, but it kept moving from tree to tree, darting in random order, never allowing a proper look at it. A few minutes of this and eventually it flew out of sight.
I was frustrated! I love to capture photos, especially since a still image or series of images really allows you to notice things the eyes cannot. It is literally capturing light and time, converting it forever into a photograph. Truly one of the incredible marvels of the world. So whenever I see a new bird, I love having a little piece of evidence I can document to help solidify the memory, a little window into the past to see the photons my eyes and camera sensor captured.
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I got into birds at a young age. My grandparents eventually purchased me the National Geographic Field Guide to Birds of North America third edition in 2006. Inside I wrote under each species the first place and date I saw them. I have some vivid memories from back then of a few, like the first Great Blue Heron I ever saw. It was flying overhead while on a boat on Payette Lake in Idaho, giant fish were below seen through the crystal clear mountain water. I was absolutely enthralled by the scenery and then this giant grayish-blue bird soared overhead. I know with certainty to this day what I saw. I open the book and see my poorly written pencil markings under the species, ‘Seen in Mcall, Idaho on lake Payette on July 20, 2006.’
On the other hand, I also have scribbled into my book under Little Blue Heron, ‘San Diego California flying across Sea World, September 3, 2006’, I no doubt mistaking a Snowy Egret with the juvenile plumage illustrated in the book for the Little Blue Heron.
Thirteen years later, and a year prior to purchasing my camera and lens, we went to Costa Rica. I kept a list on my phone of the birds we saw on that trip. Despite being 25 years old, far more knowledgeable about birds compared to when i was 12 scribbling away in my guide book, I sort of have the same problem looking back at my notes as I did when I was far younger. I have vivid memory of the Scarlet Macaws and Yellow-throated Toucans (these two which I have phone photos of for what it is worth), as well as strong memory of seeing Mangrove Swallows and Amazon Kingfisher, but I have no recollection of seeing the Scarlet-rumped Tanager I have listed. This species, like the majority on the list, was pointed out to us while on a guided crocodile turned private birding boat tour. Did we actually see this bird? Can I be assured the person pointing out birds to us was completely correct? I think so at least.
With that said, last year while on a pelagic birding trip in New Zealand for albatrosses, the captain marked ‘Hutton’s Shearwater’ on our list. Upon looking at my photos, I am fairly certain they were the very similar looking Fluttering Shearwater. Perhaps I just missed the Hutton’s, and the captain the Fluttering? Maybe its a mis-ID on my end. Regardless, I sit with Scarlet-rumped Tanager on my list today and with Hutton’s Shearwater off of it.
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About an hour after seeing the Gray Flycatcher we arrived at the Ancient Bristlecones grove. Here I got another ‘lifer.’ This time, another new sound, a Dusky Flycatcher. I did not see this one at all. This sort of raises the question, should heard only birds count? I say absolutely, no matter how frustrating it can be to not spot the bird, assuming confidence in identifying the call.
Sound after all can be just, if not more memorable than sight. I will always recall the first time I ever heard a Common Poorwill while sleeping in a remote campground at Great Basin National Park. Its haunting song caused me to stir awake in the pitch black night. I fell in love with the song of another bird I did not know when I was around 13 years old mountain biking in the local wilderness on many weekends. Years later I learned it was that of the White-crowned Sparrow, a bird I saw for the first time years later, that to this day remains my favorite local winter bird song.
And how many birds are named after their call or song? Do you really get to count a Killdeer if you only see, but never hear its namesake call? In 2025 I heard several distant Morepork while in New Zealand, the owls’ calls of ‘more pork, more pork’ over and over the only sounds heard outside of the wind and our footsteps. Very memorable despite never seeing the birds.
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On the way back out of the White Mountains towards the Owens Valley, we stopped at a nice view of the Sierra Nevada. Here I spotted my first, and long time target bird, a Green-tailed Towhee (#440)! A welcome sighting after poor luck seeing not just the new flycatchers, but really any birds at all thus far today.
We wound up at Mono Lake several hours later, and on the gravel road down to the southern shore’s tufa towers I saw a bird perched on top of the Sagebrush that surrounds the lake. A very far away look at a Sage Thrasher (#441)! Pretty lousy photographs, and too distant to hear the bird over the wind, but a new sighting and photo nonetheless.
The next day we were in Lake Tahoe. We had another new bird, this one also heard only, a Fox Sparrow. Later, another bird we had a nice look at was a Common Merganser. I had a few months prior seen my first Common Merganser, two females near my home. Today however, was my ‘lifer’ male of the species. How does seeing a different version of the species factor into the lifer topic? Some species I have only seen the male instead of the female or vice versa, or even only an immature rather than an adult as was the case with Bald Eagles for many years.
How about seeing a bird species only in its non-breeding plumage or just its breeding plumage? The first Red-necked Phalarope I saw was bobbing in a small patch of water on the beach, primarily white with a touch of black around its head. The bird had no red on it anywhere. I did not see my first in breeding plumage until many years later, when hundreds were migrating while on a pelagic boat tour in early May 2026. Guess these were my ‘lifer’ Red-necked Phalarope so to speak?
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Shortly after seeing the Common Mergansers, we had another ‘standard lifer’, a Townsend’s Solitaire (#445), and what a beauty! The sleek gray bird looked amazing in the bright midday mountain sunshine. Probably the highlight of the weekend!
Later, in town, we took a short walk on the south shore of Lake Tahoe. I used to live around here in 2016, spending the summer working at the resort as a zip-line guide. We immediately saw a familiar sight, a Black-billed Magpie! This is also a ‘lifer’ for me, well according to my eBird list anyway, as I would not learn of the website or app until a couple of years after living here. Therefore I never logged the magpie, plus never knowing the date or precise locations I had seen them. Just as notably for this trip was a Yellow-headed Blackbird, a species I also saw in 2019 somewhere in southern Oregon or far far northern California, but was a fresh ‘lifer’ to my list on this same trip to Tahoe while driving through Bridgeport, California the day prior.
Certainly this is a minor problem for my ‘lifer’ list. I have certainly seen more birds in the Midwest and east coast during childhood that have never made it to my ‘lifer’ list, most notably a Northern Cardinal.
As we drove the long drive down highway 395 towards home, I began to reflect on the birds we saw this trip and what I have seen to this point during my life. Being a bit frustrated about not seeing or photographing the two flycatchers in the White Mountains or the Fox Sparrow near Lake Tahoe, I was thinking, what exactly is a lifer? It is really quite silly at the end of the day to care too much, but an immature Bald Eagle with its brown head is just as much a Bald Eagle as the adult whose plumage it gets its name after. A Red-necked Phalarope seen in September without a hint of red is just as unique and interesting as its spring and summer plumage. A female Hooded Oriole, lacking the hooded plumage of the male Hooded Oriole, again, is just as much an interesting bird to see. And finally, hearing and identifying a bird is just as much an observation as seeing and identifying one.
No matter how silly my thoughts of what constitutes a lifer, just like I keep track of all baseball games I attend, I of course keep a list of birds I have seen. However, I have two criteria for the list I care most about, counting only native and vagrant birds, and only birds I am certain I saw or heard but did not document. I keep a second list of birds I have photographed, which is displayed under Bird Map.
Most importantly, I think it is important to remember birds are far more than just a check on a list. While fun to keep track of what has been seen, nothing rekindles my excitement of birding like witnessing and understanding better the behavior of birds, and to see a familiar species do something new. I would argue there is even more excitement in seeing a species the second time, or once more after a long time between sightings. There too, is so much joy in the returning of migratory birds, hearing their familiar songs that help craft the soundscape of the seasons, helping the mind note the passage of time. Really the true enjoyment of birding is continuously learning about every species, and enjoying seeing each and every one of them each and every time, something no ‘lifer’ list or photograph can ever fully capture.
And that’s the story of my first Gray Flycatcher (#438)!
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