Birds

A Good Day in the Cedar Range, southeastern Nevada

D. Craig Young · November 3, 2026 · Leave a Comment

Obsidian nodules drape the old alluvium of the Cedar Range, flowing statically from caldera slopes in southeastern Nevada toward the Escalante Basin of southern Utah. Archaeologists refer to the toolstone as derived from the Panaca Summit or Modena sources, depending on whether their eccentricities begin in Nevada or Utah, respectively. My eccentricity revolves around the Great Basin, with little consideration, like the obsidian cobbles, with state boundaries. I am here to characterize the setting of the toolstone source and map its distribution.

But that’s the field task, where much work remains before I can tell that story. In between wandering transects, note-filled pauses, and pencil marks on maps, I have time to see and hear other things. A variety of birds, including the Pinyon Jay, aware of its own laugh, and the enigmatic Greater Roadrunner, sprinting after lizards.

I have known rumors of the Common Raven who prides herself on the independence of her and her mate, but here at a Aermotor-fed waterhole on the Prohibition Pediment, hundreds have gathered in a soaring, congressional murder. Something’s up.

I have learned to carry a longer lens on these mapping excursions. It is attached to a full-frame camera, and this kit pairs nicely with my binoculars; this is about the birds and any other wildlife that I am lucky enough to encounter. I keep these separate from my field camera, which is a crop-sensor body with a wide zoom lens for outcrops and settings needing consistent documentation. For those who keep track of such things, my use of crop-sensor, which can be good for reaching distance subjects, is merely an economical choice. I like its small size for the immediacy of field studies, but prefer the heft of full-frame equipment when pursuing the zone of wildlife or landscape photography. I almost always have both cameras with me on or off trail. I am a Canon user out of long habit and retain a blind faith in the sturdiness and sealing that once set the brand apart from most others. Probably not as true today, and I really wouldn’t dare to differentiate the brands as I have little awareness of the others but in name only. The best camera is the one (or two) you have with you.

An amazingly cloudless morning is replaced by the dramatic rumble of monsoon storm clouds. These approach from the southeast, climbing the Cedar Range in dark, rolling masses. My radar map shows red-centered, yellow blobs slingshot from the canyon country of southern Utah, spasms of lightning reaching into Nevada. A juniper tree bursts into flames after the hot bolt of a direct-strike; it glows ominously long after the rain quiets its initial fury.

I have set my tripod in the lee of a pinyon grove to capture scenes of the storm. After experimenting with exposures and intervals, I guide the camera to create frames where bolts seem likely. Each seeming success is followed by inevitable rain, building from the first widely spaced spatters to the ultimate downpour that finds me running for cover.

It’s over and clear soon after sunset, where a crescentic sliver of a new moon guides me into night and back to camp. A good day in the Cedar Range.

Keep going.

Please respect the natural and cultural resources of our public lands.

#naturefirst #keepgoing

Outbound roadside in black-and-white imagery

Inbound roadside in black-and-white imagery

“These images and words are a reflection, simply and wholly, of my respect for our public lands and the public science and occasional art I am, and we are, able to do there. Our ability to create and think are not trivial, and wild space and healthy ecosystems nourish such things. It is here that we will find our better selves, even as the misdeeds of a few threaten much that, until recently, provides for our common good. Keep going.“

American Avocets in Surprise Valley, California — A morning on the causeway

D. Craig Young · April 25, 2026 · 6 Comments

I can almost remember the first time a saw an American Avocet. I cannot, of course, recall the exact day, but it was on an early excursion to Warner Valley, Oregon, sometime in 1988. Probably. I loved birds, but I was not as quietly infatuated with them as I am now. I recall, however, the dramatic coloring and upright stance of this confident shore bird. My wife has similar memories of brilliant Avocets at the Fernley Wildlife Management Area between Winnemucca and Reno. Because the Avocet is distinctive and lacks the relative sameness or subtle distinctions of so many bird families, I can see why it might be many western birder’s ‘entry point’ to a lifetime of birding. And they are so fun to photograph.

In June of 2025, leaving a geoarchaeological study in northwestern Nevada, I crossed into Surprise Valley, California, traversing the basin floor on the causeway through Middle Alkali Lake. The shallow lake, sometimes nothing more than a dry lakebed, is the floor of the once vast pluvial Lake Surprise, its relict, Pleistocene-age shorelines ringing the much higher valley-margin hillslopes. Small, gravel islands emerge from the shallow lake, paralleling the roadway. The gravel, left from roadwork along the causeway, catch the rising sun and glow warmly in the shallow water. Clear skies reflect from the smoothness of the mirror lake.

I am moving slowly westbound along the causeway when I notice a Willet wading calmly in grass protruding from a narrow shoreline. At the same moment, I notice a flat-bed pickup, the only other vehicle for many miles it seems, practically tailgating me. A pair of collies stare intently from the sides of the cab. No fault of the guy heading to chores, or whatever, I’m barely moving. There are no turnouts on this section of the causeway, so I pick up the pace to get to the other side. I will turn around and let the man and his impatient dogs get on with their morning.

Working my way back to the wading Willet I find a turnout on the eastbound side of the causeway that will fit my rig. While Willets are nice to see, what had caught my attention just as ranch-life had barreled down on me was the flash of contrast; the black, white, and pink, of American Avocets! There were six or so outstanding birds wading or roosting on the gravel bars poking above the reflective waters.

I waded slowly from the causeway shore, staying close to the road but getting to level ground. The birds did not seem to care. Avocets tend to be less skittish than many shorebirds. I move slowly getting low to the water – the Willet had already had enough of me – but the Avocets went about their business. Two more flew in, landing with easy steps in the shallow water.

The light was perfect. I spent an hour with the birds, getting a myriad of singles and pairs reflected easily in the low-gradient light of early morning. A pair seemed to be considering nesting spots while others foraged in the grass and gravel. It is a pleasant pause before my journey home, as I am soon southbound on Hwy 447 toward Gerlach and Pyramid Lake. The Avocets have a summer ahead of them, wading the segmented lakes of Surprise Valley, I am better having spent some time with them.

Keep going. (Thanks to Desna for the Avocet as birding ‘entry point’ story idea).

On the border with obsidian, dust, and eagles — Hamlin Valley, Nevada and Utah

D. Craig Young · February 1, 2026 · 2 Comments

I have been mapping the distribution of obsidian nodules in the landforms of the Cedar Mountains, where caldera remnants of volcanic tuff and glass have been incorporated into debris flows and alluvial fans the formed well before the last ice age. These ancient landforms, extending well beyond the eastern mountain front, host clasts of the Modena obsidian, a toolstone source of the eastern Escalante Basin. We continue to work on documenting and describing this resource, and I hope to share much more about it here. Today (May 2025), however, I am taking a break to drive a traverse of Hamlin Valley, north and east of our project area.

It is a long loop from my camp in Echo Canyon State Park, and I planned to meet our field team in the late afternoon. There was not a lot of time to explore, but I could get a feel for an area I had not seen much of previously. Heading toward the eastern border of Nevada, beyond the southern end of Lake Valley, I pass through the north end of the Wilson Creek Mountains and through the crunchy, old mining town of Atlanta. I follow some distant Pinyon Jays, birds I have missed closer to home for some reason, but they do not let me get close. I am left only with their laughing calls. That’ll do.

At Wells Summit in the Limestone Hills, I finally look into Hamlin Valley. I had been here before, but I was drawn north into the great wide open below the Snake Range. This time I will turn south to go the length of Hamlin. The valley is bounded by the Mountain Home Range on the east, but the extensional space of the vast valley is amazing. At the remnants of Hyde Well, the valley is over 15 miles wide, but it appears endless in the late-morning haze.

I turn south, rambling on roughly graded dirt and crossing the dry Hamlin Valley Wash, a distant tributary of the once vast, now dry, Lake Bonneville. I am now in Utah, moving along uplifted pediments built of ancient alluvial fans faulted upward to become dissected ramps of sediment, shed from the Mountain Home Range long ago. The wash and road are soon confined between toes of the relict fans extended from both sides of the valley. A Golden Eagle meets me halfway, flying low as it trolls the dissected slope overlooking the dry wash.

Once imperceptibly wide, the valley’s southern reach narrows between the White Rock Mountains (Nevada) and the Needle Range (Utah). The valley begins to close as private lands of small settlements, ranches, and homesteads confine creative travel possibilities. When you reach the southern end of the valley it literally pours into Modena Wash; the drainage divide is at the valley margin, not in the bounding hills of the Indian Peak Range. Modena Wash drops quickly through white-streaked, volcanic outcrops into the Escalante Basin.

The valley deserves more time, and I will be back to spend time among the relict fans and low-flying eagles. For the moment, I am back in the obsidian, full circle.

Keep going.

Please respect the natural and cultural resources of our public lands.

#naturefirst #keepgoing

Desert nights in Big Bend

D. Craig Young · July 31, 2025 · 1 Comment

It is the heat that gets your attention – and pay attention because one needs to travel wisely in the late spring in Big Bend National Park, but it is the promise of evening birds and late-night dark skies that holds it. I had dropped into Lajitas, Texas, to attend a photo workshop focused on astrophotography in and around the desert, borderland park. Night photography avoids the intense heat of the day, of course, but we also explored various locations to experience the moods of this variegated landscape.

The Big Bend topography is refreshingly disorienting to me. Unlike the regular, linear pattern of the Basin and Range, the mountains of Big Bend seem circular; we travel around and into them, not over and through. Alluvial fans and consolidated pediments extend from the rugged uplands, these are familiar. The Rio Grande gasps for refreshment, barely any flow this time of year – the canyon marking the national boundary more than the river. The Chihuahuan Desert, its incessant volcanic rocks colonized with a wild diversity of arid-adapted plants and animals, is somehow sharper and coarser than our western deserts. Although the landscape is wide open, I feel like I cannot see as far. Between convoluted ridges, gunsight canyons reveal a surprise of distant ranges and mesas, verifying that the desert knows no borders.

While I am not attracted to group excursions typically, I have great friends at Muench Workshops, and their participants are like-minded and lovely to spend time with. I always learn new bits of technique, and with astrophotography, there can be unique skills to apply in the field and in image processing. I forget most of them almost immediately, but that is not for their lack of unselfish sharing and engagement. It takes practice, and more practice, but it remains so much fun.

While I gave full attention to our daily astro tutorials – we would hide away in a cool conference room during the hottest part of the day, I engaged my wanderlust during late afternoon excursions in search of birds and sunset light. I was then ready to settle in with the group to practice dark-sky compositions from blue hour to well after midnight.

Our little group moved between the mountains and canyons, dropping to the river occasionally; anything to feel the evening releasing the heat of the day. Although Wayne and Matt had locations planned, we often detoured when the light caught our attention. They picked some amazing scenes, but our focus was technique so we could have been almost anywhere in the jumble of desert spires and ridges. We practiced variations on focus-stacking, time-blending, and multiple exposures to battle the digital noise of long exposures, high-ISO settings, and heat-affected sensors. We also practiced various low-level lighting techniques to bring warmth and detail to our scenes. The field craft is a bit fiddlier than I am drawn to typically, and the files take quite a bit of patience (and computing power) to process, but the results are, or can be, amazing.

I mastered nothing on this trip, but I was reminded that improvement continues with practice. I may use few of the skills and tricks that well-practiced astrophotographers bring to their scenes, but there are landscapes and landforms in the Great Basin that I want to capture under a night sky, so I will continue to practice (special thanks to Wayne Suggs and Matt Payne). There is nothing like being under a dark sky in a desert or mountain landscape. It heals concessions we make living in cities of artificial light and constant motion, and it wakes up senses we hide from ourselves most of the time. The photos are then reminders that we should go back to the dark, occasionally, to heal and wake up.

Plus, there are birds to enjoy in the blue hour as we wait for the stars to shine.

Coordinated color. Blue Grosbeak, Los Chisos Basin, Big Bend National Park, TX, USA

Vermillion Flycatcher. Big Bend National Park, TX, USA

Mexican Jay. Big Bend National Park, TX, USA

Greater Roadrunner. Big Bend National Park, TX, USA

Morning drift. Common Nighthawk, Big Bend National Park, TX, USA

Keep going.

In memory of my nephew, Robby Young, who we lost so suddenly and too soon, while I was in Big Bend (June 2024). I did not see him enough, and I cannot see him again. But I will always have a reminder of him when under a dark sky, where the stars feel close enough to touch, even as they continue their journeys, far, far away.

Quick camp on Miller Canyon Fan, western Utah

D. Craig Young · July 26, 2025 · Leave a Comment

Waypoint: Miller Canyon Alluvial Fan, Sevier Valley, Utah

After a warm day of landform reconnaissance in the Great Basin of western Utah, I camped in a small back-berm playette on the broad alluvial fan of Miller Canyon extending from the House Range in western Utah. The playette – a miniature dry lake – formed behind a relict gravel berm of pluvial Lake Gunnison, building over thousands of years as loessic alluvium scoured from the hillslopes settles behind the abandoned berm. This is the modern setting on the expansive alluvial fan – a small dry lake nestled behind a beach long after the once vast pluvial lake faded and dried, its lakebed shrinking to the playa of the Sevier Basin. The berm provides a stage for photographing storms that try and fail, evaporating into the evening skies of the Great Basin. The variegated color of a juvenile Brown-headed Cowbird greeted me as I rolled out of my sleeping bag the following morning. Altogether, a somewhat typical experience during geoarchaeological fieldwork in the Great Basin Desert. Keep going.

[2024.05.15 — Bonneville Basin Recce with Brian Codding (Univ of Utah) and Daniel Contreras (Univ of Florida); aka, The Strandline Society].

Please respect the natural and cultural resources of our public lands.

#naturefirst #keepgoing