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Pileated Woodpecker
21 June 1997 at Crescent Meadow, Sequoia National Park |
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 Tulare
County is a rather large county near the southern end of the Sierra
Nevada range. Tulare County was created in 1852, with its seat at Woodville,
and once extended through Death Valley to Nevada to the east and to about
Mt. Pinos in the west. The county seat moved in Visalia by 1855, and over
time the county was dismembered until it reached its current boundaries
in 1893. The county has a very wide range of interior habitats. It includes
a large chunk of the San Joaquin Valley floor, and within that area Pixley
NWR hosts huge flocks of cranes and ibis in winter. The county then extends
up the western slope of the Sierra to the crest. Most of Sequoia National
Park is within the county. Parts of the recently created Sequoia National
Monument are also in the county, and especially birdy are mountain meadows
upslope from Porterville (including Quaking Aspen, Redwood, and Holey meadows).
County birding statistics and links are on Joe Morlan's site. |
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For Tulare County the featured photo is of
a Pileated Woodpecker in Sequoia National Park. It is not a very good picture
of the woodpecker but it does show the heavy forest within which it resides.
A couple of other shots from Sequoia Park are below, both of them birds
on territory in June: a Nashville Warbler (below left; 20 June 1997) and
a Fox Sparrow (below right; 12 May 2002). The Fox Sparrow has the huge
bill characteristic of the megarhyncha group that breed in this
stretch of the Sierra.
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| Sequoia National Park has a wonderful variety of habitats, two of which are shown here (June 1997): a view down the Marble Fork of the Kaweah River, and the lovely fir-encircled Crescent Meadow. | ||
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| All photos & text © 2006 Don Roberson; all rights reserved. | ||
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