Birding SoCal's Mountains for America's MOST Elusive Bird!

In this video we travel deep into the mountains of Southern California to a crystalline lake. We spot some incredible SoCal staples and hear one of the hardest to see birds in the entire world. But can we track down this elusive creature? Come with me on this journey and let's see what birds we can find. What's up everybody, back with another video today. And we're at a very special place, somewhere that I've never gone birding before, Silverwood Lake. This is in San Bernardino County, California as well. And there's a massive lake in the middle of the mountains. So let's see what beautiful birds we can find. I'm definitely allergic to something out here. I'm not sure what it is, but I haven't stopped sneezing for the last like 10 minutes, which makes it really hard to bird because you scare everything away. But we're going to continue onward. Obviously highlight birds so far we got briefly on camera, Eared Grebe, and then the most abundant bird that we've seen so far are the California Scrub Jays. They've been very, very active and very noisy. They're all over this park. I'm looking at one right now. Heard a woodpecker, some species. Okay, there's a lot to see out here. I'm very excited despite sneezing uncontrollably. Let's see if we can get that under control and see what else we can find. Before getting too far down the trail, I spotted these Brewer's Blackbirds. Despite how plain they look, they really do have a beautiful iridescent plumage. A red-tailed hawk soared high over my head, circling in the sky and looking for unaware prey to feed on below. I was excited to film this bush tit hopping from branch to branch just ahead of me on the trail. I can never seem to film these birds at home, but in California, they seem to show off a lot more. All right, so this is pretty cool. I heard what I thought was an acorn woodpecker and they're all over the trees here. I don't know what's going on. Maybe this is their springtime roost, but I'm seeing one, two, three. I've heard two behind me. There's one right there. Four. Wow. Okay, so if you didn't know, acorn woodpeckers are really, really cool woodpeckers. They have a plumage pattern in a face that just looks like a clown. They look like clowns, but pretty cool to see the acorn woodpeckers here. That's a California bird. I mean, it goes all the way up the coast, right? So I saw them in Oregon. I've seen them in California. We don't typically have them in Utah. I think they visit a very small area in the state. Otherwise they're a vagrant. So I'm really excited to see them whenever I come here. Acorn woodpeckers on our list for the day. Pretty awesome to see that bird. You might be wondering what we're doing here at Silverwood Lake to get today. The family is here. It's just so hot down the hill, just in the main Valley, like 80 plus degrees. So you come up a little bit higher in elevation and hope to find yourself one cooler weather, but also a lot of bird action. Now, the other reason is I came here in 2022, just before the channel was born actually, spring of 2022. Maybe it was even right before I made the channel April of 2023. And we saw some awesome birds, but I never got to film any of it for you guys. So yeah, what I'm hoping is I'm going down this road, which I think I'm okay to be on. I didn't see any, no trespassing signs at the end of this road. Last time I was here, there was a Heron Rickery. So I want to see if that's still there. And there was a Peregrine Falcon. So I want to see if those birds are hanging around as well. If not, that'll be a little bit unfortunate, but it's worth a shot. So we're going to back track from where we were about four years ago and see if we can find these two bird species. As we approached the trail at the end of the road, I spotted this amazing looking lizard. I've identified these in the past, but if you know what it is, let me know down in the comments. A Black Phoebe perched regally on the leafless tree. It's wild that this bird creates quite a stir whenever it shows up in my home county in Northern Utah. They're absolutely everywhere in Southern California. Here's a Swallow perched on a telephone line. Let me know what species you think it is down in the comments below. I got better views of the California Scrub Jay. These birds look so similar to the Woodhouse's Scrub Jay from back home. And at one point they were considered to be the same species. Good news is, is we found the Heron Rickery. It's still here, still here up in these trees. Three years later, about three years later at this point. Unfortunately, did not see the Peregrine Falcon anyway. So maybe when we come back, it wasn't like it was nesting there last time. It was just perched there. Would love to see Peregrine Falcon. I'd want to do a whole video on Peregrine Falcons, but I don't have any footage of that bird. So let's see if we get lucky. Look away if you have that fear of holes phobia thingy, but this acorn woodpecker was stuffing acorns in the drilled out holes of this tree. Pretty cool. A double-crested cormorant swam in the water below. They like to perch up on those buoys to dry their feathers in the sun because they have an oil coating that helps them swim underwater. The landscape surrounding me was absolutely stunning. Just ahead, a mountain chickadee flitted around in a pine, and a pied-billed grebe floated atop the water on the beautiful mountain lake below. No way. No, no, no, no way. I just heard a lifer. A lifer that's really hard for people to see. Mountain quail. I'll throw up the screen recording of Merlin picking it up far in the distance, but I heard it and I was like, wait a minute, that's a mountain quail. I had two quails just fly across the path up here. I was like, oh, that'd be cool if they were mountain quails. They were California quails, both of them. But then I heard it calling up here. Oh, it'd be so cool to see. If you didn't know, my philosophy is if I hear the bird, I can count it as a lifer. Partly because the bird's there. It's as there as if I were to see it. Of course, I would love to see it, but for now it's just a herd only lifer. Obviously we're going to try to see it, but this is so thick. There's no way we're going to be able to walk through this mountain quail on my life list. Wow. I was not expecting to see that. Hopefully we get a look at it, but just hearing it got my heart racing. I want to see these birds so bad, but this is what I'm dealing with. It's just thick. There's no way through. I'm just going to try to get up high on the ground. See if I can look back there and see it in the distance. It's frustrating being so close to a lifer and knowing that there's no way you can trek through this landscape to find it. My only hope is that maybe it's moving down towards the water. We're going to hang out here for a little bit and see if it starts to sound like it's getting closer to us. We'll keep super quiet. Hopefully that mountain quail will pop out. It's incredible to hear it though. Lifer, mountain quail. It was actually one of my goals of this trip was to find a mountain quail. I decided not to, but they're here. I just heard them, two of them calling back and forth. They're definitely getting closer. I'm hoping that they'll pop out any minute now. We'll be able to see one of the coolest quail species on earth, the mountain quail. I've been sitting on this rock for about 20 minutes and I thought they were getting closer and then they sounded farther away. Maybe they're just going in circles or maybe they haven't moved at all. I'm just power suggesting that they are getting closer. I had two people pass me on the trail now and ask me if I've seen the bobcat. Apparently there's a bobcat out here. We've gotten one of those on the channel before down when we were in San Diego. It would be pretty cool to see it again, but I know probably what it's hunting. Mountain quail and California quail. With all of these mountain quail calling right now, I doubt the bobcat's anywhere close by. We'll continue down this trail a little bit further. Hopefully a mountain quail pops out for us and we get to see my lifer, mountain quail. I think for a lot of people this remains as a herd only lifer for quite a long time before they finally see it. We'll have to get really lucky to see it on our first try. I'm literally surrounded right now by mountain quail. They're on this side of me, at least half a dozen, maybe even more. Every single time I think I'm getting close to them, they sound farther away. Maybe they're sensing me and pushing higher up onto the ridge. I haven't gotten any glimpses of them so far, but I've been really close to seeing them. We did pick up an oak titmouse. That's a really cool bird back here. Happy to pick up that bird, of course. Let's see if we can get this mountain quail on camera. They're all around me right now. I can't seem to see these birds to save my life. I ended up walking further and it sounded like I was getting closer and closer to these birds because they're all along the side of the ridge here and then all of a sudden, boom, they were silent. Completely silent. We're almost to the end of this trail and my allergies are killing me. I keep coughing, which probably isn't helping get the birds to come into me. I did see a sailor's jay though earlier. Did not get it on camera. It'd be cool to see that bird again. I see them all the time, but they're one of my favorites. I'm going to continue walking. We'll hit the end of this and then head back. Hopefully we get mountain quail on the way back. We have a long trek to get back to the fam though, so let's get going. All right, so we made it where I'm going to turn around. New species on the day though. We got a western bluebird or a pair of them at least hanging up in the tree. Have not heard the mountain quail since we came down this way, so we're going to head back. Cross our fingers we see them on the way back and get a visual lifer to go with our herd only lifer. When I say I heard them, I heard them like half a dozen times, so let's see if we can find these birds. Just got much better views of the eared grebe. Fun fact, the eared grebe was a lifer for me here when I first came to Silverwood Lake. I was so excited to see it. Almost in the exact same spot where I just filmed. This other one, pretty cool. Pick up that bird. The mountain quails are almost completely silent at this point. I did hear one more just barely. Maybe if we head further down we'll pick them up again, but I'm not super optimistic we're going to see those today. Of course I want to stay positive, but we might have to save that for another adventure. So let's continue onwards, see what else we can find. Also make sure you subscribe because we'll be back in Utah and spring is happening, which means big spring migration, exciting birding to come, and then our southeastern Arizona trips coming up in May with a whole bunch of other exciting things, including the Great Salt Lake Bird Festival, which I'm leading a tour for, and big day, global big day, best day of the birding year. Can't wait. Unfortunately, I have not seen the mountain quail. There's still a chance of course as we walk back this way, but I did hear them for over 30 minutes and I counted at least 15. Somewhere around, I think exact count was somewhere around 16. So incredible to be so close to a brand new bird, to experience that for the first time. Lifer mountain quail. Of course would love to see it, so we won't give up on trying to see that bird. I do have some trips planned when the snow melts here in California. Yes, there is snow on the peaks in southern California to try to hike up and find the mountain quail, but to have them so close by, kind of unexpectedly, I had no real idea that they were just hanging around out here, is absolutely incredible. Also, they're completely silent now. So I was just here right time. They just happened to be on this hillside and we got really close to seeing a really, really, really cool bird. So let's head back along the trail. I'll let you know if I see anything else, especially those peregrine falcons and I'll keep you updated. Well, that's pretty cool. Just got two turkey vultures roosting over there on the trees. Turkey vultures are cool and underrated birds. They are the garbage collectors of the bird world. They keep our world nice and clean by eating, you know, roadkill and carcasses, etc. And they have a defense mechanism. If they get threatened, they can throw up all over you. This really putrid smelling barf. So pretty cool to see those birds so close up. Yeah. Turkey vultures. That's going to do it for this adventure. Banger bird of the day is going to be the oak titmouse. That's what I'm going to go with. Obviously, mountain quail is number one, but we didn't get that on camera. So we're going to go with the oak titmouse. That's a bird I only get to see really when I come here to the west coast. Let me know in the comments below, what was your favorite bird from the video? Also, make sure you subscribe over on this channel because we've got some amazing stuff coming up, but also on the learn channel where I take you on once a week, we do educational videos on birds and bird ID and extinct birds, et cetera. You don't want, you don't want to miss that either. If you'd like to support my channel and my adventures links to my merch and the membership program are in the description below. Thank you guys so much as always. Thank you so much for joining me on this journey. I hope to see you all next time on Brad eyed birding.