OAKHURST – Three years ago Kristen Boysen, now the Sierra Foothill Conservancy’s conservation project manager in Mariposa, was in a far different place from the Sierra foothills. She was studying penguins in Antarctica. A 2010 graduate of Pomona College in Southern California, where as a senior she did field research on murrelets on offshore islands, Boysen traveled in October 2010 ...

MARIPOSA – Brazil conjures up many images among Americans — Rio de Janeiro, the Amazon, tropical rainforests and abundant, exotic animals, especially its stunningly colorful birds. The largest country in South America, Brazil is home to a hugely rich diversity of avifauna — more than 1,800 species of birds, more than 200 of them endemic (found only there). Sixty percent ...

OAKHURST – It’s at this time of year that people who feed hummingbirds think about putting away their feeders for the winter. After all, rufous hummingbirds, those aggressive coppery dazzlers, have come and gone, and the fall migration is essentially over. So why continue to leave out your feeders? Local resident Barbara Robinson, a USGS Master Hummingbird Bander, will shed ...

The Yosemite Area Audubon Society (YAAS) is pleased and honored to announce that Michael Sutton, the National Audubon Society’s Vice President, Pacific Flyway, will open its 2013-2014 program season Thursday, Oct. 10, with a slide presentation, “The Pacific Flyway: Superhighway in the Sky.” The Pacific Flyway is an aerial superhighway stretching nearly 10,000 miles from Alaska to Patagonia. It encompasses ...

OAKHURST – Everyone treasures one or more places in the world, near or distant, that are special to that individual. Those places fill our memories with yearning, they inspire our spirit to commune with the eternal, and best of all, they nurture our hearts to love. It might be a white coral beach, a forest grove in winter, a canyon ...

MARIPOSA – Visible, highly active and often colorful and songful, birds bring much joy and inspiration to people’s lives. Birding, or birdwatching, is now perhaps the most popular pastime in the United States, simple and inexpensive, and learning to identify birds or just enjoying their behaviors and interactions is fun and enriching. Learning how important they are to the ecosystem ...

Visible, highly active and often colorful and songful, birds bring much joy and inspiration to people’s lives. Birding, or birdwatching, is now perhaps the most popular pastime in the United States. Simple and inexpensive, learning to identify birds or just enjoying their behaviors and interactions is fun and enriching. Learning how important they are to the ecosystem that supports all ...

CALIFORNIA – A shy and elusive member of the weasel family, the Pacific fisher seems misnamed. This carnivorous inhabitant of mid-elevation forests in the Sierra Nevada doesn’t fish at all, favoring birds, small mammals and–unlike most predators–even porcupines in its diverse diet which they augment with fungi and fruit. Feeding mostly in the hours around dusk and dawn, fishers are ...

If you’ve ever heard a raptor’s shrill scream, savored the majesty of a soaring hawk or eagle, been awestruck by a peregrine falcon in a 200-mph “stoop” or felt the piercing gaze of an owl, then you can understand why cultures have revered and worshipped birds of prey throughout human history.

Annual Christmas bird counts last month in Mariposa, Oakhurst and Yosemite yielded fewer birds than last year, yet organizers of the three local events nonetheless judged them successful–and, as always, fun! The counts were part of the National Audubon Society’s 113th Christmas Bird Count, an annual avian census held between Dec. 14, 2012 and Jan. 5, 2013. Begun on Christmas ...