Bird Banding at Burns Piñon Ridge Reserve Day 1: So many White-crowns!!

Welcome to Burns Piñon Ridge Reserve, or as we call it: Burns! This reserve used to be the retirement home of engineer Bruce Burns, who’s family dedicated the 306 acre area of land to UC Irvine some time ago. Since then, various groups have come here to conduct research projects ranging from those tackling the effects of climate change on Joshua Trees, to those relating to bird and mammal life here. Burns is a place of research and exploration! Check out the official website here!

Located in the Mojave Desert along the San Bernardino Mountains, Burns greatly resembles the landscape of Joshua Tree National Park (only a 25 minute drive). The area is strewn with mounds of stacked boulders piled across the landscape. Joshua trees, Piñon junipers, and various cactus species take root in the sandy soil. Birds like Phainopeplas and Gambel’s Quail move about during the day, while stink beetles and white-lined sphinx moths parade the trails by night.

The group I band with at Zuma is among those that band birds at Burns. Twice a year during the spring and fall, the master bander treats us to a weekend getaway banding somewhere else. Having never been before, I was so so excited to finally get out to Burns!! When the day came, my dad and I drove out to Yucca Valley at around 9am. As we neared closer to the reserve, nature was flourishing. Joshua trees could be seen from the roads while birds like Common Ravens soared overhead. When we reached the dirt roads that would carry us to Burns, bird life quickly became evident, especially considering it was already noon. As we passed the gates, we started seeing and hearing Northern Mockingbirds, Phainopeplas, and White-crowned Sparrows. What a bounty of birds… that I hoped we would be catching in nets and banding soon.

After a quick lunch, all the banders started filing into the desert that surrounded the house we were staying in. Our hiking boots crunched along on the coarse gravel and bird songs were in the air. My dad and I learned the locations of each of the eleven nets we were setting up and learned about the reasons behind some of their strategic locations. Two nets, 3 and 11, were placed close to a small water feature that birds utilized for drinking and bathing water. These two nets quickly became the most productive as we would soon realize.

By the first net round (when we check the nets), we were coming back with an insane number of birds by my Zuma standards. My dad and I checked net 3 and came back with around 10 White-crowned Sparrows. I hadn’t anticipated so many birds and conveniently didn’t bring enough bags to carry them back to the station in. Most birds ended up with a roommate! Everyone else brought back bags and bags of birds. Burns was already so productive!!

For the next while, we were processing birds left and right. Brewer’s Sparrows, White-crowned Sparrows, Orange-crowned Warblers, an Ash-throated Flycatcher, and many more. Every round, everyone was bring back so many bags. Eventually, we had to start triple bagging birds. We were running out of clips! It eventually came to a point that if a bag didn’t have a bird, it was net 3 (since it was so productive). We were starting to get concerned about running out of bags, knowing that a load of laundry would be imminent.

The influx of White-crowns was crazy! They became our default bird as we read out the data for the master bander to record. The numbers could have been even more overwhelming, but luckily White-crowns are one of the easiest species to process. While age and sex are usually the most difficult to determine, White-crowns make it simple. Their sex cannot be reliably determined and their age is based mostly on crown color. Young White-crowns have a crown with brown and tan stripes. As the bird gets older, they begin to molt (replace) these feathers with black and white ones. This takes time, but we banders know that even if there are only a few brown feathers in the crown, the individual is still considered a young bird. Combined with tapered rectrices (tail feathers) and a relatively worn tail, we can accurately determine a White-crowned Sparrow as a second year (SY) bird. Those with a black and white crown, broad rectrices, and a new-looking tail make for an adult, or an after second year (ASY) bird. Take a look at some examples below!

Considering all the Phainopeplas that were flying around, it was only a matter of time before we caught one. Not long into the day, we had caught two Phainopeplas, both females. One of the banders showed the rest of us a cool thing this species does: mimicry. Just like a Northern Mockingbird, Phainopeplas will mimic the sounds of other bird species. Many don’t know this because you have to get really close to the bird in order to hear the soundtrack. Luckily, we’re bird banders, so we could hear the Phainopepla’s sweet beats with ease. Watch the video taken by one of the banders down below:

By the end of the day, we were all exhausted. The master bander counted up all the birds to reveal the number of 73! Unsurprisingly, 59 of which were White-crowned Sparrows, about 81% of the total. We celebrated this victory over a dinner of spaghetti, salad, and cookies.

Afterwards, everyone went to their respective sleeping quarters, but not my dad and I! With so much of the desert left to explore, we headed out for a night hike. Under the watchful gaze of the stars, we climbed up rocks, found a whole bunch of stink beetles, and experimented with cool night photos. I found cool cactus, giant ants (by my standard), and White-lined Sphinx Moths. I even spotted the scat of a Mojave Desert Tortoise (a photo that I’m not going to include here, but definitely encourage you to research)!

That night, my legs were so sore from all the standing, walking, and exploring, but every throb was well worth it. I had already discovered so many fascinating things at Burns! I got so much practice taking birds out of nets and processing them quickly. I couldn’t wait for what Day 2 would bring in this amazing desert.

Some Additional Photos