Best Birding in Southern Nevada
October 24, 2018 - Near Searchlight Nevada - The beautiful Wee Thump Joshua Tree Wilderness Area, managed by the Bureau of Land managament, is home to dense Joshua tree woodlands, cholla thickets, and desert grasslands. This unique habitat in Nevada is home to many species of birds usually only found in adjacent Arizona. The Sonoran monsoon is strong here, and creates habitats that mix the Sonoran Desert with the Mojave Desert.
We went searching for the gilded flicker (Colaptes chrysoides), a bird normally associated with giant saguaro cactus, this summer. We found a few birds and got these photos. The flickers have yellow or orangish wing and tail feathers.
^Dense Joshua trees and buckhorn cholla at Wee Thump.
Gilded Flickers
^A gilded flicker flies through the Joshua trees. Instead of saguaro cacti, the flickers here live in Joshua trees. They feed on insects, fruits, and seeds.
Gilded flickers may be declining, and are a Species of Conservation Concern in California.
Flicker photos by Laura Cunningham.
Biodiversity Hotspot Threatened
This southern tip of Nevada is biodiverse with a huge plant list, many birds not found elseshwere in Nevada--sych as Garris hawks, and the occasional curve-billed thrashers, and desert bighorn sheep. But the area is under threat by a proposed large-scale wind energy project, with wind turbines proposed right next to the wilderness boundary. See more on the Crescent Peak Wind Project >here.
^Basin and Range Watch simulation of the Crescent Peak Wind Project if it was built, looking south towards Crescent Peak from Wee Thump Joshua Tree Wilderness Area. We may have underestimated the large size of these wind turbine generators based on the project applicant's documents. These wind turbines would be a direct collision threat to the birds in this special forest.
