Rambling through the Rubies

This past Fourth of July weekend, as booze flowed and freedom flew, I was bound for Elko, Nevada. What says independence like a weekend in a place with legal brothels? The Chicken Ranch, though, was not the attraction that drew me to the Silver State. I was in search of a different breed of chicken, America’s strangest and newest. I was in pursuit of the Himalayan Snowcock.

For months, my friend Eugene and I had planned to spend our Independence Day weekend in Elko County, Nevada, where the Ruby Mountains are home to these hulking gamebirds of steep cliffs and alpine meadows. The Himalayan Snowcock is a gorgeous galliform that hails from the Himalayas. It’s part of the genus Tetraogallus, along with Altai, Caucasian, Caspian, and Tibetan Snowcocks. They are huge, four to seven pounds, about the same as Greater Sage Grouse. Males outweigh the females, which are generally somewhat paler in plumage. The Snowcocks vary species to species in plumage, but all sport handsome patterns and particularly luxurious flank feathers. In the mornings, they stand atop cliffs and bugle to each other before descending to feed in more forgiving habitat. Most species have been noted to move lower in the winter, with Himalayans even feeding at monasteries.

Himalayan Snowcocks, the only ones to make it to the new world, look vaguely like a giant Chukar in both shape and pattern. The upper parts are slaty gray, decorated in white streaks with chestnut highlights. They have a white throat and cheek offset by some yellow facial skin and chestnut stippling down the nape and up the malar. They have a paler collar that rings their neck, below which is a surprisingly colorful, if subtle, stippling of dark and light hues, including chestnut, black, slate, white, and blue. This chest gives way to underparts the same slate gray as the mantle. An unremarkable tail sits atop wonderfully fluffy white undertail coverts. Their best feature is their flanks, which sweep back along their body in parallel strips, the ends of which swoop and overlap tastefully. Each strip is a pale gray accented with a white top. In between strips, shadows create black stripes. Little red feet, unfeathered despite their brutal winter homes, support the chunky birds.

For a wonderful image from Kazakhstan, check out this photo uploaded to eBird by Andrey Apashkin!

So what is a Himalayan bird doing in Nevada? Himalayan Snowcocks were introduced to the Ruby Mountains because, other than Greater Sage Grouse, native gamebirds are few and far between in Nevada. The mountains are particularly devoid of tasty native fowl - Ruffed Grouse are restricted to only a small handful of sites and Dusky Grouse are scarce on high ridges, spread thinly throughout most of eastern NV. This wasn’t enough to satisfy sportsmen, so bird hunting enthusiasts searched far and wide for the right bird. They were searching for something pretty, tasty, and able to tolerate the desolate, rocky, unforgiving terrain of the Great Basin. This campaign resulted in the successful introduction of Chukars, which can now be found widely throughout Nevada. They are immensely popular in the region, where taxidermied Chukars decorate the interior of many establishments and Chukar artwork adorns street-facing walls. Gray Partridges also call parts of Nevada home, though they don’t enjoy the same limelight of the Chukar.

Sportsmen, though, are fickle creatures, and not easily satisfied. Chukars are great and all, but they weigh in at a measly 1 pound. Wanting something bigger, dedicated sportsmen Hamilton McCaughey of Reno purchased six Himalayan Snowcocks from Pakistan while on a hunt for Marco Polo Sheep. He did this in 1961 on behalf of the Nevada Division of Wildlife’s “Exotic Game Bird Introductions Program”. Bought from the Mir of Hunza, these birds were the first of many snowcocks to make the journey from Pakistan to the United States. Over the next decade, dozens more were brought over and eventually introduced to the Ruby Mountains, where they still live today. Neighboring states also looked into piloting snowcock introduction programs, but ultimately Nevada was the only state to ever release the birds into the wild.

Many birders are familiar with snowcocks from the Big Year exploits of others. Particularly famous is a harrowing scene in the movie “The Big Year,” where Jack Black and Owen Wilson load into a helicopter and get harrowingly close to looming cliffs to get a glimpse at snowcock flushing beneath them. Eugene and I, frankly, are way too poor to even think about chartering a helicopter. But we have long legs! So we opted for the tried and true method, hiking to Island Lake.

Eugene, his buddy Eric, and I met up at a McDonalds in Elko before they lead me back to their cabin. Working for a Great Basin Bird Observatory sage grouse crew, they had access to running water and electricity, a huge upgrade from my conditions as a point count tech camping full time. After dropping off our stuff and hitting the showers, we drove up at night to get a look at the snow conditions in Lamoille Canyon. This winter had unusually high snowfall throughout the interior west and snowpack was well above 100% even late into the season. Unfortunately for us, the road was impassible about three miles from the trailhead with an enormous snowdrift looming over the road. None of our cars were outfitted with snowtires, but this more of a job for a snowmobile anyway. We walked a short ways to see what it looked like past this drift. Three more gargantuan drifts were between us and the trailhead. We went back to Eugene’s car and thought over what we would do in the morning. I was in favor of camping right there to save time but we eventually opted to go back to the cabin Eugene’s sage grouse crew was staying in, about 30 minutes away. A cot was a welcome respite from camping, which I’d been doing all summer for work.

In the morning, we got to the snowbank later than we intended to, around 5am. We’d stayed up swapping stories in the cabin into the night’s wee hours and needed a little extra sleep. There were two other cars in the parking lot, presumably other birders also in search of the snowcocks. There had been some recent eBird reports of snowcocks on the ridges above the road bugling in the early morning, so we scanned the ridges hopefully.

Eric and Eugene scanning the ridges of Lamoille Canyon for snowcocks

We started hiking, not having seen much, and we marched diligently through and around the looming snow drifts. Along the way, Slate-colored Fox Sparrows and MacGillivray’s Warblers sang.

I was happy to take some photos of this “Slate-colored” Fox Sparrow with my new camera setup

White-crowned Sparrows foraged in remnant snow patches. Song Sparrows and Dusky Flycatchers moved through the thick brush at the side of Lamoille Creek. Cordilleran Flycatchers, my first of the year and first yearbird of the trip, gave high-pitched contact calls and whistled songs alongside the Duskies.

The brushy banks of Lamoille Creek held many singing birds in the early morning

As we walked higher, we saw our first “Gray-headed” Dark-eyed Juncos of the hike and a Hairy Woodpecker lit on a nearby snag. We scanned continuously for snowcocks and mountain goats on the skyline and listened constantly for Black Rosy-finches flying over.

This Hairy Woodpecker captured a moth and was carrying it around, presumably to a nearby nest cavity

As we got closer to the lake, we met a birder on the trail. He’d seen snowcocks at dawn (while we were all still at the car) flying down from the cliffs above Island Lake. He wished us luck and we went on. Hopefully the late start wouldn’t cost us an encounter with snowcocks. We stayed on and after another mile, we reached Island Lake. In the meantime, Braoad-tailed Hummingbirds chimed by, Lincoln’s Sparrows gurgled their songs from beside the creek, and the trills of Orange-crowned Warblers, juncos, and Chipping Sparrows all intermingled. At the lake, we spotted a birder with a scope scanning diligently for large chickens atop the cliffs. We fanned out, all scanning near and far. The scrub at the lake was thick with territorial White-crowned Sparrows.

Cassin’s Finches serenaded us from the small Limber Pines growing out of the snow. Eugene spotted a distant mylar balloon in his scope and got very excited; his grouse crew was leading a challenge to collect as many as possible, but it was still a tight race. He wandered off to get the balloon while Eric and I continued scanning. At some point we both drifted off to sleep only to be awakened by Eugene, who excitedly relayed to us that he’d found a mountain goat. Groggily, I asked him where, and he lead me to a dead goat in an avalanche shoot above the lake. We were postholing through snow to get up to it. It was neat to check out the large, furry hooves and the horns. Also on the mammal front, Golden-mantled Ground Squirrels were ubiquitous.

We kept scanning and the sun made it quite enjoyable. It was in the mid 70s with scattered clouds. Golden Eagles worked the rim of the canyon and a Clark’s Nutcracker shot over. We kept looking for snowcocks and our other target, Black Rosy-Finches, but after several hours were still unsuccessful. Late in the day, we were pretty sure the snowcocks were not going to show themselves, especially with hungry eagles and Red-tailed Hawks soaring just above them.

Eric and I stripped down and hopped in the lake, which wasn’t completely iced out yet and was bone-chillingly cold. It felt good, though, so I jumped back in and swam to the island in the middle. By the time I’d swum back, I was as cold as I’d ever been. After I’d warmed up in the sun, we made the hike back down to Eugene’s car and looked at some targets for Eugene’s Elko County list. We got slamming views at Mountain Bluebirds and Lewis’s Woodpeckers then drove to an ag field to look for Bobolinks. After a few minutes, their gurgling song started up and a couple of displaying males shot up into view.
We got pizza at a spot in Elko but didn’t do much more birding that day. I took advantage of the wifi at the cabin to work on timesheets, mileage reimbursements, and uploading scans of data sheets for my point count position. We all caught up on sleep and showers and parted ways as they had to get back to grouse work on a different side of Nevada. I still had one more day off work, so I decided to try for snowcocks one more time. I drove up in the evening to scan the cliffs but didn’t have any luck. When I returned in the morning, I was happy to see that the snow had melted enough for me to drive an extra half mile to the next large snowdrift. Some local teens were fishing in the beaver ponds and were curious what I was after with the big camera. When I filled them in on the snowcocks, I was treated to lots of snowcock hunting stories.

The hike was pretty much the same as the first time around, but I was able to get crushing views of a pair of Green-tailed Towhees defending a territory of rocks and sagebrush. They meowed and sang and hopped around, putting on a show.

A Black Rosy-Finch called its rough “zheer” as it flew from one side of the canyon to another. Pine Siskins foraged at the side of the path. I was able to spot several Mountain Goats walking the cliffs on the horizon. When I got up to the lake, I had it to all to myself. I scanned ridges, the same as with Eric and Eugene, but had better luck. A family of Mountain Goats was crossing a snowfield on the skyline and it was fun to watch them. A kid was travelling with two nannies and they were in view for the better part of an hour.

I took way more photos of the White-crowned Sparrows at the lake. The white-crowns in the Rubies belong to the subspecies oriantha, with dark lores and a thin orange bill. That’s the same subspecies that breeds in the mountain in Montana where I grew up, but the birds in the Rubies sound very different.

Eventually, a round shape appeared on one of the cliffs on the southern rim of the lake. It was a snowcock! Relieved, I waited to see if it would wander closer. Instead it disapeared. not really satisfied, I stayed for another hour, but eventually I had to head out. It was still about eight hours drive back to my field site in Oregon where I had to be doing point counts in the morning.

The few pixels of the snowcock I was able to capture

I headed back down, glad I’d gotten the bird but wishing it was closer. I’ll go back with a snowmobile one day to get better views. The way back down was birdy, and I spent quite a while photographing the Gray-headed Juncos.

I worked my way back to Oregon, making a few stops on the way to add some shorebirds to my state list. It was a long drive back, and I’ll spare y’all any details, but I spent most of it thinking about my next trip.