While the birds were the star of the festival, the people made it pretty great too: Saturday started out cold (photo by David Carle)… But we persisted, and had a great time (photo by Janet Carle). It was a gorgeous day to search for birds (Gabby Guerrero). We learned a lot from Bob Steele about the art of bird photography (Sam Dummer). Dave Herbst led his always popular exploration of the microbiotic life of Owens Lake (Janet Carle). (David Carle) This year’s festival offered many excited trips off the lake. Here’s the group…
Events
We believe the best way to show how great a time we had at the Owens Lake Bird Festival is to share some of the photos from the weekend. Here are a few of the birds we saw- From Martin Powell: From Sam Dummer: From David Carle:
In March, Friends of the Inyo partnered with the Access Fund, Bishop BLM, and the Flash Foxy Climbing Festival to put on a morning of clean up in the Tablelands. The Flash Foxy Climbing Festival brings young women to Bishop for the weekend, many of whom have never climbed outdoors or recreated on public lands. This event was a great opportunity to connect young folks to conservation efforts in the Bishop area. In all, we picked up 80 pounds of glass from a restoration site at the end of Quarry Road, cleaned over 40 fire rings, removed 1,000 pounds of…
Check out Mike Prather’s piece about Owens Lake from the latest issue from Bird Watching Daily.
“It takes all of us that love the wild to keep it wild.” By Janet Carle I will never see the wilderness in exactly the same way after a five-day service trip into Humphreys Basin, organized by Friends of the Inyo in partnership with the Sierra National Forest. I have enjoyed many backpacking trips over the years, but “working” in the wilderness took my knowledge and appreciation to a whole new level. Our group of seven intrepid volunteers from all over California joined Sierra National Forest wilderness rangers Greg Dusic and Zach Barton and Friends of the Inyo staff Tristen…
What a wonderful place to enjoy a Saturday. As usual, people in June Lake were wonderful to work with (not that people in other places in the Eastside are not wonderful to work with). This year nearly 30 volunteers came out to help out on the Parker Bench Trail, Gull Lake Trail, and Fern Lake Trail. Together we were able to maintain nearly 5 miles of trail and removed 50 pounds of trash. Check out photos of volunteers removing invasive cheat grass and brushing the Parker Bench Trail. Volunteers “brushing” the Parker Bench Trail. Brushing is cutting or pulling vegetation overgrowing the…
To celebrate the centennial of the National Park Service, Friends of the Inyo partnered with Devils Postpile National Monument. While we always enjoy our work on the Inyo National Forest and BLM around the Owens Valley, it was really nice to partner in another special place in the Eastern Sierra. Thanks to a grant from the California Wildlinds Grassroots Fund of the Rose Foundation, Friends of the Inyo and the National Park Service were able to sponsor a couple of projects as ways for volunteers to connect with Devils Postpile. The Founder’s Day Stewardship Event kicked off with National Monument…
What a beautiful, interesting, and fun place to spend a day. Thanks to all of the volunteers who made the trek out to Bodie, and all of our partners: BLM Bishop, Bodie Hills Conservation Partnership, Bodie State Park, and the Bodie Foundation. And of course, thanks so much to the Westin for an awesome lunch for everybody who helped. Check out some photos below. The sun felt great on this cold, fall morning Casey Penn, the “Stewardship Guru,” shares some trailwork wisdom with the group. Volunteers worked to clear brush away from buildings to protect against wildfire. Volunteers of…
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Thank you to the 7 volunteers that helped out on the Humphreys Basin Volunteer Project. This was a partnership between Friends of the Inyo and the Sierra National Forest to conduct restoration at Lower Golden Trout Lake in the John Muir Wilderness from August 23-27. In all, the group restored nearly 40 illegal campsites, 40 illegal firerings and removed over 40 lbs. of trash. Check out some pictures below: Photo by Ben Wickham Arianne “scrubbing” a boulder scarred by fire, which can remain on rock for decades. Photo by Ben Wickham Not a bad view for a work site….
Fish Slough Volunteer Patrol Friends of the Inyo, along with the Bureau of Land Management, helped organized the Fish Slough Volunteer Patrol. This was a group of volunteers who perform weekly monitoring in the Fish Slough Area of Critical Environmental Concern. Monitoring tasks included checking for OHV use off existing roads, clearing the fish gate to protect the habitat of the endangered Owens pupfish from non-native bass, and reporting vandalism at Native American petroglyph sites. If you are interested in becoming a volunteer steward of this unique and fragile oasis, please email stewardship@friendsoftheinyo.org. The patrol is currently on hold, but…