South of the Mono County line, US 395 runs south through the Owens Valley, from Bishop toward Olancha. The valley offers some of the Eastern Sierra's best winter and migration birding. At its southern end is Owens Lake, a lake that was largely drained, and where birds have since returned.
Owens Lake: from dust bowl to shorebird stopover
According to a 2013 Audubon magazine report, Owens Lake once covered about 200 square miles. In 1913, William Mulholland's 200-mile aqueduct began diverting the Owens River and other streams that fed it to Los Angeles. By 1927 the lake had become a barren expanse. Dust from the exposed lakebed carried arsenic, cadmium and other carcinogens, and a 2000 dust storm exceeded federal air standards by more than 100 times.
A 1997 agreement started dust control on 22 square miles of lakebed, later expanded to 45 square miles, using shallow water, vegetation and gravel. LADWP reported that roughly 75,000 acre-feet of water a year had cut dust by almost 90 percent. The shallow flooding also created habitat. Audubon reported a spring count of 115,000 birds in a single day, including 64,500 shorebirds of 20 species, beating the previous record of 75,000 set the year before.
International recognition
In April 2018 the Western Hemisphere Shorebird Reserve Network designated Owens Lake a site of International importance, because it "supports more than 100,000 shorebirds annually." The designated area covers 28,490 hectares (70,400 acres). It holds at least 1% of the biogeographic population of three species: American Avocet, Least Sandpiper and the Interior/Gulf Coast population of Snowy Plover.
| Owens Lake birds named by Audubon (2013) | Group |
|---|---|
| American Avocet, Snowy Plover, Least and Western Sandpipers, Willet, Greater Yellowlegs, Long-billed Dowitcher, Long-billed Curlew | Shorebirds |
| Snow Goose, Cinnamon Teal, Gadwall | Waterfowl |
| White-faced Ibis, Virginia Rail, American White Pelican | Wading and marsh birds |
| Yellow-headed Blackbird, Savannah Sparrow, Northern Harrier | Marsh-edge and grassland birds |
Bishop-area hotspots
The Bishop Visitor Bureau says birds can be seen year-round in the Owens Valley. Its hotspot brochure focuses on November through May, when wintering species and spring migrants are present and the weather is milder. It draws on eBird and on "the Eastern Sierra Audubon Society's Eastern Sierra Birding Trail Map," and covers stops between Bishop and Olancha out of roughly 100 birding locations in the region.
| Site | What it's known for |
|---|---|
| Bishop City Park | Ducks and other waterfowl |
| Owens River and Laws Museum area | Prime raptor habitat: hawks and eagles |
| Bishop Canal | Egrets, Great Blue Herons, wading birds |
Joseph Morlan's Inyo County birding page lists many more local sites, including Birchim Canyon, Aspendell, Farmer's Pond, the Bishop sewer ponds, the Brockman Lane area, Warren and Klondike Lakes, Baker Creek meadows, Steward Lane, Tinemaha Reservoir, Diaz Lake, Cottonwood Marshes, Dirty Socks Hot Springs, the Keeler wetlands and North Haiwee Reservoir, plus Fish Slough and the White Mountains.
Inyo County by the numbers
- 425 species on the Inyo County list, per Morlan's county page.
- The county's "Best Bird," per Morlan, was a Varied Bunting at Mesquite Springs in Death Valley in November 1977. A Purple Gallinule at Furnace Creek Ranch in 1997 was a close second.
Combining with Mono County
Bishop is a natural base for day trips north to Crowley Lake (fall and winter waterbirds and eagles) and Long Valley. If you're there in spring, read the sage-grouse viewing rules first. The trail sites list runs the whole corridor from north to south.