Escaping the heat: A trip to Grassy Hollow

It's been hot in Riverside and even the beaches, so we drove to the mountains to get cool. Grassy Hollow is one of our favorite places for a wide variety of mountain birds. The most surprising was the Lewis's Woodpecker, which took a long time to identify because it's a juvenile and not in full color.

There were also three chipmunks scurrying around.

Green-tailed Towhee


White-headed Woodpecker


Pygmy Nuthatches


White-breasted Nutchatch


Lewis's Woodpecker (Juvenile)


Stellar's jay


Mountain Chickadee


Chipmunk

Birding Grassy Hollow Visitors Center

White-breasted Nuthatch


Pygmy Nuthatch


Stellar's Jay



Red Crossbill


Dark-eyed Junco


Violet-green swallow


Mountain Chickadee


Brown-headed Cowbird



Chipmunk


We took a trip with friends to Grassy Hollow Visitor's Center. In addition to two life birds, we saw lots of other "mountain birds" including a few that we hadn't seen in California before. The east coast variants of junco, cowbird, chickadee, and white-breast nuthatch would frequent our New Jersey yard. It was good to see their west coast relatives.