Practice that birdcall now

Hard to believe a little bird with the unprepossessing name -- green-tailed towhee -- could be responsible for saving an ecosystem. But it was this rambunctious fellow, below, and other species whose reliance upon the buggy smorgasbord at Mono Lake became a rallying point years ago for protecting the area. The lake, 13 miles east of Yosemite, is so salty -- and therefore thick with delicious flies and brine shrimp -- that it’s a bird-watcher’s dream. The fourth annual Mono Basin Bird Lake Chautauqua, which starts Friday and runs through Sunday, draws a couple hundred lucky birders (attendance is limited) for a weekend of grebe-spotting and photo-snapping while attending field trips and talks about the area and ogling the hundreds of migratory birds that drop by each year. Bartshe Miller, education director for the Mono Lake Committee, says one of the guest speakers this year is scientist and historian Scott Stine, who offers a trip back in time around the tufa-towered lake. And hope springs that a Blackburnian warbler or black-backed woodpecker might show up. Topping it off: a birdcalling contest for all ages. Word is that the little green-tailed towhee, with its catlike mew, is the bird to mimic. Go to www.birdchautauqua.org or call (760) 647-6595. The birds don’t vanish after the chautauqua ends, and thousands throng to the area over the summer to beef up their life lists. A handy map (www.monolake.org/trailmap/index.htmlor call [800] 845-7922) reveals where to find the hundreds of species that will be streaming through the Eastern Sierra this summer.

-- Carolyn Huffman Kimball