Tehachapi photographer Robert Hardy provided us with these great photos of Chuckar from our local area.

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I photographed these Chukar between Mojave and Tehachapi almost across from the truck scales. If you are coming from Tehachapi to Mojave on HWY 58, there is a dirt road off to the right on HWY 58 just passed the truck scales that goes to a small bridge and runs parallel to the tracks. I found a covey of Chukar (10-12 birds) going east of the bridge a short distance holding tight to some brush very close to the railroad tracks. I was very fortunate to capture these photos because the birds were very skittish and soon disappeared. The location on a railroad map is called Warren.

Robert Hardy

Kern Audubon’s Tehachapi sub-chapter celebrates making the national “Top 20 NestWatch All-Stars” list for the number of nests monitored in 2011. The list appears in the Cornell Lab of Ornithology NestWatch eNewsletter, January 2012. At number 20 out of 1,358 participating groups, Tehachapi birders are proud to be recognized for their effort. A dedicated team of Tehachapi bird enthusiasts have maintained and monitored a network of Western Bluebird (Silias mexicanis) nesting boxes from mid-March to mid-July for the last 12 years. The total number of birds fledged from the nest boxes during the 12 years include:

• 1,828 Western Bluebirds
• 83 Ash-throated Flycatchers
• 14 Tree Swallows
• 9 Violet-green Swallows
• 9 Mountain Chickadees
• and 4 House Finches

The Tehachapi team monitors the boxes once every other week, which totals about eight 1-2 hour outings. Other Tehachapi participants monitor their “backyard” boxes and send in the nest records.

NestWatch is a nest monitoring project developed by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology in collaboration with the Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center, and funded by the National Science Foundation. The data collection includes information about nest site location, habitat, species, and number of eggs, young, and fledglings. As “Citizen Scientists” we submit our nest data to the NestWatch online database in a continent-wide effort to better understand and manage the impacts of environmental change on bird populations. With hundreds of thousands of nesting records reported by citizen scientists, researchers around the world have access to an incredibly powerful dataset that grows each year.

Go to www.NestWatch.org for information and to join. View our Bluebird Trail Project page.

Kern Audubon-Tehachapi welcomes interested individuals to help monitor nest boxes in the Tehachapi area as well as those handy with building and repairing nest boxes. If you would like to participate, please contact Bluebird Trail Coordinator Karen Pestana at 661-972-6897 or This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .