Birds of Inyo County, California, Including Death Valley National Park

Book by Thomas S. Heindel and Jo Ann Heindel.

Western Field Ornithologists, Camarillo, California, 2023, “Studies of Western Birds 5”.  flexbound.  486 pages.  $35.00 print copy.  Kindle ebook $26.00.

It is hard to imagine there is a better regional bird book than this one.  In Inyo County 441 species have been recorded.  Inyo is the 9th largest county in the U.S., the 2nd largest in California, comprising 10,200 square miles.  Some 1,000 persons contributed records to this monograph; all are listed pp. 475-477.  The Literature Cited has over 400 items.

Other aspects of this fine book include 60 habitat/scenic photographs, 142 bird photos (of varying quality) [there are uses of clickers other than in the field], 2 indexes, and 2 maps.  It measures 7” X 10” and due to the glossy, fine quality paper is rather heavy.  The attractive cover painting depicts 6 species.

Habitats vary wildly including deserts of Death Valley, date orchards, alkali scrub, sagebrush, creosote bush, dunes, joshua trees, oak woodlands, pinyon-juniper woodland, aspen forest, bristlecone pine, limber pine, subalpine forest, white fir.

To give some idea of the avian diversity 34 species of warblers have been found in Birchim Canyon, 13 gull species in Tinemaha Reservoir.  The authors are not trained biologists.  That makes Birds of Inyo County … even more amazing.  Their children also helped with their book.

The exhaustive and thorough species accounts include linear graphs broken down by month and levels of abundance, breeding records where appropriate, lengthy separate sections summarizing status and records of Death Valley N. P., extremes of spring and fall records, and a lengthy comments section, all with observers’ names.

Introductory sections are “adjacent data” (“…how Inyo County data fit into a panorama formed by the eastern Sierra Navada, western Great Basin, and northern Mojave Desert.” (p. 5), habitats (which include lakes, some streams and river, marsh, oases, and meadows et al.), human alterations of habitat, local ornithological history, and the protocol used in the species accounts.

Prominent birders visit or live here, including Jon L. Dunn, who wrote the Foreword.  The book also has a detailed gazetteer.

An outstanding work.  Well-summarized are countless thousands of records.  The printing extends rather deeply into the book’s crease, but laid on the surface of a desk or table it does nevertheless open flat quite
easily.  Most highly recommended.  A masterpiece.

- Harry Armistead.