BIG PINE, Calif. — Retired high school teachers Tom and Joanne Heindel had spent decades pursuing a daunting challenge in bird science: A survey of every species in Inyo County's otherworldly tableau of lofty peaks glazed with snow, desert plains, spiky lava fields, rivers and canyonlands.
Armed with notebooks and matching Questar telescopes, they prowled every remote dirt road as far as they could in a 4-wheel-drive truck. They also made a point of visiting sewer ponds, alfalfa fields and fish hatcheries that are footholds for bird life.
Along the way, there was much to learn from each species. Whether it was a great blue heron perched on top of a sand dune or a cactus wren in full song at 10,500 feet in a bristlecone pine forest, they all provided lessons on adaptation to changing ecological conditions in the area southeast of Yosemite National Park, where the eastern Sierra Nevada range and the Mojave Desert collide.
