An 11 Year Old's View of Birding

Author name


 By Jackson Roth


Hi, my name is Jackson Roth. I am 11 years old and have been into birds for around a year and a half. My family and I take many vacations, and I have a lot of fun exploring new species in different areas of the country. We were in Yellowstone National Park when my mom first showed me Merlin. I had been interested in wildlife for a long time, but this is what started my focus on birds. Now it has become a tradition that when we arrive in new places, we put the phone down and start Sound ID going, then every few minutes check what we got. As it finds more species, I try to identify their calls and songs without Merlin’s help. My articles will talk about some of my experiences birding across the U.S., exploring different regions and habitats.

Living in Las Vegas means living in the middle of the desert. Bird-watching is a little trickier in the desert as we don’t have woods behind our house or many lakes nearby to see waterfowl. Pigeons, house sparrows, and house finches are the most common birds we get around here, and no one’s excited about seeing a pigeon. We rarely get any owl species, so I was thrilled when I heard that a park near us, Floyd Lamb, had a Great Horned Owl pair staying there.

After I showed them a recent eBird checklist with the owls, my family picked a day to search for the pair. On our way to some groves of trees, we passed a few of Floyd Lamb’s resident peafowl who greeted us with their trumpeted bugle calls. Picking a random clump of trees, we watched and waited for an hour or so but didn’t see any owls among the tall branches. My disappointment grew because we don’t go there very often, and I feared that the owls might be gone by our next visit. Finally, at dusk, we gave up. Walking back, I glanced out of the corner of my eye to see a dark shape swooping through the trees. I went on high alert and searched and searched but couldn’t find it again. Seeing our binoculars, a man walking past showed us a grove where he had seen the Great Horned Owls come out around 5:00. I was elated. I would get to see some owls! When it was light out! This would be the perfect opportunity to see a beautiful owl pair in the daylight.

Excited, we came back the next day to look for the owls. At 4:30, we went to the grove that the man had shown us. Or what we thought was the grove.

Since Great Horned Owls are mostly brown and many of the trees’ leaves were brown (it was fall), we knew that it would probably be hard to find them, so the three of us split up. And we looked. And looked. It had been nighttime when the man had pointed us to the grove that they came in, so we all thought we were looking in the correct spot. My father slightly misunderstood and went looking off in the desert scrub instead of the trees. My mother was looking two hills over from me. And so we each wandered, craning our necks to look up into trees. As the afternoon progressed, I began to worry that we had missed our chance at seeing the owls.

At last, I looked up to see a Cooper’s Hawk high up on a branch, staring down the Great Horned Owl male. I called to my parents, half-whispering, half-yelling (if that is possible) across the two hills. As my parents ran up, the Cooper’s Hawk flew away, and there they were. A male and a female Great Horned Owl. I could see their fluffy ear tufts so clearly. The female, with her wings spread, was sleeping up in a tree. The male was peering down at us with immense golden eyes. For a while the male fluffed his neck feathers to cool off. Watching them so close in the daylight was truly magnificent. We stayed with them for a while, fascinated.

We went home after that but still check for them once in a while when we go to Floyd Lamb Park. Great Horned Owls have been my favorite raptor ever since that evening.

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Springtime Surprise

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By Jackson Roth (age 11) Birding in the springtime offers chances to see birds doing a wide range of behaviors not done during other times of the year. This was one fun surprise we had while birding in late spring. I love Floyd Lamb. It has been the scene of some of my family’s greatest adventures, like hunting for Great Horned Owls (more about that in an earlier blog post) and seeing a South American Muscovy duck. Its variety of forest, grassland, and wetland habitats means there is a wide range of species in the area. But there’s one species in Floyd Lamb that always annoys us: Canada Geese. They’re squawking at you, they’re trying to bite your hand off, and you’re stepping in their feces. It’s terrible. But one time we went in the spring, and our opinion of Canada Geese went up…slightly, anyway. It was right after breeding season, and we saw some Canada Geese goslings. Covered in puffy, pale yellow feathers, they were adorable! There were usually three or four in a group, tiny balls of fluff, and as they ran around after their mothers, they furiously beat their tiny wings, hoping that even without flight feathers, they would still be able to soar into the air. We were surrounded with wonderful, waddling goslings. Seeing so many of them made me a little sad. They’re so cute now, but they will all grow up to be something that wants to bite me and poops all over the sidewalk.

June Birding Forecast

May 27, 2025
By Alex Harper The big pulses of migratory birds have all but ended for the spring season by the beginning of June. The transient shorebirds, vireos, flycatchers, thrushes, warblers, tanagers, grosbeaks and buntings have pushed through the Mojave landscapes along their route to their summer breeding territories. Most of the birds that passed through in May have flown to suitable breeding habitat, found a mate, begun maintaining and defending territory, constructed a nest and started sitting on eggs by early June. In the spring, birds are fixated on getting to a territory and passing their genes successfully. This requires focus to get ahead of any competition. For birders in the Mojave Desert, June is the beginning of the summer. Those who dedicated to looking for straggling or wayward migratory birds should head to the migrant traps in the area. Migrant traps are any features in the landscape that look appealing to birds. In the desert, a migrant trap may be a small area with trees and water; golf courses, highway rest stops, and springs often qualify as traps because they “pull in birds”. Corn Creek Field Station at Desert National Wildlife Refuge or Floyd Lamb Park are traps that have the potential to attract late or wayward migratory birds. Unassuming highway towns like Primm or Cactus Springs can act as traps as well. In early June, one could be rewarded with a vagrant; Tropical Kingbird, Red-eyed Vireo, or an eastern warbler are all possibilities in June. Our local birds are deeply engaged in breeding activities. In the lower elevations and the Las Vegas Valley, adults may be feeding nestlings or attending to birds that have fledged the nest. Some birds may begin tending to a second clutch of young. Listen for nestlings begging for food from nests or for fledged young following their parents for handouts. By the end of the month and into July, some birds born this spring are already wandering around on their own, unattended by their parents. In the higher elevations where cooler temperatures may be lingering, birds are following a later schedule. This means that visitors to the Spring Mountains might be able to enjoy the frenzies of breeding activities of Violet-green Swallows, Broad-tailed Hummingbirds, and songbirds while enjoying cooler weather and the shade of towering Ponderosa Pines. If possible, visit the trails of Fletcher Canyon, Deer Creek, Mary Jane Falls, or upper Lee Canyon on weekday mornings to beat the weekend crowds and take in the June dawn chorus. Those hanging around until nightfall may hear whistling Poorwills, Western Screech-Owl or the low hoots of Flammulated Owls. The Hualapai Mountains near Kingman, Arizona offer similar mountainous getaways along with chances for Zone-tailed Hawk, Painted Redstart, Hepatic Tanager and Canyon Towhee, all of which are difficult to find on our side of the Colorado River.  Otherwise, settle into a Mojave Desert summer. Treat June, July, and August as times to observe young birds or for studying familiar backyard birds. After a few weeks, shorebirds will be on their way southward; it is possible to see migratory shorebirds by late July and August. You may also find companions in insects, spiders, bats and lizards. Slow down and be open to the other animals and you will notice the diversity of pollinating insects and urban invertebrates of southern Nevada. These invertebrates provide food to the summer biomass of the bird populations. .

Corn Creek

April 30, 2025
By Jackson Roth We decided to go to Corn Creek for the first time because I had seen some incredible pictures of desert birds from the website www.birdandhike.com . Unlike going to Henderson Bird Preserve or Floyd Lamb Park, we would be spending the entire time in a desert habitat and therefore hopefully seeing the birds that mainly thrive there like Horned Larks and Swainson’s Hawks. We explored the area, and, while the Corn Creek ranch was a cool historical site and the hikes in the barren desert were beautiful, the sparrows, ravens, and mockingbirds there did not excite us. While the afternoon at Corn Creek had been lovely, we hadn’t seen many interesting birds or bird behaviors. On our way back we had seen some small shapes flitting up in the sky, too far to identify, but then, as we walked out of a cluster of trees, we suddenly saw that there was a group of them, swooping low to a lake. We now recognized them as lesser nighthawks. Above them, swallows were calling while the nighthawks were gliding low to the lake. The nighthawks gracefully flitted and dived, swooped and dodged around each other in a chaotic dance. There were around twenty, together creating a swirling mass of excitement. As they flew around each other and over us, we got a clear view, even in the dim light, of their vibrant white wing streaks. Their reflections in the lake made a beautiful mirror image, and the blooming sunset, also reflected, was a gorgeous backdrop to the scene. We were stunned. What was this behavior? It was captivating, whatever it was. Later, we researched what this behavior was, and we think they were either skimming the lake for bugs, drinking out of the lake, or both. Nighthawks are crepuscular creatures, so it would make sense that they were feeding in the evening. There were quite a few species of birds around the lake, showing that it was one of the few water sources in this desert area, making it less surprising that a large group of birds was feeding together in this way. While it was stunning to us at the time, they were probably just doing their usual feeding behavior, which shows that sometimes when birds do simple things, it looks incredible to humans.