The Stoke Builds

The time has come; The Great Ornithologist Felonious Jive and I are going south, with additional nerds (sorry Nate), back to the realm of the White-collared Swift, whom you may observe soaring above this text. Why? Because lifers. Lifers in Mexico...Nayarit, Jalisco and Colima to be exact. I'm aiming for 350 species for the trip list, hopefully with 50+ lifers. I'll have another shot at a bunch of species I've missed repeatedly in the past (Crane Hawk, Collared Plover, Military Macaw, etc.) and an opportunity to get to know a whole suite of new birds...Long-tailed Wood-Partridge, Aztec Thrush, Rosy Thrush-Tanager, Red Warbler, Red-breasted Chat, Orange-breasted Bunting, etc. The names of these birds evoke much excite. The stoke is building.

Expect another protracted trip report beginning near the end of January. Good birding to all, and may the rarities rain down upon you in 2016.

Costa Rica Blitz Blogging: Of Swallows, Seedeaters, and Getting Birds at Gamba

Time is running out...the blog window is closing. January is not a month to be blogging about birding in Costa Rica, as I will be very busy. With a great...many...things.

We left off in the tranquilo town of Golfito, where I picked up some absolutely debilitating food poisoning. It was easily the worst I've ever had. This was, predictably, immediately after I proudly declared that I would not get poisoned on this trip....and thus the puke train commenced later that night. A couple days later I thought it was Dengue Fever, had all the right symptoms, but it faded a bit too quickly for Dengue. If I got it where I think I did, the food was actually pretty good. Oh well, at least I picked it up near the end of the trip. Anyways, as popular as it is for birders to publicize their health problems, we should be talking about birding.

Dipper Dan and I weren't really planning on birding along Golfito Bay but we got quite a few trip birds on the mudflats...this sort of habitat isn't exactly widespread in the country, so it was refreshing to get some terns and shorebirds to work with. Of course, it was hell of scenic as well.

A little flock of Gray-breasted Martins were roosting under the roof of a dock. They put the CONFIDING in CONFIDING. It's always bizarre, almost surreal, to see a recent lifer so close-up, although it left my face quite intact.

This martin was crushed with a point-and-shoot. Remember those? Cute little bugger.

After Golfito we did some roadside birding south of Gamba. It was hot as fuck, but the birding was quality. As a great birder once said, "Middle of day is best for make good birding". This is true.

Great Kiskadees are common and widespread in Costa Rica, but thankfully they are not as painfully abundant as Social Flycatchers. It's hard to like Social Flycatchers after a while, because 99% of the time you look at them you are only doing so because you are hoping they are something else.

After the mediocre morning of birding, shit really started to pick up. Lifers began to appear again...Plain Wren, Blue Ground-Dove, and this insidious, little junco-looking bastard, a Yellow-bellied Seedeater.

They really do have yellow bellies, and we got to see quite a few of them. You know, one of the toughest things about blogging this Costa Rica trip is that I don't know jack shit about many of these birds, so it's hard to give them a lot of background. What do I know about Yellow-bellied Seedeaters? They look like juncos and Tricolored Munias, they like fields, and I think I like them. That's about it. We only saw them at this one spot, so there's not much more I can fill in. It's a sad state of affairs. Sorry....I have brought much dishonor to me and my family.

I'm a little more familiar with White-collared Seedeaters; this is one of those.

Oddly similar to a male Rose-breasted Grosbeak from this angle, with a less flashy breast patch of course. There are hella different subspecies of White-collared Seedeater, and the birds in Costa Rica look very different from what I've seen in eastern Mexico.

Now this...this is a bird. This a bird we know...yet it is almost a total stranger. Even those who haven't yet birded out of the country can recognize such a bland creature, for it is a rough-winged swallow. However, it might look a bit different to you...perhaps you are thinking, "Did Sibley just miss on this one?"

No, Sibley didn't miss on this one. This isn't just any rough-winged swallow...it's a Southern Rough-winged Swallow. Yes, there really is a counterpart to our familiar yet unloved Northern Rough-winged Swallow, which is nobody's favorite swallow, let alone favorite bird. Note the bright, contrasty rump and the rusty throat that make this an easy ID.

This is a fucking woodpecker! We saw an acceptable number of these tiny Olivaceous Piculets while in the country, but they were a serious pain to photograph. This was the best I could manage. Awesome birds, one of the many that struck a nerve with me.

Woodcreepers. You know I like woodcreepers, but when blogging about them all I want to talk about is how bloody hard they are to identify, which you likely know all about already because I keep telling you that over and over again. I had to break out the field guide just for posting this photo; I reckon this is a Cocoa Woodcreeper with its big, straight bill, spotted crown, standard underparts, etc.

There hasn't been a great deal of color in this post, so here is a poignant Yellow-crowned Euphonia for your trouble. Speaking of troubling birds, learning how to sort female euphonias was a major chore, so be ready for that group when you head south.

Fuck...you guys, I think I only have one Costa Rica post left. Thanks for staying with me on this trip...for all these years. It might be a while until the next (final!) CR post though, for there will be other birds to blog.

Costa Rica: Hammering Lifers at Las Alturas, Grit Blazing In Golfito

With winter here and another big trip coming up imminently, this is a good opportunity to do what I think is best...bust out another Costa Rica post. The finish line is finally in sight. More than a few of you will probably heading to places like Costa Rica, Panama, Honduras, Belize, and Mexico in the next couple of months, so lets get those salivary glands flowing with some tropical goodness.

I'll pick up right where I left off, at Las Alturas, on the South Pacific Slope east of San Vito. It was a very birdy day, too bad we didn't have more time to spend here. We'll start with a Purple-crowned Fairy, a canopy-loving hummingbird that typically scoffs at feeders.

I prefer to crush birds, but when that is not possible, I make them Art. You are currently beholding Art. That's why it's almost impossible to understand what is going on with this Fairy. It is Fairy Art. There is no singular truth to this hummingbird. It is a subjective hummingbird.

Shortly after the Purple-crowned Fairy departed, Dipper Dan and I gazed upon a Long-billed Starthroat, which was a LIFE BIRD. This is a damn good hummingbird, one that I'd been hoping to see. They are large and wonderful, two traits I am drawn to in hummingbirds. This would be the only one I would see on the trip, but it was heck of confiding.

Here is a more familiar bird. In fact, I've seen hundreds of thousands of them, but I will always keep looking at them. Broad-winged Hawks are common and widespread winter residents in Costa Rica, one of the most abundant raptors you will encounter in winter months.

Quite unlike Broad-winged Hawks, Torrent Tyrannulet is a habitat specialist. This wee flycatcher is strictly found along fast-flowing creeks and rivers, mellowing them with its two slaty colors and preference for perching on boulders. We dipped on two other birds that specialize in this habitat, Sunbittern and Fasciated Tiger-Heron...I'll just have to go back and try again, too bad for me.

If you haven't birded south of Texas or Florida yet, you may not know that tropical birding is an exercise in getting gripped off. You are always going to miss birds other people in your group see. It is inevitable. White-whiskered Puffbird was a major gripoff for me early in the trip, back at Quebrada Gonzales, but redemption was had with this cooperative bird sitting out in the open above a road.

How about another life bird? This is a Sulphur-winged Parakeet, an easy ID up close with the red cheeks. Sulphur-winged Parakeet is one of the less abundant parakeets in the country, so a solid bonus bird for us.

This was kind of a random sighting...Dipper Dan spotted it very close outside the car, quietly lurking under the canopy. How very unparrot. It would be our final lifer at Las Alturas.

Lets keep the lifers coming! This is a Bran-colored Flycatcher. This doesn't seem to be a bird that gets photographed a lot or even thought about, so here is a mediocre image for your edification. We talked about this bird a lot before we finally saw one, due to its phenomenally bland-sounding name. I believe this was at Lagunas San Joaquin, near the airport at San Vito. We didn't get a Masked Duck here (which is always my luck), but there are no eBird records of any here since 2008. You are better off checking Finca Cantaros, south of town.

Here is Lagunas San Joaquin, where you too can see a Bran-colored Flycatcher. You can also see an albino river otter here. Masked Ducks...not so much.

After leaving San Vito, Dipper Dan and I lurked back to the west coast for our final few days of slaying tropical birds. Our first stop was Golfito...this was a mistake. What we should have done was bird Las Cruces OTS/Wilson Botanical Garden again. It is a famed birding spot after all, so I feel like a bit of a wanker for only birding it one day. Why was this a mistake? The Golfito site I had picked out to bird was dead that morning. Hella boring. No flocks. Not rad. However, there was some redemption with this lifer mammal! We briefly hung out with a troupe of squirrel monkeys above Golfito, which was most mellow.

We were in some good habitat, but we ended up hanging out on the side of the road blazing grits with somebody's dog. Birding was slow. Obvi.

A lifer Mealy Parrot was nice. Why is it called a Mealy Parrot? Anyways, I can assure you that it was green. This Broad-winged Hawk was very, very confiding though...I have not met such a friendly member of its species before or since.

Here is the view of Golfito Bay from up on the hill. Heck of scenic.

Happy Festivus to all of you. I wish you much luck with the Feats of Strength, if you are selected. Of course, this follows the annual Airing of Grievances, and since you are a birder you probably have much to whinge about. Let the hate flow through you. 

The Rock Wren Is Not As Forgiving As I Am

We are absolutely buried in December now. You may be excited by Christmas Bird Counts (I know The Great Ornithologist Felonious Jive is), but I'm pretty focused on the new Star Wars. Anyways, nothing says "Happy Holidays!" like HERMIT THRUSH ACTION. This fog-bound bird was holding down the Fish Docks out at Point Reyes, where I managed to see a number of quite uncommon birds, but not many rare birds this fall. Railer. Oh well, I can always look back on the last Connecticut Warbler with fondness and be grateful that I wasn't there for The Murrelet Incident.

In northern California, White-throated Sparrows are near the bottom of the Eastern Vagrant Totem Pole...but if they are on the pole, it's a good bird! This confiding individual was recklessly hopping around on the path at the Fish Docks, in close proximity to the raging HERMIT THRUSH ACTION.

This is one of those birds that I've somehow not managed to photograph properly before...this bird on the path is on the right path to a proper photo, I reckon. It is a pleasureable sparrow to look at, methinks, good ol' Sam Peabody, you know what I'm saying? Perhaps the next field guide will have a section on pleasure sparrows.

Rock Wrens are always holding down the Outer Point, which is a very good thing. I consider them to be the most fearless wren...you might say that their overconfidence is their weakness, but your faith in your friends is yours.

See what I did there?

Here is the Rock Wren rendering itself into some sort of highly amicable modern art sculpture, apparently melding tail and wing into a protective wren-shell.

However, the wren-shell has a weakness. It's a small thermal exhaust port, right below the main port. The shaft leads directly to the reactor system. A precise hit will start a reaction which should destroy the...wren-shell.

How about there? Did you see what I did there?

Getting sick of fogbound, brown bird pictures? Fine, here is a fogbound haggard coyote. Be glad you are not that coyote.

Look at the bill length on this Tricolored Blackbird....it might as well be a Tricolored Heron. Actually, I can't even tell which one of those species this bird is. Birding is hard. Photographed at Ardenwood Farm, Fremont.

I've mentioned it before, but since ya'll probably don't read every single BB&B post (how very sane of you), it bears discussing again...Tricolored Blackbirds don't really match field guides very well during the fall. With the buffy epaulet edging, this may look like a typical Red-winged Blackbird at first glance, but this is actually typical of Tricolored Blackbird in the fall (see the first TRBL photo as well). That buff color will fade to white over time, and that's when these birds look like they've been consulting field guides for how they appear.

Another thing to keep in mind is that "typical" Red-winged Blackbirds are not very common in the bay area, we mostly have Bicolored Blackbirds, which only have a red patch on the wing.

Speaking of patchness, I finally found a rare bird at my patch! This absurdly late Common Tern (seen November 8) was a surprise a few minutes from my house, and is likely the latest I've ever seen of its kind in the country. Middle Harbor Shoreline Park, Oakland, CA.

Not surprising at all was this Long-billed Curlew. Curlews are great birds...not in terms of rarity, just in general. I think it is important to have curlews lurking at one's patch, laying waste to what lies beneath the surface of the mud.

I don't like to do this...really, I don't. I'm not one to fetishize obviously escaped birds, but one will nonetheless be portrayed here...this is the first free-flying Mandarin Duck I've ever seen. Granted, it probably doesn't fly very much (it has been in Golden Gate Park for a very long time now), but it could leave if it wanted. It does a good impression of a female Wood Duck, with a different bill color of course.

This is a plover. A plover of snow. I hadn't been to Crissy Field (San Francisco) in years, so I did what I thought was best and lurked over there a few weeks ago. It was hell of peopley, shocker. Fortunately there were four Snowy Plovers in the designated Snowy Plover area. This one had more colorful legs than the others. Turns out I was the one who banded it.

Naw, just kidding, it was someone else. All the ones I've banded were down San Diego way...it would be weird if one of them turned up this far north. Anyways, a small flock of Snowy Plovers is here at Crissy on the regular, though they don't breed. These pleasant beach loafers/sand nuggets can be found along Ocean Beach as well, which (surprise surprise) is also peopley.

Brown Pelicans are nice to look at. I have nothing more to say, except I have not seen the new Star Wars yet so for the love of all that is Holy and Right in the world, don't leave a spoiler in the comments. Photographed at Crissy Field.

Apalling Postage Rates...A Detour For Cripple...Confronting and Lurking

That's it. Fall is over. Birds like Prothonotary Warblers are a thing of the past. High vagrant season is dead in much of the country. How was it for you? It was mighty fine for myself, thanks for asking. Sure I couldn't chase the Groove-billed Ani, and no I didn't skip work for the White Wagtail, and yes I hate the Northern Gannet...but at least there wasn't an Olive-backed Pipit taunting me down in Irvine. Lifers were had, a state bird was enjoyed, and rare birds found themselves in my binoculars on the regular.

That all said, I find my frequency/infrequency of blog posts appalling. What I've been doing...it's just not enough. This 40 hour workweek stuff...it's horseshit. Talk about a blogging obstacle. The Perpetual Weekend certainly seems like a thing of the past now...can you believe people actually like doing this prolonged and sustained wage slavery? Sure it can be great if you can get outside enough, but that is not what I'm doing. Anyways, I feel guilty about the blogging apathy so I had to get that out. I guess I just have to relax and think about Prothonotary Warblers.

Prothonotary Warbler is a nice thing to think about, but an even better thing to be looking at. This was an excellent bonus bird. I woke up in Oakland one morning, took BART to San Francisco, looked at a Mourning Warbler, took BART back to Oakland, then drove down to Santa Barbara for the night. This crippler was just a few miles off the freeway in Goleta, and cripple it did. Detours are best when your face is left melted off.

Look. It's devouring something.

One thing that SoCal has that the bay area seems to be lacking in is lerps. Lerps are psyllids that live off Eucalyptus, which is fine because Eucs are not native and lerps attract rare birds. The psyllid nymps excrete this crud that ends up making a white, sugary capsule on a leaf, and insectivores are all about it. Maybe the weather is not lerpy enough up here, or perhaps it's just a matter of time before they arrive in force.

Gulf fritillary is an attractive (bordering facemelting, actually), common butterfly in SoCal; it is one of the first butterflies I learned to identify as a kid. Cool story, I know. Ventura, CA.

Cooper's Hawk is a common bird, but they are much appreciated when they abide. You already know this, of course. Ormond Beach, Oxnard, CA.

Here is a dead Lincoln's Sparrow. The yellow thing on its head is a yellowjacket, which is contentedly eating the sparrows face. The sparrow was out in the middle of a dry pond and looked like it was in good condition aside from the missing head flesh. What is most notable about the mysterious corpse-sparrow is that, about an hour and a half after taking this photo, I SAW A FUCKING DUSKY WARBLER. A Dusky Warbler! So rare! So Siberian! A life bird! I predictably got poor looks, but at least I saw its rare face and got to hear its Vague Runt voice over and over again. There had not been a chaseable one in the state for a number of years, so this was an immensely appreciated new bird for me...a true birder's bird. Redwood Creek, Marin County, CA.

Black-bellied Plover is a not a birder's bird, as they are loud, relatively large, and extremely common. The question is, how come I can never crush them like this when they are in alternate plumage? Do they just know to be more coy when they ditch their dingy winter suit? That's what it seems like. Arrowhead Marsh, Oakland, CA.

This Grasshopper Sparrow surprised me when it hopped up on the paved sidewalk. Hanging out a stone's throw away from San Francisco Bay is not appropriate for a Grasshopper Sparrow, but this was a very inappropriate bird. Photographed at Arrowhead Marsh.

I hella like Grasshopper Sparrows and other grassland birds in general, especially after my time in North Dakota. They really know how to work the Economy of Style visually, if not vocally (see meadowlarks, Sprague's Pipit, Upland Sandpiper, etc.).

As most birders in this half of the state know by now, Arrowhead Marsh is the place to go to see Ridgway's Rail. It's just so...easy. They saturate the place. All the loud, grunting in unison...it's just punishing.

Ridgway's Rails may like to hang in the cover of thick saltmarsh, but when they come out (which they inevitably do) they can be pretty accommodating. Being confronted with Ridway's Rails is a pleasurable experience, considering how endangered this subspecies is and the small range they occupy, which is essentially San Francisco Bay.

Lurking.