Another Banner Year

Red-legged Kittiwake. Buldir Island, AK.

Shit! That was fast. All of a sudden, its over. 2010....done. I give it a B. 2010 was better than average. It's still no 2006 (A+), otherwise known as The Year Of The Ashtray, but it  has been pretty solid. Definitively better than a couple years this decade though. Of course, I'm just talking about big picture stuff here, not birding.....which is what you ultimately are here for.

Right. Y2K10. I got to work in one of my favorite areas to bird (Southeast Arizona), somehow went all the way out to (and survived!) Buldir Island, and achieved Redemption with the Humboldt Brown Rain-Shrike. Like 2009 (when I went out to Midway), seabirds and the remote island experience shaped and defined the entire year, although both times I was only off the mainland for less than 4 months. I am still attempting to wrap my mind around my proclivity to do this to myself. In my mind I can do some serious placemaking in these harsh realms...we'll see if I return to an island scene in Y2K11.

One of the famous Rufous-capped Warblers that lived up-canyon from me this spring. Florida Canyon, AZ.

STRING OF PEARLS! A Slaty-backed Gull makes its way towards Northwest Point. Buldir Island, AK.

32 new birds this year! I have a distinct feeling of Victory deep in my spine, and wonder if I am actually glowing. Because I generally do a poor job at making lists (which is pretty much the most popular thing to do in blogs), I offer you this intimate piece of information....my new birds of the year.

Y2KLIFEBIRDS2010:

Blue-footed Booby (Mex - a Nemesis Bird, finally defeated)
Common Black-Hawk (Az)
Rufous-capped Warbler (Az)
Montezuma Quail (Az)
Northwestern Crow (Ak)
Trumpeter Swan (Ak)
White-winged Crossbill (Ak)
Arctic Loon (Ak)
Kittlitz's Murrelet (Ak)
Horned Puffin (Ak)
Parakeet Auklet (Ak)
Crested Auklet (Ak)
Least Auklet (Ak)
Whiskered Auklet (Ak)
Thick-billed Murre (Ak)
Red-legged Kittiwake (Ak)
Aleutian Tern (Ak)

This Red-faced Cormorant was a proud parent of triplets. Buldir Island, AK.

I'm not trying to do any horn-tooting or anything, but you should look at the full-sized image...meet the icy stare of the auklet. Least Auklet, @Buldir.

Red-faced Cormorant (Ak)

Rock Ptarmigan (Ak)
Easten Yellow Wagtail (Ak)
Gray-crowned Rosy-Finch (Ak....long overdue, don't I know it)
Common Redpoll (Ak)
Common Rosefinch (Ak)
Hawfinch (Ak)
Brambling (Ak)
Rustic Bunting (Ak)
Wood Sandpiper (Ak)
Common Sandpiper (Ak)
Red-necked Stint (Ak)
Long-toed Stint (Ak)
Mottled Petrel (Ak)
Brown Shrike (Ca)

Why hello Common Rosefinch, its good to see you too. @Buldir

Missed Birds:

Bean Goose (Ca)
Gyrfalcon (Ca)
Ivory Gull (Ca)
Black-tailed Godwit (Ak)
Snipe Sp. So, I saw 2 snipe while in the Aleutians. One that flushed from the nuclear warhead storage area on Adak Island sounded like a frakkin' Semipalmated Plover, and I have no clue what that was. Most likely, something awesome. The other was on Buldir and didn't call (probably a Common Snipe though). At any rate, Wilson's Snipes are not expected to occur in the Western Aleutians, so whatever they were were probably new to me. Bloody frustrating. In fact, its giving me a nose bleed. Right now. But I digress...

Wood Sandpipers were one of the few expected species at Bean Goose Pond for a couple weeks. I always thought these birds would look extremely similar to Solitary Sandpipers, but they seem easily distingushable. Note golden spangling on the back. @Buldir.

A migrant Common Black-Hawk cruises in the northbound lane of the Santa Cruz River. Tubac, AZ.

The yearlist is at 406, including introduced birds (401 without them). I'm completely satisfied with that, although I will certainly do my best to better that in 2011, El Año Tranquilo.

A few kickass albums that surfaced this year:

Bomb The Music Industry! - Adults!!! Smart!!! Shithammered!!! And Bored By Everything!!!!
The Slackers - The Great Rocksteady Swindle
The Menzingers - Chamberlain Waits
Leatherface - The Stormy Petrel
Forgetters - Forgetters
Defiance, Ohio - Midwestern Minutes

Obviously there were many more winners that came out this year, but these won my affections more than most.  The new Bad Religion and None More Black albums have some great songs too...the sad fact is that I missed out on a lot of albums that came out this summer due to my station on Buldir Island (i.e. Off With Their Heads, Gaslight Anthem, The Gamits) so I am still playing catchup. It's nice knowing there is some great music out there that I can readily get my hands on though.

View Larger Map

Lastly, this is where I'll be for about 10 weeks this spring. Swainson's Hawks Bird Observatory in Chavarrillo, Mexico will be my home. I won't be travelling much (mostly standing in one spot looking up), but the birding around town is supposed to be quite facemelty. Really looking forward to that. It invokes a visceral reaction deep in my gut, sort of like my body is getting ready to be wracked by the sight of awesome tropical and subtropical birds. Can't wait! El Año Tranquilo should be a good one.

Go!

While floating through the blogosphere, I happened to blunder into this blog about a birder finding a Bald Eagle eagerly devouring another Bald Eagle. Birds of prey consuming their own species for food is a relatively rare phenomenon (I've never seen it), so this was a pretty bizarre situation. Have you guys ever seen anything like this?

Tomorrow is the last day of the year, so don't forget to come back for BB&B's Farewell 2010 post. The BB&B camp will be brimming with pictures, lists, and the general self-worship you love.

I'm Not The Same As When I Began: Subspecies 2

Brown Booby. Sula leucogaster. This is Sula leucogaster plotus I believe, which is the subspecies that breeds in the Hawaiian Islands. Here in California we get the occasional brewsteri, which can be identified by the male's frosted white head. Photographed on Eastern Island, Midway Atoll. If you look carefully below her bill you can see the head of a newborn chick sticking up.

Nashville Warbler. Vermivora ruficapilla. This is the eastern subspecies Vermivora ruficapilla ruficapilla. V.r. ridgwayi is the western subspecies. Interestingly, genetic testing suggests that each of these subspecies are more closely related to Virginia's Warbler than they are to each other. A future split maybe?  Photographed at Powdermill Nature Preserve, PA.

White-eared Hummingbird (Basilinna leucotis) have 3 recognized subspecies. This is Basilinna leucotis borealis, the northernmost subspecies. The southern subspcies, B. l. pygmaea, makes it all the way south to Nicaragua. Photographed at Miller Canyon, AZ, which is the only reliable place in the country to find them.

Dunlin (with a few Western Sandpipers mixed in). Calidris alpina. I am guessing these are Calidris alpina pacifica, based on where the photo was taken, but obviously you can't determine anything from this picture. There are (up to) 9 subspecies of Dunlin worldwide, earning them the title of World's Most Diverse Shorebird. *NERD ALERT* To see an absolutely insane website on Dunlin subspecies identification, go here. Photographed in Petaluma, CA.

Black-capped Chickadee. Poecile atricapillus. This familiar and friendly bird also sports 9 subspecies, 8 of which occur in the United States. I would be lying if I knew what subspecies this belonged to...lets hope someone doesn't try to split them anytime soon. Photographed a Presque Isle State Park, PA.

Live In The Moment, It's Fleeting, I Know It

Nothing says Y2K11 (El Ano Tranquilo) like a new banner to start off the new year. This cheery Bonaparte's Gull (The Gull of Fortitude) is just what we need. It's not as dreary and post-apocalyptic as the Yellow-shafted Flicker silhouette was...I know some of you revel in that sort of environment, but I can only take it for so long.

That's all you get from me today. Plans are being made, great things are afoot.

To quench your visual thirst, here is another Salton Sea scene...a Great Egret with a California Gull (The Gull of Mormon) looming in the foreground.

Someone's Gonna Love Me Someday

White-faced Ibis are plentiful around the south end of the Salton Sea.

Another Christmas, in the books. There's nothing like smugly sitting around the dinner table and watching my mother chastize my father for being wasted. I've learned long ago that I would rather avoid drinking around my mother, if simply to avoid her sharp and merciless tongue. That said, she gave my pops giant bottles of Ketel One Vodka and Bombay Sapphire Gin for Christmas, so what does she expect?

Anyways, I'm back in San Francisco, where I can spread out and act human. I returned to find the sliding door of my Man Cave mysteriously wide open and trash and food spread all over my kitchen. Since my door opens onto a backyard, I reckon this can only be the work of raccoons. There were also mouse turds scattered around, so I'm sure helped out too. Great.

Loggerhead Shrikes are experiencing declines in much of their range, but there are still plenty in the deserts of California. Bugs, lizards, rodents and birds must all fear The Impalers.

Screwbean mesquite.

My Medium Year is almost done. It seems that I have 406 on the year, or exactly 400 NIB. NIB, of course, stands for Non-Introduced Birds, and is very fashionable among California birding circles. Of course, there is no such thing as a truly fashionable birding circle anywhere, so the wisdom of the NIB philosophy is in serious doubt.

For those who aren't acquainted, introduced species are those that exist someplace (purposefully or accidentally) specifically because humans helped transport them there. They have done well in their new home, and now have self-sustaining populations, and may or may not have spread across a wide area. European Starlings, Rock Pigeons and Ring-necked Pheasants are good examples of this. Birds like starlings and House Sparrows will displace native birds, and as a result they have earned the ire of birders and biologists alike. Savvy? People who consider themselves purists often will not include these species on their lists.

This is all an old argument of course (to count or not to count them), with the other side claiming that by that logic birders should not count things in artificial habitats (i.e. sewage treatment ponds, everybody's favorite habitat), and like it or not, these exotic species have become a part of the ecosystem. Frankly, I don't really care, as its all nerd-semantics. Arguing about bird lists? How embarrassing! Personally, I swing both ways...

Gambel's Quail, a fixture of the American Southwest.

Ross' Geese, a fixture of my heart.

If you are wondering, my number 400 NIB bird was the LeConte's Sparrow at the Salton Sea. That is a very sound bird to occupy that coveted number.

Again people, 400 species between The Gulf of California and Attu Island in one calendar year is nothing to brag about, but I feel good about it. Alex (Arex) Wang, who lived on Buldir Island with me, is rumored to be sitting at 495 or something like that, which is a lot more impressive...but going to Florida and South Texas will do that.

I would like to officially announce that next year will go down in the history books as El Año Tranquilo, due to the amount of time I will be spending south of The Border....not only do I have an Eastern Mexico road trip coming next month, but starting in February I will be living in the mountains above Veracruz, counting northbound migrant raptors. Did I mention that yet? Stoked. 

More on that soon. All of today's pictures are from the Salton Sea.

This is kind of an iconic scene in the Imperial Valley. Snow and Ross' Geese in front, geothermal energy plant in back.

Ring-billed Gull. 

Lets Raise Our Glasses To These Faintly Falling Ashes

As the tire suggests, this Burrowing Owl is Good.

Welcome to a very special Christmas edition of Bourbon, Bastards and Birds. Hopefully you find yourself sitting in the new yacht you got for Christmas, sipping on a hot toddy made with Shackleton's whiskey, in the arms of your amazing lover. In fact, this is the preferred setting for reading BB&B at any time of year.

Unfortunately, Christmas will find me doing none of those things....I'll be mixing up some vegan gravy  and packing for my Mexico trip next month, but mostly trying to keep myself from pulling clumps of hair out...I am visiting my parents, you see. They will be informing me of very obvious things ("watch out for that knife, its sharp"), showing everyone how "anal retentiveness" is done, and otherwise generally underestimating my abilities to behave like a human being. I should suggest that we stop celebrating Christmas and convert to Festivus, because the traditional Airing Of Grievances might be a good thing. Yes, I am one of those people who dreads Christmas, thank you very much.

My 3-day Salton Sea trip I just took with my father has gotten mixed reviews. It was raining heavily for 2 days, making many roads impassable. I didn't get to bird at 100% of my potential, (like Number 6 birder Matt Brady recently did), as my father is not a birder at all, but I got some year birds (Burrowing Owl, Cattle Egret, Ross' Goose, Clapper Rail, LeConte's Sparrow(!!!)), and my first ever Curve-billed Thrasher in California. The whole Bean Goose thing went down in flames. I looked for that bird every day. And every day, somebody else saw it while I wasn't there. Under most conditions I would not even bother getting out of bed after that episode, but the sparrow and thrasher did their best to reinvigorate my spirit.

This is, you see, the time of year where people need a dose of Positivity the most. Christmas can bring out both The Best and The Worst in people. We have been so conditioned to think that life should be perfect this time of year that when it inevitably isn't, it makes people want to hang themselves from the tree. You know, kind of like how Valentine's Day feels when you are single or in an obviously doomed relationship. What might be a small problem in the back of your mind most of the year catapaults its way into the forefront of your consciousness and looms over you like Death. For a couple of weeks, you break down and fall back into Crisis Mode.

Raw Tilapia never gets old for Ospreys.

And then it's over. A new year starts, and you put all that shit behind you. You bird with renewed vigor, and make a number of resolutions that you are very passionate about...for a few weeks. Hopefully you continue on down your path of enlightenment and keep trying to learn, to better yourself.....and maybe even try to make the world around you a better place. Of course, most people won't do that, but I have great faith in the readers of BB&B.

Delish.

Right. 'Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the house, not a creature was stirring, not even Felonious Jive.......

You Can Fly With Us, Or Hang On To The Walls

A Laysan Albatross over Midway's lagoon.

It's nesting season for albatross out in the North Pacific, and since I attempted (unsuccessfully) to go back to Midway this year, I thought it would be best to revisit them. For those who don't know, I spent 3 and a half months on Midway Atoll last year as a volunteer for the Fish and Wildlife Service. They were 3 and a half months of hell.

Kidding!

To call the place "epic" would be a gross understatement. They have an incredible number of seabirds nesting there, which now include all 3 North Pacific albatross...Laysan, Black-footed....and Short-tailed Albatross, which are one of the world's rarest seabirds.

The Shorties did not attempt breeding last year, but I did get to spend a fair amount of time with them. They are huge beasts that effortlessly make the bold and ornery Black-footed Albatross run for their lives. Truly imposing beings. Of course, there are many other signature birds out there...terns, boobies, noddies, tropicbirds, frigatebirds, shearwaters, curlews, etc....but its the albatross that seem to really set the tone of the place.

This is the famous pair of Short-tailed Albatross that, of late, have been stoking the birding community. When this photo was taken they were obviously an item but I don't think the female was, er, ready yet, although The Golden Gooney was probably down. Thankfully they're taking turns sitting on an egg this winter, and everyone is quite excited for them. Note the decoys in the background.

Black-footed Albatross.

Meet the third Short-tailed Albatross that was at Midway Atoll last year. When on-island (they can spend weeks at sea on fishing trips) it lived a few feet from a bike path. While watching this bird, sometimes from a golf cart, I frequently thought of the millions of rabid birders who would kill for an opportunity like this and it made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

This Laysan Albatross chickie had a grisly hang out. That's a pile of dead albatross it's sitting on.

The seabird community out there is amazing....everything seems big, loud, flamboyant and eye-catching, and almost every little thing you did was like some out-of-control birder fantasy. Let's take going to dinner for example. You walk outside to your bike, which entails stepping around and over several Laysan Albatross and their chicks. As you ride away you glance into the naupaka bush in your yard and see a Red-tailed Tropicbird lurking beneath it. On your bike ride you are briefly accompanied by a couple White Terns, and a few Ruddy Turnstones and Pacific Golden-Plovers calmly step out of your way. Black Noddies fly overhead with nesting material. Everywhere you look are albatross. You park your bike between a couple of attendant albatross chicks and gorge yourself (it's always all-you-can-eat at the Clipper House). At dinner you discuss playing cards later that night and who you liked and didn't like in the last tour group that came through. You then share your review on the state of the soft-serve ice cream that evening. On your bike ride home the air is warm (but not hot) and a touch humid (but not like a sauna), and you are in no rush, because stress and anxiety seem to evaporate just a bit faster out there than anyplace else. When you look up there are thousands of Bonin Petrels in the sky, just coming back from sea. You call this place home and can't help feeling a little smug.

Albatross can be quite friendly. It's nice when the Black-footeds don't hate you, as they generally don't have the pleasant disposition of Laysans. To answer your questions, no this is not a mated pair, no that is not their egg, and yes I love albatross.

I'd Like To Bury My Thumbs In His Eyes

Cassin's Sparrow. Buffalo Lake National Wildlife Refuge, TX.

Well, well, well.....Christmas is upon us. But so is this bloody massive stormfront. I feel like I've been inside a raincloud for the last several weeks. I've been rained on everywhere from San Francisco's Bernal Hill to McKinleyville's Clam Beach to the new Dipshit Alley in Ventura. Some bright forecasters were predicting that this year would be the beginning of the next horrible drought....but The Great Ornithologist (and budding meteorologist) Felonious Jive knew they were talking out of their ass. Of course, the real reason it's been so wet this winter is because of the Humboldt Brown Rain-Shrike, which alters climate at will. Apparently, it prefers almost nothing but rain, as that's what it seems to be hanging out in most of the time. So when you are building your Ark later this winter, thank the shrike.

 

My holiday plans you ask? Well, I'm off to bag me a goose for Christmas. A Bean Goose, the healthiest-sounding of all geese. Wouldn't you rather bite into a Bean Goose instead of, say, a Barnacle Goose? Those Snow Geese are just watery. No nutrition there. I guess a Kelp Goose wouldn't be so bad though.

Man...wouldn't that be fucked up? Some hunter rolls down to the Salton Sea specifically to shoot the most popular goose west of the Mississippi? Maybe it's best not to talk about it.

At any rate...here's a couple older Salton sea shots, as a preview for what you'll probably be seeing on here soon.

American White Pelican. Salton Sea, CA.

Snow Geese. Salton Sea, CA

On the drive down yesterday, I was trying to think of what to call my style of Big Year. It's not a Big Year, per se, since I'm purposely not going out of my way to amass an enormous list. It's more like a regular Year than a Big Year, but that's pretty vague and completely devoid of wit. Or puns. I'll have to get down to some serious pondering. 

Right. So, I'm off to the Salton Sea for a bit....then it's Christmas....so I'll try to drop some knowledge on you when I have the time. This is a highly migratory time of year for me. You understand, of course.

 

Northwestern Crow. Homer, AK.

Hooded Merganser. Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, CA.

Just One More Nasty Glance

Much like people, Crested Auklets get a kick out of rubbing the crap out of each other. Obviously, the good-looking ones get the most action.

As I mentioned before, I have a massive backlog of Alaska photos to show ya'll still. I'm pretty sure people are into that. Not many people get to go out to the Aleutian Islands, and those that do know how bloody hard it can be to photograph anything out there, so hopefully this makes everyone happy. All of today's bird photos are from Buldir Island.

In meta news, I made a page dedicated to myself. Yup, I've got that much time on my hands. It's in the bar above the posts. Check out "The Life And Times of SeagullSteve" to learn more about your favorite nerd, and how I single-handedly defeated the Nazis in WWII.

A Parakeet Auklet peers out of its crevice. This is one of the few decent shots I managed. I'll get you next time auklet, next time...

This is the legendary Coast Guard LORAN station on Attu Island, which was decommisioned earlier this year. Pictured are the majority of the residents of Buldir Island in 2010, who are nerds.

Horned Puffins doing their thing.

Christmas. It's a busy time of year. So much to do. So much....consuming! It makes me gag a little. But it's nice at the same time (the season, not the consuming). I've never really had a bad Christmas, so I can't complain too much. Ever since I was.....3, I think.....my mom and dad have been the only family I've ever spent it with. Our family tradition is putting everyone's presents under the coffee table. Talk about festive. Then we lurk around the house for a few hours, have dinner, then I take off for a friend's house. My mother watches Korean television until about 1 in the morning and my dad drinks a bunch of vodka and passes out on the couch. I guarantee you this is what will happen this year.

Well that was kind of a weird aside, wasn't it? I'm looking forward to taking off to Mexico next month for some heavy birding. I still only have vague ideas of what I will see, but I'm dangerously optimistic. Things may get Weird, but those are the conditions I thrive in. Oh yeah I'll be at the Salton Sea next week as well. I have finally answered the Clarion Call of the Bean Goose.

Speaking of holidays, many of us are driven to the bottle this time of year. Preferably, this is to celebrate being reunited with old friends and family....but for all to many it is simply to cope with said family. Worse, you are spending Christmas with nobody at all, and are entering a state of catatonic depression. If any of these scenarios are applicable to you, you might be interested in this quick read on sustainable drinking. Thanks to Jherime for the link. Happy boozing!

This would make a great quiz photo, but I probably don't have enough readers to really make it interesting. Just keeping it real, you know. That's a Glaucous-winged Gull chasing off a Slaty-backed Gull...different bird than the one I've posted pictures of earlier.

The Human Birdwatcher Project Presents: Sketchy Birders Part I

The Great Ornithologist Felonious Jive has a near-flawless reputation, mustache and all.

So there is a phenomenon in the birdwatching realm known as "misidentification". This simply alludes to identifying a bird as the wrong species. Nonbirders, for example, misidentify almost everything. They call jays bluebirds, finches sparrows, vultures hawks, herons storks....that kind of thing. Beginning birdwatchers, who may have only been into it for a couple of years or less, are extremely prone to this, but most will readily admit that they are not very good yet. They are generally a humble bunch. No big deal, right?

Misidentification becomes a problem when you are a full-blown bird addict, let alone when you are doing actual Science. You need to see birds. Lots of them, particularly unusual ones or ones you've never seen before. At this point in your birding career, properly identifying birds becomes a Big Deal, for several reasons.

1) Pride. You now have a reputation that you probably care about. The better birder you are (i.e. your ability to find and accurately identify birds), the better your reputation is.

2) Since a lot of birds are relatively hard to identify (see pictures of the Common Rosefinch, for example), you need to be sparticularly sharp, or you might miss that Rosefinch thats mixed in with the House Finches at your own feeder.

3) If someone misidentifies a Least Sandpiper for a Temnick's Stint, your 6-hour drive to some god-foresaken sewage pond will be pointless, and you will be pissed.

And so, identifying things correctly is not only important for you to do personally, but you (the average birder) will think its important for other people to do as well. Otherwise, they might not notice that funny looking Bewick's Wren was actually a Dusky Warbler......or, even worse....the Dusky Warbler they told everyone they saw was actually a Bewick's Wren.

Get it? So let's dip a toe into The Heart Of The Matter here. Because people are really excited about seeing new/rare birds, and they often want people to know that they found said rare birds, their emotions can get in the way. Unintentionally, they will simply will a bird to be what they want.  And you know what? It's happened to all of us. Even me.  Even The Great Ornithologist, Felonious Jive...although that was just once. Often we will come to our senses or be faced to examine some crucial piece of evidence and end up making The Right Call, but for some people....that just doesn't happen. Ever. They become chronic misidentifiers. And since birders are always reporting (aka bragging) about what they see (or think they see), people start to pick up on this after a while.

Something you may not realize, nonbirders, is that birders love to gossip. Those of us who miraculously have the ability to carry on a conversation (which is no small feat for a diehard birder) love talking about other birders. We revel in discussing is who has been finding all the hot birds lately, who we think are great, who we think are assholes, and who we can and can't trust. Yeah, it's petty, but being nerds....it's all we've got sometimes. Anyways, those "loose cannons" out there are quickly named, and then the rumor mill distributes these soiled reputations accordingly. If you're a long-time birder and have never taken part in one of these conversations....you might have some cause for concern. We might be talking about you.

This is a topic that I may have touched on before (I checked the 2008 archives just to make sure....boy, that was weird), but if not.....it must be discussed further. Part II is coming soon. A big thanks to The Human Birdwatcher Project for sponsoring this fascinating research.

Not One More Word Tonight

I was hoping to see an Ivory Gull perched on this Mola-mola. This event did not occur. Arroyo Grande, CA.

It is my honor, and privilege, to announce that I now number amongst the courageous few who have seen the Brown Shrike....or, as some call it, the Humboldt Brown Rain-Shrike. This species would normally be found on western Pacific islands this time of year, or mainland India, but we birders were lucky enough to have one come our way. (Stereo)Typically, what's bad for the bird is good for the birders. It will (hopefully) at least know to go north again if it makes it through the winter, but there is no way to say if it makes back to its homeland, which is likely someplace in Siberia.

A drake American Wigeon. Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, CA.

Which is a bummer. It's impossible to say how many passerines (songbirds) meet their doom far out at sea during their long migrations, with no land in sight. But to underestimate the ability of any given bird to navigate and travel vast, almost inconceivable distances would be a grave mistake. So I have faith in the Rain-Shrike. And no, I did not even bring a camera of any sort with me to see this bird. From past experience, having no way to document such a marvelous, crippling rarity would substantially increase my chances of getting a good look at the thing. I highly recommend attempting this method, as it "showed well".

Immature Red-shouldered Hawk, lurking outside the PRBO office. Surely it was hunting the many small and timid birdwatchers coming to and from the building. Schoellenberger Park, Petaluma, CA.

Along with the Brown Shrike, I also picked up Pacific Golden-Plover, Rough-legged Hawk, Ferruginous Hawk and Tundra Swan as year birds, snapping my long drought of new bird species seen in 2010. If I was from the south, I would tell you that I'm happier than a pig in shit right now....but being San Franciscan, I will say I'm giddier than a cokehead at Delirium. That's pretty giddy right? You San Francisco people know.

So let's just get down to The Heart of The Matter. Brown Shrike. Rarest bird I've seen in California in years. Good job team.

A Pelagic Cormorant keeps an eye to the sky. Morro Bay, CA.

Speaking of San Francisco, you may be surprised to learn that Mercury 'turns' wetland birds homosexual. Who knew?

I'm Not The Same As When I Began: Subspecies I

Back to the blog-grind! Sorry for the break....it's hard being Number 8, you know what I'm saying?

Ok. So for those in the nerdier realms (the true-blue birders, that is), I'm going to start a series on subspecies. It's not something people know much about.....but people like to pretend they do. So without getting too boring, hopefully we will all learn something.

Let's begin with a quick, bastardized definition. What is a subspecies? A subspecies is a genetically distinct division of a species, often arising from geographical isolation. Where the ranges of subspecies overlap, these variants may/will interbreed and produce reproductively viable offspring. We, The People of Earth, belong to the species Homo sapiens, but are actually the subspecies H. sapiens sapiens. The other subspecies are obviously extinct. If you would like to learn more about this....I'm sure there are some more appropriate anthropology blogs out there.

So. The bird featured above is America's own subspecies of Herring Gull, Larus argenteus smithsonianus. They can be found.....well, almost anywhere in the country. There are 10 (approximately) subspecies of Herring Gulls in the world, some of which are given full species status by various taxonomic authorities. It's all very convoluted. I will venture to say that there are good reasons why we can identify this subspecies as a L.a. smithsonianus and not one of it's almost-identical relatives...but off the top of my head, I don't know them. How embarrassing! 

This adult, with a red-eared slider as a companion, was at Golden Gate Park in San Francisco, CA. Let me know if I got my turtle ID wrong. 

Thayer's Gulls (Larus thayeri) are not prescribed any subspecies, but many believe this species is conspecific (meaning they are actually the same species) with Iceland Gulls (Larus glaucoides). What I'm saying is that maybe they're two subspecies of the same thing. Having never seen an Iceland Gull, I do not feel very passionately about this controversial topic. Identifying both species (subspecies?) from more distant relatives is a major chore as it is. This first-year/first-cycle bird was photographed at Lake Merced, San Francisco, CA.

Peregrine Falcon vs. Tufted Puffin. Falco peregrinus pealei vs. Fratercula cirrhata. This is Peale's Peregrine Falcon, the darkest of the 3 American subspecies (there are 19 total around the world). Peale's are largely restricted to Alaska's Aleutian Island chain, and are thought to mostly winter there, weather permitting. Tufted Puffins do not get any subspecies treatment....Tufted Puffins are Tufted Puffins, apparently. Photographed at Buldir Island, AK.

Ah, my beloved Great Frigatebird. Fregata minor palmerstoni. Sailor of tropical skies. These birds can travel mind-boggling distances on the regular, but must be relatively reproductively isolated because they have a surprising 5 subspecies. This immature was photographed at Eastern Island at Midway Atoll.

Right. How did that go? Have I won your hearts and minds?

To finish things off with a bang, here is another reason why reduced biodiversity could mean trouble for mankind. Cool study.