The Great Cessation...Journey to the End of the East Bay...Bury Your Feelings

Black-vented Shearwater are abundant this summer off southern California, a season in which they are typically absent. Will this year be epic for pelagics? California has already scored Hawaiian Petrel and Great Shearwater within the last couple weeks, and I hope to be doing some serious damage off Hatteras this weekend. Photographed off of Ventura, CA.

It has happened. Seasonal work has dried up...August 9 was my official termination day, and with the cessation of wage-earning I have migrated north to my fall staging area. I have emerged from my safe and secure cocoon of employment into a chaotic Perpetual Weekend, where anything goes and the birding is constant. It is a freedom that only the bravest can live with. The blog posts will come fast and hard, sarcastic and ironic, witty and acerbic, prolonged and genuine. I hope you are all prepared. The Birdosphere may never be the same...no one is safe, not even The Great Ornithologist Felonious Jive, whose tastes for the absurd will surely lead him down a dark path of anger, fear, aggression...I have a bad feeling about this.

After living in San Francisco and Daly City, I now find myself a legitimate resident of Oakland, CA, for the first time. Of course the sweet sweet West Bay is a better place to be based during fall migration, but when winter rolls around I'm just a short drive from excellent waterfowl and gulling opportunities. I also have the pleasure of being in the regular company of one Booby Brittany, whose elaborate courtship displays are frankly difficult to resist.

Right. I hope to cross paths with many of you this fall, but it is important to remember that not only can birds bring us together...they can tear us apart. Bury your feelings deep down friends. They do you credit, but they could be made to serve the Emperor.

Who said that? Knots, Island-Jays, Costa Rica birding, and more from Officer Searcy coming soon, but I gotta admit that the stoke is raging for North Carolina pelagics in 5 days. With no hurricanes forecasted to cancel those boats, it will be pelagic birding in ways I haven't experienced in many years...almost everything will be new! Multiple blogs will be providing coverage of these great events, and will hopefully omit any and all of the public misidentifications I may be making. Hey, even Number 7 can be a fuck-up...get over it!