A Sin To Birders Everywhere

Recently, a birder found a Le Conte's Sparrow in San Diego County on private property, a county first. He reported the bird to the birding public after it had disappeared, but for inexplicable reasons made it very clear that many people had successfully chased the bird and that many had dipped...and that many of these people were trespassing at a place known for kicking out birders.

While all of that was said outright and is confusing/frustrating enough, what wasn't blatantly stated is that this is a classic case of rarity hoarding...a number of people got calls to see the bird, but of course most did not. Often this is done for good reason (legitimate private property concerns), and sometimes not. Some SoCal birders have built up quite the reputation for doing this over the years, and apparently it was just too much for one man to stand. What follows is a long-winded response to the local listserv....it covers secret enshrinements, bold lies, puppet masters and absolute hypocrisy. It is one of the best things I have read all year...it also is a huge reminder of how petty and annoying birders can be (and I'm not talking about The Godfather, Paul, etc.). It's worth mentioning that some of the nerds discussing this post on Facebook are truly butthurt about not being included in the "elite inner circle" of their region...this bizarre rant is really bringing out everyone's true colors.

Lastly, no one seems to have ever heard of the birder who posted this. Is he even real? Or a disgruntled birder in disguise? What does it all mean?

Ok, enough from me. Read on.
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Subject: [SDBIRDS] Le Conte's Sparrow Follow Up
For years I have been reading the reports on San Diego Birds and thought that there was much ado about nothing in so many cases. Doug Aguillard has repeatedly ranted about the existence of an elite inner circle and their comrades and I figured that he was just crazy and stirring the pot for the sake of stirring the pot. But this latest news about the Le Conte's Sparrow has me wondering if Doug wasn’t right and has secretly been enshrined into his formerly hated inner circle since he has remained silent since the news came out. This can only lead me to believe he saw the bird.  From what I can tell from what was posted on the group and from email responses of those people who replied to my emails I find many things amiss in the local birding people.  The same people that have so many others looking up to them just flipped each and every one of you off.

First off, the Le Conte’s Sparrow could not be seen from any public thoroughfare so Terry must have been trespassing when he found it. Fair enough, most of us have been guilty of such a minor crime from time to time. Terry Hunefeld, Paul Lehman, Guy McCaskie, Peter Ginsburg, Sue Smith, Gary Nunn, Matt Sadowski, Doug Aguillard and even Tom Benson - from another county - all got a call about the bird on Friday and were able to see it.  It is obvious that they all agreed to keep the matter secret as none of them called anyone outside of this secret society to share this news.  Puppet Master McCaskie must have been expertly manipulating the strings once again and threatening loss of the secret handshake known only to the group for anyone who spread the word.

As Paul Lehman shared in a post about his beloved girlfriend Barbara Carlson, there are people doing a big year that would have liked to see this bird.  I can't find anyone who will say that either was there on Friday so I must assume that they didn't know about the bird.  Paul couldn't even tell his girlfriend because it was such an important secret?

In trying to cover their tracks they decided to allow some people to enter the golf course under the ruse that there was permission for one group of a limited number of people to have legal access.  This was a bold lie as the group found out that there was no permission upon arriving on the scene.  Any number of other people who routinely post to the list about what they find, people like Jay Keller, Mark Straton, Dave Povey, Chris Smith, BJ Stacey, Eric Kallen and Stan Walens all come to mind.  Come on, Stan even has a worldwide known bench for birding named after him and no one thought about asking if he might want to see a county first bird.  If they find a rare bird I bet all hell erupts if they decide not to share that information immediately. I don’t know of everyone who was there on Saturday but I have learned of some but it isn’t worth mentioning them since they should only be blamed for unassumingly trespassing after being lied to.

Didn’t this same thing happen earlier in the year with the Mongolian Plover and Sharp-tailed Sandpiper? Didn’t these same people try to keep that hidden until word – as it always does – leaked out?  And how many other times has it happened?  How can it be that Guy McCaskie and Paul Lehman always seem to get access to places that the general public is denied?  It is amazing what one can find when the government is open.  Searching a federal grant database I do not see either of them listed upon a grant but they are given access to Salt Works whenever they request it.   How did they gain the special government powers that
permit them to do so or are the local researchers complicit in the trespassing meaning they should lose their grants?  Perhaps one of them will publicly profess how this can be legal.  Silence should only be interpreted to mean they are guilty.

The absolute hypocrisy of Guy McCaskie and his acolytes is a sin to birders everywhere.  They share amongst themselves and demand all be given by others.  Sound like our current Congress perhaps?  These same people have been doing this same thing for as long as they have been birding.  San Diego birding is known across the country as being home to some of the best birders in the country but also as home to some of the most backstabbing birders at the same time.  The only way to perhaps get them to change is to find your own birds and not tell any of them about it until it is gone.  Give a dose of their own medicine to these
self-appointed doctors in this drama.  To those of you who do go birding I plead with you to ask people across the nation – not just San Diego and California – about these people.  You will be amazed at how horrible they are thought of as people and how far the tales have traveled.  So go find your birds and don’t share that information with any of these self centered egotistic snobs.  If I had the power I would kick them off all the lists and phone trees that they belong to.  I had birded for over 30 years all across the country until a car accident in 2001 left me unable to continue.  I now find my birds by reading San Diego Birds and clicking on links to photos from the locals who share their photos.  And, all the while, I only hope that one of those special birds will fly up to my window and bless me with just a few moments of its life.  Perhaps being bedridden and looking out a window is better than having to look any of you in the eye.

Blessed Birding to ALL that share

Cordell Bank Storm-Petrel Uberflocks

On the September 20th Shearwater Journeys trip out of Bodega Bay, I spotted a distant shimmering haze that I knew was a large flock of storm-petrels rising and settling on the water. We motored over there knowing there would be hella birds, but none of us had any idea how many we would actually be dealing with.

There were hordes of birds. We encountered enormous storm-petrel rafts on both the east and west sides of the northern tip of the Cordell Bank. It was flabbergasting. Unbelievable.

At first, the number of Fork-tailed Storm-Petrel in the flocks was really eye-catching. There were more than I had ever seen, thousands of them. But once we started to realize the number of birds present, several on board began paying more attention to the Ashy Storm-Petrels, clearly the most abundant birds there.

Ashy Storm-Petrels occupy a relatively small range off the west coast of North America, most of which stay in California and nest on the Farrallon Islands. Previous population estimates numbered them at about 10,000 birds. Note the Black Storm-Petrel on the left, appearing significantly larger and darker than the Ashies, which are smaller and darker than the Fork-taileds.

It was really difficult to effectively capture the sheer number of birds out there. Here is a full sized photo of a slice of one of the rafts (click above to enbiggen), it should at least give you an inkling of what we were dealing with.

Luckily, bird wizards Peter Pyle and Steve Howell were on board and did their best to count the birds and arrived at similar estimates. Their final counts for these flocks were 10,500 Ashy Storm-Petrels, 6,500 Fork-tailed Storm-Petrels, 300 Black Storm-Petrels, and 25 Wilson's Storm-Petrels, totaling 17,325 birds...insane!

Assuming the Ashy Storm-Petrel estimate was anywhere near correct (it was quite possibly low), that gives an informal new world population estimate for the species...and if one assumes that those rafts did not contain every single Ashy Storm-Petrel in the world (a safe assumption), then their actual population size becomes more of an open question.

6500 Fork-tailed Storm-Petrels also seems to be a new high count for the state (at least in recent years) according to eBird.

A pelagic trip to the same area reported similar numbers of birds two days later, but to my knowledge these huge flocks were never seen again. It's a mystery where a lot of these birds feed during much of the year...all part of the fun of seabirding, which truly is a different frontier of birding.

9 Rules

The Brewer's Blackbird. Misunderstood. Persecuted. Profiled. South Tufa, Mono Lake, CA.

As you have undoubtedly noticed by now, bird bloggers (with a few exceptions) are not known for displaying much in the way of wit and cunning when it comes to their work...they largely stick to "whit" and bunting, know what I'm saying? Of course you do.

Dubious puns aside, I've had many conversations with birders (white ones) over the years about the paucity of black birders among the ranks...I would say that many I've had this talk with (possibly the majority) have never seen a black birder...which seems disturbing, even when you figure out that a lot of these people hardly have any friends, let alone black ones. In 19 years of birding, I have seen this rarity of rarities, the black birder. I have! I have seen six! I have met/observed thousands of birders over the years, and seen all of six black birders. The mind reels.

All of this brings us to today's link, J. Drew Lanham's 9 Rules for the Black Birdwatcher. It's pretty damn funny, and food for thought as well. I can't imagine having to abide by Rule 3, that would truly suck. As a mixed race birder, I've never encountered much overt discrimination (people aren't afraid of asians?), although a client for a past biology job once told me I looked like a terrorist...I can relate to Rule 1 though, I was recently misidentified as another asian birder! It happens.

Anyways, its good. Give it a read.

October at Coyote Hills

Damn...I'm getting way behind here...many apologies and condolences. I know BB&B readers need TOTAL COVERAGE of what Felonious Jive and I get into...everything from eBird checklists to what Booby Brittany ate for breakfast to what I've dipped on (Yellow Rail) and scored on (Red-throated Pipits) lately...so some catch up is overdue.

There have been many complaints made over the years (and many butthurt defenses) of the tried-and-true "I went to ___ and saw _____" format of bird blogging, but I think its something that must be done today, due to the quality of the visit and number of crushings accomplished.

All photos in this post are from October 9 at Coyote Hills Regional Park in southern Alameda County, along the bay. It has a diverse mix of upland and wetland habitats, and turns up interesting birds in both fall and winter...the locals bird there regularly, and I think it's worth your time if you're just visiting.

Sage Thrasher is a rare bird around these parts, and my first of the year. With the relatively poor showing of vagrants in the bay area this fall, this was one of the "better" birds I've come by.

Of course, we must give respect to our ubiquitous thrasher, the Northern Mockingbird. I don't think I've ever posted one on BB&B before, so here you go.

John Hammond once said, "We've made living biological attractions so astounding that they'll capture the imagination of the entire planet ". Hammond was right, of course, which leads us to this astounding, block-headed, richly-colored Empidonax; a Hammond's Flycatcher, a bird that's hard to come by in fall on the coastal plain. Field guides tell you to expect a dark lower mandible on this species, but I've found that to be an inconsistent field mark.

It skillfully dismembered and consumed a yellowjacket right in front of me. Can you imagine being the size of that bird and getting stung in the face? It could be lethal...what a brave little flycatcher, truly the Velociraptor of its genus.

One of the highlights of the day was the fennel patches...they were swarming with migrants, including more gray-headed Orange-crowned Warblers than most people are comfortable just hearing about. The legions of orestera were practically begging to be crushed; I often stood a mere 15 feet away, firing off hundreds of rounds (er, frames) at incredible speed.

The California birder who goes out in fall without these birds on the radar is doomed from the start. Orestera Orange-crowned Warbler is one of the most frequently-misidentified migrants on the west coast; they are uncommon along the coast in the fall, and many noob birders are simply unaware that gray-headed Orange-crowned Warblers exist...and so birder magic frequently renders them into Nashville, MacGillivray's and even rarer warblers.

Here is a typical lutescens Orange-crowned Warbler for comparison; this is the standard flavor of OCWA in California.

This young Wilson's Warbler was also lens fodder. The avian fennel fruit was plentiful on this day.

Watching a flock of Bushtits at work is a lot like eating comfort food.

It's neither enthralling or exotic, but its a soothing and familiar experience...perhaps less salty though.

A greatly underappreciated field mark for young accipiters is the breast and belly pattern; while both young Sharp-shinned and Cooper's can have streaked underparts, only young (HY) Sharp-shinned Hawks like this one get heavy spotting.

It's always nice to crush the shade-addicts, the birds who seem reluctant to ever make direct contact with full sunlight when a camera is around. This is one of the better Hermit Thrush pictures I've gotten.

That's all from Coyote Hills. One last thing...the Great Ornithologist Felonious Jive recently made his monthly post at 10,000 Birds, this time on how the birdscape/birderscape has drastically changed over the last 15 years. Check it out.

The Spark That Set The Nerd Ablaze

Over the years, I've had a number of people ask me what my "spark bird" was. I typically just launch into the story about ducks and a sewage plant, but I think it is time I come clean. It was not a fowl-saturated sewage plant that cast my fate, but a wayward Ruff.

What is a "spark bird", you ask? It is the bird that took you by the hand (or for some, the throat) and made you the birder you are today. It is the bird that inspired you, that kicked you over the edge of normalcy into the oblivion of birdwatching. People have all sorts of spark birds...something common in their backyard, something exotic seen on a tropical vacation, a majestic raptor soaring overhead. It is the spark that lit the fire so to speak, but I prefer to see it as the fateful dose that plunges one into a hopeless and beautiful addiction.  If you are wondering why "spark bird" is so damn cheesey sounding, I have the answer: it's a term made up by a birder. What else would you expect? To my ears, the phrase is reprehensibly corny, but the term has been accepted by the birding community, and not even my hefty influence can stop it.

The reason I usually tell people the sewage treatment plant story is because it took my interest in birds from about a 6 up to a 8. My father, although he isn't a birder, gave me the nature bug, so I knew about hella birds even before birding. Being born a nerd, as a kid I would look though bird books in awe of all the different birds out there that I assumed I would never see. But one day, my dad and I stumbled upon a sewage treatment plant that was loaded with birds. There were all these ducks that I'd only seen in books before...Canvasbacks, Redheads, Blue-winged Teal, etc., and it wasn't too challenging to tell them apart. I was pretty stoked.

Somehow that foul experience translated into meeting some birders. One day I went out with Don DesJardin, holder and protector of the highest Ventura County (CA) list. We went to all these seemingly random, kind of disgusting places where I never expected anything interesting to occur. We saw all sorts of new birds for me...Pectoral Sandpiper, Common Snipe (Wilson's didn't exist back then), Mountain Plover (a pretty rare bird).

One spot we checked was this gross cement-lined drainage ditch. Don said he Saw a Ruff there recently. Being 12, and not a birder, I didn't know what the fuck a Ruff was. Don explained it was this Old World shorebird that looked sort of like a fat yellowlegs, except with bright orange legs. This was the first time I really understood the concept of a "vagrant"; I had no idea that A) Birds got lost, B) Birds got really, really lost and C) people look for these birds and D) people actually find these birds. It was a watershed moment.

It wasn't difficult to pick out the Ruff, foraging between overturned shopping carts and empty plastic bags. Despite it's glowing legs, it was a nondescript bird, but I was captivated. CAPTIVATED. Looking at it did not get old. I remember the thought occurring to me that this was strange. Why couldn't I stop looking at this relatively large sandpiper? I didn't even know it existed just an hour before.

And so after that fateful day, I immediately went into deep decline and became a total birder. My childhood enthusiasm for reptiles and amphibians practically vanished, replaced by a neverending thirst for bird observation. The rest is history.

This Ruff, of course, is not the bird of 1994, but a continuing bird in Alameda, CA. Crab Cove is a random tidal cove that I never even knew existed until this bird was reported, although the location is only 15 minutes from my house. One of the many benefits to skankily chasing a bird you've seen many times is getting introduced to new places...and when you've been birding for as long as I have, new places to bird are embarrassingly exciting.

As with many of the Ruffs I've seen over the years, this bird likes to travel with yellowlegs. If you go out to Crab Cove for this bird (which is likely still there), look for the flock of Greater Yellowlegs. If the yellowlegs aren't there, the Ruff probably isn't either. Get there right after high tide, and watch the shorebirds come in to feed.

While the Ruff was pacing back and forth in front of me, this bright male Black-necked Stilt was doing the same. Stilts are far more likeable this time of year than when they are nesting, when seeing them often entails getting divebombed and scolded (yap-yap-yap-yap-yap-yip-yap-yap-yap, etc.), which gets old quickly.

It's a good thing I chased the Ruff, because the list of decent birding spots within 15 minutes from me is very, very short, and it's nice to have a new local place to check out. But the real story here is that its always nice to meet up with an old friend, especially one who changed my life forever. Post-Ruff, things have never been the same.

September Over Cordell Bank

Well, it turns out that my October 6 boat was not my last pelagic of the year...I wam returning to Bodega Bay today for yet another boat. Why not? This time I am filling the shoes of both Steve Howell and Peter Pyle, which should be really, really easy. In case you haven't heard, I'm #7.

Cordell Bank and Bodega Canyon have amassed a long list of pelagic rarities over the years, and with this being possibly the last pelagic in the area for the year, now is the time to make something happen. Recent reports from there mention lots of albatross right now, which bodes very, very well.

But who knows what will happen...perhaps we will see nothing but Mola Molas all day, you never know. This post covers some of what was on my last Bodega trip, back on September 20.

Black-footed Albatross is often a common bird found on pelagic trips, but my last boat (October 6) somehow missed them altogether...I reckon they are concentrated offshore from Bodega Bay. Next month both adults and subadults alike will return to their breeding colonies in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, and get down to some serious dancing.

Dall's Porpoise are encountered on many pelagic trips...they are fickle bowriders, sometimes enthusiastic about the boat and sometimes completely disinterested. Even when they are swimming right next to you, they are bloody hard to take a photograph of...they are in and out of the water so quickly that you typically only get a picture of a big splash. Anyways...they are black and white, a very modern cetacean.

Pacific White-sided Dolphins are a little more confiding. This is often the most abundant dolphin species to be found offshore.

This photo is hella grainy...photography is hard. Anyway, it's a Pomarine Jaeger.

This is a second-year Long-tailed Jaeger. The stubby bill and slender body confirm the bird is a Long-tailed, but they generally have 2-3 white primary shafts, unlike this bird. Insert tired cliche of birds not reading field guides here.

Another very useful mark for Long-tailed Jaeger is the significant contrast of the secondaries with the rest of the upperwing...it's pretty obvious on the bird's right wing. Unfortunately, I think I have already seen my last Long-tailed of the year.

By the time people are spending more and more time contemplating what they Halloween costume is going to be, Sabine's Gulls have just about finished migrating through California...Black-legged Kittiwakes might be more likely small gull offshore now. Winter is coming...Nothern Fulmars are here, and Short-tailed Shearwaters have just begun to show up.

This South Polar Skua has an eyering, and is adept at shitting.

Just a Pink-footed Shearwater. I like that strange, plated bill, but that eye is something else. It's blacker than black. It has no depth. It is the eye of a creature that knows a fundamental truth that I will never, ever come close to knowing.

Whales have been in abundance this year. This is a Humpback. Whales are great, but they are surprisingly easy to ignore if there are a lot of birds around. This understanding comes with a high GBRS score; other people (and birders) cannot begin to fathom how this could be.

It should be noted that this whale was mortally harmed by the force of me crushing it so hard. Shortly after this photo was taken, the flukes crumpled and fell off it's tail.

The Blue Whale show offshore has been great this year. The seas are loaded with corpulent krill consumers.

Blue Whale flukes are clean, trim and streamlined compared to the rest of the whale's body. For whatever reason they rarely seem to have as much shit hanging off of them as Humpbacks.

Of course, the real highlight of this trip was the storm-petrels...more Fork-tailed than I have ever seen, and more Ashies than possibly ANYONE had ever seen...but I'll leave that for another post.

The East and The West

Virginia Lakes, between Lee Vining and Bridgeport. If you want to find Gray-crowned Rosy-finch here, I suggest not going in October...some nice views though.

Nerds! I am overdue for a post. I've been away on a not-birding trip, but due to my incurable and dangerous addiction, I managed to fit some in.

Whether birding or not, coming back from the eastern Sierras to West Oakland is strange. In Lee Vining, no one locks their doors...my buddy doesn't even have a key to his house. This is unlike West Oakland, where windows are barred and murders happen with regularity. On the east side, the air is clean, litter nonexistent, and birds like Clark's Nutcrackers and Townsend's Solitaries may be found around town. West Oakland? Every week the neighbors sweep their pile of garbage from the curb in front of their house over to the gutter in front of ours, which we can't do much about because our garbage and recycling cans keep getting stolen. House Sparrows and possums pass for wildlife.

Of course, I don't want to give you the idea that these places have absolutely nothing in common. Cheap, low-quality alcohol is consumed in vast quantities in both places. Whether at sea level or around 7,000 feet, I dispense withering scorn towards outdoor cats, whom are then fawned over and adored by almost everyone else. The harsh calls of Steller's Jays recall the raspy screams of old crackheads.

Even low-key birding can produce surprises...a crippling male Yellow-headed Blackbird stood out like a sore thumb on the lakeshore at South Tufa, Mono Lake.

Right...perhaps these comparisons are ultimately pointless, but I can't help but make them. Moving on, there is good news! For those of you who prefer to read BB&B instead of the news (a wise choice), it looks like the federal government shutdown is finally on the verge of ending...adjust this week's birding plans appropriately. I hope my furloughed friends enjoyed their Indefinite Weekend, but it will soon be time to get back to work...leave the vagrant hunting to me.

Pelagic Facts: Everything You Suspected Is True

South Polar Skuas are truly wimpy birds. Their main cause of mortality is being killed by penguin chicks, who mistake them for food. One study suggests this causes many birds to have to cope with huge inferiority complexes, which eventually can render them from pathetic to pointless.

Skuas are common close to shore. Every South Polar Skua reported from land should be trusted and fully embraced.

Scripps's Murrelets are an overabundant bird, as evidenced by two of them in one photo. Suggestions to have an open hunting season on them are being met very warmly, by just about everyone.

Their unique headshape is evolved specifically for being plunged into the sides of living whales. They are successful whale predators; often whole flocks of murrelets will burrow into a single whale, devouring it from the inside out. So if you like whales, you should fear and loathe the Scripps's Murrelet.

Ashy Storm-Petrels are not globally rare, and nothing should be done to protect them. If you go anywhere off the coast of California, you can expect the ocean to look like this, all of the time. And like in this photo, there will always be one Black Storm-Petrel herding them around, protecting the flock.

Ashy Storm-Petrels love boats, and always approach them. They are easily photographed.

Do you see these birds with their wings open? It's part of their at-sea courtship display. Ashy Storm-Petrels are unique, since they breed year-round and have an elaborate at-sea courtship display, which they are almost always doing since they are always mating. Most find this habit repulsive.

The white rump of a Wilson's Storm-Petrel is completely unique among storm-petrels.

Black-footed Albatross are terrible flyers, just really bad at it. Their flying is rubbish, total garbage. Many have taken to just running around on top of the water and flapping at the same time because their wings are so poorly suited to sustained flight.

This is a special subspecies of Black-footed Albatross. It waits for the right amount of wind, catches it with its wings, and kind of gets blown around like a windsurfer, using its large feet as skis.

These are Pacific Saury. You see how they are jumping out of the water? That means they are evolving into flying fish.

Pink-footed Shearwater is the only tubenose with a bad sense of smell, which renders them unable to forage for food efficiently. That would explain their imminent demise.

One popular theory of how the Brown Pelican got its gaudy facial colors is that they lure clowns to them, which they then dismember. With the rise of Brown Pelican populations since DDT has been banned, one can easily correlate that with the decline of clowns in recent decades.

The Pacific Ocean is the worst and grossest ocean. Most find it largely unappealing, and wish it was smaller and less salty. The wretched blueness must end, and soon. California and Stellar's Sea Lions alike clamber out of the water whenever possible, because the ocean is so horrible and unpleasant.

Well, I hope you enjoyed this description of some of the wildlife to be found off Half Moon Bay, California. None of it is true, of course...except for the names. As #7, even I cannot misidentify something, even if I want to.