The Best Birding of The Year: April in Sabine Woods

I'm not sure if anyone has noticed, but I am pretty awful at finishing trip reports in a timely manner. However, I love trip reports (though they seem to be dying) and I love fantastic birding, so I would be crazy to not make one last installment from this year's trip to Texas. Our second trip to Sabine Woods not only warranted a blog post, it was the best birding I experienced the entire year. So hop on in to the BB&B time machine one last time, as we make the quick leap back to April of 2018...

The day started out innocently enough. After Great Success earlier in the week at Sabine Woods, Dipper Dan and I headed back, hoping for a repeat. The southerly winds that prevailed over much of the previous day had switched to winds out of the north, so conditions were right for a good morning, if not a facemelting one.

At dawn we started the birding the trees at Texas Point National Wildlife Refuge, which is right on the way to Sabine Woods. It's not an impressive looking patch (some pieces of private property in the area appeared better suited as migrant traps), but since this is the UTC it should be checked! It was really slow at first, but after a while we began to see sweet sweet migrants coming in off the coast. Not many were stopping, but it was encouraging. The Northern Parula above was very accommodating, and ended up being the only one we would see that day.

After exhausting the relatively small Texas Point patch, we returned to Sabine Woods. Birding was on the slow side at first...acceptable, but not anything crazy. The forest floor was not crawling with Ovenbirds and thrushes, like it was when we visited earlier in the week though. This Canada Warbler that Dipper Dan found was an early highlight.

After talking to BB&B reader Steve from Kansas City for a while and learning about how terrible fans of the Kansas City Royals are...and looking at the Cerulean Warbler he pointed out to us...I found this Blue Jay getting high on sunbeams in the forest floor. Things were getting interesting.

Incrementally, the birding got better and better as the morning progressed. What began as dull birding became mediocre birding, which turned into decent birding which turned into good birding. A few hours after we arrived, the number of birds in the patch had seemed to double, then triple. By about 2PM there were simply birds all over the place. Woods totally empty of Ovenbirds earlier now were filled with them. The birding had gone from good to great; migrants just seemed to be piling in to the patch.

Eventually, we came to that rare and special realization that it was happening, much like it was at High Island the first day of the trip. This was the birding I had come here for, the birding I had hoped to experience but dared not expect. There were simply too many birds, too many birds to look at, mainly thrushes, vireos and warblers. Migrants galore. At one point, Dan and I split up for a while, and he encountered this Swainson's Warbler (left). It was only a few feet from him, falling asleep inside a bush, so the only photo he could get of it was with his phone. Obviously, the bird had just dropped in from who-knows-where and needed a nice nap before turning up the skulk meter to normal Swainson's Warbler parameters.

Well, when it's happening, it's happening. This is the sort of thing that happens when it's happening.

I missed Dan's sleepy Swainson's by a few minutes but managed to find my own in a different part of the patch. It was slightly more cooperative than I expected, which I was happy about. The brown wonder was a lifer only a few days before.

We birded vigorously through the afternoon. It was great. Not a fallout...lots of very approachable but otherwise normal-acting birds...but I had difficulty thinking that the birding could be much better than it was.

Eventually, we were fully saturated by migrants and the day was drawing to an end. We made our way back to the entrance, where a confiding Worm-eating Warbler greeted me...

...and promptly flopped down to the pavement. I love seeing warblers flopping around on the ground...it is a sign of excellent birding. Sure, some warblers are inherent ground floppers, and some may flop at any height...but it can be a sign. Worm-eating Warblers aren't exactly ground-phobic though, so I merely appreciated the bird's gesture and went on my way.

But I didn't get far. The day's final act was about to unfold, and the few tattered remains of what was once my face were about to melt off completely.

Right next to the entrance, some birders were looking at some Blackburnian Warblers...certainly not an unusual event but I felt these Blackburnians needed some special attention.

It turns out these Blackburnians were especially tired. They were in full just-crossed-the-Gulf mode and treated us with the same amount of caution they would give to an oak tree...in other words, we might as well have been invisible. I've met some confiding Blackburnians before, but these really took it to another level. When one of them started passing out on an open branch about 15 feet away, I knew that not only was it happening, it was happening really hard.

In short order they flopped to the ground and did their best Brewer's Blackbird-in-a-parking-lot impressions. I've been lucky enough to be really close to Blackburnians before, but this was a different level of close.

Incredible.

Here is an uncropped photo - the dark blob on the right is my shadow.

I looked up into the trees and saw a Bay-breasted Warbler, then two. They had been fairly common the past few days, but it was strange to see them perched just a few inches from one another; I got the clear impression that they had just fallen out of the sky together, their long Gulf crossing just completed. The Worm-eating Warbler on the ground had foreshadowed what was unfolding before my very eyes...

Warblers were now flopping around on the ground in front of us. This adult Tennessee Warbler, a known ground hater, flopped about without apologies.

Another Tennessee jumped into the ground frenzy. The growing terrestrial congregation of fearless warblers wasn't completely surrounding us, but were very focused or concentrating on an area in front of us about the size of a small lawn.

A Hooded Warbler, known to groundabout, was especially floppy.

The pair of Bay-breasted Warblers descended from the trees to join the growing flock of warblers in the grass for soul-satisfying looks.

Considering all the warblers on the ground, gravity must have been especially strong. This Blue-winged Warbler felt the pull but mostly managed to stay a few feet above it.

Gravity's pull was so forceful here that it was holding on to a leaf with one foot for dear life. Clearly, this was some sort of Bermuda Triangle for warblers.

This crippling Chestnut-sided Warbler materialized a few feet above the ground-fray.

The Bay-breasted Warblers in particular had little interest in going back up into the trees.

We should probably make sure a combo gets in here...Blackburnian/Bay-breasted ground combo is a sweet one. There were other warblers here in groundtown as well, but this post has to end eventually!

I'm still not sure how to describe this event. This was not normal. Kansas City Steve, who had logged a great many years of springtime birding at Sabine Woods, admitted he had never seen anything like it. It was like what I expect a full-blown fallout to be like, except happening on a weirdly small scale. I have always maintained that there is no such thing as a small fallout, but it appears time to reexamine that position. Keep in mind, of course, that there were huge numbers of birds in the patch that were not acting like this, but I'm thinking a small wave of extremely exhausted migrants had arrived at the edge of the patch just as we were leaving, giving us....well...a micro fallout? It makes me wince to read that but I can't think of a better label for the event. No matter what it was, it was unlike anything I've experienced before, things will never be the same, and I really hope a springtime return to the Gulf Coast happens sooner than later. We ended up getting new high counts in eBird for Acadian Flycatcher, Swainson's Thrush and Ovenbird at this heavily birded site.

I did have one more day to bird in Texas with Dipper Dan and Officer Shaw at High Island, which was ok but nothing like what happened at Sabine Woods the previous day. We then went to Shaw's, where we drank incredibly good beer, I had an incredibly bad allergy attack (how embarrassing), and a freaking Chuck-will's-widow flew over his suburban yard in broad daylight!

This will conclude BB&B's coverage of 2018's fantastic foray to Texas. Thanks to This Machine Nate for coming all the way out to the coast, shortly before being banished to the depths of an uncharted corner of Ohio. Thanks to Dipper Dan for being my ride or die and coming out from SoCal. Thanks to Officer Shaw for meeting up with us (twice!) and letting us crash in the Land of Sugar. You all battled Geri, you all won, and you are all birding heroes.

November is Red-footed Booby Month

California is a blessed state to live in if you have an appreciation for our friendliest of friends, the Sulidae...in fact, all six species that have been observed in the ABA Area have been seen in California just this year, culminating with five booby species on a single pelagic trip. But up until 2018, things were very different. For years, the grail booby (bail grooby, if you will) in the back of everyone's mind here in California was the Red-footed. They were less than annual in the state...sometimes years would go by without any being found. Many of California's records came in 1987 alone, and after that year almost all records were restricted to San Diego, Orange and Los Angeles counties. They often featured starving/sick/otherwise dying birds (often found to have ingested fish hooks) that likely rode into harbors on ships and eventually expired or were taken into rehab. Ship-assisted dying birds, what fun rarities to go chase.

So while much of SoCal had to be content with trying to go see birds about to die, those of us further north had to be content with ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. Red-footed Boobies simply would just not show up since that great year when most of us had far better things to be doing. Personally, I was busy being 5 years old and living in Massachusetts. So while seeing a Red-footed Booby in California was something in the realm of dreams for me for many years, I could be content with having spent a lot of time with them on Midway Atoll, where the above photo was taken. At Midway, you just walk up to them and try not to get your face melted off. For those of you who have not had the pleasure, walking through a nesting colony of Red-footed Boobies is not only as cool as you think it is, it is way better.

All droughts come to an end though, and in 2017 the Northern California Red-footed Booby Drought was over! The drought-buster was an immature roosting on a breakwater in Pillar Point Harbor in San Mateo County. This regional MEGUH was the state bird I had been waiting for, so in mid-November I lurked over to the coast.

Having been up close to them previously on many occasions, I was content to watch the bird from the pier with the other schmucks instead of renting a kayak and paddling right up to it...had to settle with digiscoping for photos. I was thrilled just to see the thing though, no crushes necessary...it was the first I'd seen since Midway (2009) and it might be the first and last I would see in the state. Even in this horrendous picture you can see the long, thin bill (which was clearly pinkish IRL) with dark tip and very pale head and breast.

While there was no doubt of the bird's identity whatsoever, I was still hoping to see the underwings. Immature Brown and Red-footed Boobies are fairly similar, or at least can be when not seen well, and completely dark wing linings are a great field mark for Red-footed. The bird abided several times, showing me what I wanted to see...aside from the distance involved, a very nice walkup Vague Runt. It definitely was not the most enjoyable RFBO viewing experience I've had though, as the many other birders who were showing up were remarkably clueless and kept getting in the way of vehicles and fishermen working on the docks to the point where I was getting embarrassed to be standing with them. It was all so...typical. Anyhow, the bird stayed for weeks so was obviously able to feed itself, and hopefully left for points south on its own accord. Thanks Josiah and Ryan for the great bird.

A year later, much had changed. 2018 turned out to be THE YEAR for boobies in California. While Brown Booby and Northern Gannet numbers were average (hundreds and exactly one, respectively) and Blue-footed Boobies were slightly above average, the numbers of Nazca, Masked and Red-footed were off the charts. Nazca suddenly turned into an expected species on SoCal pelagic trips. Masked Boobies were reported from 7+ counties and Red-footed Booby from 9+...including from deep inside San Francisco Bay...just unbelievable. It's probably not a good thing they all came up here (presumably food was harder to find further south), but they sure spiced up the birding.

I did my part and found a wayward booby (which was submitted to the Bird Police as a Masked, though admittedly it may not be accepted as such), but did not get in on the Red-footed action, despite them being seen up north on multiple occasions. November had come, and I thought the booby window may have closed...but I was wrong. Thankfully a birder-camp host found one roosting at the state park she was staying at in Aptos, Santa Cruz County, just off a pier.

This was even closer to home than the previous year's booby...why not make a November trip to the coast to look for Red-footed Booby an annual event? So there I was, a year later, looking at another Red-footed Booby in Northern California. What are the odds? Strange things happen, so maybe Red-footed Boobies in California in November is not such a strange thing after all. There were already November records, but the late fall pattern of occurrence has only become bolder in the last couple of years.

Viewing conditions for this booby were much better than at Pillar Point Harbor. I woke up at a stupid early hour in the morning (not my toddler's fault, my brain's fault) so got there with plenty of time to watch it, for an extended period of time, do pretty much nothing...a behavior I have great respect for. Oh, and for you One Bird Theory fanatics, no, this is not the same bird as last year, yes, it is probably the same bird seen on two Shearwater Journeys trip earlier this fall, and I think it is unlikely it is the same bird that was seen from Pt. Pinos in late August. There was also the Moss Landing bird that was so close to death it fell off the mast of a boat and had to go to rehab (maybe it died?), and the carcass found at Moss Landing even before that...it probably isn't those. Oh, and it's not the bird on Southeast Farallon Island either.

Damn, that's a lot of Red-footed Booby sightings in a small area. That would be a lot for even San Diego, but this is no typical year.

Mmmm...dark underwings. Blonde head. Pink bill. Reddish feet! Put those field marks together and you get Great Success. Seeing the booby here was also fulfilling a prophecy to myself...I had camped up the beach earlier in the summer and was struck by how good this half-sunken ship next to the pier would be for a roosting booby...and it is!

The Year of The Booby is about to draw to a close, but there is still a month left to go. Anything can happen! More Nazcas please.

Book Review: National Geographic's Field Guide to the Birds of North America (7th Edition)

Well for some reason I've been asked to review the newest (7th) edition of the National Geographic (Natty Geo) field guide after it has been out since September of 2017, but why not? No need for any suspense: this is a great book and I'm happy to have it!

I started birding in the mid 90s, and the one field guide that has been with me this entire time has been Natty Geo, in one edition or another. A plethora of other field guides covering birds of the United States and Canada have been released in the intervening years, but Natty Geo continues to lead the pack in many areas.

I do have the 6th edition handy as well, which was released in 2011, so can compare with the 7th edition for updates. So what is new in the 7th edition?

*Hundreds of new maps and illustrations.
*Many illustrations replace existing versions that were not aging well, others were added for recently split species, "new" rarities that had enough recent records to include, or to help further suss out ID issues.
*The lumps and splits that have occurred from 2011-2017 are incorporated, though notably it went to press before Iceland and Thayer's could be lumped in the book.
*The taxonomic order of our birds seems to get a significant reshuffle almost every year, but Natty Geo #7 now offers the most up to date order of any field guide. This is arguably not a strength, the optimal way to organize field guides is pretty subjective, but that is a different conversation.

How about we do a sample comparison between some 6th and 7th edition plates? There are probably some other birders, like me, who already have the 6th and are curious about upgrading.

On the right (click to enlarge), you will see a couple pages from the 6th edition...four hummingbird species, eight bird illustrations, 4 tails. The illustrations are...ok. There is room for improvement, both in regards to the text and quality of the illustrations. In particular, take a look at the Rufous and Allen's Hummingbirds.

Now, take a look at what the 7th edition shows (click to enlarge) for Rufous and Allen's Hummingbirds...they get their own spread! Hot damn! So for two species, we now have 8 "complete" individuals, 6 heads, and 8 tails...and text that has doubled in length! Of course not every species got this kind of impressive overhaul, but I think this is a good illustration of some of the improvements the 7th edition offers.


For the record, even before the 7th edition came out, Sibley and Natty Geo have been the field guides I recommend to all birders regardless of skill level. In my opinion (only the Global Birder Ranking System's #7 U.S. birder), these are the two best, most comprehensive field guides available. Sibley looks consistent throughout, the illustrations are almost all great, and it's really handy to have every single species illustrated in flight. Natty Geo #7 covers more species, is more up to date (Sibley #2 came out in 2014), and takes up less space than Sibley's big book that covers both the east and the west, which is my preference to use over the smaller eastern or western guides. As far as the artwork goes, some of the Natty Geo plates aren't as good as Sibley's version of the same species (i.e. White-tipped Dove), but in some cases the Natty Geo plates are better (i.e. the three SoCal/Mexican murrelets). Most of the time they are close to equally good in quality.

For an honest book review, gotta list some gripes though? I can think of a few, though nothing that should prevent anyone from buying this book. We can start with what is on the cover...why is it still called a Field Guide to the Birds of North America? Most people will tell you North America is not confined to the United States and Canada.

One of the strengths of this book, the excellent new illustrations, are actually distracting - some of the recently updated illustrations are so good that they make many of the original mediocre illustrations a little too easy to spot. I was hoping some specific plates would be updated this time around (i.e. the Red Crossbills and almost all the Song Sparrows are a bit wonky looking, as are a number of the large gulls) but to no avail.

Speaking of gulls, it seems time to include some more plates of loathsome hybrids...here in the bay area, one can go out and find 4 different Larus hybrid combos with regularity. The book only illustrates Kelp x Herring (super rare) and Western x Glaucous-winged (super common), which seems pretty arbitrary. Various Larus hybrids are far more frequently encountered by birders than most of the mega rarities included in the book. I don't think I need to expound upon how difficult it is for birders to identify these hybrids correctly, so field guide treatment is warranted.

I don't expect total perfection in such a large body of work though...overall Natty Geo is a high quality book and I will be happy to use it. My position on field guides for the United States and Canada has not changed with the 7th edition - every birder should have either the newest Sibley or the newest Natty Geo, and preferably both. I hope there will be an 8th edition, though it is impossible to say if the combination of Dunn/Alderfer/Lehman (Paul "E." Lehman is the map mastermind, and there is perhaps no one better for this role) will be at the helm again. If not, there will be some big shoes to fill.