September Sickness

September and October in the bay area means GET YOUR ASS TO THE COAST. I feel bad for birders who don't live near the coast in this crucial time...the window is wide open for rarities. Most of the year, it's just cracked, and sometimes it's even closed. Light south winds on September 11 meant it was a day to be out on Point Reyes, and we were rewarded with some juicy birds...American Redstart, Canada Warbler, Chestnut-sided Warbler, Tennessee Warbler, and a flock of 3 Clay-colored Sparrows. Clay-colored is rare but regular here, but three together was a bit on the bizarro side of things.

The next Saturday it was nice and overcast, so it was out to San Francisco this time. Across from Lake Merced, the continuing Magnolia Warbler made for a fine county bird (thanks Aaron) and a Black-and-white Warbler was very satisfying as well. This female Bicolored Blackbird did a good impression of a female Tricolored, but was too warmly colored. Approach with caution.

It's always good to be checking listservs constantly in September, you never know when the news of the next MEGA will come. Checking the listserv as I was about to leave Lake Merced proved to be timely, and I quickly abandoned the rest of my plans and went straight to Golden Gate Park for another vague runt that had just been found. While waiting for the tasty eastern warbler, I kicked it with this Brown Creeper, a bird that apparently has never made it onto BB&B before...weird. Welcome Brown Creeper!

This is another common denizen of forests and parks (like tweakers, but creepers and tweakers are unrelated, despite what you might think), and accompany many a mixed flock. They're ain't confiding or abiding though, which I guess explains why I have so few photos of them.

Brown Creeper fact of the day: You probably know the northernmost reaches of their range are in Alaska, but you can also find them as far south as Nicaragua. I'd like to see some of the mixed flocks they travel with down there, Jesus.

Ugh, I just looked at an eBird checklist with Brown Creeper in it from Nicaragua...there's some gnarly stuff in there.

Eventually I refound the Canada Warbler, which much like the Point Reyes bird was relatively easy to keep track of but exceedingly difficult to photograph (I failed entirely with the other bird). I have some kind of nostalgia with blurry rarity photos for some reason, so I am forcing you to see this awful image. It stayed in the same tree for a whole hour, and I couldn't do any better, but I never claimed I was a photographer. Ahhh...getting Black-and-white, Canada and Magnolia in the same morning in California is what September is all about.

September actually isn't all warblers and rarities though, it's also cuddling Bushtits.

I love eastern wood warblers. I absolutely adore them, no matter the time of year. I spend a lot of time looking for them, whether it is in Florida or California or Mexico (not Midway though). However, California gives you the opportunity to see more than wood warblers...we get warblers as well.

Sibes...I fucking love Sibes. This Dusky Warbler was the undisputed highlight of September, not just for me but for pretty much everyone else who saw it. It sounds like the bird was much more cooperative the first day it was found (when I saw it) than subsequent days; the Dusky Warbler found recently in Orange County disappointed pretty much everyone who chased it (sorry Justine). Speaking of Sibes, the Bird of October might just be the Lesser Sand-Plover Matt Lau found yesterday south of Abbott's Lagoon, but we'll see if sticks around or not.

The day after the great Dusky Warbler Victory of 2016, Billy and I went up to Hawk Hill in the Marin Headlands to check on some other kinds of migrants. This resident Red-tailed Hawk had no intentions of migrating anywhere, but chose a nice lichenized outcrop to perch on.

It's always so much easier to find Sharp-shinned Hawks at Hawk Hill than anywhere else locally. Not that they are rare here by any means, but if you spend a morning birding and you don't see one, that seems perfectly normal. Spending a few hours at Hawk Hill and missing them would be, well, bizarre.

Here's another one, with a deceptively-shaped tail. Note the barred flanks and "pigeony" expression. Or don't, you're welcome not to.

September 30 is generally a day you must be out birding in California. If the vague runt window is open in September, then by September 30 the window is completely shattered and rare just comes blowing through at will. With this in mind Abe Borker and I went back out to Point Reyes...except it wasn't rare birds we found blowing through, it was the goddamn wind. With strong northwest winds, our chances of landing a huge migrant harvest were quite low. Even this coyote seemed perplexed at the lack of rare birds around.

Our efforts were not in vain, however. This Magnolia Warbler (county bird!) was at the lighthouse, and stayed still just long enough to get brutally crushed. Nice to see one in San Francisco and Marin in the same month.

We got brief looks of the bird below the park housing in the lupine patch, then the bird came around the parking lot and foraged right beneath us. The wind taketh away, but in this case the wind giveth a very sharp, mid-level rarity.

See? Fucking windy. American Redstart was the only other eastern-flavored bird of the day, but who knows maybe it had just cruised down from northeast Washington, where they are not an uncommon breeder. That said, Magnolias aren't a strictly eastern bird either; they breed in eastern British Columbia.

Almost every patch on the Outer Point has Great Horned Owls, where they probably are out terrorizing the Barn Owls every night. This one was down in New Willows, were I had not seen one before. If it is indeed a resident bird, it has probably seen more rarities than you could possibly imagine. It may have even eaten some of them.

Clear Eyes, Full Hearts, County Birds

O, what I would not give to see a county bird!

I would part with my first child, my second child,
and quite willfully my third!

 Alameda, San Francisco, Marin,
I plunder your migrant traps with gleeful abandon,
whilst craving rarities like it should be sin!

That phrase, of course, is from the twisted mind of deranged poet-ornithologist, Felonious Jive. He has had a lot of kids, but strangely I've never met any of them. He seems to see a lot of good birds though.

It is the end of September, and birders have been out flogging the brush like there is no tomorrow. It is the season for Vague Runts all across the land...anything can happen. You never know. Birding is hard and often ponderous, but it gets a little bit easier this time of year. Here on the west coast, the more hours in the field you spend in September and October, the more you will be rewarded. You don't have to be #7 to know that.

Unlike with Felonious Jive, the Great Ornithologist, the Vague Runt gods have not been heaping rewards on me lately...which is ok, because I have not been getting totally stiffed. I've seen some birds...nothing good enough to soil myself, but one cannot go around soiling themselves every day while birding. In the name of county birding, here's a few bay area birds I've recently been introduced to.

This Indigo Bunting in heavy molt has been holding it down in Golden Gate Park for over a month now. It was a sweet sweet San Francisco County bird. There was a juicy little eBird/listserv rumour that started getting out of hand, where birders were thinking that more and more Indigo Buntings were actually at this site, even nesting! This never occurred. I was happy with this one bird, for I am a humble birder who needs not bend to sinful cravings of rarities.

This Mew Gull is certainly not a county bird, but it is rare as fuck this time of year. This bird summered at Lake Merced...I did not believe all the eBird reports I saw of it for weeks, but lo and behold it is bona fide. Most late summer "Mew Gulls" that get reported here are young Ring-billed Gulls with wittle itty bitty bills.

This San Francisco county bird (!!!) was one I've been searching for a long time, a long time. I can cruise out to Point Reyes and see thousands of this declining and wonderful bird, but their abundance is a whole different story on the other side of the Golden Gate. This bird was at Lake Merced, where they turn up intermittently.

Blackbirds undergo their big molt in fall, so this scaly bird is a pretty typical looking adult male for this time of year. The famous white epaulet edge often looks quite buffy for a few months, which can confound those not familiar with Tricolored Blackbird molt (99.9999% of living humans).

This is a male Bicolored Blackbird, our local form of Red-winged Blackbird. He has no extravagant contrasting epaulet border. Note the shorter, stouter bill he has compared to the Tricolored above.

Now that September has come (and almost gone...what the fuck?), we finally have a nice variety of warblers around. Unlike last year, but very much like two years ago, this fall hasn't been very big on eastern Vague Runts in the bay area, so I must give pause when a friendly Wilson's Warbler chooses to lurk nearby. Coyote Hills Regional Park, CA.

Local birders perk up when they see a Black-throated Gray Warbler, and I sure as fuck did when I saw this nectary COUNTY BIRD...my Alameda list isn't really worth bragging about, I'll be the first one to admit that. Black-throated Grays are uncommon, sometimes fairly common fall migrants in the bay area when they get up the gumption to not overfly us.

This confiding bird spent several minutes flogging a large moth to death on the ground in front of me. I love confiding birds. Photographed at Coyote Hills Regional Park.

Let's keep the stripey-face theme going. Up until last week, this was the rarest terrestrial bird I've seen this fall. This Black-throated Sparrow, a hell of a bird in both appearance and rarity, spent a number of days at Coyote Hills Regional Park.

It's not a crush by any means, but I was more than happy to see one of these birds (which many birders describe as "handsome", have you noticed that?) without going to the middle of fucking nowhere, which is where they prefer to spend their time here in California. I didn't expect an adult to drift all the way up here, it should know better, but who am I to question a Vague Runt who clearly migrated all the way to Alameda County for me to see it? This is a juicy county bird.

This Lesser Yellowlegs has three legs! Photographed at Coyote Hills.

The Rustic Bunting, Bicolored Blackbirds, Worries and Dread

After having a miserable, sickly New Years Eve, I thought it would be best to start the real birding year with the local Rustic Bunting. I met up with AJ Johnson of Austin fame, who had somehow tricked his family into letting him bird for a few hours. The bunting took me 4.5 hours of waiting to see it on my first try, but I had no need for such patience on this day.

Not only was patience not required, the bird did not at all act like the reclusive, cowardly, nervous Vague Runt that barely showed itself to me only two weeks earlier. It refused to leave the area once it showed up. We were with it for a good part of the morning, and the bird had little fear of its nerdy fan club that had gathered nearby. One could even say it was confiding.

I can't tell you what a relief it is to have seen this no-longer-cryptic bird a couple of times now. It's a sharp bird. It's a rare bird.  When it was found the day I drove down to Southern California, I was about ready to turn in my binoculars and start stamp collecting...which is like the only thing birders can think of when they talk about something more nerdy and obscure than birdwatching.  Little do birders know that no one has collected a stamp in about nine (9) years.

What a bizarre little crest.  Cool bird!

I'll be honest....I've struggled a bit with this bird.  For a Bicolored Blackbird (the local form of Red-winged Blackbird in the bay area), it's hella dark and dull. No rufous tones. For a female-type Tricolored Blackbird (is this a HY male? It's awfully blackish) it seems like it has some contrasting edging on the wings and back that you would not necessarily expect...but then again blackbirds tend to look pretty fresh still this time of year. It also has some pink in the face (much more of Bicolored trait than a Tricolored) and the bill does not look particularly Tricoloredy...but if you look at a lot of Tricolored Blackbirds you will figure out that the bill shape/length can be quite variable. I suspect this is a Bicolored, but I could be wrong...do they ever appear this dark and colorless? Photographed at Lake Merced, San Francisco, CA.

Overall it is quite shabby looking in terms of a color palate...what do you think?

Here is a pretty typical Bicolored Blackbird, for comparison. Check out all the rufous on the back and much more prominent, richly-colored edgings on the flight feathers...yet its still pretty drab compared to other populations of Red-winged Blackbirds. Photographed at Lake Merced.

Birding may be hard, but that doesn't matter when you meet a creature that is telling you, "life is pain". This Townsend's Warbler had Eucalyptus gunk smeared all over it's bill and face, and was pathetically attempting to forage on the ground. It constantly had it's bill open and seemed quite stressed. Photographed at Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, CA.

How would you like to have your nostrils plugged with resin?  How would you like to mouthbreathe to survive?  It amazes me that there are so many Eucalyptus deniers out there who claim this does not happen to birds. And yes, this bird was right next to a big blooming Eucalyptus tree.

Of course, Ruddy Ducks never have to worry about such things. This one is worrying about being round and plump. You needn't worry, Ruddy Duck. Photographed at Golden Gate Park.

Many waterfowl can be seen enthusiastically courting this time of year. Most ducks seem to get the job done by doing wonderfully weird things with their heads. When you see a female getting in on the head-bobbing action, you know the drake is doing something right.  Photographed at Golden Gate Park.

Arrowhead Marsh, in Oakland, is famed for being a reliable place to actually lay eyes on Ridgway's Rail. It used to be easier, back when you could actually walk out on the boardwalk into the marsh. Now it's become a decent shorebird roost, so at least somebody is using it. The marsh is still a good place to get on this choice rail species, as I had a whopping 9 Ridgway's Rails in one scope sweep on this day.

A young Peregrine Falcon. You know, we take these birds almost for granted now...it's hard to believe how rare they were just a few decades ago, and I'm grateful for the DDT ban and the Endangered Species Act.  I dread what the house and senate will attempt to do in the constant Republican campaign to gut environmental laws in the coming years...it is sure to be brutal. Photographed at Arrowhead Marsh.