Scouting For The 5MC

The Five Mile Challenge (5MC) is coming up fast! It is scheduled for this Saturday, and if the weather allows it, I will be squaring off with two other vicious (have you met Miss Brown???), unapologetic nerds in Portland and Austin. As This Machine Nate is prone to saying, anything can happen. While I do have a major advantage of having San Francisco Bay in my circle, there are shortcomings as well...there is no real, killer hotspot in my circle, and there is a definite lack of fresh water. San Pablo Reservoir is in my circle, but since I don't have an EBMUD permit I do not think I will be able to bird it. I'm also worried I won't be very strong with passerines...well you can bet I will be strong as fuck identifying them, but there just isn't much diversity in my circle, and I think I may have to struggle with getting a lot of the birds that Flycatcher Jen could easily get (i.e. Red-breasted Sapsucker, Varied Thrush). And bla bla bla bla shit, I hope it doesn't rain the whole weekend.

As I mentioned before, my traditional patch is actually over five miles away, so once it was decided that the 5MC was on I had to do some scouting and scouring of some previously overlooked sites. If I was going to win, I would have to bird some places I don't often bird. Scouting has indeed panned out, and now I know a spot that could be critical for me is the area around the Richmond Marina.

I have spent minimal time birding here in the past and didn't have high hopes, but I was happy to see a male Black Scoter, which are very rare in San Francisco Bay. This is a bird I haven't seen in a long time...a long time. And I'm not talking about the species, I'm talking about this particular individual...I last saw it in 2013! This bird has been wintering here for a great many years, so it was nice to be the official refinder of the bird for the winter of 2016-2017. Most birders who have seen a Black Scoter in Contra Costa County have seen this one individual. And this individual, for whatever reason, let me crush the shit out of it.

Black Scoters are very uncommon in most of California, and practically never appear in places where you can get very close to them. Honestly, I had better looks at the Del Norte Common Scoter than I have had of Black Scoter anywhere. This bird was remarkably confiding, hanging out and flirting with Greater Scaup hens just a stone's throw from the shoreline. Even more incredibly, the bird was calling regularly, something I've never heard before...a mournful, descending whistle, kind of a like a more poignant Dusky-capped Flycatcher. I recently went back to the marina and actually found the bird by call...birding is weird.

So while not a major rarity, I was chuffed to get such good looks (yes, they were soul-satisfying) at this bird so close to home.

Of course, you can't see Black Scoter in California without having to sort through Surf Scoters, which almost anyone can muster some enthusiasm over.

Say's Phoebe was a bit of a surprise foraging in a small grassy area on the bayside, and aren't particularly common in my Five Mile Radius (5MR). Hopefully it will still be around for the 5MC.

An adult Horned Grebe uses its terminator eyes to great effect, slaughtering very small fish with cold efficiency.

An immature Horned Grebe uses its dusky eyes to a not-so-great effect, but will hopefully catch enough to eventually be slaughtering very small fish cold efficiency.

East coast birders are likely not so impressed with our faithful, scaup-loving Black Scoter. To compensate, here is a shiny Pelagic Cormorant to get your dirty gripoff juices flowing. Unlike our other saltwater-loving cormorant (that's Brandt's Cormorant for you n00bs), they are fairly common in San Francisco Bay and aren't relegated to the area near the Golden Gate.

On another trip to the Richmond Marina and surrounding bayside, it was low tide and the whole area was just being torn asunder by Black Oystercatchers. American Crows were also mucking about in the intertidal, procuring mussels, which the oystercatchers undoubtedly frowned upon...omnivore poseurs. Occasionally I'll see an individual like this one with pale fringes on its flanks.

To all the aspiring gull lords out there, sorry I haven't been posting many gulls lately, I don't know what to tell you. Do you know how many gulls I saw in Puerto Rico? Two. Do you know how many years it has been since I've seen a Glaucous Gull? Five. FIVE! Did you really need to know that? Possibly. Anyways, here's a Thayer's Gull and a California Gull. Thayer's will be a very good pickup during 5MC, hopefully it will not be a bird that gets left behind.

Out in the great, untamed wilderness that lies beyond the 5MR, other birds can be found. Our resident, introduced moffitti/maxima Canada Goose flocks often lure in other species, usually diminutive Cackling Geese. Martin Luther King Jr. Regional Shoreline, Oakland, CA.

Separating the two species here is usually a no-brainer, though other parts of the country do not have it as easy as we do (there are smaller Canada Geese and larger Cackling Geese subspecies further east). I would be stoked to get any goose species besides Canada during the 5MC, but we will just have to wait and see.

Nate, Jen....5MC is going to break you. After this, there will be nothing left of you beyond cracked shells, empty husks of what once were people. Everyone you love will shun you, beginning with your local birds this Saturday. And if I lose because it is pouring rain this weekend (which is the current forecast), I hope you except my butthurt gracefully.

Business, Spring Gulling, and Dreams Really Do Come True

We are in the depths of summer now...there is no doubt about it. You know how I can tell? If I wake up late on a Saturday morning I don't have immediate FOMO, thinking there is some rare bird nearby that I should be looking at. It's a disappointment, and also a relief, but reminds me that I should just be out birding anyways.

I do have some more spring birding to catch up on, so let's get to it. After the Siberians packed up and left, it was out to the Hayward Regional Shoreline marshes to look for some migrant Black Terns and a vague runt Laughing Gull. The crippling Black Terns had packed up and left the night before, but the modest young Laughing Gull was easy enough to find, picking up and periodically flying above a Least Tern breeding colony. This is only the third I've seen in the state away from the Salton Sea, and is an exceedingly good bird in this half of California.

By this time, local breeders were already conducting their reproductive business, while other lingering migrants in the area still had thousands of miles to go before they were in the right business-conducting habitat. Black-necked Stilts had already made their cute fuzzy precious babies.

Black Oystercatchers poke around the rocks at Middle Harbor Shoreline Park, in Oakland. They are my favorite resident shorebird. They put a lot more effort into chick-rearing than the other local shorebirds, actually delivering food to their chicks (plover and sandpiper chicks do their own foraging) and continuing to do so for months. Chicks that survive to fledging are thought to migrate with their parents.

That said, I have no idea if the birds present in the bay area through summer are year-round residents or disperse in fall, or both. Our winter climate is pretty tame compared to some of the places they winter, so it seems like there would be a lot of permanent territories here.

This is the view looking west at downtown San Francisco from Middle Harbor...it's not very far away. There are some Red Knots in that shorebird flock between the Canada Geese, which was a nice addition to my patch list.

In late May I went with Billy and several nerds to Point Reyes, with high hopes of eastern vagrants and low expectations to match. Low expectations won out, but it was still a nice day on the point. A couple Rhinoceros Auklets close to shore were a surprise, and hundreds of Pacific Loons migrating past Chimney Rock made for a mellow consolation. The resident Great Horned Owl pair at Mendoza Ranch successfully stopped traffic.

The Common Murre colony below the lighthouse was getting crowded. There is much business to do.

The secret-not-so-secret Western Screech-Owl in Lafayette was still holding it down in May. It's possible this bird did no business at all this year. Here it is dreaming about sitting in a tree cavity all day....luckily for the owl, its dream happens to be its reality.

Earlier in the spring, Billy and I checked out Briones Regional Park after a rain. Other than a Golden Eagle, the birding was pretty weak, so I had to find pleasure in the nonavian. California newts were on the move and provided the pleasure that I was seeking.

One patch along the trail was particularly rife with fungus. I don't know much about fungus, but my friend Christian does...check out his blog! Christian is not just another breed of nerd with a blog though, he just coauthored a pioneering mushroom identification guide that any west coast mycofiend would do well to own. Read all about that here.

I just don't know what to caption a fungal photo with. I know nothing about fungus. This kind likes logs and is pretty.

We better get another bird in here...I don't want ya'll to get intimidated by expertise in mycology. Aside from dipping repeatedly on the gannet at Half Moon Bay this year, I managed to gather up the Kelp Gull to join in my Half Moon Bay Dip Party. The only interesting bird I saw at the mouth of Pilarcitos Creek was this bird on the right. The contrast between the mantle of this bird and the surrounding California Gulls was even starker IRL than it is here. It was so freaking pale...but it was just a California Gull! Gulls continue to amaze and enrage me.

Black Oystercatcher

Swooping in on the coattail feathers of a recent Haematopussed post by the inimitable SteveGull, here is my humble first offering as staph writer at BBB. Happy to be here. Honored I am. Luminous beings are we.  Cass

For months we called this place Dead Seal Beach. The first time we came here the gulls were probing the eye sockets of a bloated elephant seal. Weeks later, the color of the seal skin was that of the other materials in the wrack line and the body was difficult to pick out at a distance. Later still, while watching a black oystercatcher hammer something to death in the nearby intertidal, my daughter pointed out that I was standing on the baked, deflated carcass.

On a map, this place is labeled Point Pinos and if you were standing here on the late afternoon of October 12, 1997, watching oystercatchers pick through the tidepools while picnic blankets were laid and wine glasses held up to the light, you would have seen Henry John Deutschendorf, Jr. bank steeply out of the sky and bury himself into Monterey Bay.

Once while standing near the dead seal, watching the oystercatchers, unable to look away from their fleshy legs and lipstick bills, a woman started talking at me. Sitting in her car smoking a joint, she told me she was here when the plane went down. For many weeks after the crash she gathered pieces of the plane off the beach. Again and again, the plane crashes in her dreams.

She is there now, at the beach, smoking still. Her life on a endless loop of falling sky and rising vapors. Of wading through small scraps of memory in the sand.

On my last trip to this place, I brought my friend Cyrus. He is a Persian James Dean.  Like the late great actor he has a weakness for booze and motorbikes. Unlike the meteoric movie star, he is anchored to this earth like a cypress, and he will live to be an old and beautiful man. And as an old man, with a head full of flowing white hair, he will tell the story of John Denver’s body as it was told to him from a diver, a man we met at this place. With the sun behind him and the oystercatchers hammering away in the gentle surf beyond.

A team of rescue divers was sent to the crash site for to retrieve the body. They shone their lights in the darkness scanning the shallow sandy bottoms. Gardens of brittle stars carpeted the sea floor, their ghostly arms waving to the men from their burrows. The divers gulped air, and their exhalations formed great shimmering bells in the water column as they rose to the surface. No body could be found even though the crash site was fairly protected from heavy surf and strong tides. The dive team had responded quickly to the crash.

What they did find was a large pile of sea stars. Bat stars. Patiria miniata, the ‘tiny father’. The body beneath these animals, this star buried in stars, had already been consumed beyond recognition. The divers unable to speak their horror, their breath bells larger coming more quickly now, looked away from the body and into the abyss and then back to the body. Back to the abyss.

Already, the body was coming apart in pieces. The tiny fathers had been busy.
No one knew how to proceed. Finally, after a series of confused hand gestures and head shaking, someone found the left hand of John Denver and slid the wedding band off his ring finger.

The men follow their bells towards the surface above.
The crushing weight of the ocean spills off their shoulders as they ascend.
The reflected stars scatter as they are born again in the night air. 

Pointless Perching, A Nemesis No More, Sage Baron

There's still much to catch up on post-Mexico, so that is what we will do. Let's start things off with a Black Oystercatcher, a bird that is universally celebrated. California is a state rich in rockpipers...we have Black and American Oystercatchers, Wandering Tattler, Rock Sandpiper (and currently a possible Purple Sandpiper at the Salton Sea), Surfbird, Black and Ruddy Turnstones. The possibility of Gray-tailed Tattler looms large. I appreciate this rockpiper diversity, as it can't be matched anywhere else in the Lower 48. Sometimes I think about what it would be like to live on the east coast, and though warblers bring the stoke I always cringe when I think about the paltry rockpiper scene over there.

How long will my range overlap with that of the Black Oystercatcher? Ten years? Two years? Twenty years? Impossible to say, pointless to wonder about. Miller-Knox Regional Shoreline, Richmond, CA.

Great Blue Herons are looking good this time of year. I can barely look at young Great Blues, they look like total rubbish compared to alternate adults like this one. Photographed at Miller-Knox Regional Shoreline.

Moorhens and gallinules are accomplished at perching on stuff, although it usually doesn't seem necessary. Look at this...does this seem necessary to you? Fortunately, it is quite novel for the rest of us. Las Gallinas Ponds, Gallinas, CA.

Common Mergansers don't make it onto BB&B with much frequency, though they are deserving of it. "Familiarity breeds contempt" does apply to some birds, but not this one, I just don't get to photograph them very often. Photographed at the Las Gallinas Ponds.

A male Long-billed Curlew (note the short bill length) prowls goose-grazed grassland for invertebrates. Middle Harbor Shoreline Park, Oakland, CA.

Aren't grasspipers great? So bucolic, not to mention pastoral. Long-billed Curlews are early, short-distance migrants, and we are only without them on the coast for a couple months of the year; they will be back in numbers in July. A nice bird to have at my patch on the regular.

Well...its time for full disclosure. Until this year, until this bird above, I have never seen a Northern Saw-whet Owl. This was my Nemesis Bird. Sure I've heard lots of them, but the stars never would align for me. It was agonizing hearing them all the time on Santa Cruz Island (where they lived outside the ranch where I was staying)...there were many nights walking in circles under calling birds in the trees with nothing to show for it. When I told people my horrible truth about NSWOs, they would always ask "Really?", with a look of bemused scorn on their faces. And let me tell you...there is nothing more fucking tiresome than being looked upon with bemused scorn.

This bird had more brown in the facial disc than I expected, and relatively little streaking on the crown...this is not an adult bird, I reckon.

It's really nice to not have a Nemesis anymore. Really, I can't think of one for the Lower 48. Most of the birds I still need are not species I've invested a lot of time in seeking out...Eastern Whip? Swainson's Warbler? Great Cormorant? None of those species invoke feelings of anger or shame within me (just typical birdlust) so I think I'm good for now...I am pretty pissed at all the Hawaiian Petrels I haven't seen though, so if I go through another pelagic season again without seeing one (which, for me, would be typical) I will know who I have beef with. Anyways, this LIFE BIRD was a one-day-wonder at Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, CA.

As the Great Ornithologist Felonious Jive has said, birding is hard. We all know that. If it wasn't hard, there wouldn't be stupid phrases like "Nemesis Bird", and I certainly would not feel compelled to capitalize that. Authors at the ABA Blog have really run with Felonious Jive's phrase, devoting no less than three different blog posts to this idea. Look, obviously birding is easy if you go are really happy to look at Mallards and Ring-billed Gulls all the time (which is terrible), or if you are geri birding (which is fantastic), or if you go to a new country and you are surrounded by life birds (which will never get old). I get that. That said, birding is hard. That's what makes the easy moments so glorious. That's part of what makes seeing great birds so great. So when I went to look for this Sage Thrasher near a particular bench, I was quite chuffed to walk up to the bench, see the thrasher naked-eyeballed next to the bench where I was supposed to look, then watch it perch on the bench itself. Success! A much-needed reprieve from hardship!

I then unleashed a torrential crush-rain onto the bird. This was easily the most cooperative Sage Thrasher I have ever seen. To describe the bird's behavior in scientific terms, I would describe it as giving none fucks. It made a House Sparrow seem about as confiding as a Black Rail...and this Sage Thrasher is no more of a House Sparrow than I am.

Sage Thrashers are very early migrants, but seeing this Vague Runt in a coastal county in January was not on anybody's radar. As expected, it only hung around a few disappears before disappearing, hopefully reorienting in a direction where more sagebrush was to be found.

Life is good when you have a Sage Thrasher hopping around at your feet. Schoellenberger Park, Petaluma, CA.

If you've never been to Northern California before, there is a good chance you've never seen a Bicolored Blackbird. This is the locally-breeding subspecies of Red-winged Blackbird, readily identified by the lack of a yellow border on epaulet and (to my ears) a somewhat shittier-sounding song than other Red-winged Blackbird subspecies. Females are markedly different as well, looking annoyingly similar to female Tricolored Blackbirds. Photographed at Schoellenberger Park.

How To Bird The Bay Area (Winter Edition): Part 1

WINTER IS COMING...and yet the onslaught of visiting birders never ends. I frequently get asked by out of state birders where to go around these parts, so instead of writing the same thing over and over again, I'm just going to lay it out all right here. I'm keeping out of state/country birders in mind here, so you locals please excuse all the titmouse-stroking that is about to occur.

Before we get started, there are some precious resources out there...make use of the new eBird Hotspot Explorer, the fantastic San Mateo County Birding Guide, this site and this site for Sonoma County...there are several more out there as well if you are willing to get a little dirty and do some cyberdigging. Being on top of all the listservs (and there are many) and eBird RBAs will keep you current on all the relevant rarities...but you already knew that, of course.

Short-tailed Shearwaters begin arriving off our waters in October, but are still far outnumbered by Sooty Shearwaters. Though this bird was photographed off of Bodega Bay, Bodega Head can be a very productive seawatching site.

Let's start with ocean birds. If you come in November, you might still be able to hop on a late-season Shearwater Journeys trip for pelagics, which could be very fruitful. A second option would be doing a whale watching trip that runs out to the Farallon Islands...this has been especially popular with birders in the past year because you can see the Pacific Ocean's only Northern Gannet that lives out there (yes, its still there). This won't be quite as productive as a real pelagic trip, but its far better than being stuck on land.

Northern Fulmar is the most abundant tubenose in winter months, and can sometimes be seen from shore. Photographed off Half Moon Bay.

If you are stuck on land and care to try your luck at seawatching, you can try places like the Pigeon Point Lighthouse (San Mateo County), Bodega Head, and various spots in San Francisco. You probably aren't going to be able to pluck out an albatross from the ether, but birds like Red Phalaropes, Ancient Murrelets and Northern Fulmars are possible. Of course, a scope is necessary. Red-throated, Pacific and Common Loons are common and can occur in many places along the coast.

A Black Oystercatcher at Miller-Knox Regional Shoreline, in Richmond. Oystercatchers are common along rocky shores and breakwaters up and down the coast, as well as various sites in the East Bay. They may blend in with wet rocks, but their piercing (borderline annoying) calls are hard to ignore.

For rockpipers, you have a lot of options...don't expect to be slinging glass at Rock Sandpiper (they are further north), but Black Oystercatcher, Surfbird and Black Turnstone are all common in the area, even in the east bay. Wandering Tattler is more common in fall, but is a winter possibility as well. Good places to see rockpipers include the Sutro Baths (and offshore rocks), Pillar Point Harbor, and the jetties at the mouth of Bodega Bay.

Long-billed Dowitchers (above) and Short-billed Dowitchers alike often roost in large flocks at the Radio Road Ponds in Redwood Shores. Photographers especially will be interested in visiting this place, where you are free to crush at will.

While we're at it, why don't we cover other shorebirds? San Francisco Bay supports huge numbers of shorebirds, both in migration and during winter. There are a multitude of places to get good looks at shorebirds...Radio Road, Foster City Shell Bar (Redwood Shores), Corte Madera Marsh (Larkspur), Bolinas Lagoon and Bodega Bay, Schoellenberger Park (Petaluma) to name a few. Of course, if you are planning on tracking down shorebirds anywhere around here, it's good to know what the tide is doing. Schoellenberger is the best place in winter for Pacific Golden-Plover, and there is often a Ruff around someplace in the late fall and winter months. Mountain Plovers winter inland, in Yolo and Solano Counties.

Cinnamon Teals are common and widespread in the bay area. The Radio Road ponds, where this bird was photographed, is a good place to see all three teal species, Eurasian Wigeon, Black Skimmers and Red Knots.

The bay area has a lot of good waterfowl to offer as well. Eurasian Wigeon, Harlequin Duck, Barrow's Goldeneye and Tufted Duck are all present in winter months. Lake Merritt in Oakland has had at least one Tufted Duck every winter for many years in a row now, and is very reliable for Barrow's Goldeneye in small numbers...also expect close-up views of five species of grebes, Canvasback, Common Goldeneye, both scaup, and some of the tamest night-herons you will ever meet.

Eurasian Wigeon can readily be found at Radio Road and Bolinas Lagoon, among other places, and may be present in any large concentration of American Wigeon. Black Scoters are regular off of the Great Highway (San Francisco) and near Mussel Rock, in Daly City; the latter site can have Harlequin Duck as well. If you are in the Point Reyes area, the waters around the Fish Docks on the outer point can yield Harlequin Duck, Long-tailed Duck, and three species of scoters. This area is very reliable for Red-necked Grebe as well.

Thayer's Gulls are fairly common in the bay area, but pose a difficult ID challenge nonetheless. A small female Herring Gull bellows in the background. Miller-Knox Regional Shoreline, Richmond, CA.

The bay area has been blessed with great gulling. Good gulling can often be found at Golden Gate Park (San Francisco), the Yolo County Landfill, Pilarcitos Creek (Half Moon Bay) and various creek mouths along the San Mateo coast. It's really not hard to find a good gull flock around here. A few Glaucous Gulls are found every winter, and it's definitely worth being on the lookout for Lesser Black-backed, Kumlien's Iceland Gull and Slaty-backed Gull, the latter particularly at Venice Beach (specifically, the Pilarcitos Creek Mouth) and nearby gull flocks in Half Moon Bay.

A pleasing first cycle Glaucous Gull photographed in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park. The small "lakes" in Golden Gate Park often attract a nice variety of gulls, including a number of Thayer's and the occasional Glaucous. Be sure to check Lloyd Lake for friendly Hooded Mergansers.

Of course, one of the highlights of bay area birding are the winter herring runs that occur December to March. At this time of year, herring come into San Francisco Bay en masse to spawn in shallow water, and when they do there can be tens of thousands of gulls feeding on both the adults and roe. Usually the listservs light up about the huge feeding congregations, so they can tell you where to go look at filthy gulls all day.

I'll wrap this post up with rails...aside from many coots, some Common Gallinules, and Virginia Rail and Sora, the bay area also hosts numbers of Clapper and Black Rails (and a handful of Yellows). I should stress your chances of actually seeing a Black Rail are very, very low (I've neither seen nor heard them) but it is not out of the question for the dedicated and/or lucky. A quick check of eBird will show they are found in a number of spots in the bay area (Palo Alto Baylands, Martinez Regional Shoreline, etc.); I recommend doing some research and going out at an extreme high tide where they are prone to be flushed from a marsh or pursued by predators (egrets, herons, gulls). And, of course, don't be a dick and blast rail calls into the marsh, they are a state listed and very sensitive species.

Unlike their smaller/excruciatingly timid cousins, Clapper Rails are not so secretive...their extremely loud calls and "duets" often give them away. The Palo Alto Baylands and Arrowhead Marsh (Oakland) are good places for these birds.

I think that covers a lot of good spots, although I know I left some out, (i.e. the huge network of salt ponds in Santa Clara County). Stay tuned for where to track down your most sought-after raptors and passerines.