The 5MR (Bourbon) Challenge and The Quicksilver Cat

Acorn Woodpecker is one of the signature species in my 5MR - most of what hasn't been paved over is oak woodland. This one was at Guadalupe Oak Grove Park, which is brimming with confiding ACWOs.

The 5MR reigns supreme. So much of my birding this year is done within my 5MR...who could have seen this coming? Not I.

I have embraced it.

Have you?

Many birders enjoy the competitive aspect of birding...while I can understand that, I don't watch birds as a result of some misplaced sense of competitiveness, or need to measure the length of my list against that of others in order to wrench pleasure out of birdwatching...how embarrassing is that? Most of the birding competition I engage in these days is with myself...I'm not going to go chase a freaking Mandarin Duck or a European Goldfinch just to pad my eBird top 100 numbers. Don't people have better things to do? 5MR birding is pretty much the antithesis of rabid competitive county birding or large-scale big year horseshit, and I think that is one of the many reasons a lot of people have gotten on board with 5MR in the past few months.

That said, the real question for 2019 is...how many species can I see in my 5MR this year? Much of my birding has turned into a sustained campaign of seeing how much avian goodness I can wring out of my radius before December 31, though what I'm really looking for is new 5MR birds more than just year birds. I've missed some uncommon/rare stuff that will definitely be challenging to find later in the year (Solitary Sandpiper, Cassin's Kingbird, Yellow-breasted Chat, Swamp Sparrow, etc.) and some stuff I will absolutely have another shot at later (any non-Canadian goose, any teal, American Wigeon). The most gut-wrenching miss involved a bird I actually saw...Officer Stahl aided me in some intense 5MR birding back in March, and he found a Varied Thrush while standing next to me...but I only caught a glimpse of an orange flash as the bird flew away, never to be seen again.

Life is pain.

Right. I've described my radius here before, so am going to give that a break...I'll just say I'm not going to get 200 species here in a year, I don't think it is feasible without being unemployed/retired/completely socially isolated/obsessive-compulsive to a degree that even most birders would consider alarming. I can live with that...not everyone can live next to a major birding destination or momentous migrant trap...in fact, most of us don't. Heck, I still haven't seen 200 in my radius, period, and it is still very rewarding to bird.

That said, I'm checking in at 161 for 2019. On this date last year, I was at 143. Seventeen species were completely new for the 5MR.

While Horned Grebe are not rare in my county, they definitely are for my 5MR. I successfully chased this bird at Los Gatos Creek County Park, and went on to find Eared Grebe (new), Long-billed Dowitcher (new) and Greater Yellowlegs (new for the year) at the same site. It was a glorious time in 5MR birding...never have I been so chuffed to see a drab Long-billed Dowitcher.

One morning I went out to my Grasshopper Sparrow spot on the outer rim of my 5MR and was amazed to see a Swainson's Hawk fly by. This is a rarity in the county away from their one known nest site, which is not in my 5MR. For some reason this immature had been in the general area for a couple weeks, but I was still shocked to see it. Definitely one of the best birds this spring. Photographed at Santa Teresa County Park.

Not that it's news to any of you, but winter is long gone and spring, at least here, isn't long for this world either. There are still one or two lingering Buffleheads in the ponds behind my house (where this photo was taken) but I expect them to be outta here any day now. 

So, in other words, I'm kicking ass. It's encouraging, and it only makes me want more.

So why not give myself some extra motivation? A little reward if I continue to flog the shrubbery with such success?

What about...heroin?

Ahhhh, heroin. That's the stuff. Talk about giving yourself a well deserved prize, know what I'm saying?

A couple of you probably do, but most of you probably don't...and I don't either. Never tried it, don't know where to get it. Well, I have some street corners in mind (the Tenderloin hasn't changed that much recently, has it?), but it's not something that runs in my friend circles these days. Like, say if I did have to go out and try to "score" (do users really say that? or just on tv?), what the hell would I call it? I don't know the street slang. Would someone who sells heroin actually sell heroin to some random who says they are looking for "heroin"? I doubt it.

But I digress. I am not only a pillar of the birding community (pillar #7), I am a parent, after all. I have to set an example, and this isn't the way to do it. No...so I will promote something that surely has never killed anybody or ruined anyone's lives...alcohol.

What did you expect? Have you seen the title of this blog? It's time to put my liver where my mouth is.

I have breeding Lark Sparrows in my radius, how sick is that? I don't know about you but most birders I meet love these things, and I am no different. Is this one of the best sparrows? Top 3? Seems like it would be a Top 5 for almost everyone. Photographed at the secret-not-secret spot in my radius.

This bobcat was also at the secret-not-secret spot. Bobcats are one of my fav mammals and it's great to have them so close by. I also added another kind of cat to my radius list the other night...and it was not Felis catus.

I went out after sunset to get my 5MR Common Poorwill for the year (great success), on a trail I had never been on before. Walking in, I passed signs about mountain lions being present, which wasn't a surprise considering the good habitat for them and the amount of use this trail gets; I had also previously found a lion-killed deer just a couple miles away, next to a different trail. While waiting for the poorwills to start calling, I was surrounded by three different groups of deer, which made me think about lions again a few more times. After listening to the poorwills for a while I headed back to the car, using my awesome mega-torch to check for any interesting wildlife on the trail...I had strongly considered not bringing it and just using my shitty headlamp instead, but opted to take it at the last minute. 

I passed some more deer close to the trail and was cruising along when I suddenly came up on some big, bright eyeshine about 50 feet away...quite possibly less. It was definitely not another deer, but it was so close and the "eyes" were so large that my first thought was that it cannot possibly be a large animal, because it was certainly not a deer and nothing else could possibly just be sitting there, a few feet off the trail...maybe it was just a couple pieces of reflector tape? But then then it blinked, and then it moved. It was a fucking adult mountain lion! The lion unhurriedly turned around and slinked up the little streambed it had been sitting in, then stopped at a comfortable distance away (for me, anyways) while I passed it.

I have no doubt it was waiting to ambush a deer on the trail I was on. It didn't do anything I considered threatening (I considered yelling at it to encourage it to back the fuck off, which is what you are supposed to do, but it didn't seem necessary), but it was extremely close. Pretty sure it is accustomed to seeing people and I doubt it would have moved if I had not lit it up with my light...it certainly knew I was there before I was aware of it, and it was definitely not in the process of moving away when I spotted it. Some guy was 4 or 5 minutes ahead of me on the trail, and I suspect he may have walked right past the waiting lion...within 10 feet of him...without knowing it. I think I would have done the same if I had been pointing my flashlight in a different direction at that moment.

I'm 99% sure nothing would have happened had I walked right up to the lion, but in theory I could have been killed by a mountain lion solely because of 5MR birding (how embarrassing!) and Flycatcher Jen would have to live with that.

Chaetura does not exactly trigger the same blast of adrenaline as Puma, but that's ok. Vaux's Swift is another signature 5MR species here. We have swifts galore, which is pretty unique for the region. Photographed at Guadalupe Oak Grove Park.

In 2018 I recorded 163 species in my 5MR...not a remarkable total by any account, but solid. With 161 species so far in 2019, I am guaranteed to surpass 2018's total by a comfortable margin....but by how much?

I'm no longer so poor that I have to buy Beam all the time, but I don't have a trust fund lying around to take my love of whiskey to the top shelf...it's not common that I get a rye or bourbon over $40. That said, what I am shooting for here calls for a nicer bottle than usual. So if I reach 185 species for the year, or manage to reach 200 for my radius (lifetime) by December 31, I will buy a celebratory bottle of Black Skimmer Bourbon, the perfect marriage of a good bird and a good liquor. I have been eyeing Cutwater's Black Skimmer Bourbon for some time now, and I thought their Black Skimmer Rye was great! If I can achieve both milestones before the end of the year, well then I will have to buy another celebratory bottle....but of what? Any suggestions? That would level my radius to a new caliber, so I'd like to try something else new.

So there you have it...my 5MR birding this year will have additional fuel behind it, in the form of some #treatyoself whiskey. Happy to hear what your favorite not-super-popular ryes or bourbons are in case I have to go for a new bottle!

Anyways, as I sit here polishing off a bottle of Black Feather bourbon (recommended!), here are some more radius birds til next time...

Black-throated Gray Warbler is an underrated bird and one that I'm happy is an expected migrant in my 5MR. Yes their attire was put together in the spirit of the Economy of Style, but they are sharper and more distinct looking than many other warblers, and there is practically nothing you can confuse one with if you see it well. And the yellow supraloral spot...what a great touch. Just think, in a parallel universe somewhere the only difference in all of existence is that spot is white instead of yellow....what a trip. Photographed at Guadalupe Oak Grove Park.

A species I didn't realize I needed for 5MR until after I saw them here was Wild Turkey. They were purposefully introduced to California as game birds and have become fairly common around the bay area, but I didn't see them in 5MR (or at least, never eBirded them) until this year. I'm not that into introduced birds (obvi) but turkeys are much more bizarre and fascinating than most. What their impacts are on the grasslands and woodlands where they are found are relatively unknown...not all introduced species have the same impacts (I don't think the Spotted Doves introduced to California caused any ecosystems to collapse), but turkeys are big, eat many different things, and there are a lot of them. Photographed on the Calero Creek Trail.

I think most birders have a few species that make them really appreciate the area where they live...for me, Golden Eagle is one of these. Golden Eagles are common enough in the greater bay area that seeing one in the right habitat is more of an expectation than a surprise, which is a luxury most birders do not have. I have seen them at a number of places in my 5MR this year. Photographed on Hicks Road.

Winter Mexico Tour Y2K16, Days 8-9: Rancho Primavera

After Tecuitata, we headed south for fertile new birding grounds, in a new state and different time zone, no less. We lurked south through the sprawling gringo-orgy that is Puerto Vallarta, and it wasn't long after that we arrived in El Tuito, where we turned off the highway toward Rancho Primavera. We had been looking forward to birding Rancho Primavera very much, where I had rented a house for us, because we knew A) there was good birding on the property and B) there was geri birding on the property. That's right friends, Rancho Primavera is that rarest of rarities...a place in Mexico that actually feeds birds! Sure, there are countless lodges in Central America world-renowned for the great birds that their feeders bring in, but that phenomenon has yet to take hold in birdy Mexico. Luckily, Rancho Primavera does have some feeders, and thus some quality confiding birds. So, for the sake of conversation and public disclosure, if you know of ANY place in Mexico that is good geri birding, leave a comment! Dipper Dan knows of a place in Los Alamos, and I once saw a Wedge-tailed Sabrewing at a feeder in Tamaulipas, but that's all I know of.

Rufous-crowned Motmot was one of the endemics that inspired this trip. Luckily, we saw them at many different places, and they would frequently give good looks like right here. Facemelting? Yes. It's birds like this that keep me fantasizing about going south every winter.

I think this is the best way to start off the feeder train. This is a Blue Mockingbird, a highly desirable (if not uncommon) bird. As you can see, it is not skulking in the dark undergrowth being a pain to see, it is boldly eating out of a papaya in plain view. If you have seen these birds before, I think you can appreciate how mind-blowing it is to actually see one calmly eating out in the open.

The first Blue Mockingbird I saw was many years ago, in Southern California. People still grumble about that bird, which was denied natural vagranthood by the Bird Police. Luckily, I have seen many since then, but none like this! This bird lived in the shrubbery around our rental house and we would see it on the regular.

As I mentioned, because Rancho Primavera has nice habitat on the property, we saw many big mixed flocks during our stay. This Black-throated Gray Warbler, slurping up an inchworm, was in a flock with Magnolia and Chestnut-sided Warblers, the only ones of the trip.

The abundance of western migrants in that realm is something else...such high densities of these species compared to most of the U.S.

Jasmine the free-flying-but-not-really-wild Lilac-crowned Parrot lives at the ranch. It's a bit surprising to be birding somewhere and all of a sudden she just shows up on your shoulder. Jasmine liked Stilt the most.

Jasmine did not like Dipper Dan as much as Stilt. Dan and Jasmine did not have a conventional relationship.

(White-throated) Flycatcher Jen, being a newly sociable being, relished her time with Jasmine, a fellow sociable being.

The first morning at Rancho, I had some serious issues with my lens fogging up. I liked this shot of a male Yellow Grosbeak (!!!) enough to try to rescue this image though.

Yellow Grosbeaks love the feeders at Rancho Primavera. Could this be the best place in the world to get point-blank looks at this species? I would put a lot of pesos on it.

Is this not an amazing bird? This is the bird that dreams are made of. Mexican dreams.

Grayish Saltator are common birds in West Mexico, they seem to be in just about every mixed flock you find if you are low enough. I like them well enough, but it is not birds like this that make me think about going south every winter.

Our trip did suffer from a lack of sparrow diversity, but at least there were Stripe-headed Sparrows practically everywhere we went. I had previously only seen a handful in Costa Rica, so it was a bit of a surprise to see so many, especially considering how striking they are. Expect to see a bunch of these at the Rancho Primavera feeders.

The west coast of Nayarit and Jalisco may lack in a diversity of sparrows, but the abundance of buntings makes that fact easier to bear. It was great to see Varied Bunting on the reg, which you have to work for a bit in southeast Arizona (they're not hard at Florida Canyon though).

Black-vented Oriole is one of the specialty birds at Rancho Primavera; they were rumored to be reliable here, and the rumors were true. This life bird (!) was on a hummingbird feeder next to the house we rented. Convenience! Lifers! That is the way of the geri.

I was not mentally prepared for how they look exactly like Black-cowled Orioles, which I'd seen before in Costa Rica. We would go on to only see one Black-vented Oriole away from Rancho Primavera on the entire trip, so I feel like this is the place to go to see this species in the area.

Rufous-backed Robin is a common yet alluring bird, but I didn't manage any pics of them until we got here. Before this trip I'd only seen them as vagrants in California, both times at desert oases. That is not their preferred habitat, it turns out. Seeing birds where they are supposed to live is weird, right?

I kid, I kid, save your indignant righteousness for another post. Rufous-backed Robin is happy right where Rufous-backed Robin belongs. More from Rancho Primavera coming soon!

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 Dickcissel Exists...I Am Sam...Warbler Vs. Curlew Field Marks

One day last month, I spent an hour and a half roaming around, looking for this Dickcissel. I was finally rewarded when it flew in from nowhere and landed directly above my head...it's good to know that the birds have respect for Number 7. Fort Mason, San Francisco, CA.

Well I thought I would give you a reprieve the the typhoon of Florida birds that has been responsible for flooding BB&B for much of last week. All of today's birds were photographed in that world-renowned wildlife haven known as the city of San Francisco, CA. As with last fall, a lot of my Perpetual Weekend is spent birding the bay area, and things have been good so far...although some of us keep trying to forget the Fork-tailed Flycatcher incident, and I double-dipped on a Harris' Sparrow this week (ouch though).

It's been a great fall for birding in California, and I haven't even bothered checking what I missed while off in Florida. Who knows what else will turn up? We all just need to keep birding...only on December 1, the first day of Birder's Winter, should we allow ourselves any rest.

Lastly, BB&B would like to announce its official endorsement of Jill Stein for President of the United States. Vote for Obama if you live in a battleground state, but otherwise I don't see any reason environmentalists should be voting for him...aside from being better than Bush (not difficult), he hasn't done much to earn our unconditional support. At any rate....vote!

When you tell nonbirders you saw a Dickcissel, they don't believe the bird exists...I'm sure you can guess why this is. At any rate, I've only seen a handful of these birds, and never where they are actually expected.

Who does not love a Dickcissel, bucolically foraging in a pastoral scene?

The light was not mellow, but I think this Black-throated Gray Warbler (an uncommon fall migrant here) turned out pretty well. Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, CA.

Despite the fact that Yellow Warblers are the most abundant warbler species in the area during the early weeks of fall migration, they don't seem to quite bum birders out as much as the later but inevitable onslaught of Yellow-rumped Warblers. Fort Mason.

I think the blackberries in the background make the picture.

As any and every birder knows, this is a huge year for Red-breasted Nuthatches. Hopefully they can find enough food, as pretty much everyone who has laid eyes on a nuthatch instantly grows incredibly fond of them. Yank-yank. Land's End, San Francisco, CA.

Behold the Steller's Jay. On Halloween, while dressed as Sam Shakusky (from Moonrise Kingdom..."What kind of bird are you?"), I got into a debate on the status and distribution of bluish jays with another random Sam Shakusky in front of a bar. Needless to say, dude did not know who he was dealing with. Photographed at Golden Gate Park.

This Yellow-throated Warbler stayed put in one of our shittiest parks for 3 months last year. It came back again this fall at the same time, and as far as I know is still around. Ferry Park, San Francisco, CA.

Check out the length of that bill. Birders should not worry about confusing this bird with other warblers, they should worry about confusing it with a curlew.

I wonder where this bird has been in the intervening 9 months...how far south did it go last winter? Where did it spend its summer? In nerdiful news, I recently came across someone's thesis on variation within the species, and he ends up recommending abolishing a couple of the recognized subspecies...you can check that out here.

I don't take photographs of Brewer's Blackbirds very often, but when I do....I am usually not seeing much else. They're always a welcome and attractive bird though. Ferry Park.