It's Getting Late Early: November in The 5MR

This Common Merganser bellows a simple song: FIVE MILE RADIUS! FIVE MILE RADIUS! Photographed at Almaden Lake in San Jose.

And then it was November. Suddenly the heinous notion of the year 2020 is not such a far-fetched idea after all...it is a terrible reality, just waiting for us right around the corner, lurking in the shadows cast by the specter of what Hunter S. Thompson would surely call "this foul year of lord, 2019." By the time we realize it is here, it will be too late.

But Hunter has been dead since 2005, and from his point of view...maybe that was for the best. Here we are in golden weeks of 2019, an age when Hope is Dead and Idiocracy is Real. But one phenomenon swept over birders in 2019 that has changed many hearts and minds forever, and the world is not a worse place for it. No, it's not ID by democracy or identifying everything as a hybrid, it is the FIVE MILE RADIUS. It's high time BB&B checks in with my 5MR, which is running smoothly after a grinding start to the fall.

You may recall that I connected with an Eastern Kingbird in my YARD of all places back in June. July delivered a radial gift on a similar scale - a self-found Red-eyed Vireo, which I found by walking out my back gate out to the ponds behind my house. Red-eyed Vireo is a MEGA vague for Santa Clara County and the first I'd seen in California in many years, though they are more expected in coastal counties. Like the kingbird, it was a one day wonder and easily one of my top 5MR birds ever, let alone this year. Photographed at the Los Capitancillos Ponds.

But after a surprisingly productive summer, things really slowed when fall migration was supposed to get under way, at least on the year bird front. August had but a single new addition to the 5MR year list (Scaly-breasted Munia, ew), and September had only two, a Willow Flycatcher (clutch - they are very uncommon and come through for a brief window) and American Wigeon (a "gimme" I knew I would run into eventually). By the end of September, I was wondering if my radius would actually be fading in fall instead of lighting up. September was good for Vaux's Swifts at least, like this one at Los Gatos Creek County Park.

Incredibly (to me), on this day many swifts were foraging *on* several conifer trees - they would make contact or "land" briefly among the needles as they presumably gleaned insects. I have never seen a Vaux's Swift previously make contact with anything denser than air. Here you can see a swift entangled in the foliage, and yes, this is a Vaux's Swift-Anna's Hummingbird combo.

More gleaning swifts. There is also an eastern gray squirrel partially hidden in there, which I didn't see at the time. I love me some novel swift combos.

The fall rarity drought vanished as soon as the calendar changed to October. I successfully chased this spiffy Clay-colored Sparrow, which was also a county bird. Not only was it a county bird, it is the species that sparked the entire Lori Meyers fiasco from last year! Not the vaguest vanguard but a very nice rarity for the county. I would also go on to find two more Clay-colored Sparrows of my own last month, all in my 5MR! In the fall of 2018, Clay-coloreds went unrecorded in the county entirely. Photographed at Vasona Lake County Park.

This was the last Western Wood-Pewee I saw this year. Sadly, I likely will not be adding additional flycatchers in 2019, although I hold out hope for a vague runt Eastern Phoebe or something of that sort. I will most likely finish the year with a middling 9 flycatcher species, with Eastern Kingbird headlining that group and Western Kingbird and Olive-sided Flycatcher being new for the 5MR. I missed a locally rare Cassin's Kingbird last winter, and its likely Hammond's Flycatcher passed through undetected. Photographed at Vasona Lake.

One day, while sitting on the couch vacantly staring into my backyard, I saw a yellow-green bird appear next to the Rancho de Bastardos bird bath. I almost didn't look at it with binoculars, utterly convinced it would be yet another Lesser Goldfinch, but I am the Global Birder Ranking System's #7 U.S. birder, and one of the reasons you all look up to me is because I practice and preach DUE DILIGENCE. So I went ahead and hopelessly glassed the bird as it plopped down into the bath, and almost fell off the couch when I saw it was in fact a TENNESSEE WARBLER...which was not just a yard bird, not just a 5MR bird, but a county bird! And the only one seen in Santa Clara County in 2019. It was also the first warbler of any species to use the bird bath since April! I was, and still am, astounded. Don't you just love geri birding?

Minutes later, a Western Tanager dropped in. I had seen and heard them from the yard a number of times, but this was the first one *in* the yard. Quite the day of geri.

The yard has continued to produce good birds ever since baptized by the Tennessee Warbler. This Northern Pintail (left, Gadwall on the right) was not only a yard bird, it was a new radius bird! Cackling Goose, Greater White-fronted Goose, and Pine Siskin from the yard all were new recent 5MR year birds.

Ok, this is the last yard bird, I swear. Though I've seen one from the yard once before, a California Thrasher has been a totally unexpected addition to the yard flock, and it has been here daily for the last couple weeks. It's a nice bird to have in the 5MR, where they are fairly common at a few places, but it's a weird yard bird considering the less-than-marginal habitat in the area.

Seeing this normally retiring scythe billed friend casually hanging out with the sparrows, towhees and doves all the time has taken some getting used to. It seems to relish our wood chip situation, as it really flings those things with reckless abandon. It's not particularly wary. When in Rome, right?

I'm lucky to have a little bit of grassland at the edge of my radius. I recently hiked up here in a desperate bid to get a new radius bird (I had a few targets in mind) and was rewarded with a Prairie Falcon, my latest and greatest new 5MR bird. I got it only because I was doing a stationary count in a spot where a White-tailed Kite was sitting nearby - the falcon appeared out of nowhere and started tangling with the kite. This was part of the November 5MR Challenge, but of course you knew that. It was a steep hike so I didn't bring a camera (and I knew I would see something good if I left it at home) so here is a picture of the area from earlier this year when things were green - this is a good microcosm of my radius, awesome open space on one side colliding abruptly with urban sprawl.

Not new, not rare, and not photographed in my yard - I just like Red-breasted Sapsuckers and so do you. Glad they will be around again for the winter. Photographed at Vasona Lake.

I'll finish with 10 target birds I've got for the rest of the year, we'll see how it goes. Some are more likely than others, but all of these could be present...simultaneously...in my 5MR as you read this. A disturbing thought indeed.

American Bittern
Snow Goose
Ross's Goose
Greater Scaup
Western Gull
Mew Gull
Golden-crowned Kinglet
Varied Thrush
Swamp Sparrow
Evening Grosbeak

We'll see if I get many (any?) of these in about 7 weeks! My self-imposed 5MR bourbon challenge is still in play and I may find myself forced into buying whiskey any day now...my goal for the year in my 5MR is 185 and I'm so close I can taste it. Good luck to all you radius birders out there for the rest of 2019...you're gonna need it.

The Five Mile Radius

The Five Mile Radius. Is there anything more chic in the birding world right now? Let me answer that for you...no. No there is not. But if you are still in the dark about this transformative approach to birding, I am happy to enlighten you.

The lists birders keep are mostly based on temporal (big day, year, big sit) and geopolitical (ABA, country, Lower 48, state, county) boundaries that were generally decided on by people who are long dead. The big exception is, of course, patches. A patch can be anything...a tiny park, a huge national wildlife refuge, a whole cluster of sites...there are no rules or borders to conform to. A list for your Five Mile Radius (5MR) is basically a cumulative list of all the birds you can find within five miles of your house - a patchwork of local patches, if you will. Simple, right?

Unlike my last 5MR, which had close to no fresh water birding spots at all, the new 5MR has numerous ponds and a couple of lakes. Stoked - this certainly helps compensate for the lack of saltwater in my new radius. I've already had all three merganser species within the 5MR, including this snazzy leucistic Common Merganser. Photographed at Almaden Lake.

Here is the pasty wonder with a typical female for comparison.

The idea (my interpretation) is that you should bird a lot within your 5MR, because almost everyone should be birding more locally than they already are. Less fuel burned, less time in the car, less going to the same old places where everyone else goes. If you think it is fun to get to know the birds of your county (let's face it, that is definitely your idea of a good time), then just think of the joy and ecstasy of mastering the status and distribution of birds within 5 miles of where you live! Plus it gets you exploring more, and what can be more rewarding than finding a gem of a hotspot or a gem of a rarity in your own backyard, so to speak? If you are wondering what your own 5MR may encompass for you, it can easily be displayed in Google Earth, which you can download for free (use the ruler tool, then select the circle tab). The simple but radical concept of a 5MR was created by Flycatcher Jen of I Used To Hate Birds, and after simmering a couple years in the hearts and minds of other birders, its popularity is beginning to boil over. The birding Zeitgeist is moving on from big years, and right into the 5MR!

Red-naped Sapsucker is a nice, low-level rarity in much of the state, but a great bird for a 5MR! This is also the only one I've seen in the county so far. Photographed at Almaden Lake, where it also wintered 2017-2018.

As a major arbiter and birding trendsetter, BB&B is more than happy to be a proud sponsor of the 5MR, and as a sponsor I have been very active within my own 5MR lately. I moved to San Jose less than a year ago, leaving behind a rather short-lived 5MR that included the Berkeley Hills and extensive bayshore areas in Alameda and Contra Costa counties - this is where the now-classic Five Mile Challenge went down, where I trounced Flycatcher Jen in Portland, OR, and This Machine Nate in Austin, TX. It wasn't a fantastic 5MR, but it was pretty good. So what is up with this new Santa Clara County 5MR? Well, that's it right there at the top of this post, you can see what it looks like. Basically, more than half of my radius is terrible, soul-crushing urban/suburban sprawl with a handful of greenbelts and one potentially interesting county park that I haven't been to yet. Pretty shitty from a birding/ecology perspective, there is no way around it, though I'm sure there there are some other parks up there that could yield some surprises. But the southern half of the 5MR looks very different....much of it is comprised of county parks and publicly accessible open space.

Western Bluebirds are abundant in the southern half of my new 5MR, seemingly present everywhere I bird. Can't complain! Photographed at Vasona Lake County Park.

Visiting birders often want to know where to find California Thrasher - for years I didn't have any great recommendations, but now I have spots for them within my very own 5MR! There is lots of readily accessible chaparral and scrub in my radius, and so there are readily accessible thrashers. Photographed on the Alamitos Creek Trail.

Human-tolerant Green Herons can easily be found at many sites. Photographed at Vasona Lake County Park.

Black-crowned Night-Herons abound as well. My hopes and dreams of discovering a wandering Yellow-crowned have so far not been met, but I am going to keep looking and looking and looking and looking. And looking. This half of the state is overdue for another one. Photographed at the Los Capitancillos Ponds.

Shorebirds are extremely hard to come by in my 5MR, but I am happy to say there is no shortage of gulls. There are several sites where one can comb through 1000+ gulls (with Herring being the most abundant), and to be honest, the rarity potential is scary high...I would be surprised if there wasn't a Slaty-backed or Lesser Black-backed somewhere around here. Iceland Gulls are pleasantly common as well. Photographed at Los Gatos Creek County Park. 

There are hordes of Canada Geese about, which act as bait for other species of geese to settle in. This young Greater White-fronted Goose was at Los Gatos Creek County Park. This is another species I've seen only in my 5MR in the county.

A handful of statistics; out of the very modest (sub-modest?) 225 species I've seen in this county so far, I've recorded 143 of those in my 5MR, which is 64% of my entire county total. Not so bad eh? My previous Albany 5MR was left at 149, and god willing, the Rancho de Bastardos 5MR will top that in a few months. I no longer have saltwater habitats available, which are powerful weapons to deploy in 5MRs, but the sheer number of ponds and semi-intact upland habitats I have at my disposal should get me there soon...spring migration is already underway, after all. Of course, my incredible yard list has a part to play in all of this too, but that is for another post.

I couldn't find any when I went to the east coast in October, but luckily a Black-throated Blue Warbler was waiting for me when I got back home! Brilliant. Without a doubt, this is the best bird I've seen in my new 5MR so far and it seems unlikely that I will be seeing another one in the county any time soon. Photographed next to the Santa Clara Valley Water District pond.

So what do you have to lose? Dare to be different. Draw up your own 5MR and start tearing it up. Bird it relentlessly. Become one of those "local experts" you've always heard so much about. Reap the rewards (and savings!) of being a patch-pummeler. If you want to be weird and do a 3MR or a 9MR instead, no one will stop you (not even the bird police!)...or you could be part of the 5MR movement, and join me in shaking up the birding world with a new kind of list. It's a lot more fun to compare your 5MR with someone else's, after all. To that effect, birders in Los Angeles County are even doing a year long competition of sorts with a bunch of new 5MRs sprouting up, which is fantastic!

Come join us and draw up your 5MR today. Depending on where you live, birding your 5MR may not be the most glorious kind of birding, but you will quickly find it scratching an itch that you may never have known you had.

Bay Area Specialties

Heermann's Gull is one of the many California specialties that the bay area is home to. It's just one of our common local birds, but visiting nerds from outside the state drool over a lot of the species we get to enjoy on the regular.

The bay area. Home to millions of people, millions of birds, and several thousand birders. Nine different counties come into contact with the bay, and almost all of them offer a multitude of high quality birding spots. If you put aside the unfortunate traffic factor, it's a perfect recipe for quality birding almost year-round.

Because the bay area has so much to offer in the way of birding opportunities, and is such a population center and transportation hub, we get a lot of visiting birders here. Aside from chaseable rarities, they are usually looking for the same set of species. Since we at BB&B are here to serve you, dear sweet most loveable reader, we thought we would slap together a quick post on where to find some of the most highly sought-after local goodness.

Before we dive in, I have to get the standard disclaimer out of the way...eBird and the local listservs are invaluable resources on where your target birds and bonus rarities have been observed lately. Check them thoroughly and frequently!

Ridgway's Rail can be challenging to see, but they have multiple strongholds in the bay where they are relatively common. They vocalize frequently and loudly, so if you are into counting heard-only birds, tracking this species down should not be problematic. Far and away the easiest place to see RIRA is at Arrowhead Marsh in Alameda County. They can be seen at any tide, and during winter king tides it's not unusual to see multiple individuals at once that have been pushed out of the marsh. Black Rails, while almost impossible to see, are resident at China Camp State Park (Marin), Martinez Regional Shoreline (Contra Costa), and the saltmarsh next to Alviso Marina (Santa Clara), among other places.

Mountain Plover is exceedingly rare in the coastal counties, but are regularly found in Solano County during winter. Explore the fields east and west of Highway 113 (east of Vacaville, west of Rio Vista) during the winter. Again, eBird may be able to save you some time and point you toward the right pasture.

Pacific Golden-Plovers are very uncommon and tend to only sporadically show up within the bay, but a reliable place in fall and winter is Schollenberger Park in Petaluma (Sonoma County), where they often roost at high tide, or can be seen feeding in the adjacent mudflats if you are there with the right tide and a good amount of luck. Spaletta Plateau on Point Reyes is another reliable place for golden-plovers during the fall.

Rockpipers are consistently in high demand. Surfbirds can be found both in the bay (the little island at the San Leandro Marina (Alameda), roosting on the south side of Marina Park Pathway at high tide at the Emeryville Marina (Alameda)), and along the coast. Wandering Tattlers are much easier to find on the coast than in the bay, but are the most difficult rockpiper to track down. Check structures off Fort Mason, the rocks at Sutro Baths (both in San Francisco), and the outer breakwaters at the Pillar Point Harbor (San Mateo County). Black Oystercatchers and Black Turnstones are common and widespread.

Thayer's Gulls are typically not hard to find, but often present a significant ID challenge to those inexperienced with them. We have no shortage of confusing hybrid gulls to confuse them with. Thayer's can be tracked down in winter in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park (Stow Lake and Lloyd Lake), the mouth of Pilarcitos Creek (San Mateo County) and the north end of Oyster Bay Regional Shoreline, among many other places. Herring runs can feature impressive numbers of Thayer's and regularly lure in a Slaty-backed Gull or two every winter; check listservs for San Francisco, Marin and Contra Costa counties if you are around in January or February, it is great gulling and a great spectacle.

If you can't get on a pelagic trip, there are several good spots for seawatching - try Pigeon Point (San Mateo), the south end of Ocean Avenue (San Francisco), Sutro Baths (San Francisco), or Bodega Head (Sonoma). Depending on the time of year, you can find sea ducks, loons, shearwaters, jaegers, alcids (including Ancient and Marbled Murrelets in winter), etc. Of course, a scope is a requirement and the earlier in the morning you go the better.

Burrowing Owls have lost much of their habitat around the bay to urbanization, but thankfully are still holding on in a few areas, especially down in Santa Clara County (i.e. Azino Ranch), near the east shore of Cesar Chavez Park (Alameda) and the access road to Arrowhead Marsh (Alameda). Fall and winter is typically best for finding these cute little bastards.

Yellow-billed Magpie is an endemic, and rightfully one of the most sought-after species in the entire state...luckily we get them along the western edge of their range. Try Mines Road, just south of Livermore (Alameda), where a little effort should reward you.

California Thrasher is widely distributed, but uncommon in patches of chaparral in many bay area counties. They are resident and can be found year round, but are easiest to find in spring when they are singing the most frequently. Mount Diablo and Claremont Canyon (Contra Costa County), and Mines Road come to mind as reliable areas...this species is relatively widespread in the bay area, but many of their strongholds aren't places that get besieged by birders.

If you are new to West Coast birding, you may not know how tricky (to put it nicely) it can be to find many western migrants here that are not as difficult in other parts of the state, both in terms of quantity and diversity. For example, spring birding in Kern County will easily bag you migrant Gray, Hammond's and Dusky Flycatchers...but those birds all come with a *rarity* tag here in the bay. Actually, I've never even seen a Dusky Flycatcher here, now that I think about it. I've seen more American Redstarts on the coast than I have MacGillivray's Warblers...migration is a bizarre and wonderful thing.

Despite how uncommon a lot of western migrants are here at any given season, I would be remiss to neglect mentioning Point Reyes, one of the best migrant traps on the entire west coast, best birded from late August to early November. While known as a magnet for eastern birds, the Outer Point patches will give you a better shot at bagging species like Hermit and Black-throated Gray Warblers than other coastal migrant traps through the fall. The patches at Bodega Bay (Sonoma) can also be very productive in fall. During spring migration, Mount Diablo (Contra Costa) can offer a nice variety of western migrants and breeders, including the drab but ever-popular Cassin's Vireo.

Tricolored Blackbird is a near-endemic, sought by many out of state birders. Luckily, a significant proportion of the population hangs out at Point Reyes during the fall. A quick look at the blackbird flocks at "B" Ranch or "C" Ranch always rewards birders. Rush Ranch Open Space (Solano) and Del Puerto Canyon Road (Santa Clara) are also good bets.

Lawrence's Goldfinches are a tough customer...you may just have to grind and grind to find one of these little cripplers. Sometimes they are present throughout the year, sometimes they don't linger so long, but spring and summer is your best bet, though you have a legitimate chance of getting them in the fall. Try Mines Road (in both Alameda and Santa Clara counties) and Del Puerto Canyon Road (Santa Clara County).

I know, I know, I probably didn't mention one of the birds you are looking for and you're pretty bummed about it, but life goes on. Some birds are just really tough to connect with (i.e. Northern Pygmy-Owl) and others are so common that you should have no trouble tracking them down (Allen's Hummingbird in season, Nuttall's Woodpecker, Wrentit, etc.). At any rate, hopefully this post will come in handy for a few people and some wanton lifering will be carried out. Good luck out there!

Eurasian Wigeon Eyelid Exam, Rarish Flycatchers, and STORM WIGEON (reprise)

Snowy Plover, a male. Few other birds appear so fruit-shaped. Hollywood Beach, CA.

Let's face it...I am the product of Ventura County, CA. I'm still trying to figure out what that means. Some people call my hometown "Ventucky", which refers to the heavy white trash/bro factor that is hard to ignore. Some people think Ventura is a nice place. Some people think Ventura is a great place...which is wrong. Ventura County has good birding though, this I know.  I spent some time there last month, and these are some of the avian fruit that I managed to harvest. And let me tell you...I love harvesting avian fruit.

Snowy Plover, also a male, but not as sexed out. He's an old bird, give him a break. Alexis, here is your chosen one.  Hollywood Beach, CA.

My crushiest Red-throated Loon photo to date. It is also the crushiest photo of whatever fish species that happens to be.  Ventura Harbor, CA.

LETS KEEP THIS CRUSH TRAIN ROLLING!!!!  Eurasian Wigeon. Conejo Creek North Park, Thousand Oaks, CA.

Sibes typically are wary of cameras...after all, how many cameras do they encounter in Siberia? Most don't know how it feels to be crushed in this manner. This Eurasian Wigeon, pounded into the two-dimensional image you see here, will never be the same. 

Bah. Crushes. Lets face it, anyone can crush anything, just put a camera with a big fuck off lens in their hands. Whenever you show someone a crush, all you are saying is "Look at me. I saw X species of bird, and it was X feet away." That's pretty much it. Sure some photographers put a lot of time and effort into their crushing endeavors...but most don't. Do you want to know about the effort I put into crushing this wigeon? I walked right up to it, then knelt on the ground for a better angle. That was it. Crushing is easy, so easy. And now I know the color of a Eurasian Wigeon's eyelid.

My STORM WIGEON post is one of BB&B's most popular of all time.  These things must drive hunters fucking crazy, because I know it's not birders who are working up a sweat over them. So with that in mind, some of you will be really excited to know that lightening has struck twice...I found a second STORM WIGEON in the exact same place (literally, the same stretch of water) where I had found one the year before. Bubbling Springs, Port Hueneme, CA.

This STORM WIGEON is not as white and pristine as the bird from Y2K13, but I reckon it still counts. Compare this white-faced bird to your everyday normalwigeon below.

Typical. Very typical.

Self-found Vague Runts are the best Vague Runts, even if eBird does not flag them. This is the first Vermilion Flycatcher I've seen in the county away from the Mugu area. McGrath State Beach, CA.

Round Mountain Pond? No one birded this place back before I was #7....did it even exist? I finally birded it for the first time with Don Mastwell and Gareth Jones, where the highlight was this Tropical Kingbird. Don and Gareth (who are rapidly degenerating into depraved Ventura County listers) had been dipping on this bird for weeks, and had gotten pretty aggro about it. When it finally was where it was supposed to be, they were chuffed. This bird was ace. Brill. It was a blinding success. You get the picture. Round Mountain Pond, Camarillo, CA.

For whatever reason, California gets a number of Tropical Kingbirds wintering in the state every year. They are more common than Western Kingbirds in winter. Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction.

California Thrasher...a mellow bird, despite the name. This is my first acceptable photo of one. Photographed at Round Mountain.

And now we have arrived at the inevitable Thayer's Gull portion of the blog post...I wish the lighting was more conducive to photographing these birds properly. Here is a bird from the dark end of the spectrum. Photographed at Bubbling Springs.

This bird, present in the same flock as the above bird, was drastically paler. Strikingly so, with a comparably faint tailband.  So although this is a perfectly good Thayer's Gull photo, I don't think it actually represents the bird very well. Does that make sense? Gulling is hard.

Same bird, still looking darker than it did in real life.  Oh well. You know what I didn't see last year? A Glaucous Gull. You know what I didn't see the year before that? A Glaucous Gull. I shouldn't even post another Thayer's until I see another Glaucous. I probably will...but I shouldn't. Right.