The Carrizo Plain

Dark-morph Ferruginous Hawk, or as one "ZAWA" calls it, the Buffalo Eagle. Behold its greatness and shrink from its majesty. We saw 15 or so Ferruginous Hawks on our last Carrizo visit. 


My last birding trip of 2011 that took me out of my normal routine was a trip to the Carrizo Plain, a massive grassland, dotted with sage flats, punctuated by a large alkali lake, located in east San Luis Obispo County. While Carrizo is probably not the best place to go hunting for vagrants, it does offer some of the best inland birding in California. Winter is probably best...the raptors include Ferruginous and Rough-legged Hawks, Golden Eagles, Short-eared, Long-eared and Burrowing Owls, Prairie Falcons and Merlins. The humongous flocks of Horned Larks may reveal some longspurs to the dedicated birder. Mountain Plovers lurk in the background, and Sage and LeConte's Thrashers and Sage Sparrows hide in the brush. Mountain Bluebirds add welcome color to the landscape, since pretty much every bird I've mentioned so far is brown.

This Vesper Sparrow chose the best rock on the plain to sit on for a photo op. My, what lichen you have...thank you Vesper Sparrow. Vespers are uncommon to fairly common (as opposed to "fairly uncommon") on the Carrizo. 


When the winter rain comes, a large Sandhill Crane flock roosts on Soda Lake each night...this is one of the relatively few flocks in southern California, and (in my opinion) are more fun to hang out with than the Salton Sea and Colorado River flocks. How the fuck they know to show up after the proper amount of local rainfall? I really don't know.

Some cool nonbirds that live on the plain include Tule Elk, Pronghorn, badgers, San Joaquin Kit Foxes, San Joaquin Antelope Ground Squirrel, Giant Kangaroo Rats, Blunt-nosed Leopard Lizard...the list goes on. I once found a Giant Kangaroo Rat there in broad daylight, only have it to keel over and die right in front of me minutes later. What does it mean?

And so much for that. If you haven't been, you must go. Winter is best for birding, but spring has raging wildflowers and doesn't have the desolate feel of the colder months. You can find out more about the place over at Los Padres Forestwatch.

By the way, check out Handsome Dan's murderous Short-tailed Albatross over here. Truly chilling stuff.

Red-tailed Hawks are (predictably) everywhere in the area, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't look at them.

Numbers of Mountain Bluebirds vary from year to year, but you can typically expect to find a lot of them. Looking at them makes life more bearable.

Prairie Falcons can be dependably found in the area. On my last trip, we saw at least 8 individuals. The scientific word for that level of local abundance is "hella".

What are you laughing about Coyote? Shut up!

Loggerhead Shrikes are abundant on the plain. For that reason, you may probably get the opportunity to obtain a less boring picture of one there. This photograph is lacking something...maybe a small rodent carcass impaled on a spike?

Mountain Plover is one of the specialities of the plain. While they are completely missable, you are also just as likely to blunder into a flock. If you have yet to do this, blundering into a flock of Mountain Plovers is like a massive hit of morphine blundering into your arteries.

Long-billed Curlews are the other common grasspiper in winter. Real shorebirds will use Soda Lake when it's holding water, but it was bone dry on this visit.

Here are some more stripes of the brownish rainbow that make up Ferruginous Hawk color morphs.

This was my last and 550th bird species in 2011, a LeConte's Thrasher. Since I have only been lucky enough to see them three (3) times, I have no shame for publicly displaying this atrocious photograph. LeConte's Thrashers are not rare on the Carrizo Plain, and this is one of the better places to look for them in California.

PLAINS PLOVERS

Mountain Plovers, unlike certain other mountain birds, are a true birder's bird. The likelihood of actually noticing a Mountain Plover without searching for them for hours and hours (or, for most people, years and years) is astronomically high. Everything about them seems to be overlookable...their habitat, their coloration, and their habits.

Although Mountain Plovers were never a nemesis bird for me (they were, or possibly still are, semi regular at a spot in coastal Ventura County, CA, where I began birding), they don't exactly have a habit of presenting themselves to me. Until last month, the last one I had seen was one in 2008, with a flock of Black-bellieds cruising over Fig Lagoon, deep within the bowels of the Imperial Valley.

Late in December I made a trip to the Carrizo Plain and was slammed with flock after flock of Mountain Plovers. I couldn't believe it. I had been to the Plain many times and always went home ploverless. We found a total of 3 flocks, all of which I detected by naked eye. That's the sort of thing that gets you up to Number 7 in the Nation, people.

Mountain Plovers have a pretty limited range (that do not include any mountains), and in California are only truly reliable in a handful of spots. Their population has plummeted over the last 100 years. As with most rare birds, habitat loss is the number one cause of their decline throughout their range. During the Bush era (aka The Dark Ages), the federal government decided to not add the Mountain Plover to the Endangered Species list. Since then, it has been revealed that the person (that's Julie MacDonald, enemy of nature) who made this decision was a complete hack, and now the plover is getting another shot at getting the protection it needs.

This plover is running down a small invertebrate. It will meet its doom in the grip of the Mountain Plover's massive and powerful bill, which is widely known to be able to reduce a human skull to a fine dust. Note the distinctive white death-visor it wears.

Sick.

Steepy Mountain Yields

Mountain Bluebirds are one of the most absurdly colored birds on the continent. Males fail to blend in to anything on the ground, and tend to stand out more than any other bird on their often brown and barren-looking wintering grounds. I went out to the Carrizo Plain last week, California's largest intact grassland ecosystem, where hundreds of Mountain Bluebirds were hanging out, blinding anyone who happened to pass by.

This bluebird instinctively knew to pick a weird perch, in order to devalue my photograph. This failed however, since it's still a crippling bird. Uninteresting fact: Ebird's furthest southern records of Mountain Bluebirds are just northwest of Mexico City.

This is the one place male Mountain Bluebirds are camouflaged. It makes sense, considering they spend inordinate amounts of time hovering high in the air.

Here's a female. As with most passerines, she is the modest sex. Fortunately, Economy Of Style is still in this year.

Photogenically speaking, this isn't a very majestic shot...I just think perching birds look really funny when they assume flying-cigar position.

There's cripplers, facemelters, and now...tear-jerkers.

More birds of the "mountain" variety to follow. See you soon!