South Bay Winter Slumber

While Santa Clara is not known as one of the premiere gulling counties in the state, that is not because there are a lack of gulls. There are many thousands of Herring Gulls (like the one above) in the county right now, and where there are Herring Gulls there are rare gulls...sometimes anyway. I have at least managed a Santa Clara Glaucous Gull already this year and a 5MR Western Gull, which I didn't see in the radius until November last year. Photographed at Don Edwards NWR.

Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh it's February. I don't know how I feel about that. It sure got here quickly, and as I say in BB&B pretty much every year I'm leery of March birding around these parts. Things have been pretty slow this winter here in Santa Clara, especially if you opt to not attempt feverish county year birding and rechase all the rarities you already chased a month or two ago, or the previous winter. But! But. BUT...the middle of winter is generally a great time to be birding around these parts. If you really need to see a rarity or a year bird or whatever every time you go birding, then just give up birding and be honest with yourself and everyone else...you are not a birder. You are a chaser. You don't enjoy the activity of birdwatching, you like birdchasing.

I think the quasi-elitist and increasingly obsolete notion that listing is something to scoff at now borders on being something to scoff at itself. Let's face it, most of us have bird lists that we care about. Listing is not the problem here, heck chasing isn't even the problem. I happily chase stuff on the reg and recommend it highly. The problem is when you get so locked into certain lists that they dictate that you run after other people's birds every time you go out. Going out with the hopes of finding something interesting yourself, once standard practice when one went out birding, is becoming increasingly uncommon and comparatively bold.

Is it time for a great schism in birding? Is it time for the strict chasers to separate themselves from the rest of us? There is already a large and still growing subset of photogs who seem to chase every rarity but never find anything rare themselves. Something to ponder on a cool February day.

But now that I've begun to peel back the lid on that can of worms, I'm going to put it back on the proverbial shelf for another post. That was not a road I intended to go down! Shifting gears (but probably still instilling some butthurt anyway), I've really been enjoying my new CANON gear after kicking Nikon to the curb. With the assistance of CANON, here is a sampling of our winter birds from along the edge of the South Bay.

Iceland Gulls can be be quite common at certain sites right now. Here is a particularly eye-catching bird with a big dark hood. Photographed at Don Edwards NWR.

Here is a more typical looking Iceland (darker eye, whiter face) photographed from the same spot. Photographed at Don Edwards NWR.

While Herring x Glaucous-winged are often the most common hybrid in Santa Clara gull flocks, along the bay Western x Glaucous-winged like this one can be more abundant. The Olympic Gull is a particularly unpleasant creature and I have nothing more to say about them. Photographed at Don Edwards NWR.

Mew Gulls, with their small size and delicate build, are absolutely delightful in comparison. They should have named Daymaker Gulls. Photographed at Don Edwards NWR.

I thought this COMBO was worthy of posting, a ring-billed Mew Gull and a ring-billed Ring-billed Gull. Photographed at Don Edwards NWR.

The occasional close pass by a Northern Harrier is always appreciated. Photographed at Don Edwards NWR.

Familiarity breeds contempt, but as common as they are Turkey Vultures are still cool to see close up. Photographed at Don Edwards NWR.

Santa Clara is not a very goosey county, but we get a light smattering of non-Canadas every fall and winter. Here is part of a family group of Snow Geese that have been wintering next to Shoreline Lake near Mountain View. Photographed at the Shoreline Park kite flying area.

A group of Greater White-fronted Geese is also wintering in the same area and are similarly acclimated to people, no doubt due in large part to the large flocks of JUDAS GEESE (nonnative/tame Canada Geese) here. I like the lawn-mowing lineup.

Sometimes, I think about grebes. Luminous beings are grebes. I am a fan of Horned Grebes, but it is one of those species that makes me wonder why, know what I mean? Like if someone could do a brain scan while I looked at a Horned Grebe vs a Western, there would probably be more HOGR-related brain activity even though WEGRs sound way cooler and have a legendary courtship display. Maybe it all goes back to when I first started birding, where HOGRs are harder to come by. I'm sure a great many of my feelings and opinions about certain birds, and birding in general, are heavily colored by those early years more than I realize. Photographed at Shoreline Lake.

EARED GREBE/HORNED GREBE COMBO!!!!!!! The HOGR is showing off its flatter crown, thicker bill, and more contrasting face/neck/flank pattern.

While I think of it, I wanted to mention another aspect of my new Canon gear that I forgot to bring up in my previous post about it. For all previous combos and iterations of Nikon bodies and lenses I've used (which are numerous), one flaw that all of them had was that when the subject was on a flat surface (i.e. sitting on or flying low over water, on mudflats, in short grass) and not close up, the camera invariably have a very difficult time focusing on the intended subject. I could shoot 50 similar frames and sometimes less than 10 would have the subject acceptably sharp with good light and good settings and a near-stationary bird, which is a really shitty ratio. I have no such problem now with the Canon 90D/100-400mm II and couldn't be happier. Photographed at Shoreline Lake.

These Western Sandpipers just had to probe the same exact spot. Must be awkward to bump bills under the mud. Photographed at Charleston Slough.

Let's wrap things up with some avocets, photographed at Charleston Slough. Avocets simultaneously look gangly and awkward in flight, but somehow also striking and graceful. There are a shitload of avocets in the South Bay and I'm pretty happy about 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.

Fulfilling Destiny: The Five Mile Challenge

Last week I decided to take an impromptu day off...it had been raining day after day on end, we were finally going to get a break, and I wasn't very busy at work. It turns out when you are about to have a kid, you unexpectedly get a bunch of free time on your hands right before your fetus levels its warrior and becomes a baby. Anyways, I was twitching to go birding, and not just any kind of birding...I had a Five Mile Challenge (5MC) to do.

Flycatcher Jen had already carried out her challenge, getting 60 species despite below freezing conditions. She had threatened to attempt another challenge with a more intimidating species total, but the better weather she was hoping for never came. Portland currently resembles the North Pole more than the North Pole does. While 60 species was commendable considering the conditions she was stuck with, I thought that it would take a very bizarre turn of events for me to not exceed that number. I don't know my Five Mile Radius (5MR) like the back of my hand, but let's acknowledge the elephant in the room...I am the #7 birder in the United States. So, banking on my sevenness, I did what I thought was best and decided to plunge into the challenge, even though a storm had not quite finished passing through.

Unfortunately, when I arrived at my first site that fateful morning, I was essentially birding in a rain cloud. It sucked. 25 minutes spent at Lake Anza in Tilden Regional Park ended up being a total waste, with only 17 species, all of which I would see again during 5MC. I also missed target birds like Belted Kingfisher and Ring-necked Duck. Ugh...if I had to do it over again, Lake Anza would be out. So much for sevenness.

The next stop was another part of Tilden Regional Park, Jewel Lake and the area around the nature center. The weather was still pretty wet and dismal. This stop was supposed to provide the bread and butter for my passerines for the day, an area my 5MR is not particularly strong in. Fortunately, the birding here didn't end up being as regretful as it was at Lake Anza...Band-tailed Pigeon, Red-breasted Sapsucker and Purple Finch were all quality pickups, and by the time I abandoned Tilden I was up to a modest 35 species. I had missed some easy birds, but I figured that I could just wallop the bayshore sites and make my 5MC list swollen with waterbirds.

The Emeryville Marina was my next stop, which I had timed to be at high tide to pick up roosting shorebirds. Day birds came at a rapid clip...everything was proceeding as I had foreseen.

This was my only place to get Surfbird, a plump west coast specialty which did not disappoint. This roost site is one of the few reliable spots for Surfbird in Alameda County.

The godwits and Willets also sheltered Whimbrels, dowitchers and Black Turnstones. Redhead was definitely the best bird at this stop, and a completely unexpected bonus for the 5MC. The total lack of scoters was worrying, but I figured I would pick them up elsewhere.

An impromptu stop at Aquatic Park in Berkeley was next. I've never birded here before...is that weird? A lot of people bird here. Anyways, I'm glad I stopped because I just piled on more and more day birds, a number of which I didn't get anywhere else that day. I finally got my 5MC Great Blue Heron, which was my first of 2017...what a relief. However, as I had been anticipating for months, one of the locking arms in my tripod finally gave out, meaning that my tripod could only function if I was sitting down or on my knees. This was an ominous turn of events...would this end up crippling my effort?

Berkeley Meadows was the next stop. A distant woodpecker frustratingly had to go down as Downy/Hairy, but White-tailed Kite, Say's Phoebe and Lincoln's Sparrow were all new for the day. A flock of Yellow-rumped Warblers held another new 5MC species...

Mmmmmm...Western Bluebirds. This was one of the few sources of facemelt I got to experience during 5MC. With a decent haul from the meadow, Berkeley Marina would make for another quick stop as it was right next door. The Berkeley Fishing Pier is still closed (railer), but I finally got my Surf Scoters, and Downy Woodpecker, Golden-crowned Kinglet and Red-winged Blackbird all made for quality bonus birds.

By this time, I knew I had surpassed Flycatcher Jen's total...it was just a matter of if I had done well enough to be out of reach of This Machine Nate yet. Since I don't have an iphone, the eBird app doesnt keep a day list for me, so I didn't quite know how I was doing. At any rate, it was time for a sandwich.

Getting a sandwich from Sea Breeze Deli (next to the marina) was very fortunate, in part because they make damn fine sandwiches, but also because I got another day bird behind the parking lot...Greater White-fronted Goose. Fuck yes...I was on a roll. Talk about the stars aligning! Ok GWFG isn't a monumental rarity or anything but it's locally rare and was one of the best birds of the challenge.

By now it was mid-afternoon, so after getting goosed I thought I should stop by the Albany Mudflats real quick to finish my sandwich and take advantage of the falling tide...Northern Pintail, American Avocet, Long-billed Curlew, and Mourning Dove were all new birds. At this point I felt invincible...I still did not know what my 5MC list was at, but it had to be over 70 and I still had to bird Meeker Slough, Richmond Marina, and the Albany Bulb...I was going to kill it. Who knows how many more birds awaited? But before I could go on to the next stop, I got a text message. This text message turned out to be life-changing. I knew, then and there, that the 5MC was over for me...there was something very important to do, something that could not wait, something that might not ever happen again in my entire life.

I know what you are thinking...no, Billy did not go into labor during the 5MC...that would make for a great story, but something even more unexpected had happened...a Ross's Gull had been found in Half Moon Bay, and that is where I had to be.

But that is for another post. My 5MC was completed with over two and a half hours of daylight remaining. I had missed a lot of birds, even taking into account my abbreviated day...Bushtit, Pacific Wren, American Pipit, Savannah Sparrow, American Goldfinch come to mind first...as I said, passerines are not the strong suit of my 5MR. But none of that matters now...I am the winner of the 5MC.

I just figured out my 5MC list while writing this post. I saw a lot of birds...I did not think I would get as many as I did, and now I know that it is possible to do a Big Day in my 5MR and get over 100 species...that's pretty fucking sick, don't you think? The final stats are: six hours, no help, no chased birds, no naps, no poops, some farts, one Contra Costa County bird (Red-breasted Sapsucker), one new 5MR bird (Redhead), one thermos of coffee, one ginger ale, one hella good sandwich, one awkward couple getting into a fight because their dog got loose, 40 year birds...and 86 species, most of which were in Alameda County, though 20 species were recorded in Contra Costa only.

I am the king of the 5MC. It is an honor and a privilege. I love getting 86'd, who knew it would be so good? Though I am a birding champion, props to Jen for making the 5MR a thing that seems to be catching on fast. You can read about Flycatcher Jen's effort here, and This Machine Nate's attempt with near-identical total over here - it is good to see him blogging again.

Well I would like to stick around and gloat, but I need to pick out my prizes...

Outer Point Migrage

By the second weekend of October, the fall of 2016 had already been a good one...year birds in the right year, county birds in the right counties, acceptable numbers of migrants around, a state nemesis had been vanquished (Northern Gannet), I found a solid Siberian vague runt at my patch (Bar-tailed Godwit), and had a Sibe *MEGA* give good looks (Dusky Warbler)...if I had to quit birding right then for the rest of 2016 it would have been a pretty good year...but why the fuck would I do that? So I tried to bird someplace else besides SF or Point Reyes, but all I had to show for it...literally...was this Ridgway's Rail at Arrowhead Marsh. I'll take it.

The day after was forecast for decent weather, so I predictably went back out to the Outer Point...it's hard not to be there in October. As I rode a bristling caffeine high past Drake's Estero, a wall of fog appeared just west of the RCA patch, so I turned around to bird RCA in hopes that the fog would lift in the meantime. Hermit Warbler and Lark Sparrow were nice birds, and a couple ultra-confiding Hutton's Vireos dropped down to forage beside me.

This young male Anna's Hummingbird was holding down a flowering shrub next to my car, so I gave it a quick but punishing crush.

A couple miles down the road I got stuck in a birder traffic jam, but that worked out well because I may have just blown by the flock of 20 Greater White-fronts that were grazing next to the road. It's a nice bird to run into on the coast, as most of the big migrant flocks are just flyovers and don't put down too often.

Much of birding the Outer Point, probably 40%, consists of looking at White-crowned Sparrows and hoping that they are not White-crowned Sparrows. This was just a White-crowned Sparrow, so I crushed it and tried to move on with my life. Crush, move on, crush, get on with it...such is the rhythm of birding some days.

I walked over to one of my favorite micro-spots, where I am guaranteed to see nothing but White-crowned Sparrows, but for once there was something I didn't expect at the Zonotrichia stronghold. Here is a Western Bluebird-Tropical Kingbird combo for Caroline, Frank, and Jen. Dan, this would be for you too, but I know how much you hate combos.

Ah, a nice refreshing Mexican rarity. This was a good sign, but there turned out to be little else at the lighthouse (a few getting-late Violet-green Swallows) and Fish Docks was dead.

Using some of the Global Birder Ranking System's data collection tools (I have access to those, being #7 in the U.S.), it is obvious that there has been a statistically significant uptick in the last couple years of West Coast birders thinking they might have a Couch's Kingbird, not a Tropical. While Constant Vigilance is always good, birders should not let themselves get too worked up...Tropical Kingbirds are an expected fall migrant, albeit not a common one. There is no reason to suspect Couch's unless the bird really sounds or looks like one.

Fun with Tropical Kingbird cropping.

The Fish Docks are haunted by the ghosts of many Vague Runts that have dropped in over the years seeking food and shelter. On this day, migrants were few and rarities only lurked through the cypresses in spirit. A Say's Phoebe ominously watched over the birders making the rounds.

My traditionally horrible luck at Nunes was reversed when some other birders got me on this Black-and-white Warbler. Though Black-and-whites are a low-level rarity in much of the state, on Point Reyes they are seen much less frequently than other "eastern" warblers like Blackpoll, Chestnut-sided, Palm, etc. Considering this was a county bird and a far better looking bird than most other fall migrants, I had a nice mellow birdbuzz going after spending time with this bird.

The real avian highlight of the day though was the Tree Swallows. Yep, I'm going with Tree Swallow as Bird of The Day over Tropical Kingbird and Black-and-white Warbler. By early afternoon there were Tree Swallows pretty much everywhere you looked - while this is normal for some places in the east during fall migration, this is not the case in the bay area...it can be rather difficult to actually get to see a bunch of passerines migrating. Migration (landbirds) is just so much less visible here than on the eastern half of the continent, it's difficult to detect birds coming and going, especially large concentrations of them. I walked around in the middle of a huge feeding flock of swallows at Spaletta Plateau, it was a lot of fun.

One of the reasons I had even been out on the point on this day (aside from the obviously great time of year) was because the winds had been forecast to shift during the morning to the south, and south winds takes rare birds out of the sky and put them on the ground. The Black-and-white Warbler may have dropped in for this very reason. The prevailing winds here are out of the northwest, but for the entire following week we had south winds, and the coast was getting absolutely pummeled with rarities. It was hard to withstand...I was stuck in an office gnawing my lower lip to bloody shreds while rare shit just seemed to be raining down everywhere. Luckily, those south winds also brought some rain at the end of the week, which prevented some of these vague runts from continuing their migrations and allowed me to see a Yellow-green Vireo and Black-throated Blue Warbler out at the Fish Docks the following Saturday. Shit conditions and no photos, but those were some damn good birds. Yellow-green Vireos are not even Bird Police birds in California anymore, but I hadn't seen one anywhere since 2010 so I was stoked. And who knows when I will see those two species in the same place again...talk about a good combo.

South winds...how I long for your gentle, overcast touch. Until next fall.

A State Bird, Spring Shorebirds and a Requirement for Avosex

Early in the spring, I lurked into the Central Valley, where an Emperor Goose would have been a welcomed year bird. Those of you who enjoy their schadenfreude would like to know that the bird decided to leave the night before, but it was a good sunset with lots of Cackling and Greater White-fronted Geese to sort through.

Well, here we are. June. California's best spring in memory has come and gone, with May bolstering the Vague Runt roster with another White Wagtail, Kentucky Warblers, a Buff-breasted Flycatcher, an inner circle Pterodroma caught in a mist net (which is a Meguh) and another mainland appearance by the Kelp Gull. Don't worry, I did manage to at least get out and look for the Kelp Gull...which I dipped on. I also dipped on the Northern Gannet a couple times, which is so unsurprising that it doesn't even bum me out any more. Dip dip dip dip dip dip dip fucking dip.

That said, I did go birding this spring, and I did see some birds, including some good ones.

A friend of mine, "Fob Rowler", is one of the admins of a 5,000+ member birding group on Facebook. His members look up to him like a birding god...and who is to say that he isn't? It often looks like a thankless task, but one day Fob was looking at one of the bazillions of bird pictures that is posted to the group every day and noticed something strange in a flock of flying White-faced Ibis...there, in the corner, was a unmistakable Glossy Ibis. This is a rare bird in California...one that I hadn't seen in the state before. So a week after Fob's Facebook find, it was off to Yolo Bypass Wildlife Area, and I have to thank Fob and Facebook for this sexy state bird.

Yolo Bypass has a healthy population of Swainson's Hawks, which I never tire of seeing. I also got my lifer mink that morning, which was a bird I was not thinking I would get that day. Some kind folks pointed it out to me as it swam out to a patch of reeds, but unhelpfully tried to convince me that it was a small river otter with a short furry tail. The nerve!

Every spring I spend some time shorebirding, partially because I am always hoping to find a spring vague runt plover or sandpiper (which rarely happens) and partially because spring shorebirds are really, really good looking birds. Dowitchers suddenly become exponentially more interesting...you don't have to sweat IDing them by sight, they make weird noises that go unuttered in fall and winter, and they actually are very appealing birds. This is a Long-billed Dowitcher, at Middle Harbor Shoreline Park, Oakland.

Here is a Short-billed Dowitcher. Look at that short bill. It's like rosy Jack Snipe.

Another Short-billed. No one thinks of dowitchers as gaspers, but I will argue that they are worthy of the occasional gasp.

I want to be real with you nerds, so here we go...BB&B is one of the only trendsetters in birding. So with that in mind, let me ask you this...do people take pictures of Canada Geese anymore? No? Good...well I'm bringing them back. Soon everyone is going to be posting Canada Goose photos. Cardinals are going to be over, and the masses will instead glorify the majestic Canada Goose.

One morning Billy and I cruised to Bedwell Bayfront Park in San Mateo County to look at Pacific Golden-Plovers, a decent bird almost anywhere in the bay area and rarely encountered in alternate plumage. They had been roosting on a salt pond for some time, and we found them just hanging out and looking great. This species is a pain in the ass to photograph though, at least in this state...go to Hawaii if you want to crush them, as they are a lawn bird there. It's really trippy.

A rare (for me) spring visit to the Radio Road ponds in Redwood Shores was productive. Short (front) and Long-billed Dowitchers provided a great comparison when we showed up. If only it were always this easy to tell them apart.

There probably isn't a better place in the bay area to see breeding Forster's Terns, which nest on the small islands here relatively close to the edge of their favored pond. On this visit, there was a lot of courtship going on and a lot of birds on nests already.

As always, American Avocets were around, sporting the buffy heads required to convince each other that they should have avosex. The bay area has both long-legged shorebirds in abundance.

This is the other long-legged shorebird, obvi. Black-necked Stilt is another signature, sometimes-annoying shorebird species of many of California's marshes. Like the avocets, they are resident year round and are common breeders at many marshes around the bay. The debate continues over which nesting shorebird is more annoying to be around...Killdeer (dee dee dee dee), avocet (kleep kleep kleep) or stilt (yap yap yap yap yap yap yap).