Introducing Smith's Flycatcher or Double Bear Attack At Moonglow

I was somewhere far from most other places. Modoc County, California, is the northeasternmost county in the state. It is home to just 9,000 people; for comparison, my current home county of Santa Clara has almost 2 million residents. California birders love birding Modoc, despite how far it is from where most people live in the state. Modoc offers Trumpeter Swan, Black-backed Woodpecker, Bobolink...Cordilleran Flycatcher...and Smith's Flycatcher.

Ah yes, the enigmatic Smith's Flycatcher (SMFL). Genetically, they are somewhere in between Hammond's/Dusky and Least Flycatchers...possibly the worst place for any bird to be. Amazingly, despite its close relations to these other birds, they appear more akin to an Eastern Phoebe with wingbars and longer primaries.

North of Mexico, of all Empidonax, only Buff-breasted Flycatcher has a more restricted range. Smith's breeds only in Modoc County, southeastern Oregon, and a couple of isolated mountain ranges in northwestern Nevada. No one knows where they winter, so if you want to see one, it is necessary to meet them on their breeding grounds. This mysterious species is highly sought after by birders.

That's what I was doing in Modoc County. The trip wasn't exactly going as planned...shorebirds not where they were supposed to be...lodging plans falling through...but eventually I did find the phoebeish little flycatcher in its shady coniferous haunts. What a satisfying bird! All was well.

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And all was well at Moonglow Dairy, at least at first. Moonglow Dairy is a dairy farm in Moss Landing, California, on the south side of Elkhorn Slough. Moonglow is known to birders as being one of the few coastal strongholds for Tricolored Blackbirds in the state, and as a legendary vagrant trap. There are few things one can do that are more reasonable than birding Moonglow in fall, and that's what I found myself doing with a few other nerds.

I was concerned, however, about the bears. Bears had been in the area lately, and they had been aggressive. The others in my party did not seem very concerned about them, but within minutes of arriving BEARS came crashing through the brush and confronted us out in the open. It was a mother and her two half-grown cubs. However, she stayed back while the two cubs came forward and attacked myself and other birder.

Luckily, I somehow got a hold of a METAL FOLDING CHAIR, which I held out between and myself and the bear, like an old-school lion tamer. The bear pawed at it and expressed great displeasure at the chair being deployed, and quickly lost enthusiasm. After another minute of halfhearted assault the bear gave up and turned back, and the other followed suit. The whole bear family ambled off together, and we were left to bird in peace.

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Of course, the events I just related to you did not actually happen. These were dreams that I had on successive nights, which led right into the weekend. The places are real, but the content, not so much. These dreams were not random though, I assure you, they undoubtedly meant something...but the only way to unlock this hidden meaning was to act on them. So what could I do? I had to bird Moonglow Dairy, I had no choice. Modoc may be far away, but Moonglow is less than an hour south of me. Luckily, birding Moonglow on a September weekend is like coffee and cigarettes...my course of action may have been predetermined, but I had no qualms about it.

Despite the warm weather and clear skies, Moonglow was very, very birdy. Lots of cooperative Tricolored Blackbirds greeted me on the way in.

Horned Larks and this fresh Western Meadowlark were along the road as well, searching for encroaching bears.

A couple Pacific-slope Flycatchers foraged in the Eucalyptus at the parking area. It soon became apparent that there were a lot of migrants around. A Black-headed Grosbeak gave a brief view, and a yellow female oriole appeared near the treetops - luckily, it began calling repeatedly, so no doubt about it being a Hooded. I considered myself fortunate - she never came down very low, so it easily could have resulted in a cringe-worthy Hooded/Orchard situation.

This Willow Flycatcher accompanied some low-foraging Yellow Warblers.

Yellow Warblers...at first I thought there were a lot of Yellow Warblers around, then it became increasingly clear that there were more Yellow Warblers present than anywhere I'd birded before. Ever. They were utilizing all the vegetated habitat around, low and high. It had the vague feeling of a fallout.

A MacGillivray's Warbler was lurking at the edge of the pond with a throng of Yellows. This species is very hard to find on the coast (it was a year bird for me); the dedicated fall birder may see more of several "eastern" species than of western birds like Cassin's Vireos and MacGillivray's Warblers.

It had been a long while since I had good looks at a Pectoral Sandpiper. This bird was very obliging.

An unearthly bellow shattered the peaceful silence, and I dared not approach any closer. Was this the rarely observed bear alarm call that I have read so much about?

No sounds were uttered from this creature, bellowed or otherwise. I determined that it was not a bear.

Elkhorn Slough, which backs up against Moonglow, is well known for its abundance of trusting sea otters. Sea otters, of course, are one of the best organisms on the face of the earth. If you find yourself in the area from out of country or out of state, make sure you make an otter detour. You won't regret it.

I went back to bird the Eucalpytus grove again - things had really quieted down, and the teeming herds of my grunts present earlier in the morning seemed to have dispersed. I was following a couple Pacific-slope Flycatchers around when another bird appeared.

At first, I was confused. This sure was a strange PSFL...it doesn't seem to be very yellow...the eye ring is quite round...the bill seems a tad short....why does it have crazy white stripes on the tertials? Ohhhhh...it's a Least Flycatcher. Least Flycatcher!

Though a far cry from a Bird Police species, Least Flycatchers are quite rare in California, and like all their bretheren, are misidentified on the regular. I stuck around for a while to look at it as much as I could. In typical fashion, at one point I had refound it at the exact moment when the Moonglow owner pulled up to chat with me...there was nothing I could do but turn my back to the bird. Persistence did pay off through, and I got quality looks before I left. As an aside, you gotta love when private landowners let birders roam freely on their vagrant-riddled property, even if you have to talk to them at inopportune times.

Aside from not being a yellow bird (the vast majority of empids we get on the coast are yellowish Pacific-slopes), one of the most striking features about this bird was how much the bright white tertial edgings stood out compared to the Pacific-slopes and Willow that were also present. This was apparent even in poor light. I never managed a good photo that showed this, but I did managed a crap photo that shows this (last photo above). Everything else looked typical for a fall Least from what I gather, though a touch of darkness at the tip of the lower mandible would have been the frosting on the flycatcher cake.

I had done it. I had come as close as possible to finding Smith's Flycatcher...this was my first self-found Least west of Texas, and I owed it all to a couple of bizarre nerddreams. In a certain sense, I had fulfilled my cosmic destiny, carried out the orders given to me on the astral plane. It turns out that most people have never fulfilled their destiny, so I'm not sure how much you can relate...but I assure you, it is accompanied by a special kind of glory. Things will never be the same. But what does it all mean? I may have to return to Modoc to find out. 

ID Challenges: The Worst of The West

Birding...it's not easy. Sure, there are times when you get out of the car, walk over to a group of birders, and they wave their hand at the staggering mega that is sitting there in front of you. Some birders will chase rarities, see the bird, then ask to have the field marks explained to them by others...how easy! How great! What else is great? Harlequin Ducks, Roseate Spoonbills, Elegant Trogons, Scissor-tailed Flycatchers, Scarlet Tanagers...those are beautiful, unmistakable birds.

Most birds? Not that easy. Not that easy to find, not that easy to see well, not that easy to identify. I thought I would take the time today to run down some of the hardest families of birds in the western Lower 48...people like lists, after all, particularly birders. There is some overlap here with other parts of the country, but there are distinct differences...for example, the east coast has more terns and thrushes, but less storm-petrels and hummingbirds.

Before we get to the list, I should name some Honorable Mentions that didn't quite make the Top Ten:

- Swans. Tundra vs. Trumpeter can be extremely challenging. Luckily, we only have two swan species to really worry about (until Bewick's Swan is split). That's a Tundra Swan up top there.

- Petrels. Petrels are arguably the most difficult of our birds, period. A large suite of them can potentially show up off our coast, very few birders know them well, and they rarely cooperate with boats or come close to seawatching sites. They fly incredibly fast and all come in white, gray, black and brown. However, they are rarely encountered relative to all the other birds we are discussing today; while often seen on repositioning cruises, there are few other instances when you can realistically expect to see them.

- Hawks. Hawk ID is not exceptionally complicated west of Texas, in my opinion, though obviously there are problematic plumages out there. Of course, Accipiters will always be misidentified by everybody, so hawks are deserving of a mention (an honorable one).

- Oystercatchers. This problem is unique to Southern California...Black Oystercatchers are as distinctive as any bird we have, but Black X American Oystercatcher hybrids and our local American Oystercatcher subspecies look confoundingly similar. American Oystercatcher is one of the most overreported birds in the area.

- Plovers. Telling apart American and Pacific Golden-Plovers can be absolutely excruciating. Beginning and intermediate birders will often misidentify Black-bellied Plovers for either Golden-Plover species. The smaller plovers aren't bad though.

- Crows and Ravens. Some birders can't tell crows and ravens apart from one another...well what about Common Raven vs. Chihuahuan Raven? American Crow vs. Northwestern Crow? In some places, these ID challenges can seem almost impossible to overcome, particularly with the crow situation in Washington.

- Gnatcatchers. If you are birding someplace where Black-capped Gnatcatcher can reasonably be found, the other two southwestern species can give you a world of trouble, especially if you don't find yourself birding down there very often and don't know the calls well. They are hyper little bastards, which makes seeing already subtle field marks an extremely taxing ordeal.

And now...the list!

#10 - Sparrows. The western U.S. is blessed/cursed with an impressive diversity of sparrows. The majority of them are migratory and/or have a tendency toward vagrancy, and they are all brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown brown...gray, and brown. However, though they are terrifying for beginners, sparrows aren't so bad once you've put some birding years in the rearview, and some of them are downright difficult to misidentify. That said, Spizella sparrows (like the Clay-colored above) can be especially vexing. Savannah Sparrows, one of the most abundant sparrows in the country, are arguably also the most misidentified of them all, as they can pass for Song, Lincoln's, Vesper and Baird's.

#9 - Sandpipers. Show me a rookie birder and I will show you someone who is going to be greatly troubled...by shorebirds, sandpipers in particular. The dowitcher duo is legendary, peep problems are relentless...to put it bluntly, almost every sandpiper species is at a high risk of being misidentified for something else. Those of us on the coast always have Siberian species on the brain, which complicates the picture even further...yikes. However, the "expected" species do become pretty familiar in time.

#8 - Warblers. Spring warblers are decidedly unproblematic, with the exception of waterthrushes (that's a whitish Northern above). However, you may not be aware that there are three other seasons. Most warblers do not have the same snappy facemelt in October that they do in April. They are referred to as "confusing fall warblers" for a reason, though I despise that tired and overused phrase. There are so many identification pitfalls here that there is no point in even starting in to them. Californians have it especially bad, since we have multiple records of almost every breeding warbler species in the country.

#7 - Vireos. Vireos make people very uncomfortable. Seen poorly enough, every single vireo species (with the exception of a vagrant White-eyed) stands a good chance of being misidentified. Just a few days ago on Facebook, I watched (seemingly in slow motion, like a car crash) in horror as a birder sought out the expertise of an expert, to identify a bird she had photographed very well. He called it an Orange-crowned Warbler...it was a Warbling Vireo. At least with a sandpiper you know it's a sandpiper...with vireos, people call them warblers (and vice versa) on the regular. The hardest vireos? Warbling vs. Philadelphia, and Blue-headed vs. Cassin's vs. Plumbeous. That's a Philadelphia above.

#6 - Longspurs. Away from the prairies of eastern Colorado, Wyoming and Montana, we don't even get to see longspurs in spring. When we get them, they always look like rubbish. Lapland (above) can look like Smith's, Smith's can look like Chesnut-collared, Chestnut-collared can look like McCown's. And 90% of the time, you are getting total garbage looks at them. They all look similar, their calls are not drastically different, and they hate being cooperative for birders. That is a recipe for pain.

#5 - Hummingbirds. Unlike sneaky longspurs and skulky warblers, you can typically get really solid looks at hummingbirds. That said, this may not be of much use to you if you are not prepared...male hummingbirds are facemelting birds, but young males (like the Costa's above) and females can be brutal. With the exceptions of Violet-crowned and maybe Berylline, I think every one of our young/female hummingbird species is at an extremely high risk of being misidentified. Don't believe me? Go geri-birding in Arizona and watch the carnage unfold.

#4 - Storm-petrels. I lead a lot of pelagic trips, and I will tell you that no group of birds strikes more fear into the heart of an inexperienced birder than these. When it comes to these birds, people seeing them for the first time completely surrender any attempt at an ID to the leaders on the boat. We could tell them whatever we wanted and get away with it (fortunately, we want to tell them the truth). Other than the lovely Fork-tailed Storm-Petrels (most of the birds above), they are either all small black birds or small black birds with white rumps. Generally, they want nothing to do with the boat you are on and you are going to be really unsatisfied looking a them if there is a big swell that day. New developments in the Leach's complex have everyone reeling. These are the birds your nightmares are made of.

#3 - Jaegers. You probably didn't see this being #3....but the difficulties of jaeger ID are legendary. Even dark Pomarines and South Polar Skuas get mixed up. Trying to ID certain individuals can lead to such circular logic and mental numbness that I am getting tired just thinking about it. Just be happy when you get to see "easy" individuals, like this Pomarine above.

#2 - Flycatchers. You know what? I haven't done a quiz in a while. What do you think this bird is? The answer is at the bottom of the post. Hint: It's a flycatcher.

Flycatchers are just heinous. Think about each gnarly genus we have all lumped into one jaw-clenching, teeth-grinding family...Contopus, Empidonax, Myiarchus, Tyrannus, etc. That's some heavy shit. The first three genera are especially bad. I don't even know what to tell you here, except to advise you that you can at least get close to the right species. Hammond's and Grays are not similar. Willows and Pacific-slopes are not a confusing couple. Buff-breasted do not look like pewees.

Pewees....yeah. Just identify pewees correctly (don't misidentify them for Empids) and you will command at least a small modicum of respect. Don't report an Eastern unless it's calling though, or you will be run out of your state.

#1 - Gulls. Obvi. I have nothing to say about gulls that you haven't heard before. This is a perfectly typical Herring Gull...I bet not many of you knew that.

There you have it, the list, for your edification and mine. Do you agree, or do I have it all wrong? Are ducks and geese deserving of being on the list? Are alcids alarming? Do Wrentits cause your brain to boggle? I hope not. At any rate, feel free to let us know.


p.s. The quiz bird is a Least Flycatcher. Props if you got it right. And before you descend into a nerdy rage, yes it is a flycatcher that breeds in western states. #notjustavaguerunt

Sic Semper Tyrannus

Yellow-bellied Flycatcher is an Empid I hold, for some reason, in high regard. I first met the species in Pennsylvania back in 2009, and we have since crossed paths in Florida, Mexico, Costa Rica, and now Texas. Photographed at South Padre Island, TX.

Texas is a state rich in flycatchers...with only one exception (Gray Kingbird), every flycatcher that breeds east of Texas is found regularly in the state. And then there are Scissor-tails, and the valley species, and all the vagrants they have been blessed to receive over the years. I'm not ambitious enough to post pics of every flycatcher species I saw out there last spring...but I can do most of them.

Are flycatchers a major headache migraine? Does looking at them make you feel stupid? Do high-ranking birders with mysterious motives make false statements about how often they vocalize? Yes! But that is part of what makes them so great. You don't have to worry about them hybridizing (much) and they are a group of birds that your new birding app won't be able to identify for you for a very, very long time. And they do stuff. Good stuff.

When you get to the end of the post and are drenched in sweat, feel free to cruise over to The Powdermill Reserve (the only place I've seen Yellow-bellied Flycatcher in hand) for a nice post on more eastern flycatchers.

I'm itching to find one out here in California...most (not all) of the individuals I've seen have been pretty easy to ID, and they tend to stand out...they are yellow (er...olive and faintly yellowish) and have a call that isn't a damn "whit" note. South Padre Island, TX.

Least Flycatcher...the gray flycatcher of the east. It is the most basic Empid of the east, in terms of color and abundance. South Padre Island, TX.

Least Flycatcher, probably the same individual as above. Note the amount of darkness on the mandible (or lower mandible, as most of us say), which is atypical. I've always found the amount of paleness here to be dependably variable in many Empid species, and a field guide could potentially lead the birder astray with this character. South Padre Island, TX.

Acadian Flycatcher has a big head and big bill, a true loggerhead of the Empidonax. South Padre Island, TX.

Traill's Flycatcher (the pre-split name of Alder and Willow Flycatchers) is one of the most troubling species-pairs that eastern birders have to face. Even California birders are pained by this problem, as a handful of legit Alders have been documented in the state over the years...and guess what? We want more. South Padre Island, TX.

This is the same bird as above. Note the overall gray-brown on the upperparts that does not contrast with the throat, rendering it quite dull even by Empidonax standards. There is an eyering present, but it is extremely narrow, which is to be expected in eastern Willow Flycatchers. There doesn't appear to be any greenish coloration from this angle, aside from the inside of the folded wing; it is remarkably drab. By all accounts, this is a Willow Flycatcher.

Here is a different Traill's from South Padre Island. This bird is a bit greener and more contrasty in the throat than the above individual, has a more pronounced eyering and seemingly has a shorter bill. It actually looks considerably different than the above bird. I'm going with Alder Flycatcher on this one. Of course, empids can look quite a bit different in fall, so there's only so far one can go with some of these field marks without hearing a vocalization...but it never hurts to try. South Padre Island, TX.

Eastern Wood-Pewee has the distinction of being one of the most misidentified flycatchers in the U.S., despite being one of the most abundant. Learn the pewees, and then you will love them. Until then, you will not have a healthy relationship. South Padre Island, TX.

Couch's Kingbird. This is a typical brightly-colored bird with a smallish bill. Atypical is how the tail appears completely unnotched. Willacy County, TX.

Couch's Kingbird. There is variation in bill structure in this species, and you can see that this bird has a heavier bill than the above individual, being especially deep toward the base. I reckon Tropical Kingbirds have a more consistent bill length, and still appear longer-billed (and not so big at the base) than this individual. Sabal Palm Sanctuary, Brownsville, TX.

Eastern Kingbird, a true feel-good flycatcher. Everyone can love an Eastern Kingbird. South Padre Island, TX.

Brown-crested Flycatcher. This is cooperi, the subspecies found in Texas, and is less beefy than the magister that reside in Arizona. Note the unimpressive size of the bill. Hidalgo County, TX.

Great Crested Flycatcher. God, look at the tapering of the white border of the first tertial feather! That's what I'm fucking talking about. What I'm not talking about is why Great Crested Flycatcher and Brown-crested Flycatcher have more structural differences in the grammar of their names than the birds do in reality. South Padre Island, TX.

I've Become What I Hate

Good God. Look at this abomination. Two giant, jet black mutant feet. A massive, Hutt-like torso, with some sort of gull head protruding off to one side, all in a guise of angelic whiteness.



Actually, its an unseasonal Tundra Swan hanging out with a gull flock at Presque Isle.



Warblers are not easy to photograph, particularly when you are not posted up at a water source and can have them come to you. That would be too easy. Usually, the pictures you get end up looking like this Magnolia Warbler and Black-capped Chickadee.



But sometimes they come out a little bit better.





Least Flycatcher. This species, and other members of its genus, have been causing aneurysms and epilepsy among birders for as long birders have existed, due to the extreme difficulty in telling them apart.