Great Glorious Gulling in San Mateo County

You knew it was coming...it was unavoidable. I don't think I've done a gull post since 2016. Is a full-blown Larid post in July appropriate? Not in the slightest, but here it is and here you are reading it. Don't worry, this should be better than a photo study of Ring-billed Gulls or some similar garbage.

The winter of 2016-2017 was quite good for California gullers. While the Ross's Gull was undoubtedly the undisputed highlight, a close second was the Black-tailed Gull that was seen in Monterey County (where Billy and I dipped the day the Ross's died) and then again in San Mateo County. That is what brought me to the mouth of Gazos Creek, where I found Terrills, Michael Park and other unidentified birders, but no Black-tailed. At least there were kittiwakes though.

Last winter was tremendous for Black-legged Kittiwakes in this part of the state, being seen from shore with regularity in many places. This was another bird I had missed entirely in 2016, but they were easy to find early this year. Seeing pelagic birds on shore really feels like cheating.

This was the second time I had dragged Billy and Annabelle (the first time in fetal form) out to dip on this Black-tailed Gull. Hopefully this event won't repeat itself again.

Luckily, kittiwakes were not the lone highlight of the day. This Lesser Black-backed Gull in Princeton Harbor (Denniston Creek Mouth) was a very nice consolation rarity. Despite their abundance in some parts of the continent, this is still a very rare bird in most of California. To give you an idea of how good the gulling was around this time, there were a minimum of 3 individual LBBGs in San Mateo County; in eBird, there is only one record in all prior years.

On another day, I lurked across the bay down to get my usual punishment at Pilarcitos Creek Mouth...this is a legendary gull spot where I have failed to see anything interesting year after year after year. This newly-arrived Allen's Humingbird was next to my car when I got out; a good omen?

I bumped into Ken Schneider, who let me know about a Glaucous Gull at the creek mouth. I arrived just as the bird peaced out to the northeast, possibly to visit one of the inland reservoirs.

I stuck around for a while, hoping something else of interest would stop in; this roost site is well-known for its high turnover of gulls. I felt the old familiar presence of rarities...but where were they? This attractive Glaucous hybrid (presumably Glaucous x Herring) dropped in to the flock, but that was not what I had on my mind.

Finally, a Vague Runt worth writing home about materialized...Laughing Gull! Like Lesser Black-backed, this is a Salton Sea specialty in California. Show me a Laughing Gull anywhere else in the state, and I will show you a damn rare bird.

Ok gull nerds...what do you think the bird in the center is? This is not a quiz, I honestly don't know. Note the bright red orbital ring, red gape, eye color, bill shape and pattern (see below as well). It superficially resembles a Herring Gull, but there are things "wrong" with it. Those are Mew Gulls in front and to the right, and a Western Gull on the left for comparison. The primaries are the typical four-year gull black with white apical spots. I did not see leg color, the bird disappeared almost immediately after I found it, flushed by wankers.

Lots of conflicting weirdness here.

You may have noticed a theme in this blog post so far...no, not the gulls, I'm talking about the shitty photos. Here is a decent kittiwake to help redeem myself. Speaking of shitty photos and redemption, let me betray a photographer's secret to all you noobs (n00bs)...if you want to convince everybody that you were born with a camera in your hand and that you are god's gift to nature photography, don't post shitty photos. Only post good ones. It's that simple. Fortunately for you and me both, I don't pretend to be a photographer, I just take photos. Some are good, most are not, but I will show it all...gross.

This kittiwake was bellowed at by an asshole Western Gull. Luckily, no harm was done.

This kittiwake demonstrated the classic pleasantness and unobtrusive nature characteristic of the species. The kittiwakes that morning were the most confiding I've seen south of Alaska.

It is also worth mentioning that at this site alone, over a couple different visits, I witnessed birders string Laughing Gull, Slaty-backed Gull, Lesser Black-backed Gull and Glaucous Gull. I appreciate that trying to identify rare gulls is an exercise in self-harm for many, but let's be careful out there friends.

After the unambiguous victory at Pilarcitos Creek (a first for me), I returned to Princeton Harbor to scour the Denniston Creek flock. Unambiguous success quickly turned into ambiguous success though when John Sterling and I got on this nice "Kumlien's" Iceland Gull. Note the lack of a tail band, which the bird was happy to display repeatedly.

The identification of this bird was actually not the ambiguous thing for once - it even has the dark "arrowheads" on the primaries, which don't tend to persist with a lot of wear. It was the classification that was problematic. At the time, rumor had it that Iceland Gull and Thayer's Gull were to be lumped in some fashion, a rumor which proved to be true...the AOS not only lumped them, it smashed the Kumlien's subspecies into oblivion. So, instead of this being a kumlieni Iceland Gull (a Bird Police species in California), officially this bird is now considered an intergrade between the thayeri and glaucoides subspecieseseseseseseses of Iceland Gull.

That's it on the left, showing the tail and wing pattern one would expect on a kumlieni thayeri x glaucoides intergrade. So for now I have put this bird on the shelf, no point in sending it to the Bird Police.

Here is a somewhat bleached Iceland Gull (formerly known as Thayer's...crap, this is going to take some getting used to) with a very white base color, but still showing the contrasting dark secondaries and darker primaries typical of thayeri.

Oh, and in case you are wondering, I spent a great deal of time looking for Slaty-backed Gulls in February and early March without success, but at least I had some other good birds to show for it. The San Mateo County coast offers some of the best gulling in the Lower 48, hopefully next winter can come close to matching the glory of the last. 

The Salton Sea: Birding A Post-Nature Dystopia

I finally got to visit the place where this classic line was uttered..."No Matt, that's a fucking catbird." Last month I made my first winter visit to the Salton Sea in many years, the last time being when I had notoriously dipped on the Bean Goose for three (3) consecutive days. Luckily there was no such painful dipping to be endured, but then again there were no rare birds to dip on...which is why you are about to get slammed with a series of nonbird photos.

Caution is warranted at Barnacle's; nude swimming alone is not warranted.

Victory at last: SCAR and Dipper Dan celebrate seeing a large flock of Cedar Waxwings. Multitudes of Bombycillids inspire much posturing in nerds. Shortly after this photo was taken, SCAR and DD began trespassing into various yards with reckless abandon, bragging about waxwing observations and trying to pick fights with locals. Can there be such a thing as too many waxwings?

Paul E. Lehman courageously leads the charge of his nerd platoon. They were looking at a Varied Thrush, which is the rarest bird we had at the Salton Sea that weekend.

Some people go to the Salton Sea to crush birds; other people go to the Salton Sea to crush dead fish.

There seems to be a disturbing amount of art popping up along the southeastern shore of the Salton Sea. That looks like an old heron nest that has been redecorated. What does it all mean? And why does looking at it give me so many feelings?

Oh, but what is the bird directly in front of the art? It is a Lesser Black-backed Gull, a sort of rare bird (we saw 4 that day). This image is profound, and larophiles and art critics alike are already saying that it will change everything. We may be on our way to birding a post-nature dystopia, but goddammit it's going to look fucking meaningful.

For the Christmas Count, Dipper Dan and I were assigned the Imperial Irrigation District wetlands in Niland. We were specifically supposed to find Least Bitterns, which we utterly failed to do. It was embarrassing, but we birded the shit out of those ponds. There was no shortage of Yuma Ridgway's Rails though, and this one was not afraid to feed just a few feet from the car.

Hella confiding...Ridgway's can be quite brave compared to many of their cousins, perhaps in part due to their size.  Back when I was not #7, I used to wonder about how I would tell Clapper and Virginia Rails apart. It seemed like it might be difficult (give me a break, I wasn't born #7).  Plumage characters aside, Clapper/Ridgway's/King Rails are all enormous in comparison; these big rails are closer to coots in size than Virginia Rails.

We had a few Vermilion Flycatchers on Pound Road, at one of the duck clubs. As with the past several winters, there wasn't much around in terms of rarities, but we did ok...American Redstarts, Yellow Warbler, Yellow-footed and Thayer's Gulls, and Horned Grebe were all decent birds. The water level of the sea looked as low and sad as ever...it's still good birding, but it's not what it used to be. Bummer.

We made a quick stop in San Dimas on the way down, to try to find the wintering Tango Bravo Kilo India. I'm still working on getting a decent White-throated Sparrow shot...I have a long way to go. This brightly-marked bird was at Horsethief Canyon Park; we also heard the Thick-billed Kingbird here, calling from the suburbs west of the park.

Staging For Migration: Major BB&B and Bird News

Despite the number of people who proudly proclaim to their children that this is a swan, we know it as an American White Pelican. This wild bird has taken up residence at Lake Merritt, competing with the injured "Hank" for handouts.

Well birders, there is good and bad news here at BB&B. The bad news: PERPETUALWEEKENDY2K12-13 is about to come to an end. As you may know, next week I migrate back from the bay area south for the spring and summer, where I will be splitting time between Ventura and Santa Barbara counties for the field season. That means less freedom, being separated from Booby Brittany, missing some good shows, being in Bro Country again, hanging out with Adam Searcy, yadda yadda yadda...

The good news? I will be working on Santa Cruz Island, which will be my third island job, in a third part of the Pacific. I will be earning money again to fund future birding trips (which I can't help but start plotting now...I have THE URGE), will be only a couple hours from good mountain and desert birding, get a lot of boat time as part of my job commute, and finally am joining forces with the bird research cabal of PRBO.

But you know all this already. What you care about reader, is that my ranch on the island has some high-quality, fresh internet! How sick is that? This is a luxury that no one had anticipated. So instead of an arid spring and summer where your mind lays dormant due to a lack of BB&B posts, I will be able to feed you content constantly. Of course, it may just consist of an endless stream of Island Foxes and Island Scrub-Jays most of the time, but that is better than nothing.

I like the dual tufts going on at the back of his head. It's too bad it's so bloody hard to get a good background with this bird in the frame, as I haven't been anywhere else where you can get this close to a wild white pelican.

Locals may recognize this bird as Hank. Hank is actually a female it seems, as the wild pelican above is considerably larger than Hank and there is a difference in size between genders. Her left wing is permanently fucked up from colliding with powerlines many years ago; she was brought to the Lake Merritt nature center to live out her days in peace and delicious hand-fed tilapia. More on Hank here.

Right. This all goes into motion next week. Once again, the weird turns pro...

In other bird and birding news:

Anacapa Island, Santa Cruz Island's close neighbor, has been proclaimed officially rat-free after an extensive and apparently wildly successful extermination program. Seabirds like Scripps's Murrelet are subsequently flourishing.

The American Bird Conservancy has produced a 30 minute film on the ongoing extinction crisis of Hawaiian birds. Lots of good info and bird footage on the bird extinction capital of the world, which sadly sits in our very own United States.

The Nature Conservancy has been hard at work on restoring short-grass prairie in Chihuahua, Mexico. Not only will this benefit dozens of vulnerable bird species, but they have even reintroduced bison as well.

I've posted this bird already, but it's still bird of the month. One must be very lucky to be able to get this close to a Lesser Black-backed Gull in California. San Leandro Marina, San Leandro, CA.

Maybe I'll take another look for it before I head south. It might be completely white-headed by now, which would be cool to see.

USFWS has announced an increase in the wild Whooping Crane flock in Texas, which is nice considering that a Texan water agency was found legally accountable for the deaths of 23 Whooping Cranes in the winter of 2008-2009.

EBird wants you to help in the search for Rusty Blackbirds this spring (that's right now, easterners), and enter data that will help inform next year's Rusty Blackbird Spring Migration Blitz. I would be inclined to participate, but alas I live in California and have seen all of one Rusty Blackbird. Ever. Life is pain.

On a lighter note, check out VermPhoto, a new blog by a great bird photographer who actually has a good sense of humor. Beware of tits!

This is my best yard bird so far in Daly City, an intergrade Red-shafted X Yellow-shafted Flicker. I don't get to see these intergrades very often. Note the dull pinkish chevron on the bird's nape.

This is probably the best flicker photo I've ever taken, despite the urban perch and background. Not bad for being taken through a window eh?

A nice rainbow of yellows, pinks and oranges confirms this bird's mixed ancestry. Hybrid Theory is not at play here.

Clapper Rail! The lighting is bullshit, but the bird is not. Arrowhead Marsh, Oakland, CA.

My, what big feet you have Clapper Rail. My, what a nice metal band you have as well. This is the "California" Clapper Rail, Rallus longirostris obsoletes, a subspecies endemic to the bay area. I believe I've actually seen all 5 Clapper Rail subspecies that occur in the U.S....pretty sweet.

You probably recognize the Rock Pigeon, but who is the owner of those devious claws? They look weathered and gnarled by evil....anger, hate, aggression...and if there is a Rock Pigeon lurking nearby, there is no doubt that dark forces are at work. Could they belong to this guy?

Nope, just another majestic Great Egret. If you ever want to get someone into birding, Lake Merritt is as good of a place to start as any. You can see species up close there that simply don't tolerate people most everywhere else.

Why Hello Lesser Black-backed Gull Its Nice To Meet You

While birding this afternoon with admitted nerd Cass Grattan (and celebrated author of Ode To The Drag Bray Birds of the Pacific Northwest), I decided to swing by the San Leandro Marina, where Noah Arthur reported a Lesser Black-backed Gull (LBBG) from a parking lot next to El Torito over the weekend. You easterners may find this a perfectly reasonable place to see a LBBG, but here in California they are substantially rarer, especially away from the Salton Sea. Although not a MEGA, it's still a damn good bird in the state.

Although no one had reported the bird since Noah's report from last weekend, I was surprised to find it within a few minutes. Conveniently, it was located in the gull flock I happened to be standing next to. It allowed repeated crushings and very close approach...I'm sure it's been taking handouts from people in this lot for quite a while. At any rate, by far the most cooperative member of its species I've seen.

This was a life bird for Cass. A birdgasm may or may not have occurred.

I had forgotten how small these birds can be for a four-year gull...there were California Gulls in this flock that made this bird look puny in comparison.

If this gull post turned you on or completely bummed you out, be sure to check BB&B tomorrow for the complete, and possibly vulgar, explanation on Larophilia....things may never be the same.

Benchmarks Ensure Salvation

As I write this, I can hear an Elegant Trogon croaking at me......from a very close distance.  He sounds like the timing is right to track down a female and find a nice cavity (preferably in a Sycamore) to do the dirty dirty in.  Ah, the sweet sounds of spring!  For the past hour I have been serenaded by Cassin's Sparrows, Flammulated Owls, Nashville Warblers (an eastern Nashville is on the left), etc.

Right.  But when we get down to it, I'm sitting in Arcata, California, in early February.  I have just returned from checking out Rock Sandpipers on the North Jetty of Humboldt Bay, and to both them and me, its not looking like spring around here.  All those birds I'm listening to (Gilded Flicker at the moment) have been sent to me over the internets as homework.....I'm reacquainting myself with the birds of southeast Arizona, which I will be dealing with in person in about three short weeks from now.

What is coming up a bit sooner is the bittersweet anniversary of Hunter S. Thompson's demise, on February 20.  He took his own life at his typewriter, after talking about it for months.  The father of Gonzo Journalism, he is by default the grandfather of Gonzo Birding, which is only dabbled in, rarely, by a brave few birders from time to time.  I need to think of an appropriate way to celebrate......maybe Gonzo Birding Day should be held on February 20 as well. The staff here at the Human Birdwatcher Project ("Birdwatchers are people too!") are mobilizing.

A first-year Lesser Black-backed Gull holds it down in Virginia.

I think we may need symbol.  Nothing too derivative of the the classic six-fingered, double-thumbed hand clutching a dagger and peyote button.....but something with style.  Any ideas?  I'm friends with a lot of artists....

But we'll cover that more as the time gets close.  Right now I'm enjoying being back in my old raging grounds, with easy access to quality birding.  One of the few things I can't enjoy about San Francisco is the lack of good birding areas.....there's a lot of pavement down there.  I mean, sure, there are few good spots, but they're not really comparable to some of the places here that haul in crippling vagrants.  

Ok, that's it for now.  The pictures today were selected completely at random.  Do what you think is best.

A beefy first-year Greater Black-backed Gull, for comparison.

The Bodie Island Lighthouse in North Carolina's Outer Banks.

The Blood Of The Hybrid Is Just A Recipe

Hybrid? No. This Lesser Black-backed Gull is as pure as uncut Colombian cocaine. This bird was photographed on December 26 basking on the northern shores of the Salton Sea, just south of Salt Creek at the Salton Sea State Recreation Area. I believe this was in Riverside County, but I could be mistaken.



I'm back in San Francisco now, hunkering down to face the new year. I hope the catatonic depression you probably slipped into over the holidays is beginning to fade...and if not, I highly recommend the therapeutic powers of staring at birds for prolonged periods of time. Selah.