Vanquishing a Nemesis, Cetacean Backs, Sweet Succulent Seabirds

There are some birds I have special feelings about. Some of them I've never come close to seeing (Spoon-billed Sandpiper), some of them I've been painfully close to seeing (Ivory Gull), some of them I've seen but not well enough to count (Red-breasted Chat), some languish on my heard-only list (Black Rail), and some I've seen...just not in a particular place. As many of you know, since I have been bitching about it for years, Northern Gannet falls into the latter category. I've seen them on the east coast, but there has been one in the bay area for years now, successfully eluding my attempts to see it in three (3) different counties. What the fuck? Finally, persistence paid off...on my first pelagic trip of 2016, I saw a glowing white speck way off in the distance on the side of a cliff. It wasn't really identifiable as a bird, but I knew that I had finally met my destiny. We motored closer, and it was indeed The Bird. State birds are good birds, especially when you have been pining for them for years and dipped on them over and over again.

Of course, the only reason I was on a boat looking at a gannet in California was because I was on my first pelagic trip of the year, out of Half Moon Bay. There have been a very large number of whales off of Half Moon Bay this fall. We've had no trouble getting great looks at Humpbacks.

The lumps along the lower back are an easy way to ID a Humpback. This one has a more pronounced dorsal fin than many.

Along with all the Blue and Humpback Whales, there have also been Fin Whales! Fin Whales are relatively rare in the area (I've never seen one here before this year). They are similar to Blue Whales in size and shape, but are solid gray and have a more pronounced dorsal fin. They also move extremely fast.

When there are lots of krill-eating whales offshore, they are typically accompanied by Cassin's Auklets. There were hundreds of these diminutive alcids on this day, more than I'd seen in a few years. In classic embarrassing form, a good number were too full to fly away from the boat.

We had a pair of Craveri's Murrelets next to the boat, but frustratingly I was looking at a jaeger overhead at the time and totally missed them. Even more frustratingly, I saw what was probably another one but got unsatisfactory looks. I've seen them a couple times before, but you know what? That is not enough. Need more murrelets. At least this Scripps's Murrelet was cooperative...they seem to be doing well where they breed down in the Channel Islands, so hopefully this species will be increasingly easy to see on pelagic trips.

While reviewing photos for this blog post, I came across this shearwater that at the time I just passed off as a Sooty. I only took photos of it because it was close to the boat. Funny...it doesn't look like a Sooty now...

The bird has a very small bill, whitish throat, round head, and underwing pattern that does not match Sooty. A couple knowledgeable Bird Policemen and I came to the consensus of Short-tailed Shearwater, which is an excellent bird for August; they typically do not arrive until the beginning of October, and are generally hard to find even then. I'm not the biggest proponent of birders becoming photographers (not that there is anything wrong with that, obviously) - I recommend getting a scope before a camera - but having a decent crusher can pay huge dividends on pelagic trips.

Whales were not the only marine mammals in abundance. It is always a pleasure to meet up with a pod of Pacific White-sided Dolphins.

This sea lion looking thing is actually a Northern Right Whale-Dolphin. Most people have never heard of such a thing, so if you were one of those people a few seconds ago, now you are not. NRWDs are uncommon and typically travel with large pods of other dolphins. They are mostly black and have no dorsal fin at all...they are very easy to identify but adept at not allowing themselves to be photographed well, even though they will bowride.

When you hear the phrase "birding is hard", one of the very first things that comes to mind should be jaegers. Take these birds for example. When we saw this pursuit, another leader and I agreed that the bird with a fish was a Parasitic and the other bird was a Long-tailed. What we didn't realize (which I do now, checking photos) was that the bird with the fish had just flown over the boat a minute before, and at that point we called it a Long-tailed. Balls! Looking at my photos, I am not completely satisfied with either ID...the confusing bird does not look particularly large in comparison, but the bill does not look particularly small and the back seems quite dark...but there is still some contrast in the secondaries...maybe it would have a lighter upperwing if it was older...ugh.

This bird, the pursuer in the above photo, was not hard to ID. This immature Long-tailed Jaeger has the completely dark underwings of an adult, which Pomarine and Parasitic would never show. It's a particularly shitty photo, I know, but it gets the field mark across.

The other bird still retained the underwing of a more youthful bird. Here it is being whimsical.

No obvious white flash on the upperwing of this bird. Only three primary shafts were white, which is typically a very helpful mark for Long-tailed Jaeger, though they can occasionally have more. If I have to choose and call this bird something it would be Long-tailed, though I do not do it with great conviction or courage.

You know, when someone in a guide or leader position misidentifies a bird in the field, it often causes raised eyebrows, or if it happens repeatedly, feverish gossip. This is not so with jaegers...if someone misses a call, we all move on. No biggie. They are the great equalizer, and a group of birds that I would really like to know better.

While the experience of watching jaegers at sea lies somewhere in between maddening and great fun, watching Black-footed Albatross is always warm and comforting. Watching folks absolutely light up when they see them for the first time doesn't get old.

Brown Booby was a solid bonus rarity. Unlike last year, when they seemed to be everywhere, they have been few and far between in 2016. This boob must have been stoked to find such an excellent drum to perch on.

Mmmmm...Sabine's Gulls. Almost everyone who has not yet seen an Ivory or Ross's Gull will usually pick this bird as their favorite (also, favourite) gull, and I am not in any position to throw shade on this pick. I feel very fortunate to see them every fall.

Sabine's Gulls are heartening...nay, delightful to see in and of themselves, but generally speaking the more Sabine's you see the more terns, phalaropes and jaegers are around. If you are seeing a lot Sabine's on a particular day, chances are there will be a lot of other good seabirds around.

There is generally not a big audio component to pelagic trips other than leaders screaming about birds we are spotting. The one major exception to this rule is Common Murre; we hear lots of murre dads bellowing to their chicks, and lots of murre chicks pitifully peeping at their dads. This is a typical murre dad letting loose with a loving bellow.

Split, Lump, Whinge, Repeat

I am now king of the scrub-jays, having seen California, Florida, Island (above) and Woodhouse's. With that milestone, I now just need to become the king of...lots of other things. 

When I first started birding, I had seen one species of scrub-jay. This is not because I hadn't yet been to places like Santa Cruz Island, Arizona or Florida, it is because the only scrub-jay that "officially" existed was the Scrub Jay. Now, the Scrub Jay has been left by the wayside, stripped of its capital letters but gaining a hyphen...and most notably was made into four separate taxa. We've come a long way.

The newest American Ornithologists Union (AOU ) supplement just came out, and a lot of birders are happy with it...you gotta love armchair lifers, or at least I do. Woodhouse's Scrub-Jay was my only addition from north of Mexico, but I got several more from Mexico and Costa Rica. I did not delifer at all, which is how I prefer it when these supplements come out. I'm not anti-lump, I just dislike losing birds. You understand. The vast majority of birders in North America bend the knee to the AOU (the king in the north!) regarding what is considered a full species and what is not, though we are rarely totally happy with what they decide.

Lesser Violetear was one of my armchair lifers. While I am pleased that I now have Mexican Violetear and Lesser Violetear instead of plain old Green Violetear, many are left wondering why the name Lesser Violetear was chosen...there is no Greater Violetear, after all. But hey, I'll take yet another poor bird name if that means a legit split got to go through.

What fascinates me is that there are a number of birders out there who are can't stand all this tinkering with species. They are neither splitters nor lumpers, they just dislike the amount of splitting and lumping that goes on. They are essentially against taxonomic revisions altogether. They dislike the new names, the new species. To them, this is just a nuisance, something they have to endure. Why is this so?

A poor grasp of science comes to mind immediately. Believe it or not, a lot of people fail to comprehend that our understanding of science is constantly changing, and overall these changes are improvements. Like many people, many birders don't really understand basic scientific concepts. People like to pigeonhole things, it's in our nature, at least culturally, and the tendency of pigeonholing is at direct odds with the changing ways we perceive and describe the world around us. We don't want to find out that the planet is not round, that the sun does not rotate around Earth, that American Coot and Caribbean Coot are conspecific. So while a lot of folks are really hung up on things staying the way they were originally taught, science marches on.

There is another reason birders advocate for a static taxonomy...they have trouble being up to date. In other words, they are simply unaware that the AOU is responsible for making these decisions and that it happens annually. A surprising number of birders believe that the American Birding Association (whose primary focus is advocating birding, not science) is "in charge" of splitting and lumping, which is indicative of the general ignorance on this topic out there in birderdom.

Finally, there is a distinction between birding and ornithology. Not all ornithologists are birders, at least not in the traditional sense. One does not simply earn the title of ornithologist after a few years of birding. Almost all birders are not ornithologists (no, "field ornithologists" don't count in this case). Science does not have to answer to the whims of birders; that's just how it is, but some birders have great difficult accepting this.

There is no doubt that birders have a lot to contribute when it comes to the field of ornithology, such as documenting the abundance and distribution of seabirds like Long-tailed Jaeger. That does not entitle reluctant birders to a moratorium on updating avian taxonomy. The AOU does not have a list enforcement arm (unlike bird record committees), so if you don't like what they do, you don't have to play by their lists.

Obviously the AOU is not perfect. If you follow the AOU very closely, you are probably aware there is no shortage of criticisms that can be lobbed at them. One could say that they act extremely slowly, they give birds poor names, they split things that should not be split and they lump things that should not be lumped. However, no one who is well-versed in taxonomic relationships, and science in general, advocates for keeping taxonomy static. There is no reason to release a single AOU supplement every 25 years just to make sure all the whinging birders are ready for it. Advocating for a fixed list of species is basically just saying "Fuck off, science. I don't want to be bothered by things changing"...and that, obviously, is a myopic, selfish and bizarre way of viewing the world. If you want to reject the fact that our collective knowledge of birds is constantly growing and changing, then you can go ahead and reject the names of birds and established species altogether. Call the Common Gallinule an American Coot instead...no one can stop you. Lesser Nighthawk? Pffffft...no, that is a Greater Daybat. Island Scrub-Jay? Napes. Mainland Blue-Flapper.

A lot of species that we now take for granted were once considered two or more species, or lumped in with other species. Long-billed Dowitcher was once considered a subspecies of Short-billed Dowitcher (above).

It all comes down to change...the last thing the world needs are more people who cannot accept the fruit of new studies and research, and the accompanying changes in the way which we understand said fruit. Sure we can be skeptical and not accept everything the AOU does as ordained by the gods of ornithology (though much of what the AOU does is ordained by ornithological gods), but change is going to come and that isn't something to be afraid of. You don't have to agree with it. The science in this field is not always perfect (the infamous Kumlien's Gull study comes to mind), as we are imperfect beings...but all the world's authoritative entities on bird taxonomy (the AOU, the IOC, the Clements checklist) can agree on one thing...taxonomy should be updated regularly. In attempting to refine the relationships between the world's birds, trying to figure out the passenger manifest of Noah's Ark is not going to cut it!

Will Red Crossbills ever be split? There was a lot of hype about it for years...but maybe an 8-way split is just too gnarly, and perhaps it is just simply not deserved...these "types" are thought to have diverged less than 100,000 years ago (for comparison, Eastern and Western Willets diverged 700,000 years ago). Whatever new information that can be gleaned about Red Crossbill types and how they are related will be fascinating to learn. Whole new frontiers of bird knowledge are opening up, and I hope those who would rather drag their sluggish feet in the past will eventually want to keep pace with the rest of us, regardless of whether field guides change or not.

Of Fruit and Glory: Lifering Again In Ventura County

Brown Boobies have made their presence known in 2015 up and down the California Coast all the way north to British Columbia. You show me warm water, and I will show you boobies. All photos today are from Ventura and Santa Barbara County waters.

In October of this year, I returned to an autumnal birding battleground where I had not waged avian war since 1999: Ventura County. It was like MacArthur returning to the goddamn Phillipines. Pretty much the same thing. The place can, and has been, littered with Vague Runts in the fall, so it was great to be back at the proper time of year. I had racked up massive numbers of life and state birds in the 90's in Ventura, when I was but a young nerd, so it was refreshing to be back during the month when anything can happen. This time, I had a specific target bird in mind...not a standard rarity per se, but a tubenose that can be found offshore in the right month and the right luck of the right year. And so with comrades old and new, we lurked offshore on a big Island Packers catamaran.

The most abundant bird of the day was Black-vented Shearwater; we had obscene numbers of them in the channel near Santa Cruz Island. It was really, really gross. 

Jaegers were in abundance, which is always good news for a birder, but it also means that a birder is going to get seriously humbled. Jaeger identification is not for the faint of heart.

I reckon this is a juvenile Long-tailed. It's real dark. Look at that cute little stubby bill.

Here is another juvenile Long-tailed. It's not real dark, unlike the previous bird. It's doing a passable juvenile Western Gull impression here, which is odd.

This was an interesting bird...there was debate over dark Pomarine Jaeger vs. South Polar Skua as this bird made a single pass by the boat; despite the heavy bill, I don't think this has wings broad enough for a skua, and I would also expect to see more white visible (or any at all) on those fresh primaries growing in. It's also a deep, almost featureless dark brown on the upperparts, all of which point toward Pomarine Jaeger in my book.

Out between Santa Cruz and Santa Rosa Islands we ran into some migrant Pigeon Guillemots. These birds migrate north for the winter, which is not a trendy style of migration at all.

We had a mellow pair of young Sabine's Gull near the boat for a bit. It was a soothing experience.

Here is the second bird. Twice mellowed. By this point in the day the birding had gotten a bit slow, but finally a few Black Storm-Petrels appeared. A few minutes later, we came up on what exactly I was hoping for: rafts.

Rafts of storm-petrels, of course. Storm-petrels are not for dilettantes. These are not birds meant for casual enjoyment. They certainly don't belong anywhere near stringers, because the devoted stringer can transform a storm-petrel into any number of species with little effort. Storm-petrels, by their very frustrating and subtle nature, can make you want to bash your head into a wall...or they can yield sweet, nectary storm-petrel fruit.

Ah, there is nothing so refreshing as a big raft of storm-petrels. There were lots of Blacks, the expected species, but it was quickly apparent there were much smaller birds in with them. Were the rafts bearing fruit???  See top rightish above.

And there they were...Least Storm-Petrels (front right and back). Finally. This was a life bird. The wait was finally over. The fruit had been bore.

This was the bird that had lured me down...it was time we became acquainted, and it was indeed a pleasure. Leasts are very small, very dark (note lack of any noticeable upperwing markings on the bird above), and have tiny, wedge-shaped tails. They really do resemble little bats in shape, if not in flight style. Majestic? No. Glorious? Yes.

After getting past the Least and Black Storm-Petrels (and getting some bonus Ashy Storm-Petrels), we came upon a pair of murrelets. Luckily, they were Craveri's Murrelets, which I'd only seen once before. These were good birds, damn good birds, especially on top of a long-awaited lifer. Aren't Mexican birds great?

You can see their distinctive dark underwings, which Guadalupe and Scripps's lack.

Finally, it was time to visit the famed booby roost at Santa Barbara Island. Brown Boobies began to appear more and more frequently, and everyone was hoping an additional Sulid would be lurking at the roost.

Eager birders frothed at the mouth and smacked their lips lustily. They wanted boobies something fierce.

Good lord, there were a lot of boobies on that rock...85! Here is a chunk of the boob roost.

At the end of the day, it was a great trip, and a nice change of pace from the waters I typically lurk in. Thanks to Dave Pereksta for organizing it and Joel Barrett for encouraging me to come down. A couple days later, with one Gareth Jones and Officer Searcy (the notorious Bird Policeman), I found my nemesis Ventura County bird trodding upon the sod...a Red-throated Pipit. They have been a dime a dozen a recent years, but for whatever reason that was not the case in the 90's, when it was my turn to flog the sod. Despite the lack of photos, I assure you that it was a succulent (and Siberian) county bird.

Between the nostalgia and quality birds, my time down there was Great Success. Luckily, I did not have to wait much longer to catch the next Siberian Express...you know what I'm saying?

Jaegers Compiled..Boobs And Tubes...A Nemesis Named

So long Black-footed Albatross, I will see you next year. Please bring along some of your Short-tailed buddies to our waters next fall, thanks. Photographed off of Half Moon Bay, CA.

It was a weird year offshore here in the bay area...for me, rough waters and a moderate amount of seabird activity. Lots of humpbacks, but no blues. I will say right off the bat that I did NOT see any of the rare petrels, which pains me greatly, especially with that cooperative White-chinned Petrel that just sat next to the boat like a goddamn fulmar for an unacceptably long amount of time. But that is the gamble you take as a pelagic junkie...you just roll the dice over and over again and eventually you will get played a hand of lifers. Here is a quick photo summary of the last trips I led for Shearwater Journeys this year, out of Half Moon Bay, Bodega Bay, and Sausalito, respectively.

The more I bird, the more comfortable I am with jaegers. That is, comfortable with the fact that identifying jaegers is hard. This juvenile putative year-old Pomarine was easy enough to identify by species, but Tom Johnson had no choice but to step in and question (correctly, I think) what I thought of the bird's age. He is a bird wizard, after all. Photographed off Half Moon Bay, CA.

Look at those broad wings, that big bill. It almost looks like a goddamn skua. Aside from the birds's build, the strongly barred rump/uppertail coverts and large number of white primary shafts help identify it as a Pomarine.

There was no shortage of smallish terns offshore this fall, but every single one I got a good look at was a Common, like this bird. I prefer Arctics, but its not like Common is an easy bird to get from shore around here, so I will take them. Photographed off Half Moon Bay, CA.

There was a massive flock of Sooty Shearwaters hanging out in Half Moon Bay for several weeks this fall; behold the masses.

Here it is, everyone's third favorite gull! I won't even speak of the two that come first, for I have never seen them. Photographed off Bodega Bay, CA.

My, what a wing pattern you have Sabine's Gull. Thank you for making it so bloody easy to identify you in flight from great distances, and being so aesthetically pleasing from short distances.

Buller's Shearwaters were lacking this fall. I demand more Buller's Shearwaters. That's two years in a row where these birds were a pain in the ass to find offshore. Photographed off Bodega Bay, CA.

What was that? You want to see more COMMON TERNS??? Well, I'm kind of surprised. This is indeed a common bird in some places, one you need not venture offshore for. I would have thought you wanted to see a different species, but I won't deny you, dear reader. This is a wonderfully typical HY Common Tern. Photographed off Bodega Bay, CA.

Eh, not a crush, but it's always nice to get seabird shots backed by the horizon.

Speaking of goddamn skuas, here is a South Polar Skua...a bird that is not unusual here, but one that always commands attention. I hope I get to see them on their breeding grounds someday, where they are a decidedly different beast...which is a penguin-slayer, for the uninitiated. Photographed off Bodega Bay, CA.

While I didn't enjoy much luck with tubenoses this fall, I did get to briefly enjoy this totally uncooperative but pleasantly rare Guadalupe Murrelet, only the second I've ever seen. I'm not sure if I could have identified this bird without the help of have a DSLR; talk about a clutch birding tool. Photographed off Bodega Bay, CA.

Jaegers are exceptional-looking birds when they have their flamboyant tails attached. This soothing Parasitic Jaeger made a close pass by the boat off Bodega Bay, CA.

Long-tailed Jaegers are one of my favored seabirds, and I still feel strongly about this one although it does not fall in the "flamboyant" category. Also, it's always good to get a full "jaeger slam" into a single post. Photographed off Bodega Bay, CA.

My last boat of the year did a couple laps around Southeast Farallon Island (SEFI), the epic seabird colony and vagrant trap that sits about 18 miles off the coast. While waiting for boobies I saw some nerds up by the hideous choade-like lighthouse.

Look at this place! Fuck.

With El Nino raging, it has been a banner year for boobies off the California coast. SEFI has supported a healthy roost of Brown Boobies for the entire year. This was a very rare bird just a few short years ago, but things are changing.

Here is a female, almost in adult plumage. She still has to lose some of that mottling on the belly and maybe some brown in the wing linings.

The Brown Booby roost has also been home to this adult Blue-footed Booby (on the right, obvi) for some time now. There has been little follow-up to the massive Blue-footed Booby invasion California experienced two years ago, despite high sea surface temperatures continuing seemingly just about everywhere. Of course, California birders will be wondering about the Northern Gannet that has been here for years now...well, we missed it! Was it seen the day before? Yes. Was it seen that day? Yes. Was it seen the next day? Of course.  Why does this matter?  Well, I have never seen it! Can I tell you how sick I am of missing that bird over and over again? Year after godforsaken year? UGGGGGGHHHHHHH. The gannet hates me. I, in turn, hate the gannet. It is officially my California Nemesis Bird. Have you ever had a Nemesis Bird that was actually a single individual bird? Christ, I am being driven into a manic rage just thinking about it. Hopefully it will start showing up on Alcatraz again next spring so I can continue dipping on it from shore. So no luck with the gannet, but I did manage a life bird the previous day...and the previous weekend...more on that to come.