Decemberance

2010. After ditching a camera for a great many years, by December of 2010 I was back into photography again and always birded with a camera on hand. At the time, that put me in the minority of birders...the boom in bird photography since then wasn't something I expected. This male Allen's Hummingbird had taken up residence in the backyard of where I grew up, in Ventura, CA, and is still the best place I know of see Allen's at point-blank crushing range.

December...we're almost there. The year is almost over, and it's been a doozy. It all started being sick to death in Oakland and doing no partying whatsoever on New Year's Eve for the second year in a row (SHAME), dragging my sick ass to Lake Merritt on January 1 to get some year birds, then heading down to Mexico for a fucking ace birding trip that will go down in the history books. Now, on the other end of the year, I live in a different city, preparing myself to become a father next month...holy shit! Is this really happening? This was not another boring year, by any stretch of the imagination.

Before I grab fatherhood by the balls though, I have one last trip to get out of my system...tonight I will be on my way to a DADCHELOR PARTY birding trip to the one part of the country where I could get the most lifers, which just happens to be in...Puerto Rico! I've never been to any of the Caribbean islands before, so this is a whole new part of the world for me.

So nerds, unfortunately I will be busy birding so won't be posting for a couple weeks. To tide you over, I thought I would revisit some birds from previous Decembers that may have not gotten the attention they deserve recently. I will be back soon with many reviews of all the Puerto Rican strip clubs and quality of cocai...oops hahahaha by that I mean a crop of crushed lifers. Thanks Billy for letting me loose to look at a shitload of birds one more time before (human) nesting season arrives!

2011. By this time I had finally settled on a lens I was happy with (the underperforming Sigma I had purchased recently was stolen by a Mexican cartel, which turned out to be kind of a favor because I went out and got a better lens). Shooting birds like American Pipits was hella more fun than it used to be. Sacramento NWR, CA. 

2012. By now I had quite a few ABA Area and Mexican birds under my belt so it was time to go to that special place where all birders must visit eventually, Costa Rica. This Gray-capped Flycatcher was one of many ridiculous lifers we got at Hotel Gavilan (near La Selva), where we stayed a few nights. I definitely recommend staying there...there is geri birding, after all.

Sarapiqui Eco-Observatory (not sure if the name has changed since then) has an awesome setup for geri birding and overall good birding on the property...I'm sure we would have seen more if it hadn't been raining almost the entire time. The $20 birding/crushing fee did seem ultimately worth it. This Bronze-tailed Plumeleteer was a clutch bird to see up close.

La Selva and birding with Haynor was fucking great. This low-flying King Vulture, a bird I'd always drooled over, was an immense lifer. I definitely want to go back and rebird the shit out of that place.

La Cinchona has some of the best geri birding I've ever experienced. Prong-billed Barbets await.

2013. I went back up to Humboldt County to see the Little Bunting (great success, very nice). Will Humboldt or Del Norte be home to another MEGUH this winter? Highly likely. But if that doesn't happen, just remember Bonaparte's Gulls are fucking cool. Photographed at Arcata Marsh.

2014. California is blessed with a pleasant number of Eurasian Wigeon during the winter months, and every now and then they turn up someplace where they are practically fearless. This drake was getting all pastoral at a small park in Thousand Oaks.

That winter Don Mastwell and I had a sector for the Salton Sea (south end) CBC. We totally failed in taking care of our main responsibility (getting Least Bittern), but at least there were hella Yuma Ridgway's Rails. Fortunately we bagged a Horned Grebe, the only one of the count.

Considering the ridiculous number of rarities that had been seen in the area over past winters, the Salton Sea vague runt situation at the time of the CBC was pretty dull. A Varied Thrush was a great county bird though, and as usual there were Vermilion Flycatchers around. Vermilion Flycatchers are synonymous with good birding if you ask me, and I am the Global Birder Ranking System's #7 U.S. birder, in case you didn't know...so take that to heart.

LeConte's Sparrow is a deeply underappreciated bird. This skulker is intricately patterned and make my eyes bulge painfully and my tongue engorge whenever I see one. Talk about an eye-feast. This easygoing bird wintered at Abbott's Lagoon in Marin County and didn't put much effort into staying hidden, thankfully.

California is arguably the best place in the world for sapsuckery; I haven't done it myself, but there are birders who have achieved the vaunted SAPSUCKER SLAM, getting all four species in the same day....the mind reels. This is the weirdest sapsucker I have ever seen, a reported Red-naped near Inverness Park in Marin County that ostensibly doesn't have any blatant hybrid traits (Red-breasted X Red-naped are regular in the state) but it bizarrely lacks any white behind the eye and has an unusually dark breast. Hypermelanistic?

2015. I pulled into Fields Landing, Humboldt County, during a rainstorm to find a flock of Red Knots feeding in a puddle next to the parking lot. The knots must have been starving because I parked next to them and crushed them with reckless abandon and total disregard to all the knot souls I was stealing. It was brilliant. 

Thanks for jumping into the BB&B time machine today! If all goes well, soon there will be posts littered with Antillean Crested Hummingbirds and Red-legged Thrushes.

Dumpy Goodness, Majestic Murderer, Wearing Hoodies On The Regular

Western Sandpipers roost at high tide in the Arcata Bottoms, Arcata, CA. The habitat in the background is Lesser Frigatebird habitat, believe it or not. The Vague Runts that put down in Humboldt County never cease to amaze.

March is upon us, and in California that means two things: spring migrants, and no rare birds. It is bloody hard to find unusual birds this month, though lingering winter birds usually mean something good is around, somewhere. Perhaps it is a good month to go track down some scrub-jays...for that Island Scrub-Jay you still have not looked for, or for Woodhouse's Scrub-Jay, which some believe will be an imminent split. Tracking down a Bendire's Thrasher would not be a bad idea either...I've still only seen one ever, about 20 years ago...it's probably time to rethrash.

But I will not be doing any of those things...weird scrub jays and novel thrashers are far from me, and my wage slavery will keep me in the bay area for the time being. So without further delay, here is a classic/cliche I-went-birding-locally-and-this-is-what-I-saw post from a few spots over the winter.

Here it is, the most overrated bird. Note that I did not post this sighting on a listserv, unlike most people. I did not need to say "I saw a Pine Siskin too!" It is simply not necessary. It is a common bird that can be found in many different habitats, from sea level to the mountain tops. The appropriate way to report this species is something like "The redpoll was associating with a flock of Pine Siskins", right? Photographed in the Arcata Bottoms.

On a trip up to Humboldt County earlier in the winter, I was rained out when it came to birding. I accomplished much drinking, but birding was unproductive, with one exception. On the way home, I pulled into Fields Landing (which sometimes is ablaze with waterbirds), and was shocked to find a flock of Red Knots foraging in a puddle next to the parking lot. Knots are rarely seen in southern Humboldt Bay in winter, and getting within 20 feet of them anywhere in California is an impreesive feat. I just parked next to the knot puddle and crushed away as the rain came down.

Look at this dumpy goodness. What a lovable bird.

These birds belong to the roselaari subspecies, the only subspecies expected on the Pacific coast of North America.  I'm glad they are not getting completely hammered (on a population scale) like rufa, but on that note there are less than 14,000 of them (and maybe less than 10,000). Be grateful for the knots you see in California and Mexico, because there are not many of them.

The knots were not expected at Fields Landing, but there is often a flock of turnstones checking out the wrack line next to the boat ramp.

Black Turnstones are the most abundant rockpiper in California, and generally the most confiding as well. They seem a bit more opportunistic in their foraging than other rockpipers, and were feeding side-by-side with the knots in this rain puddle.

I've hardly been to Lake Merritt at all this winter...lame. Canvasbacks like this one have not been getting much attention from me, though they are absolutely deserving of it.

This Great Egret looks like it had just killed the shit out of something. Berkeley Meadows, Berkeley, CA.

Majestic murderer.

Barrow's Goldeneyes can often be found in the tidal channel south of Lake Merritt, where they are easy to see but often stay just outside true crushing distance.  This is an absurdly difficult bird to get further south in the state, with the Colorado River being the only exception.

Lloyd Lake in Golden Gate Park (San Francisco) is one of the best places to get up close to Hooded Mergansers. These birds were so unapproachable where I grew up birding that I still feel compelled to stop and look at them whenever I'm birding in the park.

This thick-necked bastard looks like he is doing some courtship display.

With spring in the process of springing, I may have seen my last Hoodie until the fall. In the meantime, I will honor them by wearing lots of hoodies.

Roselaari Red Knot

Aside from the confiding rockpipers, I also recently had the pleasure of coming nose to nares with an adult Red Knot, largely still in alternate plumage. Red Knots are uncommon migrants and winter visitors to California, and fate has decided that they frequently favor sites where they are difficult to see from very close range. This bird had something entirely different in mind though, joining the flock of rockpipers that were slaughtering mole crabs on a Ventura beach. At times I had difficulty keeping the chunky bird in the frame...a nice problem to have for a change. It was a bit too much for me though...as I walked back to my car, my knees buckled and I wept openly next to a rotting sea lion carcass. It was a low moment...but I've had far worse.

The Red Knots on the west coast of North America are classified as Calidris canutus roselaari, the world's largest subspecies of Red Knot (gasp!). The famous Red Knots of the east coast are C. c. rufa, which migrate between the Canadian Arctic and spend their winters in Argentina and Chile. C. c. roselaari breeds in Alaska and Wrangel Island (Russia), and winter primarily on the west coast of Mexico, with some birds spending the winter north in California. Some sources suggest a drastically different winter range that includes sites on the Atlantic coast (birds that winter in the southeastern U.S. have a different molt schedule from the birds that go to South America), but a variety of data from recent years strongly suggests C. c. roselaari is confined to the Pacific side of the continent.

Like C. c. rufa, C. c. roselaari knots are long-distance migrants, and are thought to be able to cover large distances in single flights. Oregon, for example, does not have any sites at all that are known to concentrate these species, which makes me grateful that I don't have the misfortune of dwelling in that knot-foresaken state. It is likely that many birds that stage in Gray's Harbor, Washington, skip Oregon completely as they head south to the fertile shorebirding grounds of California and Mexico. In California, they appear to be largely dependent on large tidal bays and estuaries, such as San Diego Bay, San Francisco Bay, Humboldt Bay and Point Mugu.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) estimated C. c. roselaari to have an entire population of <10,000 individuals in 2008, which is really not much. A number of organizations petitioned to list C. c. roselaari under the Endangered Species Act several years ago, but USFWS declined to do so since there was no evidence of a population decline. The west coast knots do have a number of important stopover sites, but their food sources in these places appear to be relatively healthy, unlike the horseshoe crab population C. c. rufa is so dependent on.  By USFWS's own assessment, C. c. rufa does appear to be on track to get the protection it deserves (which will, in turn, protect/benefit the entire Delaware Bay horseshoe crab fishery, many other bird species, marine life, etc.), but who knows about what politics may come into play to prevent that action.

A knot in breeding plumage does not blend in well with other shorebirds. Sandpipers and rockpipers alike are frequently seen standing awkwardly in awe at the crippling plumage of their pudgy cousin, pupils dilated and unsteady on their feet.

May you all meet many knots this fall. Much of today's information on C. c. roselaari was plucked from the USFWS.

The Natives Are Restless

A male Long-billed Curlew prowls the mudflats. Worms and crustaceans cower in fear.

There's nothing like a rainy day to make you feel guilt-free for staying indoors. The guilt of staying indoors in early October is bad enough...it is still prime vagrant season, after all. Humboldt County birders are no doubt drooling and chomping at the bit to get outside tomorrow. One birder up here is in the midst of a Humboldt County Big Year, and currently has a staggering 321 birds already. Jesus.

Meanwhile, I have firmly settled into the life of long-term unemployment. As long as you are not broke, I highly recommend it. Getting plenty of sleep, complete freedom, and ample opportunities for birding and bourbon consumption heals the scarred 40-hour-flogged-soul like nothing else. It is good to be among friends (of both the birding and non-birding persuasions) once again, and to be truly Human. The key, of course, is keeping occupied, but I am blessed/cursed with various writing projects and a strong instinct to socialize.

Red Knots, Marbled Godwits, Black-bellied Plovers and Willets wait out Humboldt Bay's high tide at the Arcata Marsh.

This is a strange cycle of lifestyles to be caught in...not many can do it. Working hard for months at a time in far-flung places, then suddenly dropping it all and getting really entrenched in city life. A lot of biologists my age are currently in grad school or are fiending to get in one...when I ask why, they usually mumble about wanting to design their own study and quickly change the subject. I really should look into this bizarre phenomenon, which I believe has lemming-jumping-off-a-cliff type motivation somehow involved.

Weird ramblings on this dreary day. I think I'll get out for some Humboldt birding at least one more time, lashing flocks of shorebirds and chickadees for the rare bird that must be in there. And if that doesn't work...life will go on. 

Brewers Blackbirds gain more appeal when seen outside parking lots.