The Bra Collector, A Touch of Turd, The H-Word

When you see a bra strung up on a fence, that can only mean one thing...

...a Loggerhead Shrike has been very busy. Clearly mice and sparrows are not enough for this insatiable fiend.

This fearless, woman-eating shrike (which is pooping out woman in this very photo) was in the Robinson Road area near Rio Vista in Solano County, which is a fantastic area for grassland birds. I dipped on the reliable Mountain Plovers, but it was a very successful day otherwise.

Sometimes a combo just needs to be shown, despite the rubbish photo. This Ferruginous-Swainson's Hawk combo was unexpected, and very much appreciated. Swainson's overwinter in the state in low numbers, primarily in the Delta region. I would go on to see double-digit numbers of Ferruginous Hawks here that morning, as well as several Rough-legged Hawks, one of 2016's big dips. I don't think I've had all three [lovable/amazing/inspiring/thirst-quenching] of these Buteo species in one place before, stoked.

A few Burrowing Owls were holding it down as well. Note the turd in the bottom right...much like myself, the Burrowing Owl loves decorating the entrance of its home with turds.

After giving up on the plovers, I went north for a staked out Glaucous Gull on the side of Yolo Bypass. It was pretty amazing to see the bypass being fully utilized...to the west of the dike I was on it was dry, to the east it was an inland sea out to the horizon! Yolo Bypass exists to keep Sacramento and other cities from flooding; when there is a lot of precipitation in the northern half of the state, a series of weirs upstream divert water from the Sacramento River into the bypass, which is mostly farmland. The farmland floods, the cities don't. Anyways...I was able to haynor the Glaucous Gull from an excruciating distance, and eventually it flew in a bit closer to feed on a dead coot. Not only did this end my stupid stupid 5-year drought of not seeing Glaucous Gulls, this was my lifer adult. Siiiiiiiiick.

Other highlights that day were Surf and White-winged Scoters (the latter was another bird I somehow missed in 2016) from Sherman Island, and a huge Tricolored/Yellow-headed Blackbird flock in a feedlot on the way home. Good times in The Great Valley.

In between winter storms I went out to Richmond Marina to see if anything needed crushing. This Forster's Tern did.

As did this one. That's quite the glaucous upperwing.

This female Common Goldeneye threw its feet out to help brake for landing, which made for a quick tasty crush.

I think it is time to come clean...Aechmophorus make me uncomfortable sometimes, I will admit it. You know, they are totally entitled to do what they do, but when certain individuals are around me I just want to get the hell out of there...not that I'm a Aechmorphobe.

Take this bird for example. Bright yellow-orange bill, pale flanks...solid Clark's field marks. But the black cap is sitting right on top of the bird's eye, and the dark nape stripe has a lot of girth to it. I'm inclined to call this a Clark's x Western Grebe hybrid, and you know how I feel about dropping h-bombs. Both Aechmorphorus may look different in the winter than in summer, but I don't think Clark's broaden that nape stripe when temperatures drop.

Here is a typical winter Western, with paler lores and dusky cheeks.

Aesthetically this photo has nothing to offer, but it does give you a good comparison of the broad nape stripe of a Western Grebe (left) with the narrower stripe of a Clark's (right).

When I still lived in Albany, I tried a number of times to see the Burrowing Owl that lived next to the parking area for Albany Bulb. Who does not want to see a Burrowing Owl just down the road from their house? However, I failed repeatedly, and all I got was judgement from this Say's Phoebe.

Luckily, Say's Phoebe did not go home with the "bird of the day" award. Small numbers of crecca Green-winged Teal, presumably from Siberia, make their way to California every winter; they are easier to find than Tufted Ducks, but rarer than Eurasian Wigeon. This is no crecca though...this is crecca x carolinensis. Not something you see every day. Don't let your kids look at this image, as few photos have been taken of something so impure.

A nice, clear-cut intergrade. The white lines on the face are pretty weak (carolinensis), but the bird possesses both a strong white vertical breast bar (carolinensis) and horizontal scapular bar (crecca). Cool bird. Albany Mudflats, Albany, CA.

Scouting For The 5MC

The Five Mile Challenge (5MC) is coming up fast! It is scheduled for this Saturday, and if the weather allows it, I will be squaring off with two other vicious (have you met Miss Brown???), unapologetic nerds in Portland and Austin. As This Machine Nate is prone to saying, anything can happen. While I do have a major advantage of having San Francisco Bay in my circle, there are shortcomings as well...there is no real, killer hotspot in my circle, and there is a definite lack of fresh water. San Pablo Reservoir is in my circle, but since I don't have an EBMUD permit I do not think I will be able to bird it. I'm also worried I won't be very strong with passerines...well you can bet I will be strong as fuck identifying them, but there just isn't much diversity in my circle, and I think I may have to struggle with getting a lot of the birds that Flycatcher Jen could easily get (i.e. Red-breasted Sapsucker, Varied Thrush). And bla bla bla bla shit, I hope it doesn't rain the whole weekend.

As I mentioned before, my traditional patch is actually over five miles away, so once it was decided that the 5MC was on I had to do some scouting and scouring of some previously overlooked sites. If I was going to win, I would have to bird some places I don't often bird. Scouting has indeed panned out, and now I know a spot that could be critical for me is the area around the Richmond Marina.

I have spent minimal time birding here in the past and didn't have high hopes, but I was happy to see a male Black Scoter, which are very rare in San Francisco Bay. This is a bird I haven't seen in a long time...a long time. And I'm not talking about the species, I'm talking about this particular individual...I last saw it in 2013! This bird has been wintering here for a great many years, so it was nice to be the official refinder of the bird for the winter of 2016-2017. Most birders who have seen a Black Scoter in Contra Costa County have seen this one individual. And this individual, for whatever reason, let me crush the shit out of it.

Black Scoters are very uncommon in most of California, and practically never appear in places where you can get very close to them. Honestly, I had better looks at the Del Norte Common Scoter than I have had of Black Scoter anywhere. This bird was remarkably confiding, hanging out and flirting with Greater Scaup hens just a stone's throw from the shoreline. Even more incredibly, the bird was calling regularly, something I've never heard before...a mournful, descending whistle, kind of a like a more poignant Dusky-capped Flycatcher. I recently went back to the marina and actually found the bird by call...birding is weird.

So while not a major rarity, I was chuffed to get such good looks (yes, they were soul-satisfying) at this bird so close to home.

Of course, you can't see Black Scoter in California without having to sort through Surf Scoters, which almost anyone can muster some enthusiasm over.

Say's Phoebe was a bit of a surprise foraging in a small grassy area on the bayside, and aren't particularly common in my Five Mile Radius (5MR). Hopefully it will still be around for the 5MC.

An adult Horned Grebe uses its terminator eyes to great effect, slaughtering very small fish with cold efficiency.

An immature Horned Grebe uses its dusky eyes to a not-so-great effect, but will hopefully catch enough to eventually be slaughtering very small fish cold efficiency.

East coast birders are likely not so impressed with our faithful, scaup-loving Black Scoter. To compensate, here is a shiny Pelagic Cormorant to get your dirty gripoff juices flowing. Unlike our other saltwater-loving cormorant (that's Brandt's Cormorant for you n00bs), they are fairly common in San Francisco Bay and aren't relegated to the area near the Golden Gate.

On another trip to the Richmond Marina and surrounding bayside, it was low tide and the whole area was just being torn asunder by Black Oystercatchers. American Crows were also mucking about in the intertidal, procuring mussels, which the oystercatchers undoubtedly frowned upon...omnivore poseurs. Occasionally I'll see an individual like this one with pale fringes on its flanks.

To all the aspiring gull lords out there, sorry I haven't been posting many gulls lately, I don't know what to tell you. Do you know how many gulls I saw in Puerto Rico? Two. Do you know how many years it has been since I've seen a Glaucous Gull? Five. FIVE! Did you really need to know that? Possibly. Anyways, here's a Thayer's Gull and a California Gull. Thayer's will be a very good pickup during 5MC, hopefully it will not be a bird that gets left behind.

Out in the great, untamed wilderness that lies beyond the 5MR, other birds can be found. Our resident, introduced moffitti/maxima Canada Goose flocks often lure in other species, usually diminutive Cackling Geese. Martin Luther King Jr. Regional Shoreline, Oakland, CA.

Separating the two species here is usually a no-brainer, though other parts of the country do not have it as easy as we do (there are smaller Canada Geese and larger Cackling Geese subspecies further east). I would be stoked to get any goose species besides Canada during the 5MC, but we will just have to wait and see.

Nate, Jen....5MC is going to break you. After this, there will be nothing left of you beyond cracked shells, empty husks of what once were people. Everyone you love will shun you, beginning with your local birds this Saturday. And if I lose because it is pouring rain this weekend (which is the current forecast), I hope you except my butthurt gracefully.

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.

An Unholy Union

Cliff and Tree Swallows. Part of a flock of thousands of birds that appeared to be already migrating in early July. If I had more patience I would have sat there all morning, checking each and every bird for a Cave Swallow...but I am not that lame. Finney Lake, CA.

It's great to be back in the bay area, where people are free to act human every once in a while. I just watched 2 biologists marry each other, which most people would describe describe as "An unholy union between wannabe eco-terrorist, tree-hugging communists", which sounds like a good time to me. I try to escape from birders, but it gets harder and harder every year.

I thought I'd take a break from terns and shorebirds and show a few birds of the shrub-lurking variety today.
I hope you had a crepuscular weekend.

Bell's Vireo fledgling. Least Bell's Vireos have the unfortunate distinction of being an Endangered Species, as a result of habitat loss/degradation and being a frequent host of Brown-headed Cowbirds. This one already got banded. Old Mission Dam, San Diego CA.

Bell's Vireos follow the strict rules of The Economy of Style, but still manage to be cute.

This Blue Grosbeak fledgling could not have been out of the nest for very long. It's pretty damn ugly if you ask me. Old Mission Dam, San Diego, CA.

Cassin's Kingbird. I don't go birding as often as I should in the late afternoon...the lighting is highly conducive to photography. Lindo Lake, Lakeside, CA.

Costa's Hummingbird. She chose an artistic perch. East San Diego County, CA.

Say's Phoebe. I think this picture kind of sums up the scenery around Jacumba, CA, where San Diego birders go for some migrants and desert goodness and the whole California birding community must go if they don't have Harris' Hawk on their state list yet.

It's dry. It's hot. It's August. Bird song is not what it was a couple of months ago. Even resident birds like this Bell's Sage Sparrow have shut up. Migration looms. East San Diego County, CA.

Lesser Goldfinch. Have you ever thought about what it would be like to only handle, break down, orient and eat food with your face? A strange and disturbing concept. Mission Trails Regional Park, San Diego, CA.

Pic Of The Week: Saymerica

Say's Phoebe fledgling and parent. And Myron. Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery, San Diego, CA.

I Don't Have A Social Life Anymore

One of the many facemelty Broad-billed Hummingbirds that run things next to our house.

Lets face it: you came here to read about disgusting, unspeakable things, so lets talk about a crucial aspect of field work….pooping.  You crazed fecalphiliacs will finally get what you want.  When you are miles from the nearest bathroom all the time, you usually can’t really postpone your bodily functions until when you are within city limits once more...and so it is likely that field biologists and their ilk may lay down the deuce in the out-of-doors as much or more than any other profession.  It’s no big deal, although it can get…..interesting, at times.  Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to share the fun with your avian friends.

How To Get A Buff-breasted Flycatcher To Watch You Take A Dump:

Step 1: Go to Filiberto’s in Sierra Vista, Arizona, on a fine spring evening, and get the #17 combo.  This consists of 2 chile rellenos, beans, rice, shredded lettuce, salsa, sour cream, hot sauce, and a massive tortilla.  Consume as much as you possibly can, preferably leaving you in a sort of catatonic state.

Carr Peak, one of our survey sites.  The snow adds to the scenery but mostly adds to the misery.

Step 2: Wake up the next morning at 4:30 AM at the bottom of Carr Canyon.  Curse the forest service for pointlessly keeping the road closed, forcing you to walk the 4 miles uphill to where flycatchers lurk.

 A male Arizona Woodpecker in our Florida Canyon yard.  Brown pride.

Step 3: After being hooted encouragement by a female Mexican Spotted Owl, propel yourself uphill with the abundant flatulence that is being fueled by Filiberto’s from the preceding evening.  I recommend a mix of determined marching and defeated trudging to carry you up the mountain.

The Santa Cruz River is littered with shit that immigrants drop on their way north.  Not Dre.

Step 4: Locate Buff-breasted Flycatchers at Reef Townsite Campground.  They will be loud and looking to be noticed.  By this time your abdomen is seriously distended and about to explode.  Relieve yourself while flycatchers are perched overhead and call and sing their jubilation at witnessing this momentous event.  Note their depravity, and whatever you do…….don’t look back.

This Say's Phoebe really knows how to beautify a perch.