South Bay Winter Slumber

While Santa Clara is not known as one of the premiere gulling counties in the state, that is not because there are a lack of gulls. There are many thousands of Herring Gulls (like the one above) in the county right now, and where there are Herring Gulls there are rare gulls...sometimes anyway. I have at least managed a Santa Clara Glaucous Gull already this year and a 5MR Western Gull, which I didn't see in the radius until November last year. Photographed at Don Edwards NWR.

Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh it's February. I don't know how I feel about that. It sure got here quickly, and as I say in BB&B pretty much every year I'm leery of March birding around these parts. Things have been pretty slow this winter here in Santa Clara, especially if you opt to not attempt feverish county year birding and rechase all the rarities you already chased a month or two ago, or the previous winter. But! But. BUT...the middle of winter is generally a great time to be birding around these parts. If you really need to see a rarity or a year bird or whatever every time you go birding, then just give up birding and be honest with yourself and everyone else...you are not a birder. You are a chaser. You don't enjoy the activity of birdwatching, you like birdchasing.

I think the quasi-elitist and increasingly obsolete notion that listing is something to scoff at now borders on being something to scoff at itself. Let's face it, most of us have bird lists that we care about. Listing is not the problem here, heck chasing isn't even the problem. I happily chase stuff on the reg and recommend it highly. The problem is when you get so locked into certain lists that they dictate that you run after other people's birds every time you go out. Going out with the hopes of finding something interesting yourself, once standard practice when one went out birding, is becoming increasingly uncommon and comparatively bold.

Is it time for a great schism in birding? Is it time for the strict chasers to separate themselves from the rest of us? There is already a large and still growing subset of photogs who seem to chase every rarity but never find anything rare themselves. Something to ponder on a cool February day.

But now that I've begun to peel back the lid on that can of worms, I'm going to put it back on the proverbial shelf for another post. That was not a road I intended to go down! Shifting gears (but probably still instilling some butthurt anyway), I've really been enjoying my new CANON gear after kicking Nikon to the curb. With the assistance of CANON, here is a sampling of our winter birds from along the edge of the South Bay.

Iceland Gulls can be be quite common at certain sites right now. Here is a particularly eye-catching bird with a big dark hood. Photographed at Don Edwards NWR.

Here is a more typical looking Iceland (darker eye, whiter face) photographed from the same spot. Photographed at Don Edwards NWR.

While Herring x Glaucous-winged are often the most common hybrid in Santa Clara gull flocks, along the bay Western x Glaucous-winged like this one can be more abundant. The Olympic Gull is a particularly unpleasant creature and I have nothing more to say about them. Photographed at Don Edwards NWR.

Mew Gulls, with their small size and delicate build, are absolutely delightful in comparison. They should have named Daymaker Gulls. Photographed at Don Edwards NWR.

I thought this COMBO was worthy of posting, a ring-billed Mew Gull and a ring-billed Ring-billed Gull. Photographed at Don Edwards NWR.

The occasional close pass by a Northern Harrier is always appreciated. Photographed at Don Edwards NWR.

Familiarity breeds contempt, but as common as they are Turkey Vultures are still cool to see close up. Photographed at Don Edwards NWR.

Santa Clara is not a very goosey county, but we get a light smattering of non-Canadas every fall and winter. Here is part of a family group of Snow Geese that have been wintering next to Shoreline Lake near Mountain View. Photographed at the Shoreline Park kite flying area.

A group of Greater White-fronted Geese is also wintering in the same area and are similarly acclimated to people, no doubt due in large part to the large flocks of JUDAS GEESE (nonnative/tame Canada Geese) here. I like the lawn-mowing lineup.

Sometimes, I think about grebes. Luminous beings are grebes. I am a fan of Horned Grebes, but it is one of those species that makes me wonder why, know what I mean? Like if someone could do a brain scan while I looked at a Horned Grebe vs a Western, there would probably be more HOGR-related brain activity even though WEGRs sound way cooler and have a legendary courtship display. Maybe it all goes back to when I first started birding, where HOGRs are harder to come by. I'm sure a great many of my feelings and opinions about certain birds, and birding in general, are heavily colored by those early years more than I realize. Photographed at Shoreline Lake.

EARED GREBE/HORNED GREBE COMBO!!!!!!! The HOGR is showing off its flatter crown, thicker bill, and more contrasting face/neck/flank pattern.

While I think of it, I wanted to mention another aspect of my new Canon gear that I forgot to bring up in my previous post about it. For all previous combos and iterations of Nikon bodies and lenses I've used (which are numerous), one flaw that all of them had was that when the subject was on a flat surface (i.e. sitting on or flying low over water, on mudflats, in short grass) and not close up, the camera invariably have a very difficult time focusing on the intended subject. I could shoot 50 similar frames and sometimes less than 10 would have the subject acceptably sharp with good light and good settings and a near-stationary bird, which is a really shitty ratio. I have no such problem now with the Canon 90D/100-400mm II and couldn't be happier. Photographed at Shoreline Lake.

These Western Sandpipers just had to probe the same exact spot. Must be awkward to bump bills under the mud. Photographed at Charleston Slough.

Let's wrap things up with some avocets, photographed at Charleston Slough. Avocets simultaneously look gangly and awkward in flight, but somehow also striking and graceful. There are a shitload of avocets in the South Bay and I'm pretty happy about it. 

A Summer Dispatch from Rancho de Bastardos and the Five Mile Radius

I lied. The newest BB&B post will not be about Texas...how about we change it up? What about the local birding? What is the good word? How are things going at Rancho de Bastardos? What of the Five Mile Radius (5MR)? As everyone knows, you can't be a birding darling without birding locally!

Well we renewed our lease of Rancho de Bastardos, so will be holding it down at least until next spring. The current Rancho list stands at 122, with 6 new species so far this year: Lesser Scaup (expected), Phainopepla (very unexpected), Purple Finch (expected), Red-breasted Merganser (quite unexpected), Rufous Hummingbird (not necessarily expected), and Orange-crowned Warbler (long expected). A hoped-for-but-unsurprising Snow Goose showed up right at the end of 2017, found by my dad who was visiting from out of town (above).

Getting new yard birds this year has been a major pain, and I suspect I won't be getting another until August or September...the potential for new birds before then is really low, especially if the ponds behind the house remain too full to be attractive to shorebirds...but if shorebird habitat was actually allowed to develop, there are a whole bunch of new birds that could potentially drop in. Same old story...the impossibilities are truly endless. A crippling drake Wood Duck hung out right behind our back fence for a morning earlier in the month, which was a life-affirming (if not life-changing) summer surprise and a new one for the 2018 Rancho list. Speaking of which, the 2018 Rancho list is at a solid 104, and with a little luck I think 120 can be reached by the end of the year.

This seemed like a good spring for migrant hummingbirds in the county (namely Rufous and Calliope), and multiple Selasphorus made visits to the feeders at Rancho de Bastardos in the spring. All the males seen well enough to ID were Rufous (above), though several females and an immature male or two could not be identified to species. I'll be on the lookout for Allen's Hummingbird next spring, a prime candidate for the yard list.

The putative White-throated x White-crowned Sparrow hybrid ended up hanging out for several weeks in April. Here is a head-on shot that shows the crown pattern pretty well, which is a closer match to White-throated but doesn't perfectly match either species.

Compare it to this White-crowned (presumably pugetensis). All of the Rancho's Zonotrichia migrated north while I was in Texas in late April, not a single bird remained by the time I got home. I guess they had an exit plan.

In other bastard news, Annabelle can now identify Mallards ("duck"), Canada geese ("gee"), Mourning Doves ("duhv") and California ground-squirrels ("wheeo"). She even made a rudimentary song about the squirrels...it goes "Whee-oh, Whee-oh, Whee-oh, Whee-oh." Fully legit. She also peed on my binocular strap and on my camera case the other day, which is not a problem I've dealt with previously.

My 5MR list has matured nicely this year as well, and has climbed to a modest 156, surpassing my previous 5MR based in Albany. Many (most?) of you have higher 5MR lists, but I am pleased with how mine is progressing, nay burgeoning...I've already added 19 species to it in 2018. Let's hear it for local birding! This is about 65% of my entire Santa Clara County list, which I think is a nice ratio and reflective of what the 5MR has to offer relative of the general area.

If only eBird could whip up a quick target list for my 5MR...

They are an abundant bird in the bay area and they are in my yard every day, but since I grew up in a chickadee-depauperate part of the state they still hold some novelty for me. This Chestnut-backed Chickadee was photographed on the Los Alamitos Creek trail in San Jose, in the 5MR of course.

On the same trail on another day, I came across a Turkey Vulture feeding on a deer carcass (note the ribcage in the upper right). This generally isn't blogworthy, especially considering the rubbish quality of the photo, but this section of trail wasn't next to a road (it's actually separated from area roads by a tall fence) and the trail was saturated with warnings of mountain lion sightings. I think this deer wasn't taken down by a Jaguar, but by a mountain lion, know what I'm saying? Eh? Eh?

The southern half of my 5MR is absolutely brimming with Acorn Woodpeckers. It is the cradle of Acorn Woodpecker civilization as far as I know. This is the sort of bird that you want around in great abundance, especially when they aren't wary of people. Photographed at Guadalupe Oaks County Park.

While we are on the hot topic of 5MRs and the perpetually hot eBird, I have a proposal to make. Those of you who have an ear open for you at eBird Central Command (or are a part of Central Command) should tell them to embrace the 5MR. I know almost half of you who read this are eBird reviewers, so we have a nice, potentially powerful little lobby here. The 5MR encourages local birding, it encourages birding lightly-covered (or uncovered) areas (a major goal for eBird), and it encourages eBird use (an even greater goal for eBird). If a 5MR tool is added to patch lists, 5MRs will become the shining jewel of that feature. So eBird, go ahead and do a quick interview with everyone's favorite famous post-Oregon birder Flycatcher Jen, add a 5MR feature, and let it rip! Many birders will chill back on their excessive checking of Top 100 state and county lists, and be all about comparing the Top 100 5MRs in their states and counties instead. This will really level the playing field for those who are interested in comparing patch lists, considering that many users (including reviewers...wtf) have bullshit patches that are hundreds of square miles.  Anyhow, do us all a favor and let eBird know...if they actually had some interest in this idea, things may never be the same.

I'll close this post out with series of Great Egret vs. gopher shots from the Los Alamitos Creek Trail, part of my 5MR I've been birding on the reg. It's a nice zone and has some Vague (not vague) potential, unfortunately it starts getting real crowded by mid-morning...but when you live in a city with over a million people, what do you expect? Gross...

Surprisingly, the gopher ate the egret in the end.

Jk the egret won, gopher-egret matches are always fixed. I'm glad I don't have to worry about being impaled by giant birds, just stuff like cholesterol. More from Texas in the next post, for reals.

Word is bond.

In The Absence of Hawks

Drive out in the darkness and turn the dial until you find the preacher. The one who spits fire. Turn him down to a low flame. Take only the fire and leave the fuel for others.

Head east until the exit where the bloated bovine lies between the off-ramp and the interstate. A sandy road winds north from the large pullout at the end of the ramp. A popular spot for long haulers to spend the night, as evidenced by the dozens of plastic bottles filled with piss strewn about. Trucker bombs, the colloquial term. They begin to peter out as you move further from the pavement. A final cluster of them at about the distance a grown man could throw a quart bottle filled with liquid. Head north.

Now it is just the sand and the preacher. An occasional nighthawk erupting from beside the path and twisting in the headlights.

Bump out along the creosote as the mountains around you begin to take form.  Change the station. Find the cantina horns that stumble woozily out of the speakers, swaying with the truck. Attempt a sip of coffee. Scan the area for your mark. There, the stake and the flag. The chair in the dirt. Cut the engine but let the horns sway some more.

It is early May in the Little Colorado Desert, and somehow someone is paying me to watch hawks from this particular point on the earth. There has been a proposed energy project for this area. Two large towers, 300 feet tall and topped with bulbs full of oil, with mirrors surrounding the towers and aimed at the the bulbs. The concentrated heat of the mirrors boil the oil and turbines are spun and energy is generated, stored, sold and distributed. This is the plan. But first the land and sky must be studied.

The authorities that grant permission for this type of commerce require data. There is concern that this area is within a migration corridor, that great rivers of hawks and songbirds use it on their movements to and from breeding grounds. There is concern that golden eagles, a bird not endangered but still heavily fortified by law, nest in the nearby mountains and hunt this patch of desert. There is concern that the mirrors and the boiling bulbs will interfere with these movements, this hunting. There are disconcerting rumors of raptors perching on the bulbs and their talons fusing to the glass.

Rumors that the overhead travellers mistake the mirrors for water and descend into the superheated air mass and are baked to exhaustion or death and plummet into their reflections...

Have another sip.

All is calm at this primordial hour. Indistinct forms coalescing into Something. Speciation. The articulation that light brings. Hear the kit foxes yipping, the den we found earlier in the month only a few hundred feet away. Jeez, look at all these holes. A conspiracy of burrows. And then two big ears and eyes staring from out of an opening. You’ve watched this family come and go, heart aching at the sounds of their calls, the magic trick of their disappearing into the earth. The wish to do the same as the sun climbs up and looks at you with all its might. The Grand Inquisitor in the sky, forcing confessions as it tracks westward. Eventually, you will tell it everything.

Exit the truck and start the hawk sit. Eight hours to go.

Every couple minutes scan the sky, interrogate the horizon. Repeat for the rest of the day. This is the elemental core of the job. To be a pair of eyes looking through a pair of eyes. The basic tool and assumption of scientific inquiry. To be eyes cut away from the heart. To be the eyes beyond your eyes. An eye distilled.

No hawks yet, as is normal for this hour.  A short walk to stretch the legs, achy from the time in the truck. An irregularity in the sand right below the next foot fall. On my knees and a fringe-toed lizard is blanketed under the sand, sister witness to the dawn, her eyes and mouth exposed periscope-like. This was another magic trick I saw the other day. A lizard darted across the sand and I gave chase. It crested a small dune, I did the same...and it suddenly wasn’t there. No bushes nearby to hide in. Bolts of sand rolled out in all directions. You simply saw it and then you didn’t. There are its tracks and there they are not. Scoop up the sand at the end of its trail and there it is. Rabbit in the hat.

Scan the sky. Trace the ridge with your binoculars. Dopplered sound of shifting rocks, maybe borregos picking their way through the skyline. Search the mountains face. A fissure of small cobbles, pebbles cascading down a steep ravine and terminating in a rubble pile. Lazy column of dust climbing out of the pile. The top becomes the bottom.

You feel it, the first rays of sun. The verdins voice, wilted laser, is this suntouch put to sound.

The soft, disembodied call of the LeConte’s thrasher, mimid of the sand barrens, starts up. Slight breeze and the sound of dunes moving against themselves, grating their grains into even smaller pieces. My shadow is thrown behind me long and skeletal. Spindly alien, marooned and starving, reduced to bones.

The sun is welcome and warming at this hour. A sip of coffee as the palo verde trees burn pink.

The first vultures of the day begin to move. They are floating off their night roosts and heading towards the carcass near the freeway. It’s been a project of theirs for days now, this roadside windfall. A favored breakfast stop before the real heat begins and rising thermals make flying easier.

A train of Swainson’s hawks is spotted about 300 hundred meters away to the southeast. Count them, gauge their height, scribble down the numbers, their direction of movement. Soak up their company, their beauty as they drift north. Impossible to sever the eyes completely from the the heart. Who would want to? I know many who have. A dark bird leads them, light morphs follow and another dark bird brings up the rear. Much melanin in these bookends. Intrepid travellers nearing the end of their northward migration. Perhaps the pampas of Argentina lie at the other end of this eternal loop as this species follows the bloom of grasshoppers across the hemispheres.

Pour another cup of coffee as you consider another traveller that passed through this desert, Juan Bautista de Anza and his band of friars, families and cattle. Road signs commemorate this hero and his historic trail throughout this area. A freeway now runs where he once rode. A car ride of a few hours takes you from Nogales to San Francisco, a journey that took him and his crew three and a half months to complete. On his trek, occasionally a bovine falters and is left behind, expired and bloating in the sun. Vultures wobbling above the carcass, learning that food sometimes follows in the wake of these strange, helmeted men on horseback. The party continues through the desert, encounters a tortoise lumbering amongst the wiry shrubs. In an attempt to lift the spirits of the expedition, Juan Bautista halts the party and has them surround the animal. The captain removes his helmet and places it on top of the ancient reptile. The sight of this slow moving beast capped with the high-ranking officers military hat brings delight to the party, the women giggling and the children bright-eyed and renewed. Juan Bautista makes a comparison between the devotion of their chore, to bring true religion and superior meats to San Francisco, and the nature of this unfaltering and consistent beast. The armor on its back that protects it from predators akin to the Faith that each person in the party holds close to their hearts that helps them thwart the temptations of the Devil in all its forms. Bautista ends this weighty moment by removing the helmet from the tortoise and placing it on the head of a small boy. The crowd erupts in laughter and grows hysterical as the explorer picks up the boy and puts him atop the tortoise. Vayan subiendo! Bautista cries and a great release ripples through the crowd as the difficulty of their task, the solemnity with which they are executing it, is leavened with humor. Later, another tortoise is encountered and promptly slaughtered by the soldier at the rear of the guard, it’s meat served to the people in its own shell.

A low flying falcon shakes me from the time travel. She veers off her course and loops high in the air, peeling off south. Down the data goes. A quick scan and the vultures are moving in all directions now. Some go north, bound for Oregon Territory, unwavering in their course, others move in groups floating over the washes and along the highway. Locals. At this distance they look like giant black butterflies tottering against the mountains.

The heat is real now. The sun well above the horizon and my shadow grows squat. Walk back to the truck for a drink of water, maybe a little snack. Can’t find either of my half gallon jugs. Small flame of panic as I tear through the truck. Not a drop. Only what is left in my thermos, another half cup of scalding coffee for the remaining 6 hours. Not a problem, really. I’ve got gas in the tank, I can always leave early, compromise the data, seek hydration. No problem to stick it out either. Juan Bautista and his company weathered much worse. Hell, they didn’t even have the coffee. I pour a cup and let it cool in the shade behind the tire of the truck.

A long period of low activity follows. Mandate of the desert. The hours of siesta. The morning movements and dawn chorus give way to a hot baking silence that lasts until the late afternoon. An occasional murmur from the interstate. A harsh, hand-buzzer scold from the resident shrike, Lanius, the butcher, as it drifts past.  On the hunt, looking to build it’s larder. Macabre collection of small birds, rodents and insects impaled on the thorns of an ironwood tree or barbed wire fence. The conquistadors would’ve found a kindred spirit in this animal, its larder decorated with perforated victims. It’s inquisition era mode of meat curing. The gentle and welcome breeze begins to build, not yet a fury. Soon though, the plastic bags in the surrounding shrubs will fly sideways in the windwhip. Skeletal bushes will cartwheel past comically, just like tumbleweeds in an old western. Someone is mumbling, their voice distorted in the noon heat. It was you talking, to yourself.

I go to drink the cooled coffee. It is full of grit and still warm. I pour the last cup and put it in the truck to let it cool in there.

Four hours to go.

Take your mind off the water concerns and stretch the legs a bit. A vague path continues away east from the truck. There are parallel paths, spaced a few feet apart. In the more compact soil, the faintest suggestion of treadmarks. These are Patton’s tank trails, now some 70 years olds, the movements still readable on the land. This is where the great general trained his men for the desert battles in North Africa. For Rommel drives on deep into Egypt. A museum on the interstate nearby commemorates the training, a few retired and weathered tanks visible from the road. This is where Patton came to learn about the desert, to prepare for the heat, the light. To get his head ready for its shifting sands. His men stopped nearby here, where I am standing, in a wash, finding shade under the ironwood trees. Smoking with their backs against the tank. A man spots a tortoise trundling by, takes a long last drag and goes to the reptile. He picks it up and carries it back to the group, the animals face barely visible within its shell. The man holding the tortoise makes a crack about the shared resemblance of the reptile and Churchill. Someone puts a helmet on the tortoise and poses for the camera. The animal is offered a cigarette. Patton strolls up, the surprised men snapping to attention. The General orders that someone find enlistment papers for this new recruit and the men have a nervous laugh. A man offers up the Churchill connection to The General and Patton responds that he sees more likeness with the prime minister’s wife. The men howl, their love for this man and his gruff wisdom and surprising humor and humanity growing with each passing day. Patton comes over towards the tortoise, crouches beside it. He tells his men that their task isn’t too much different from this fella right here. Our duty is to survive in the desert, to persevere. To endure the elements and the enemy. Only we’re gonna have a helluva lot more firepower then our friend here. More howls, whoops. Now back to to it, men. We got a date with some Nazis. The men disperse, their wills steeled and spirits renewed.

Later in the week, during target practice, a tortoise is sighted and the tank turret swivels, the gun barrel leveling on the animal. The slow swinging of the head mirrors the arc of the turret. Laborious chewing of a low growing borage. The boom travels through the washes and up the ravines of the surrounding mountains and the pillar of dust climbs towards a group of vultures rocking quietly above the desert floor.

Occasionally I find tortoise scutes, pieces of the shell scattered in the sand. Old holes, cobwebbed and home now to other critters. Maybe there are tortoises here, underground. Buried timekeepers, made into examples of longevity and stalwart resolve over the centuries. Made into meals. Strange tradition of having metal helmets placed on them. Culinary tradition of being baked in their own carapace.

The last cup of coffee is long gone and my lips cracked from licking them, the wind wicking them. This wind keeps building out of the east. A river of trash floats above the freeway, plastic shopping bags moving erratically above the traffic, spiraling upward in the wakes of the semis. Dust devils build, wrapping up twigs, dirt and plastics in their helices. The sun has baked my head, cracked it as if were made of desiccated clay. Sudden, unshakable truths are allowed to flood into it. These dust devils, they are the departing souls of snakes. Recently dead, this is their spirits departing. But where do serpents go when they die?

And the rising sand itself, it is being deposited back on the top of the mountain. And by combined force of freeze/thaw, the hooves of sheep and The Hours, it will trickle down to the valley floor again. The mountain is turning upside down. The top becomes the bottom. Just as the dune moves, grain by grain, as a slow wave across the flats, the mountain rolls like a terrible cartwheel across the earth. I am looking at a giant hourglass, the seconds and the minutes flooding down all around me.

The crushing weight of time is sudden and visceral. A burden defined. And now that it is named, its tyranny is unbearable. In the middle of nowhere, surrounded by wilderness, a claustrophobic expanse is tightening around me. An eye boiled.

Beneath the sun, a Prairie Falcon cuts south through the middle of the mountain. Blood dribbles, tick tick, from a desert iguana in her talons. Its dangled body dripping, watering the sand below.

The Boobies Were Real

Ah, Baja. It wasn't that long ago...but sitting here in Harlingen, Texas, I feel very removed from that trip. But a dream it was not...the boobies were real. And so I thought I'd churn out another post before I get overloaded with work and get caught in the deep and fast-moving current that is spring migration on the Gulf Coast.

Unlike Todos Santos, an apparent booby wasteland, Blue-footed Boobies were lusciously abundant in La Paz. They were easy to see from the main waterfront, where these photos were taken.

Plunge-diving birds bring me much joy...you need good form if you are going to plunge underwater from great height and expect to catch something. There were also a number of Brown Boobies in the area, but I didn't manage any photos of them.

Being on the Sea of Cortez side of the peninsula, the common large gull in La Paz is Yellow-footed (above), not Western. Western Gulls are puny in comparison to the mammoth Yellow-footed.

Yellow-footed Gull is truly a gnarly beast. I wonder how they would do in a duel with Great Black-backed Gull. Let's hope they never hybridize, for all of nature will be lost.

Here's a young Yellow-footed. Unlike other large gulls, a 3rd cycle Yellow-footed Gull is essentially an adult bird. They grow up fast in Mexico.

Moon Vulture. Photographed at Playa Balandra, an awesome beach north of La Paz.

Ash-throated Flycatcher is a true creature of the scrub. You show me scrub, chaparral, and trees of unimpressive height...and I will show your Ash-throated Flycatcher. Their habitat doesn't change very drastically throughout their range, and it doesn't look that different down by the cape either. Photographed at Playa Balandra.

Atop the coke villa for a sunset, we ooze sexy.

I got my best ever looks at Gilded Flicker on this trip. Photographed in the cemetery at Todos Santos.

Having gorged on sweet sweet sweet Mexican nectar, the flicker contemplates the irony of feasting on bright flowery wonderfulness amid a barren field saturated with human remains. Gilded Flickers, after all, are known for leading a rich and rewarding inner life.

Hooded Oriole seems to be one of the most abundant winter birds in the Todos Santos area. Most of the males were a bit dingy looking...but they are still honorable birds. Todos Santos.

Xantus's Hummingbird...a bird that I saw many of, and a bird that I miss. Sure I can walk across the street today and see Buff-bellied Hummingbirds, but the Trochilid of Xantus lives in a league of its own. Do go and visit them when you have the chance. Todos Santos.

Magnificent Frigatebird doing a Black Skimmer impression at La Poza, Todos Santos. Truly versatile birds.

Moon Frigate. Photographed at Punta Lobos, south of Todos Santos.

Frigatebirds have a habit of furnishing some of the best birding memories. La Poza.

I have taken many frigatebird photos over the years...I think this is by far the funniest. Keep in mind the bird is not directly overhead, it's actually flying low and "standing" vertically in midair.

I do love me some Bonus Herps, although I depend on the kindness of nerds to identify them for me most of the time. This is a Red Diamond Rattlesnake (thanks Natalie).

Ok, here's a mystery lizard that lived at our coke villa in Todos Santos. Any of you cold-blooded folk familiar with this? I also saw a San Lucas Banded Rock Lizard on the side of the house one day, but failed at getting any documentation. It was a crippler though.

Our complete pinche Mexican crew on an ill-fated walk through the desert. It turns out jamming seven people into a tiny rental car doesn't work very well...but thanks to our overheating car, we all got some Wild Ass.