5MR Birding in Exponential Times

I have seen countless Anna's Hummingbirds in my life and I will admit I no longer look at each one with child-like wonder, or even its rare and highly diluted cousin, regular adult wonder. For example, the male Anna's in my backyard is highly territorial and essentially keeps all other hummingbirds out of there, no matter how many feeders I put up and juicy nectar-giving plants I put in the ground. Just today he chased out an interesting Selasphorus. It's in his nature of course, but still...what a dick! That said whenever the light catches a male the right way or one is doing its display flight nearby, it is still impossible to look away. Photographed at the Los Capitancillos Ponds.

Any birdpunx remember Cobra Skulls? I really dug that band. Imma kick off this post with a verse of theirs.

The golden age is never coming back

Getting out was not part of the plan

You are just a victim of an older time

Falling behind in exponential times

Grim eh? But very fitting. The notion that large numbers of us could be wiped out by an illness that also brings society to a grinding halt seemed outlandish and atavistic to many a mere couple months ago. The phrase "exponential growth" meant almost nothing to anybody except nerds. The phrase was safely in the weak grasp of dweebs. Now that idea has been bouncing around all over the place this spring, though clearly it has not made it's way into the brains of all ("It didn't go in. It just impacted on the surface."). These are exponential, weird times we live in. Things seemed weird...and not in a good way...before this fateful March, but of course our day to day life has been totally upended since then. The Groundhog Day effect, already familiar to so many, has intensified to peak Bill Murray levels. It's not just that each day is so similar to the last, or that days blur together, the other less obvious but still significant component of that headspace is that we don't know when any of this sad, stressful bizarreness will end. The light at the end of the tunnel is dim and ill-defined...and possibly because the light is being made by a fiery inferno, and we are all barreling toward it.

But chances are if you are reading this, no matter where you all, you know all too well of what I speak. It's my job as the #7 U.S. birder as identified by the infallible Global Birder Ranking System (universally recognized as an Essential Business) and one of birding's most prominent influencers to carry on and talk about birding in spite of the conditions in which we find ourselves.

Red-winged "Bicolored" Blackbirds arrive to breed at my house very early in winter and appear to set up territories before any other migrant songbird within my radius. Though you can find them without trouble year round in the county, these particular birds will likely all leave the area before the end of June. I have not grown numb to their presence and am happy to always have them in earshot and at my feeders while GERI BIRDING. This male was making some modest but pleasing display flights. Photographed at the Los Capitancillos Ponds.

The first thing that needs to be said is that birders, like people in general, are having all sorts of reactions to covid-19 and the shelter-in-place orders. I will be the first one to step up and admit that I did not see this pandemic coming and that we would be the world leader in number of cases and death toll (MAGA! USA!), but I am going to tell you that once it got rolling here I knew exactly how this would affect birders. It is all happening as I have foreseen. To w(h)it:

*A lot of birders would have sweet birding trips cancelled.

*Yard birding would take off.

*5MR birding would grow yet more in popularity.

*Some birders would stop birding away from their yard.

*Some birders would only bird locally.

*Some birders would still travel to bird (mostly to chase essential rarities, obvi) but not as much as they normally would.

*Some birders would bird the exact same way they did in February, as if nothing at all had changed. Lots of county listers/chasers with this attitude. 

I have seen countless White-crowned Sparrows in my life but their arrival and departure from California lowlands have always been very significant to me. Now, as a GERI BIRDER, I am particularly saddened when they and their Golden-crowned brethren pull out and head north. My yard will gain no new common birds in the meantime, as my very small suite of summer birds have already arrived. My last White-crown departed on April 24, and it seems my last Golden-crowned left on April 26, but luckily they will be back in less than five months. This is a pugetensis with the dull yellow bill and noticeable brown wash on the breast and underparts. Photographed at Rancho de Bastardos.

And here is a crisp gambelii for comparison, which was foraging a few feet away from the pugetensis above.

*All tour guides would be totally screwed.

*There would be a great deal of shelter-shaming (shaming people in public for chasing distant rarities or just doing any birding at all) in listservs and Facebook groups.

*The number of reported rarities will fall off as a result of birders travelling less and popular sites having reduced or no access, but may be compensated in part by birders by birding locations that previously enjoyed less coverage. The birding herd mentality so prevalent in many regions will be tamped down somewhat.

*Since almost everyone is even more stressed during this time, there will be some highly entertaining pitched battles between birders in public forums on all manner of topics.

Ok, the one thing I did not predict was people hoping eBird would remove alerts and start hiding data to discourage birders from...birding. This seems not only unrealistic, but also really bizarre. Oh I also know that a very well known birder...also, unfortunately, an eBird reviewer...thinks that law enforcement agencies are planning to use eBird data to cite violators of shelter in place measures?

How embarrassing, to put it mildly.

For the number of Merlins I've seen, its notable that these slick birds seem to so rarely remain on perches close enough to say that you got great looks at them. This one, presumably the last one I'll see until fall, was brave enough to buck the trend. Photographed at the Santa Clara Valley Water District HQ.

As for me? I have not left the county since sheltering started (and here, we have the Santa Clara County measures on top of the California ones) and mostly, but not entirely, remain in my 5MR when birding. Santa Clara County's shelter order directs us to remain within the county unless performing an essential activity, so by that measure I guess I have been COMPLIANT...and perhaps you think I am a coward for doing so. That's ok, because I'm sure some of you other readers probably think I am a plague vendor doling out pestilence and death each and every time I go birding away from my yard. Where does The Truth lie? Who is in possession of The Answer?

Many have found The Answer...to everything...lies somewhere within their own FIVE MILE RADIUS. Interestingly, the San Mateo County (which is the county north of here) shelter in place order restricts residents to...you guessed it, a 5MR from their homes! Sad to be sure, but from a purely birding standpoint, convenient and hilarious. Upon learning this, one unenlightened local birder posted to the local listserv about how depressing birding will be if he was going to be confined to locations within five miles of his house. I can only imagine his surprise (and disgust) when he learned of the legions of birders who volunteer to do this very thing!

Some of the plantings at the Santa Clara Valley Water District have turned out to great for migrant hummingbirds, most of which are comprised of zesty Rufous Hummingbirds. I've ended up seeing a lot more Rufous Hummingbirds since moving here from Alameda County and their comparative abundance has been refreshing. And no, I'm not 100% sure that female is not an Allen's, but Allen's are greatly outnumbered in my 5MR by Rufous for some reason.

One of my post-Costa Rica birding highlights this year was finding this Calliope Hummingbird, also at the water district. Unlike many of my experiences with this species, it was very close and gave excellent looks. They are annual in the county but are typically only reported from one or two locations per year. This wee little crippler is easily one of my favorite western migrants. Fortunately, it's been a very good spring for finding them in lowlands in the state, and I'm sure a large number of them have passed through the saddle at Loma Prieta undetected.

Here is my first new radius bird of 2020 - a much-anticipated Purple Martin. Though not quite a rarity, this is another very hard bird to find in the county away from Loma Prieta, where they breed. Photographed at the Chynoweth Pond in San Jose.

I'm pretty sure I've said this before, but if there was ever a time to be redundant on the topic of radius birding, it is now. I know most of you reading this fall into the following categories: (1) you are Flycatcher Jen (who started radius birding), (2) you are already a 5MR birder, (3) you are sympathetic to 5MR birding but haven't embarked on your radial journey, (4) you think 5MR birding is dumb and entirely unappealing, or (5) you live someplace where it doesn't work so well (those exist - you get a free pass). If 3 or 4 resonate with you...now is the time to step out of the darkness and into the radial light. Do you have someplace to be? No. Something better to do? Definitely not. Come join us! I'm not at all saying we should give ourselves the self-imposed San Mateo treatment, but really there could be no better time to be doing a lot of birding close to home. 

I should mention that all birds in today's post were seen in my 5MR, including Rancho de Bastardos, a Geri Birding haven for me in these difficult times. I've recorded 95 species here since sheltering began here in mid-March, including a banner day where I managed a whopping (to me) 61 species, almost entirely after 12PM. I believe that's my highest single day species total here so far. Geri to the rescue!

Similar to the situation with Red-winged Blackbirds, Band-tailed Pigeons can be found in the county throughout the year but they disappear from my yard in fall and winter. I wonder how far "our" birds migrate, after all they are found from Alaska to Argentina (!) and have a nice pattern of vagrancy in the eastern half of the continent, so some birds are certainly moving significant distances. At any rare, it's good to have these humongous floppy goofs back and available for Geri Birding duties. Photographed at Rancho de Bastardos.

I'm happy to have Hooded Oriole as a common visitor to the yard, I'm pretty sure they nest on both sides of my house along my street. For whatever reason adult males are way more skittish than females and juveniles, so I'll take a powerline shot. This is far and away the flashiest bird that visits the yard on the reg, what would I do without them? Photographed at Rancho de Bastardos.

I think we are pretty much caught up on things now. Oh, I need to mention that I got one more new radius bird recently, which was also a new addition to the yard list (first since last year) - I stepped out into my backyard briefly the other night and almost keeled over when I heard a strident PILL-WILL-WILLET! proclaimed not once, but twice, with strength and vigor. Shorebirds are so hard to come by in my radius that I was totally taken aback by this northbound Willet giving nocturnal flight calls. Migration is a hell of a thing.

Woods Lake and Carson Pass: A High Elevation Megapost

You know, I've done so little blogging this year that I could really blog about anything at this point, there's a lot to work with...I've been seeing some nice rarities this fall, clobbering county birds (my Santa Clara list will soon surpass my San Francisco list, which I know you don't care about in the slightest but is crazy to me), maintaining yard vigilance (Foxtrot Oscar Foxtrot Fox Sparrow for the yard this morning) and planting native goodness, and I finally watched Pelican Blood, probably the most interesting movie involving birding that I've seen...although despite ample drug use it did not surpass the amount of cocaine consumed in Rare Bird.

I could make fun of birders, which is always necessary and something readers love.

Those topics will have to wait though. I'm going to go with covering a trip I took to the Sierra Nevada this summer. It wasn't a full on birding trip but the avian haul was high grade. The original plan was to go back to Mono County with the fam, see some east side spots and hang out with The Grub, but the massive Ferguson fire was in full effect and the area was effectively smoked out. Considering we were bringing a toddler with us, that didn't sound so great (we will try again next year Grub) so I scrambled to find another area that would make for a good camping trip that both didn't need reservations and wasn't being besieged by smoke from wildfires. With the help of eBird (specifically looking at Pine Grosbeak observations), some web browsing and hitting up people on Foxtrot Bravo I settled on the Carson Pass area, camping at Woods Lake in Alpine County, an area I was totally unfamiliar with.

It worked out really well - some smoke moved in and out of the area each day but the air was leaps and bounds cleaner than the garbage air we drove through to get there, and there were even campsites available. Billy was pleased with the choice, and Annie was confused but eventually became pleased as well. Yet again #7 proved himself a master birding tactician, and great at family planning as well (get it???).

Let's jump into the birding. As expected at the beginning of August, some areas in the high country held numerous neotropical migrants staging for the long haul south, or already on their way. Wilson's Warblers (top and above) were one of the more common species. This one here has almost no black in the crown whatsoever, which I don't see often with this species.

There were Yellow-rumped Warblers galore, common breeders in the area. It's always a jolt to go from months of no Yellow-rumps to being back in the thick of them again, in a completely different habitat than where you see them the rest of the year. Many of the adult birds we encountered, Yellow-rumped and otherwise, were really haggard looking.

Lots of adult Yellow-rumps were toting around loud, begging juveniles like this one.

Fox Sparrows were not as numerous as I thought they would be but this one teed up nicely in response to my mediocre pishing. This is the thick-billed subspecies.

The nesting oriantha White-crowned Sparrows up there have black lores and reddish bills, and hold it down in mountain meadows. Stylish and bucolic.

A major target bird for me was Williamson's Sapsucker, because they are fantastic and I don't get to see them very often. As you can see, great success! I like sapsuckers and this is the best sapsucker. I'm glad I don't have to relive the time in my life when I had yet to see one, what with the constant gnashing of teeth and painful spasms that afflicted me, as well as most people who have yet to see this poignant species.

On the trail to Winnemucca Lake (from Carson Pass) I found this Empidonax, which I thought was a bright/fresh Gray at the time but looking at photos afterward I think is more likely a bright/fresh Dusky. The bill length, eyering, and head shape (in the first photo) all look better for Dusky to me, but opinions are welcome.

This trail was all very legit and scenic and flowery, but the trail got super crowded later in the morning. Do check it out but hit the trail early or later in the day if you go during summer.

One afternoon we drove down to Kirkwood Lake to check it out. Just off the highway, Billy spotted a pair of Sooty Grouse! Sooty Grouse is a bird that I have not encountered in a long time...a long time. It had been over a decade since I've seen one, which is far too long to go without seeing this splendid grouse. This is the first time I've seen them in the Sierras.

Even though they were just lurking on the shoulder of the road, I am absolutely sure I would not have noticed them Billy not called them out. So much for #7...anyhow, I was stoked to reconnect with these finely patterned friends. While they can't really be considered rare in most of their range in California, they are exceptionally unreliable in most areas. Even booming grouse are notoriously hard to spot. You don't find Sooty Grouse, Sooty Grouse finds you, and usually while you are in a car and unprepared.

As I mentioned, I wanted to find Pine Grosbeaks. Not just because I had a craving for Pine Grosbeak, but because it was my last "easy" bird I needed for the precious California list. After many years of waiting the bird gods had mercy on me, and I saw them over and over again on this trip. I saw them down by Woods Lake, in the Woods Lake campground, on the Woods Lake entrance road, and near the trailhead by Carson Pass. It was brilliant. The first one we saw flopped down to the ground a few feet away from us while we were standing next to a bathroom at the campground.

After that I made sure to take my crusher whenever I went to the bathroom, which ended up working perfectly when I found this confiding male cruising around on the ground. I've read that they are approachable and now I know it to be true. Few state birds have been so welcoming and affable, and their hospitality made me forget, however briefly, that life is pain.

The final Pine Grosbeak encounter featured a family group - here is one of the fresh juveniles.

Here is mom Pine Grosbeak stuffing it full of something while it flaps crazily.

Mom Pine Grosbeak is a lot more worn looking than her grosbeak child, with a more richly colored head.

Wow! Talk about getting the complete Pine Grosbeak experience. Things may never be the same...

Now that we covered the birds well, lets check out some small stuff. For example, this fly is small. And super hairy.

Looking at a plant book, I'm guessing the super hairy fly is on mountain-pennyroyal, but rest assured I don't know what I'm talking about when it comes to plant ID.

Ranger's buttons were an abundant and becoming wildlflower. The pollinators also found them very becoming.

Ooooh waspy thing just shoving its face shamelessly into an inflorescence.

I know next to nothing about butterflies, but I do like them. Here is a pleasant small thing.

Another pleasant small thing.

Little elephant's head was a lifer flower. These were growing on the south side of Woods Lake.

These monkeyflowers looked happy about something. A little too happy if you ask me.

While there are a seemingly endless supply of smug looking yellow monkeyflowers out here in the west, I'm pretty sure this huge flashy lavender one was new for me. They probably aren't uncommon or anything (though we only saw a few, at one stream crossing) but they left an impression on me. I reckon this is Lewis's monkeyflower, or at least something very similar.

I don't reckon what this is whatsoever. No reckoning to be found here, just total ignorance. Found a tiny patch of whatever the hell this is on the south side of Woods Lake as well.

I think this is an alpine lily? Small blossoms, short petals, hella high elevation. A high quality wildflower.

Before I forget, yes Woods Lake was great; this epic rockslide is visible from the south side of the lake. Thanks everyone who recommended it. Good birding, easy Pine Grosbeaks, lots of trails, lots to explore nearby, heckof scenic, many wildflowers on the west and south sides of the lake. Mosquitoes were no problem either, though I can see that situation being different earlier in the summer....oh and there were a lot of different bats too, at least a couple kinds, including some big ones that were larger than hoary but smaller than Townsend's big-eared...pallid bats perhaps? Anyways really good batting and stargazing, which would have been even better had I not forgotten to bring bourbon....STUPID STUPID STUPID STUPID.

Speaking of stupid, we had some total wankers camping next to us the entire time (hella loud, and I got to hear about how one of the kids thought the earth was flat because Kyrie Irving said so...at least the other loud kids thought he was crazy). That said on the last night I figured out they weren't that bad compared to the total nightmare camping apocalypse situation going on at a campsite further away, which I think would have driven me to do terrible things if I were unlucky enough to camp next to their "party", if it could be called that.

On the way to Meiss Meadows, a known wildflower mecca, we found these pinedrops, which apparently get their nutrients from fungi associated with the roost systems of plants. We were a little late for the peak wildflower scene this year (we were there the first week of August) but there was still a lot blooming. We probably could have found more in the way of wildflowers at Meiss but Annie was feeling the elevation so we didn't loiter for as long as we could have - the birding by that little pond was good though, featuring my first Wood Duck above treeline.

Good times and good views from up at Meiss, though the encroaching smoke didn't help.

My happy campers. Annie looks very impressed by it all.

Phew. I'm not sure if I've ever put this many photos in one post before, might be a BB&B first. Thanks for sticking with me, see you soon nerds.

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.