The Human Birdwatcher Project Presents: Birding by Flavor Profile

Sibley uses words like "neat, clean, striking" to describe Buller's Shearwater. Dunn uses "gleaming, graceful" and..."striking". All of these descriptions are true, and in the case of "striking", double true, but what if I told you that this bird could be described in an entirely different way? The depth of this bird's nuanced but definitively unsubtle visual flavor profile is nothing short of bottomless. The mellowing effects of the strong vanilla notes fades before the abrupt finish, as the bird disappears into a trough forever, never to be seen again...and you are left needing more. The aftertaste? A hint of calamari and a whole lot of desire.

The foodie. The wine connoisseur. The beer sommelier. The cicerone. The coffee cupper. I don't have a whole lot in common with these people. I still eat Top Ramen with rigor, even though I am 13 years removed from college. I hardly drink wine at all, and I will drink Tecate or Pabst or Hamm's just as happily as most (not all) other beers. I do love good coffee, but there is no way I would ever pay to go cupping. However, there is something that all these food and drink snobs have in common with one another, and with myself...in order to be so in enthusiastic abound indulging themselves in food and drink and trying to convey that to people, they also need to have a love of the language that comes with the territory.

If you don't know what I'm talking about, here are excerpts from a breakingbourbon.com (which has some great content if you like your bourbon...and you know how BB&B feels about bourbon) review about Sazerac's 2013 George T. Stagg Straight Bourbon. To wit:

"Sitting with this bourbon for the first time you're instantly hit with a sense that this is a sophisticated bourbon. A smell of aged wood, raisin, caramel and a hint of corn dance across your nose, transporting you right to the middle of an aging warehouse on a warm spring day in Kentucky. While the alcohol wants to overpower the senses, overall the balance of the wood smell evens this bourbon out nicely. Let this one sit for a few minutes, and the smell just keeps getting more and more delicious...Initially a sweet taste of caramel hits your tongue that instantly is replaced with a taste of all-spice and leather... As it mellows, you get hints of candy corn and rubber, finishing on a note of wet wood and tobacco."

Fascinating. Now I'm not familiar with this particular bourbon, but this is a very interesting description, fanciful as it may seem. Candy corn? Rubber? I've consumed a lot of bourbon and those tastes have never entered my mind. It's ridiculous and whimsical but people really get off on this sort of thing. As easy as it is to just call "bullshit" on this sort of thing, I think it's fantastic that folks are being so creative and enthusiastic in describing something that a lot of consumers put no mental effort into characterizing whatsoever...i.e. a lot of people relegate coffee to being either good or bad, hot or cold. Nothing more. But there is so much more!

And now to finally bring this post around to birds...here at the Human Birdwatcher Project, we firmly believe that "birders are people too!", and in the last decade a whole lot of people have bought in to the foodie treatment thing. I think it is time that birds get the same sort of attention to detail that so much of the nonbirding world has been delving into. All too often a bird is described the same way over and over again...beautiful, bright, cute...striking...or on the other end of the spectrum, dull, plain, or even than repulsive cliche that never seems to die, "little brown job". These abundantly used descriptors are ok for field guides, which have little space available and require utilitarian phrasing regardless, but what about all the other bird books? The magazine and web articles? The blogs and the trip reports? We can do better, bird writers! What would it be like to apply these foodcore descriptions to a bird's appearance...a visual flavor profile, so to speak? Well, there is only one way to find out...

Yellow-billed Magpie. This endemic demands your attention. To look away when a magpie is near is to do your eyes, heart, and visual palate injustice. Most of what this bird has to offer, strictly in terms of looks, is a sudden blast to the retinas; it is superbly balanced, with strong notes of oak and dried grass. You see what you get very quickly, though this is a bird that needs to enjoyed both while it is perched and in flight. When seen close up and in good light, you will notice a salty but wet taste - these are the tears flowing down your face, which the magpie's incredible iridescence has triggered reflexively.

Before we go on, all of these food and drink items that get critiqued are typically assigned some sort of score, mostly because people really like to rank things. With that in mind, and because birders still mercilessly use the word "jizz" seriously (birders are still clueless, apparently), I will now introduce the Bourbon, Bastards & Birds Visual Jizz Tasting Scale™! The magpie gets an 8/10 on the scale, with the only significant mark against it being that much of it appears identical to Black-billed Magpie.

Lewis's Woodpecker. Few birds taste as utterly unique...visually...as a Lewis's Woodpecker. This bird is sherbet for your eyes, but also so much more. A big woodpecker almost the size of a crow that is black, green, gray, red and pink...what? How can that be? But just like Jagermeister and soy eggnog sound absolutely incomprehensible together, we know it somehow works. And unlike Jagnog, encountering a Lewis's Woodpecker will never fill you with pain or regret the next day. Your soul will be full, though you may have an undeniable urge to track down some rasberry sorbet.

A criminally underrated species, Lewis's Woodpecker gets the high marks on the BB&B Visual Jizz Tasting Scale™: 9/10

House Finch (juvenile). Not only do species vary in their visual flavor profiles from one another, a single species can vary significantly in plumage as well. Take the House Finch. Despite seeing thousands of House Finches every year, every once in a while I will still be struck by a particularly bright male beaming his cranberried colors into my eyes. They are visually a mess, like they fell into some strawberry compote, but you can't deny that berry-colored birds are well received no matter how sloppy their attire. This juvenile House Finch, on the other hand...well, this just doesn't inspire the visual taste buds. It is overall bland but slightly tart, with textures of dead leaves and clay-laden soils. The more of these you see, the quicker the bitterness accumulates. Looking at this bird reminds me of eating a stale saltine...a stale saltine with no salt. Some of the fresh browns are warm and mellowing, sure, but there is no other shortage of brown birds that are far more inspiring. It doesn't help that the species is also ubiquitous (much like corn syrup and palm oil) and nonnative to much of the country. This particular bird gets points for fresh plumage and not much else; if most birds looked like this, there would not be birdwatchers.

The juvenile House Finch gets a 2/10 on the BB&B Visual Jizz Tasting Scale™.

A harsh review? Perhaps. I have no animosity toward House Finches, but we need to be true to our tastes, true to ourselves, and true to the birds (not to mention the jizz). Like food and drink, birds cannot be savored equally.

How about a couple more? I will now hand over the blog reins to my co-blogger Cass for some additional species, to get his take on birding flavor profiles.

Blue headed vireo. Maybe it’s just the eye ring but this bird inspires a deep lust for rolls. Sushi rolls to be exact. An understated blend of subtle flavors and textures, wingbars and flankwash, covert edging and vent glitz, this vireo was built with the same ethos that went into the architecture an 8 piece Kappa maki….HARMONY. As with most things Japanese, an element of  asymmetry is found in the final analysis. Chaos, i.e. nature, must have the final edit. With this bird it is that hooked crab-cracker glued to the front of its face. The bill is the bite, the wasabi punch that carries the vireo through is flirtation with mundanity and buries its memory deep in your stomach. A point blank viewing will make your eyes water and your grip on reality will be touch and go. As with sushi, the viewer is satiated with surprisingly little, as the visual nutrition is so dense. A gastronomical bonus; the blue headed vireo’s casual foraging speed, somewhere between the boorish/jolting sit-then-sally Empid and the frenetic wood warbler, also promotes proper digestion. Itadakimass!

Wood Duck (female). Belonging to the forgotten 3rd tribe of anatidids, the lurkers (the other two being, of course, the dabblers and divers), this backwater beauty is the chic, ice-veined femme fatale to her overblown, coked-out counterpart in the 80’s power couple known as Aix sponsa. Even the scientific moniker smacks of a New Wave band name.

Now to assess this birds flavor profile. For starters, resist the temptation to pick up this F%#*ING PERFECT duck and stuff it in your pocket. If resistance proves futile then bury your face in her neck and inhale the heady top notes of fermenting algae. Next, place her feet in your mouth in the hopes of ingesting a rogue toad egg she has caught between her toes. The numbing effect of the bufotoxin should kick in shortly, just in time for you to offer her a mouthful of mosquito larva that she will most likely attack with fervor and violence. The feeding will leave you with hideous face scars you'll carry with you for the rest of your days. Though you won’t feel a thing due to the bufotoxin, your heart will soar as you add another tick to your animals-that-have-eaten-out-of-my-mouth list.

Whoa. Well, this just goes to show you how many ways the visual flavor profile can go...who knew things would veer toward Nyotaimori? Birding by flavor profile isn't going to revolutionize the arcane genre of bird writing, but I think there are avenues of perceiving and describing birds that birders should be open to exploring.

Some Terns Drink At Carpal Bars

Common Tern and Western Gull. Common Terns are uncommon fall migrants throughout most of California, and are rarely common anywhere in the state. If any species of bird is going to teach you what a "carpal bar" is, this is it. Ormond Beach, Port Hueneme, CA.

The Perpetual Weekend. You may have heard it. Not everyone can do it. It is for brave souls, who do not feel the need to hide behind the facade of raising a family, or who squander the last of their youth by languishing away in grad school. It is for those who are not afraid to meet the challenges of a society who measures one's success not by happiness or contentment (or numbers of birds seen, for that matter), but by how much you get paid to spend your waking life in a job you don't like, and for many of you, outwardly resent. If you crave stability and security, then The Perpetual Weekend is not for you. But if you believe in Freedom, Liberty, and The Pursuit of Happiness...indeed, The American Dream as we know it...then you must throw down your shackles and embrace The Perpetual Weekend. How else can you go birding whenever you want?

For those with the wherewithal to actually experience complete and total freedom for a while (and I'm not talking about Burning Man), I can only say this is a lifestyle I highly recommend. Your bird lists will benefit, as will your birding skills. It is worth mentioning the Global Birding Ranking System does actually take into account your number of hours birding vs. your number of hours working, with some advanced calculus involved in situations where you actually get paid to bird.

I am back in Oakland now. I went 0/2 in my vagrant-hunting efforts yesterday but there's a lot to catch up on...here's a few recent birds from Ventura County, CA, where I became the Number 7 birder I am today.

Here's a better look at the previously-mentioned carpal bar. 

I never get tired of taking tern pictures...being Masters of the Air, there is no shortage of epic poses to capture them in, and since they are so agile, most of my pictures are garbage anyways.

Nuttall's Woodpeckers are present at many coastal sites that California birders are scouring this time of year for vagrants. You may overlook them now, but when migration has passed us by you will once again love and cherish this humble woodpecker. Sycamore Canyon, CA.

This Loggerhead Shrike is looking as cute as a shrike probably can. Arnold Road, Oxnard Plain, CA.

This was my first Merlin of the fall. I look forward to many more. Oxnard Plain, CA.

This beast, an eclipse male Wood Duck, is not something SoCal birders get to see very often. Even looking their worst, Wood Ducks are still bizarre creatures. Bubbling Springs Park, Port Hueneme, CA.

So many colors. An astounding duck at all times of year.

Ahhhhh, urban birding. Great Blue Heron, Ormond Beach, CA.

On Embarking On My Long, Slow, Crawl To The Grave

Nobody is really looking at ducks this time of year. That doesn't mean they aren't around somewhere though...watching you. This Wood Duck was at Santee Lakes in disgusting Santee, CA.

Ah, its great to be back in the warm embrace of the Birdosphere, where people are only marginally real and birds only exist in two dimensions.

I've been going through the painful and transformative process known as "turning 30" over the past several days. At this point I can safely say I've turned 30, and am not stuck in some sort of soulless limbo between 29 and 30. I am officially, arguably, not young. Sigh.

But seriously though...it was a GODSEND to celebrate such a dubious occasion with people I actually like for a change, rather than the people I've been stuck with during field jobs...with some exceptions, of course. Thanks to TPAD Dan, Sultry and Argu for helping strengthen my liver and spirits; you are beacons of light in a sea of shadowy nerds.

I also will take this opportunity to begin sleeping again. They say "You can sleep when you're dead", but the people who say that typically aren't very sleep-deprived. Amirite?

"Aw, shucks." - Whimbrel. Tijuana Slough National Wildlife Refuge, CA.

Long-billed Curlews move with confidence...they know they are well-endowed. ESPECIALLY the females. Tijuana Slough.

Little Blue Herons in tandem. Different, but the same. I've never seen a white one with such a glowing face. San Diego River, San Diego, CA.

Great Egret. With lores like that, life is easy. This (unrestrained) bird was at the San Diego Zoo...you can probably guess what that pink haze in the background is.

Yellow-crowned Night-Heron, Crab Slayer. Imperial Beach Sports Park, Imperial Beach, CA.

The zoo crew is deep into the Least Tern nesting season now. Walking through any nesting site is terrifying, because their practically-invisible chicks could be lying around anywhere. The adults have really good aim now; they have managed to shit onto my lips twice in one day.

Gull-billed Tern, Destroyer of Lizards and Occasional Scourge of Least Terns and Snowy Plovers. Tijuana Slough.

Some bird flocks move like a rollercoaster more than anything else. Black Skimmers, Crown Point, San Diego, CA.

Hammerkop! Just as strangely put together as a skimmer, but probably not as well known to Americans. In Africa (where they are supposed to be), they build enormous nests which dwarf practically every other sort of bird nest in size. Hammerkop nests are then utilized by many other species as a home...its like they are avian beavers. This is a member of one of the aviaries in the San Diego Zoo.

That's Not An Albatross Around My Neck...

No one takes pictures of female Ring-necked Ducks unless they absolutely have to....that all changes today. Santee Lakes, Santee, CA.

I forgot how working really gets in the way of one's birding...and I get paid to look at birds. Of course, most of my time now is spent staring at the ground, in an attempt to find the highly-camouflaged nest of a Snowy Plover.

So, spring on the west coast. What can I say? A lot of migrant passerines seem (predictably) a bit early, but so far its business as usual for many other northbound birds. The year birds are still coming strong (Ash-throated Flycatcher was the most recent), and I look forward to going migrant-hunting this spring...although I may be out of luck in the short term.

Why? It's because of my 1999 Honda Accord, whom I harbor a withering hatred for. This car has been cursed from the very beginning (indeed, unbeknownst to me, it had a recall out for it when I bought it) and has been sucking on my financial reserves like a giant metal lamprey ever since. It seems to be the archetypal piece of machinery for "planned obsolescence", if anyone is savvy with product jargon. It would be better off used as target practice than to drive. Perhaps it is well-suited to be dropped into the ocean, for use by marine life as some kind of artificial reef. Anyways...depending on how things go, I may find my time off in the next month spent car-shopping instead of birding, which is a giant bummer. Just thinking about it fills my heart with hate...but it will be nice to not have a Honda hanging around my neck for any longer.

Right. Well I hope you all are getting out there, binoculars in hand, popping pupils at salient spring migrants. It is, after all, what is best.

Reddish Egret is one of my favorite birds. They have style and swagger. I've also never had the opportunity to get any great pictures of them, so this will have to do for now. J Street Mudflats, Chula Vista, CA.

Red-breasted Merganser. I think it wins the award for Most Haphazard Crest. J Street Mudflats.

Orange-crowned Warbler. They are the most basic western warbler. Primitive even, in their lack of adornments, changeless plumages, and unimaginative songs. That said, I still like them. Mission Trails Regional Park, CA.

Hooded Orioles are one of the earliest spring bids to arrive here every year, and can be found holding down palm trees throughout the summer. Santee Lakes, CA.

This is the rarely seen hover-mode of the Western Bluebird. No wings required. This is their preferred mode of transport while collecting nesting material. Santee Lakes, CA.

A more traditional pose.

You know its a dark day when a Violet-green Swallow manages to have all of its color washed away. This picture makes me think of storm-petrels, for some reason. Santee Lakes.

Mysterious Parakeets of Gloom. Famosa Slough, San Diego, CA.

American Wigeon pair. Another month and they will probably be all gone. I think the female actually looks better than the male in this shot...nice edgings! Santee Lakes, CA.

A Wood Duck lets loose a half-hearted bellow. Wood Ducks are plentiful and friendly at Santee Lakes, the result of a successful reintroduction program. Unlike the wigeon, the ring-neck, and the merganser, they will be staying around to bellow all summer long.

A Cooper's Hawk catches a thermal. Mission Trails Regional Park, CA.

Brilliance Borders On Nonsense

This past week BB&B has pulled stakes from the bay area and has been encamped in my old haunts of Arcata, California. Unfortunately, the weather has been miserable all week so I don't have much to show for it, at least in terms of photography. As a result, you will be getting an eyeful of other winter birds that I've gotten to lay optic nerves on over the past couple months.

I'm not sure if you've noticed or not, but my short attention span requires me to generally not post more than one photo of a species at a time. In an exercise of tranquility and mellowness, you are going to get DOUBLE the number today.

Our first bird is no other than one of the Wood Ducks that wintered at Golden Gate Park, in San Francisco. They mostly sat around in the shade under some trees and didn't come out much, so most people had their eyes glued to the Hooded Mergansers that lived in the same pond. Obviously, a Wood Duck is a completely facemelting bird. They're brilliance borders on nonsense. I can't imagine life without seeing these birds once in a while.

That's right....right when you thought the Birdosphere was done with Snowy Owls, I'm bringing one back! This is the infamous Barfing Owl from Damon Point, Washington. I have a vast quantity of pictures of it relentlessly gagging. I've never seen a creature so devoted to trying to vomit.

Look at that face. Know it. Then love it. How could you not? Do you not? WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU???

Here is a Ferruginous Hawk surveying its grassy domain. It may be thinking about squirrels and kangaroo rats and how it's going to break their little necks and eat them. Or maybe its admiring the view. Or maybe it just realized it needs to poop. Who knows?

Here is a different bird. Can you imagine seeing one of these, back in the day, flying around with frakking buffalo bones to include in their nest? Maybe one day they will again, provided there are enough buffalo. These Ferrugs were photographed on California's Carrizo Plain.

Black Oystercatcher is a west coast specialty. I pity all regions of the country that are not blessed with an oystercatcher of some sort. Of course, you probably pity me because I don't have things like Prairie-Chickens or Golden-cheeked Warblers or Spectacled Eiders or Mangrove Cuckoos...touche, reader, touche.

Although they can be migratory, Black Oystercatchers have very strong site fidelity at nesting sites and do not share their stretch of coast with other individuals. The same pair of birds can occupy the same territory for many years.

Unlike oystercatchers, most of us readily have access to Black-crowned Night-Herons, an extremely appropriately named bird. Not to mention good-looking.

Immature Black-crowned Night-Herons, on the other hand, do not live up to their name very well. They are also not very good looking. Awkward. These birds were photographed at Lake Merrit.

Common Goldeneyes all around the country are going full swing into courtship displays, whistling, farting, splashing, and yes....BELLOWING. These birds were getting kinky on Lake Merritt, in Oakland, CA.

This bird was a bit more subdued, feeding by himself. Either he has a lot of confidence or is not very attractive by female Common Goldeneye standards.

Enjoy your Friday, for freedom will soon be upon you. Rage.

I've Come To One Conclusion: I Need To See A Snowy Owl.

Wood Duck. Look at her wings! Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, CA.

I am on the verge of experiencing a sort of crisis. You see, it has been established that we in the Lower 48 are experiencing a flight year of Snowy Owls. Everyone is seeing them. They are very popular birds, and for good reason.

If you are one of the doomed nonbirders who read this blog, a Snowy Owl is Harry Potter's owl. They are giant and white and actually exist, although they seem like they were pulled out the ass of JK Rowling. They are typically a far northern species, and are pretty hard to come by down in these snowless realms.

A Fox Sparrow ravages the leaf litter. Lake Merced, San Francisco, CA.

The problem with this flight year is that I am in California. California is well-known for its inability to attract Snowy Owls, as it is far to the south of their normal range, even when many of them are around. The one time one actually showed up on my home turf (at the time, Humboldt County), I was stuck at the Salton Sea on a Burrowing Owl project. I think there is some irony in there someplace....but the reality was a harsh one.

I have, in fact, found a Snowy Owl in the wild. It was in the center of Buldir Island, in the western Aleutians. However, there was a problem with it. It happened to be dead.

Hooded Merganser locked in an epic crayfish battle. The day I took this shot, all the mergansers present were fishing for crawdaddies...the next time I went back, they were all getting fish. I guess it was just Shellfish Saturday. Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, CA.


Despite my poor location, it is shaping up to be such a good flight year that they may indeed make it to California. And if not....I will be spending much of January in Oregon and Washington, where there are now oodles and oodles of owls. Thus my prospects for seeing one of these behemothic snow prowlers are higher than they have ever been.

Of course, it would be just my luck that the flight year collapses in the next couple weeks and the Pacific Northwest is devoid of these birds come 2012. That is my greatest fear, and it has been haunting me daily. Sigh.

Right. Since I have no Snowy Owl photos, you have to look at these other birds instead. Sorry.

Brown Pelican. Looking hella old. I've never thought of them as being blonde and blue-eyed before.

White-tailed Kites. While striking out on a Slaty-backed Gull recently, I took dozens of pictures of this pair instead. It was not a great consolation, but kites are certainly better-looking and more interesting than a big fat lost gull.

The Elk River Mouth and Humboldt Bay. Some people like living in Eureka, California. I think they are masochists. Whenever I ask them what's so great about Eureka, they just mention The Shanty, which is a bar. I fail to see how one decent bar can turn the tide of public opinion about an entire shitty town. This is pretty much what it looks like 365 days a year. At least some birds are there.

A female American Kestrel on a high-voltage perch. Half Moon Bay, CA.

A female Ruddy Duck with Eared Grebe companions. Interesting flock. Pescadero Marsh, Pescadero, CA.

Sleepy juvenile Black-crowned Night-Heron. Lake Merritt, Oakland, CA.