Introducing Smith's Flycatcher or Double Bear Attack At Moonglow

I was somewhere far from most other places. Modoc County, California, is the northeasternmost county in the state. It is home to just 9,000 people; for comparison, my current home county of Santa Clara has almost 2 million residents. California birders love birding Modoc, despite how far it is from where most people live in the state. Modoc offers Trumpeter Swan, Black-backed Woodpecker, Bobolink...Cordilleran Flycatcher...and Smith's Flycatcher.

Ah yes, the enigmatic Smith's Flycatcher (SMFL). Genetically, they are somewhere in between Hammond's/Dusky and Least Flycatchers...possibly the worst place for any bird to be. Amazingly, despite its close relations to these other birds, they appear more akin to an Eastern Phoebe with wingbars and longer primaries.

North of Mexico, of all Empidonax, only Buff-breasted Flycatcher has a more restricted range. Smith's breeds only in Modoc County, southeastern Oregon, and a couple of isolated mountain ranges in northwestern Nevada. No one knows where they winter, so if you want to see one, it is necessary to meet them on their breeding grounds. This mysterious species is highly sought after by birders.

That's what I was doing in Modoc County. The trip wasn't exactly going as planned...shorebirds not where they were supposed to be...lodging plans falling through...but eventually I did find the phoebeish little flycatcher in its shady coniferous haunts. What a satisfying bird! All was well.

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And all was well at Moonglow Dairy, at least at first. Moonglow Dairy is a dairy farm in Moss Landing, California, on the south side of Elkhorn Slough. Moonglow is known to birders as being one of the few coastal strongholds for Tricolored Blackbirds in the state, and as a legendary vagrant trap. There are few things one can do that are more reasonable than birding Moonglow in fall, and that's what I found myself doing with a few other nerds.

I was concerned, however, about the bears. Bears had been in the area lately, and they had been aggressive. The others in my party did not seem very concerned about them, but within minutes of arriving BEARS came crashing through the brush and confronted us out in the open. It was a mother and her two half-grown cubs. However, she stayed back while the two cubs came forward and attacked myself and other birder.

Luckily, I somehow got a hold of a METAL FOLDING CHAIR, which I held out between and myself and the bear, like an old-school lion tamer. The bear pawed at it and expressed great displeasure at the chair being deployed, and quickly lost enthusiasm. After another minute of halfhearted assault the bear gave up and turned back, and the other followed suit. The whole bear family ambled off together, and we were left to bird in peace.

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Of course, the events I just related to you did not actually happen. These were dreams that I had on successive nights, which led right into the weekend. The places are real, but the content, not so much. These dreams were not random though, I assure you, they undoubtedly meant something...but the only way to unlock this hidden meaning was to act on them. So what could I do? I had to bird Moonglow Dairy, I had no choice. Modoc may be far away, but Moonglow is less than an hour south of me. Luckily, birding Moonglow on a September weekend is like coffee and cigarettes...my course of action may have been predetermined, but I had no qualms about it.

Despite the warm weather and clear skies, Moonglow was very, very birdy. Lots of cooperative Tricolored Blackbirds greeted me on the way in.

Horned Larks and this fresh Western Meadowlark were along the road as well, searching for encroaching bears.

A couple Pacific-slope Flycatchers foraged in the Eucalyptus at the parking area. It soon became apparent that there were a lot of migrants around. A Black-headed Grosbeak gave a brief view, and a yellow female oriole appeared near the treetops - luckily, it began calling repeatedly, so no doubt about it being a Hooded. I considered myself fortunate - she never came down very low, so it easily could have resulted in a cringe-worthy Hooded/Orchard situation.

This Willow Flycatcher accompanied some low-foraging Yellow Warblers.

Yellow Warblers...at first I thought there were a lot of Yellow Warblers around, then it became increasingly clear that there were more Yellow Warblers present than anywhere I'd birded before. Ever. They were utilizing all the vegetated habitat around, low and high. It had the vague feeling of a fallout.

A MacGillivray's Warbler was lurking at the edge of the pond with a throng of Yellows. This species is very hard to find on the coast (it was a year bird for me); the dedicated fall birder may see more of several "eastern" species than of western birds like Cassin's Vireos and MacGillivray's Warblers.

It had been a long while since I had good looks at a Pectoral Sandpiper. This bird was very obliging.

An unearthly bellow shattered the peaceful silence, and I dared not approach any closer. Was this the rarely observed bear alarm call that I have read so much about?

No sounds were uttered from this creature, bellowed or otherwise. I determined that it was not a bear.

Elkhorn Slough, which backs up against Moonglow, is well known for its abundance of trusting sea otters. Sea otters, of course, are one of the best organisms on the face of the earth. If you find yourself in the area from out of country or out of state, make sure you make an otter detour. You won't regret it.

I went back to bird the Eucalpytus grove again - things had really quieted down, and the teeming herds of my grunts present earlier in the morning seemed to have dispersed. I was following a couple Pacific-slope Flycatchers around when another bird appeared.

At first, I was confused. This sure was a strange PSFL...it doesn't seem to be very yellow...the eye ring is quite round...the bill seems a tad short....why does it have crazy white stripes on the tertials? Ohhhhh...it's a Least Flycatcher. Least Flycatcher!

Though a far cry from a Bird Police species, Least Flycatchers are quite rare in California, and like all their bretheren, are misidentified on the regular. I stuck around for a while to look at it as much as I could. In typical fashion, at one point I had refound it at the exact moment when the Moonglow owner pulled up to chat with me...there was nothing I could do but turn my back to the bird. Persistence did pay off through, and I got quality looks before I left. As an aside, you gotta love when private landowners let birders roam freely on their vagrant-riddled property, even if you have to talk to them at inopportune times.

Aside from not being a yellow bird (the vast majority of empids we get on the coast are yellowish Pacific-slopes), one of the most striking features about this bird was how much the bright white tertial edgings stood out compared to the Pacific-slopes and Willow that were also present. This was apparent even in poor light. I never managed a good photo that showed this, but I did managed a crap photo that shows this (last photo above). Everything else looked typical for a fall Least from what I gather, though a touch of darkness at the tip of the lower mandible would have been the frosting on the flycatcher cake.

I had done it. I had come as close as possible to finding Smith's Flycatcher...this was my first self-found Least west of Texas, and I owed it all to a couple of bizarre nerddreams. In a certain sense, I had fulfilled my cosmic destiny, carried out the orders given to me on the astral plane. It turns out that most people have never fulfilled their destiny, so I'm not sure how much you can relate...but I assure you, it is accompanied by a special kind of glory. Things will never be the same. But what does it all mean? I may have to return to Modoc to find out. 

Maynerayge Day 3: This Is Why I'm Not A Good Person

On day 3, we started the morning down at Biddeford Pool.  There seemed to be lots of warblers around, although most of them seemed to be Yellow Warblers at first.  The birding at the pool itself wasn't exactly thrilling, but the number of migrants flying around above us was a sign that we could not, would not, ignore.  Checking the beach quickly was rewarding, because Nate observed a middle-aged couple have a vicious fight, with the husband getting completely ditched and left on the beach smoking a cigar of sadness.  Hoping for good birding, I once again left my camera in the car, which worked like a charm.  Less than an hour later we were in a huge swarm of migrants that refused to go away.  It seemed like that this one small grove of trees were sucking in migrants from everywhere....Blackpolls, a Bay-breasted, Canadas, Northern Waterthrush, Chestnut-sided, etc., even an out-of-place Field Sparrow. We were glued to that spot for most of the morning; it was one of the better mixed flocks I've seen north of Mexico.  Good thing I didn't bring my camera!

After the turnover in the rampaging flock seemed to die down a little bit, we went out to East Point, where there were a couple Bicknell's/Gray-cheeked Thrushes mixed in with the Swainson's Thrushes, and I got to hear a Gray-cheeked Thrush sing for the very first time.  Tree Swallows were nesting in bird houses built like lighthouses, which I'm sure just tickles some people.

Near the rocky shore we found the first Long-tailed Duck and Merlin of the trip, along with a small creche of Common Eider kids, which was pretty cute.  Common Eiders are thick in Maine, even in summer, which is a very good thing.  While the west coast certainly has a much better and more interesting rockpiper community, the east coast has a raging seaduck scene.

Down by South Point, we lay waste to a flock of Common Eiders that only seemed to give the mildest of fucks about our presence.  I've seen a lot of Common Eiders in Massachusetts and the Aleutian Islands (and one in California, thank you very much), but never had I seen them at such a fantastically crushable distance.

To borrow one of Nate's favorite adjectives, these birds are splendid.  Looking at them from a modest distance is an extremely fulfilling experience, up close it's on a whole new level.

The full spectrum of Common Eider plumages.

This doesn't even make sense.  Such novel bill structure.

After Biddeford Pool, we went to Kennebunk Plains for Upland Sandpipers and Bobolinks.  It was hella windy and the birding left something to be desired...while we went on to find Bobolinks at a number of other places, we never ran into any Upland Sandpipers.  There are no Upland Sandpipers in Maine.

While there may not be Upland Sandpipers, there are very resourceful Prairie Warblers.  This one was attacking a pile of used toilet paper to use as nesting material. I didn't see it but Flycatcher Jen observed copious amounts of human feces in association with the nest material.  Talk about going to browntown.

This is the most humorous thing I've ever seen a warbler do.

The male was nearby, doing things other than wallowing whimsically in human waste.

Vesper Sparrow was one of the commoner birds out on the plains; Eastern Meadowlark and Grasshopper Sparrow were good trip birds as well.

After our failure at the Plains, we used eBird to successfully not find Bobolinks at another spot. While standing around stupidly behind a general store, there were at least a handful of birds around. There was a small roadside pond where swallows and Chimney Swifts were coming to drink, so I tried my hand at getting some swift photos.  It wasn't a total failure.

To be honest, I don't really have good photos of any swift species, this is probably the closest thing.

Giving in to the wind and the fail, we lurked back to our vacay house back on Pine Point.  I decided against a walk on the beach in favor of a shower, but headed out again upon hearing of more Roseate Terns and the return of the Little Gull's Bonaparte's Gull flock on the beach as the tide began to fall. What did Maynerayge Day 3.5 hold?  Birds more interesting than Yellow Warblers and Tree Swallows, that is for damn sure.

WINTER IS COMING

I found this Black-and-white Warbler back in October at Lake Merced in San Francisco, CA. It stuck around for a while; the one time I saw this bird again after I reported it, people were completely losing their shit over it. That's cool and all, but the panicked mob that kept trying to stand as close to the bird as possible was more than I could handle.

Well birders. How is winter treating you so far? I wish I could have used this blog title sooner (which is a Game of Thrones cliche, obvi), but I am stuck in the glorious rut-glut of the Dry Tortugas. It's not like I haven't been birding locally though, don't worry about that.

Now that the awkwardness of Thanksgiving is behind us, we can just focus on birds for a few weeks. Multiple colleagues of mine were rumored to almost have been killed over the holiday...which is a typical Thanksgiving for most people I know. I did my part and threw bourbon in somebody's face (it was obvious he needed that), so at least I have stopped my streak of not mentioning bourbon on this blog. I get a lot of complaints about that. Anyways, Christmas will soon come crashing down on everyone, stopping birding plans in their tracks from coast to coast, so we have got to get our winter birds when we can.

Now is the time! So get out there. Find the White-winged Crossbill. Find the Northern Shrike. Find the Snowy Owl, the Iceland Gull, the Snow Bunting. You may fail in your quest to find these birds, for it has been said, "In this world, only winter is certain". But it is better to have toiled and struggled in the snows and icy wastes with scope and binoculars than to cower in a tepid fear of failure in your big, lonely apartment.

I have to admit, it was pretty confiding (I said it!), whether upside or right side up.

Black-and-white Warblers are legendary for being impervious to the forces of gravity.

This is now officially my best Yellow Warbler shot. Time to break out the champagne. It's sweet-sweet-sweet-oh-so-sweet. That's birder humor right there, in case you missed it. Photographed at Lake Merced.

This is one of two Tropical Kingbirds that spent at least a month at Lake Merced. Some people saw them at retina-bursting close range, but that usually happened early in the morning...which is something I don't see a lot of (you know, Perpetual Weekend and all...).

One of the now famous "Devil Birds" that will soon turn Lake Merced into a biological cesspool of evil and filth. If you are unfamiliar with this story, it's just a Great-tailed Grackle that needs to look at itself in a mirror.

People are naturally drawn to chubby birds with short tails, so I know you are getting your kicks in with this young White-crowned Sparrow regrowing its tail. It most likely lost its tail in a close call with a predator. Hayward Regional Shoreline, CA.

Golden-crowned Sparrow is a west coast specialty. The sight of an adult Golden-crown mellowly frolicking through the morning dew makes the heart soar (not "sore") and the eyes water. It's an emotional bird. Lake Merced, CA.

The gray. The black. The GOLD. What a bird.

Green-winged Teal. Look at this plump little bastard. Now that its December and winter has come, ducks are going to be looking real sharp compared to their crappy fall coats. Radio Road, Redwood Shores, CA.

Northern Pintail is widely recognized as America's best dabbling duck. I am not one to argue with this...evolution has made the pintail one of the best examples of what can be accomplished within subtle confines of The Economy of Style. Photographed at Radio Road.

Just when you thought a drake pintail only had about 4 colors to offer, it busts out a purple patch on its head. Damn, what a bird.

Even when you've seen a billion, and you have pictures of a million, American Avocets fail to get old...especially in winter when they aren't shrieking their shrill death-calls at you.  Photographed at Radio Road.

The Dickcissel Exists...I Am Sam...Warbler Vs. Curlew Field Marks

One day last month, I spent an hour and a half roaming around, looking for this Dickcissel. I was finally rewarded when it flew in from nowhere and landed directly above my head...it's good to know that the birds have respect for Number 7. Fort Mason, San Francisco, CA.

Well I thought I would give you a reprieve the the typhoon of Florida birds that has been responsible for flooding BB&B for much of last week. All of today's birds were photographed in that world-renowned wildlife haven known as the city of San Francisco, CA. As with last fall, a lot of my Perpetual Weekend is spent birding the bay area, and things have been good so far...although some of us keep trying to forget the Fork-tailed Flycatcher incident, and I double-dipped on a Harris' Sparrow this week (ouch though).

It's been a great fall for birding in California, and I haven't even bothered checking what I missed while off in Florida. Who knows what else will turn up? We all just need to keep birding...only on December 1, the first day of Birder's Winter, should we allow ourselves any rest.

Lastly, BB&B would like to announce its official endorsement of Jill Stein for President of the United States. Vote for Obama if you live in a battleground state, but otherwise I don't see any reason environmentalists should be voting for him...aside from being better than Bush (not difficult), he hasn't done much to earn our unconditional support. At any rate....vote!

When you tell nonbirders you saw a Dickcissel, they don't believe the bird exists...I'm sure you can guess why this is. At any rate, I've only seen a handful of these birds, and never where they are actually expected.

Who does not love a Dickcissel, bucolically foraging in a pastoral scene?

The light was not mellow, but I think this Black-throated Gray Warbler (an uncommon fall migrant here) turned out pretty well. Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, CA.

Despite the fact that Yellow Warblers are the most abundant warbler species in the area during the early weeks of fall migration, they don't seem to quite bum birders out as much as the later but inevitable onslaught of Yellow-rumped Warblers. Fort Mason.

I think the blackberries in the background make the picture.

As any and every birder knows, this is a huge year for Red-breasted Nuthatches. Hopefully they can find enough food, as pretty much everyone who has laid eyes on a nuthatch instantly grows incredibly fond of them. Yank-yank. Land's End, San Francisco, CA.

Behold the Steller's Jay. On Halloween, while dressed as Sam Shakusky (from Moonrise Kingdom..."What kind of bird are you?"), I got into a debate on the status and distribution of bluish jays with another random Sam Shakusky in front of a bar. Needless to say, dude did not know who he was dealing with. Photographed at Golden Gate Park.

This Yellow-throated Warbler stayed put in one of our shittiest parks for 3 months last year. It came back again this fall at the same time, and as far as I know is still around. Ferry Park, San Francisco, CA.

Check out the length of that bill. Birders should not worry about confusing this bird with other warblers, they should worry about confusing it with a curlew.

I wonder where this bird has been in the intervening 9 months...how far south did it go last winter? Where did it spend its summer? In nerdiful news, I recently came across someone's thesis on variation within the species, and he ends up recommending abolishing a couple of the recognized subspecies...you can check that out here.

I don't take photographs of Brewer's Blackbirds very often, but when I do....I am usually not seeing much else. They're always a welcome and attractive bird though. Ferry Park.