September Sickness

September and October in the bay area means GET YOUR ASS TO THE COAST. I feel bad for birders who don't live near the coast in this crucial time...the window is wide open for rarities. Most of the year, it's just cracked, and sometimes it's even closed. Light south winds on September 11 meant it was a day to be out on Point Reyes, and we were rewarded with some juicy birds...American Redstart, Canada Warbler, Chestnut-sided Warbler, Tennessee Warbler, and a flock of 3 Clay-colored Sparrows. Clay-colored is rare but regular here, but three together was a bit on the bizarro side of things.

The next Saturday it was nice and overcast, so it was out to San Francisco this time. Across from Lake Merced, the continuing Magnolia Warbler made for a fine county bird (thanks Aaron) and a Black-and-white Warbler was very satisfying as well. This female Bicolored Blackbird did a good impression of a female Tricolored, but was too warmly colored. Approach with caution.

It's always good to be checking listservs constantly in September, you never know when the news of the next MEGA will come. Checking the listserv as I was about to leave Lake Merced proved to be timely, and I quickly abandoned the rest of my plans and went straight to Golden Gate Park for another vague runt that had just been found. While waiting for the tasty eastern warbler, I kicked it with this Brown Creeper, a bird that apparently has never made it onto BB&B before...weird. Welcome Brown Creeper!

This is another common denizen of forests and parks (like tweakers, but creepers and tweakers are unrelated, despite what you might think), and accompany many a mixed flock. They're ain't confiding or abiding though, which I guess explains why I have so few photos of them.

Brown Creeper fact of the day: You probably know the northernmost reaches of their range are in Alaska, but you can also find them as far south as Nicaragua. I'd like to see some of the mixed flocks they travel with down there, Jesus.

Ugh, I just looked at an eBird checklist with Brown Creeper in it from Nicaragua...there's some gnarly stuff in there.

Eventually I refound the Canada Warbler, which much like the Point Reyes bird was relatively easy to keep track of but exceedingly difficult to photograph (I failed entirely with the other bird). I have some kind of nostalgia with blurry rarity photos for some reason, so I am forcing you to see this awful image. It stayed in the same tree for a whole hour, and I couldn't do any better, but I never claimed I was a photographer. Ahhh...getting Black-and-white, Canada and Magnolia in the same morning in California is what September is all about.

September actually isn't all warblers and rarities though, it's also cuddling Bushtits.

I love eastern wood warblers. I absolutely adore them, no matter the time of year. I spend a lot of time looking for them, whether it is in Florida or California or Mexico (not Midway though). However, California gives you the opportunity to see more than wood warblers...we get warblers as well.

Sibes...I fucking love Sibes. This Dusky Warbler was the undisputed highlight of September, not just for me but for pretty much everyone else who saw it. It sounds like the bird was much more cooperative the first day it was found (when I saw it) than subsequent days; the Dusky Warbler found recently in Orange County disappointed pretty much everyone who chased it (sorry Justine). Speaking of Sibes, the Bird of October might just be the Lesser Sand-Plover Matt Lau found yesterday south of Abbott's Lagoon, but we'll see if sticks around or not.

The day after the great Dusky Warbler Victory of 2016, Billy and I went up to Hawk Hill in the Marin Headlands to check on some other kinds of migrants. This resident Red-tailed Hawk had no intentions of migrating anywhere, but chose a nice lichenized outcrop to perch on.

It's always so much easier to find Sharp-shinned Hawks at Hawk Hill than anywhere else locally. Not that they are rare here by any means, but if you spend a morning birding and you don't see one, that seems perfectly normal. Spending a few hours at Hawk Hill and missing them would be, well, bizarre.

Here's another one, with a deceptively-shaped tail. Note the barred flanks and "pigeony" expression. Or don't, you're welcome not to.

September 30 is generally a day you must be out birding in California. If the vague runt window is open in September, then by September 30 the window is completely shattered and rare just comes blowing through at will. With this in mind Abe Borker and I went back out to Point Reyes...except it wasn't rare birds we found blowing through, it was the goddamn wind. With strong northwest winds, our chances of landing a huge migrant harvest were quite low. Even this coyote seemed perplexed at the lack of rare birds around.

Our efforts were not in vain, however. This Magnolia Warbler (county bird!) was at the lighthouse, and stayed still just long enough to get brutally crushed. Nice to see one in San Francisco and Marin in the same month.

We got brief looks of the bird below the park housing in the lupine patch, then the bird came around the parking lot and foraged right beneath us. The wind taketh away, but in this case the wind giveth a very sharp, mid-level rarity.

See? Fucking windy. American Redstart was the only other eastern-flavored bird of the day, but who knows maybe it had just cruised down from northeast Washington, where they are not an uncommon breeder. That said, Magnolias aren't a strictly eastern bird either; they breed in eastern British Columbia.

Almost every patch on the Outer Point has Great Horned Owls, where they probably are out terrorizing the Barn Owls every night. This one was down in New Willows, were I had not seen one before. If it is indeed a resident bird, it has probably seen more rarities than you could possibly imagine. It may have even eaten some of them.

The Rock Wren Is Not As Forgiving As I Am

We are absolutely buried in December now. You may be excited by Christmas Bird Counts (I know The Great Ornithologist Felonious Jive is), but I'm pretty focused on the new Star Wars. Anyways, nothing says "Happy Holidays!" like HERMIT THRUSH ACTION. This fog-bound bird was holding down the Fish Docks out at Point Reyes, where I managed to see a number of quite uncommon birds, but not many rare birds this fall. Railer. Oh well, I can always look back on the last Connecticut Warbler with fondness and be grateful that I wasn't there for The Murrelet Incident.

In northern California, White-throated Sparrows are near the bottom of the Eastern Vagrant Totem Pole...but if they are on the pole, it's a good bird! This confiding individual was recklessly hopping around on the path at the Fish Docks, in close proximity to the raging HERMIT THRUSH ACTION.

This is one of those birds that I've somehow not managed to photograph properly before...this bird on the path is on the right path to a proper photo, I reckon. It is a pleasureable sparrow to look at, methinks, good ol' Sam Peabody, you know what I'm saying? Perhaps the next field guide will have a section on pleasure sparrows.

Rock Wrens are always holding down the Outer Point, which is a very good thing. I consider them to be the most fearless wren...you might say that their overconfidence is their weakness, but your faith in your friends is yours.

See what I did there?

Here is the Rock Wren rendering itself into some sort of highly amicable modern art sculpture, apparently melding tail and wing into a protective wren-shell.

However, the wren-shell has a weakness. It's a small thermal exhaust port, right below the main port. The shaft leads directly to the reactor system. A precise hit will start a reaction which should destroy the...wren-shell.

How about there? Did you see what I did there?

Getting sick of fogbound, brown bird pictures? Fine, here is a fogbound haggard coyote. Be glad you are not that coyote.

Look at the bill length on this Tricolored Blackbird....it might as well be a Tricolored Heron. Actually, I can't even tell which one of those species this bird is. Birding is hard. Photographed at Ardenwood Farm, Fremont.

I've mentioned it before, but since ya'll probably don't read every single BB&B post (how very sane of you), it bears discussing again...Tricolored Blackbirds don't really match field guides very well during the fall. With the buffy epaulet edging, this may look like a typical Red-winged Blackbird at first glance, but this is actually typical of Tricolored Blackbird in the fall (see the first TRBL photo as well). That buff color will fade to white over time, and that's when these birds look like they've been consulting field guides for how they appear.

Another thing to keep in mind is that "typical" Red-winged Blackbirds are not very common in the bay area, we mostly have Bicolored Blackbirds, which only have a red patch on the wing.

Speaking of patchness, I finally found a rare bird at my patch! This absurdly late Common Tern (seen November 8) was a surprise a few minutes from my house, and is likely the latest I've ever seen of its kind in the country. Middle Harbor Shoreline Park, Oakland, CA.

Not surprising at all was this Long-billed Curlew. Curlews are great birds...not in terms of rarity, just in general. I think it is important to have curlews lurking at one's patch, laying waste to what lies beneath the surface of the mud.

I don't like to do this...really, I don't. I'm not one to fetishize obviously escaped birds, but one will nonetheless be portrayed here...this is the first free-flying Mandarin Duck I've ever seen. Granted, it probably doesn't fly very much (it has been in Golden Gate Park for a very long time now), but it could leave if it wanted. It does a good impression of a female Wood Duck, with a different bill color of course.

This is a plover. A plover of snow. I hadn't been to Crissy Field (San Francisco) in years, so I did what I thought was best and lurked over there a few weeks ago. It was hell of peopley, shocker. Fortunately there were four Snowy Plovers in the designated Snowy Plover area. This one had more colorful legs than the others. Turns out I was the one who banded it.

Naw, just kidding, it was someone else. All the ones I've banded were down San Diego way...it would be weird if one of them turned up this far north. Anyways, a small flock of Snowy Plovers is here at Crissy on the regular, though they don't breed. These pleasant beach loafers/sand nuggets can be found along Ocean Beach as well, which (surprise surprise) is also peopley.

Brown Pelicans are nice to look at. I have nothing more to say, except I have not seen the new Star Wars yet so for the love of all that is Holy and Right in the world, don't leave a spoiler in the comments. Photographed at Crissy Field.

Too Much To Bear...A Whopping Four...The Time Has Come

This Forster's Tern is pedaling through the sky. Imperial Beach, CA.

July. The Birdosphere is still reeling from the atom bomb of news that BB&B delivered last week...the jizz-filled payload was almost too intense for some people to take. Waking up one day to the horrifying reality that one of your favorite, harmless birdwatching phrases actually describes what comes out of ejaculating penises around the world can be too much to bear.

But that's all in the past now. We march forward into July, which I have always considered to be the height of summer. The amount of birdsong in any given area plummets, as many birds finish up nesting duties and get to relax a bit before beginning their southbound migrations. Hell, almost all of the Least Terns in San Diego County have already left for their mysterious wintering grounds (no one knows where they are), but they don't do that most years.

Of course, if you are into shorebirds, July is actually the beginning of fall....all around the country, shorebirds from the Arctic, prairies and taiga forest are being reported at a location near you. Many adults are still in their snazzy breeding plumage, and now is a great time to see them before they fade and molt into more frustrating forms.

While futilely wading around the San Diego River for Little Blue Heron shots in the spring, I came upon a couple Least Sandpipers who were absolutely determined to not fly away from me...now I finally have some decent Least shots. 

Personally, I started July off with a bang, landing a whopping four (4) year birds on July 1. This is a massive number, seeing that I only landed a paltry one (1) in all of June. While Bostick still has a considerable lead on me, I am determined to catch up before it is too late....the devious bastard has made my worst fears a reality...he is coming with me to Costa Rica! Travelling in the same car! Staying in the same motels! How he managed to pull this off is a feat I can't even hope to understand before sometime towards the end of 2015.

Other plans are afoot as well...I think it is high time I make it to the Salton Sea this summer...maybe even this weekend? I miss that disgusting, stinky hellhole.

A male Snowy Plover. He was vigilantly chirping and purring at me with all his plover might. Thank the bird gods that I never get sick of the species I have closely worked with over my life, I almost always end up liking them more. That said, I do not miss doing Marbled Murrelet and Spotted Owl surveys (no offense).


In other BB&B news, I have finally gotten sick and tired of you Florida bird bloggers posting amazing pictures of stuff I hardly ever get to see, and the time has come to act on it. Therefore, BB&B is going on the offensive and taking a trip to your crazy yet bird-saturated state this fall. More news on that once I get my tickets.

I'll end this madness with the ridiculous dream I had last night....there I was in San Antonio, Texas, where I have absolutely no business being (although once I did go to a punk rock show there with one of the world's leading and most wonderful seal biologists). I was at some sort of Latin American restaurant, where they had some bird feeders out front. The feeders were being visited by trogons, motmots, and I think even a female quetzal, which was surprising. While looking at a motmot through my binoculars, I noticed a very pale raptor soaring in the background. It was a White Hawk! "WHIIITTTTTEEEE HAWWWWWK!!!", I yelled to somebody. It banked sharply and headed towards us.....and then my alarm went off.

It's a good thing I'm going to Costa Rica.

This is not a normal place to find a foraging Yellow Warbler. I like the dichotomy though. Stonewall Mine, Cuyamaca Rancho State Park, CA.

Western Bluebird, yet another bird that was partaking in the maggot feast that I described last month. Although a torrential downpour of maggots sounds like Armageddon to most people, its probably heaven on earth for a lot of birds. Laguna Campground, Laguna Mountains, CA.

Gadwalls. Why are they called Gadwalls? Someone please tell me. Santee Lakes, CA.

It's hard to get down the personality of Common Gallinule. They are sometimes shy, sometimes not, and capable of great violence on their own kind. Lindo Lake, Lakeside, CA.

It did me a solid and stood up so I could capture the appropriate twinkle in its eye.

Maybe this is what Elegant Terns were doing when it first occurred to someone to name them Elegant Terns. These terns in courtship flight were over the J Street Mudflats in Chula Vista, CA.

Ugh you should have heard the yuppies prattling on about this mangy coyote. They thought it was extremely dangerous. I find prattling yuppies to be extremely dangerous, for the spirit and soul. Old Mission Dam, San Diego, CA.

Nothing against Yellow-rumped Warblers (especially ones that look like this), but I am still really enjoying my respite from them. It seems like practically every bird you look at in California between October and April is one of these things. Photographed at Santee Lakes, Santee, CA.

Black-throated Magpie-Jays have become target birds for birders coming to the Tijuana River Valley, even though we all know they're not really countable. No one can deny their charms and good looks though.

The Carrizo Plain

Dark-morph Ferruginous Hawk, or as one "ZAWA" calls it, the Buffalo Eagle. Behold its greatness and shrink from its majesty. We saw 15 or so Ferruginous Hawks on our last Carrizo visit. 


My last birding trip of 2011 that took me out of my normal routine was a trip to the Carrizo Plain, a massive grassland, dotted with sage flats, punctuated by a large alkali lake, located in east San Luis Obispo County. While Carrizo is probably not the best place to go hunting for vagrants, it does offer some of the best inland birding in California. Winter is probably best...the raptors include Ferruginous and Rough-legged Hawks, Golden Eagles, Short-eared, Long-eared and Burrowing Owls, Prairie Falcons and Merlins. The humongous flocks of Horned Larks may reveal some longspurs to the dedicated birder. Mountain Plovers lurk in the background, and Sage and LeConte's Thrashers and Sage Sparrows hide in the brush. Mountain Bluebirds add welcome color to the landscape, since pretty much every bird I've mentioned so far is brown.

This Vesper Sparrow chose the best rock on the plain to sit on for a photo op. My, what lichen you have...thank you Vesper Sparrow. Vespers are uncommon to fairly common (as opposed to "fairly uncommon") on the Carrizo. 


When the winter rain comes, a large Sandhill Crane flock roosts on Soda Lake each night...this is one of the relatively few flocks in southern California, and (in my opinion) are more fun to hang out with than the Salton Sea and Colorado River flocks. How the fuck they know to show up after the proper amount of local rainfall? I really don't know.

Some cool nonbirds that live on the plain include Tule Elk, Pronghorn, badgers, San Joaquin Kit Foxes, San Joaquin Antelope Ground Squirrel, Giant Kangaroo Rats, Blunt-nosed Leopard Lizard...the list goes on. I once found a Giant Kangaroo Rat there in broad daylight, only have it to keel over and die right in front of me minutes later. What does it mean?

And so much for that. If you haven't been, you must go. Winter is best for birding, but spring has raging wildflowers and doesn't have the desolate feel of the colder months. You can find out more about the place over at Los Padres Forestwatch.

By the way, check out Handsome Dan's murderous Short-tailed Albatross over here. Truly chilling stuff.

Red-tailed Hawks are (predictably) everywhere in the area, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't look at them.

Numbers of Mountain Bluebirds vary from year to year, but you can typically expect to find a lot of them. Looking at them makes life more bearable.

Prairie Falcons can be dependably found in the area. On my last trip, we saw at least 8 individuals. The scientific word for that level of local abundance is "hella".

What are you laughing about Coyote? Shut up!

Loggerhead Shrikes are abundant on the plain. For that reason, you may probably get the opportunity to obtain a less boring picture of one there. This photograph is lacking something...maybe a small rodent carcass impaled on a spike?

Mountain Plover is one of the specialities of the plain. While they are completely missable, you are also just as likely to blunder into a flock. If you have yet to do this, blundering into a flock of Mountain Plovers is like a massive hit of morphine blundering into your arteries.

Long-billed Curlews are the other common grasspiper in winter. Real shorebirds will use Soda Lake when it's holding water, but it was bone dry on this visit.

Here are some more stripes of the brownish rainbow that make up Ferruginous Hawk color morphs.

This was my last and 550th bird species in 2011, a LeConte's Thrasher. Since I have only been lucky enough to see them three (3) times, I have no shame for publicly displaying this atrocious photograph. LeConte's Thrashers are not rare on the Carrizo Plain, and this is one of the better places to look for them in California.