Owls of The Ground, Owls of The Pine, and Stroking of The Robin

A Belted Kingfisher hunts at Middle Harbor Shoreline Park, Oakland, CA. This is a great birding place where I see the same common species over and over again, which is in high demand these days.

BB&B has been very focused on exotic birds so far this year. I know it. And I know what you really want to be seeing are incredibly common, run-of-the-mill birds that anyone can see without even trying! Am I right? Or amirite? That's what the birding (or perhaps the bird photographing public) seems to crave these days I think, so if that's what the public wants, that is indeed what they shall get! Also, my GLOBAL BIRDER RANKING SYSTEM rank in Mexico isn't anything worth bragging about (Felonious Jive, The Great Ornithologist, has a much better standing than I do), so while posting about Mexico has been fun, it's not a good platform for touting where the GBRS puts me. However, as you may recall, I can totally brag about my GBRS score for U.S. ranked birders.  That would be #7, in case you have forgotten...but how could you? Anyways, lets take a look at some abundant, widespread birds.

Here is a Snowy Egret! Oh, joyous day! How pretty!

My goodness! A fish is pursued!

Ok, I'm not knocking Snowy Egrets and Belted Kingfishers or beginning birders (well...I am a little bit), I just thought I would change things up. I've got a big backlog of pre-Mexico photos to deal with, you know? I wasn't seeing many rarities in late fall/early winter so this is what we are stuck with. And if you are not happy about that, how do you think I feel? For good or ill, any kind of wader is fun to photograph when it gets giddy about catching fish. I'm still waiting for my epic, point-blank Reddish Egret photo session, so until I get spoiled with that we will have Snowy Egrets...

...and Forster's Terns! This is the one and only tern we have an abundance in the bay area in winter. It's a sad state of affairs. We don't even have many tern species in the summer. I miss living in places where seeing Black Terns is a normal thing. Ballena Bay, Alameda, CA.

At high tide, this bird was roosting on a little floating piece of driftwood, and drift it did until it was crushed into oblivion.

Ok, I reckon you have had enough of all the robin-stroking. Here is a Ferruginous Hawk, a bird superior to most birds. Salt Springs Valley, CA.

Judging by the extensive amount of white on the underwing and underparts (including the shaggy legs), this is a young bird. According to Dipper Dan, famed Calaveras County birder, Salt Springs Valley is the best winter birding the county has to offer. I reckon he is probably correct on that account. While we dipped on Rough-legged Hawks (this hasn't been a good winter for them), there was an abundance of Ferruginous Hawks and Lewis's Woodpeckers, and Tricolored Blackbirds and Bald Eagles were refreshing birds as well.

Refreshing birds are nice and all, but certain species reside on a higher plain of perception and enjoyment. I have a special place in my cold, nerdy little heart for Burrowing Owls.

This is the other half of the pair, presumably the male based on the paler coloration (or colouration, if you are so inclined). Shortly after this, while I was attempting the most epic photo anyone has ever taken of a Lewis's Woodpecker, my SD card took a shit and it was hell trying to get the photos off of it...not that you care, but it was a relief to rescue some decent owl shots.

Sometimes I post things photos of things like Black Phoebes, which is not a momentous achievement but it seems to drive the easterners crazy. In that vein, I offer you this California Towhee. Back in December, I went on a ragey camping trip that happened to take place where a few birds live. This brown beauty belongs to a breathtakingly common species, and it also happens to be disgraced former Bird Policeman Adam Searcy's favorite bird...and lets face it, he needs some cheering up. Only a month ago, The Bird Police relegated the besmirched Mr. Searcy to a boring subcommittee and stripped him of his former power. Will he ever rise again, like the phoenix, to become a voting member? We may not know for years. In an apparent snub to Mr. Searcy, Officer John Garrett celebrated Mr. Searcy's demotion by finding a briefly-chaseable Kelp Gull. It rained on Officer Garrett that night...droplets of Glory soaked him for hours. Pinnacles National Park, CA.

While northern California has a deficit of winter terns, we at least have a couple species of quail. California Quail is a fine state bird I reckon, delicious both to the eyes and mouth. Such plumpness and fine patterning is a thing best beheld in person, and behold I did.

Fantastic patterning on these birds, though their roundness may be even more remarkable. And no, we did not see any California Condors.

After Pinnacles, it was out to Mercey Hot Springs in Fresno County. Everyone in the group was excited about soaking in the hot springs...which was fun and led to exacerbated inebriation, but I was looking forward to Long-eared Owls a lot more. I had heard this place was the best place in the state to see LEOWs, and I had also heard that birders can't just show up there anymore without paying (which I cannot confirm or deny to be true at the moment), but I didn't care since we were paying to camp. The owls were easy, really easy to see, thankfully, and my nonbirder roommate Arrison found them before I even arrived.

While I was there, all the day-roosting birds I saw were all in a single pine tree. They were used to people, so it was no problem walking under them and getting a good look. Now this is a bird I will never get tired of seeing.

Incredibly, there were TEN Long-eared Owls roosting in this tree! Here are five of them, looking like oversized pine cones. I never thought I would see a flock of them, but you know what? I have seen a flock of Long-eared Owls. Imagine that. Shortly after this photo was taken, I became completely incapacitated with a hangover. As Flycatcher Jen says, good times!

p.s. #7

Rage, Rage Against The Dying Of The Vagrants

I don't see Long-eared Owls very often, or for very long, so it was great to finally get to spend some quality time with one, even if we were separated by a few sticks.  Birding like this typically doesn't happen in March, and as one might expect this is a bird I met a couple months ago.  Coyote Hills Regional Park, Fremont, CA.

If a birder was out to find the unusual, as birders are apt to do, March is typically not the most rewarding month in California.  It is a month when few birding heroes are made.  It is a somewhat dull span of time in which wintering birds leave, few spring migrants arrive, and rarities are very hard to come by...you know the story.  Lucas at The Birder's Conundrum described the birding situation this month as "March meh-ness", which is apt.

March is the month that California birders often come crashing down from a vagrant high that lasted for months, typically starting with weird shorebirds in July and August, peaking later in fall, and often lasting the entire winter.  The shorebird scene was poor last year, but pelagic trips brought me multiple lifers and fall on the mainland was great.  Northern California had an epic winter for vagrants, with BRAMBRING (you know the story), Rustic Bunting, Falcated Duck and Common Scoter, and out of left field we have been gifted March (!!!) Brown Shrike and Tristram's Storm-Petrel, not to mention the resident not-so-secret Common Black-Hawk and the incredibly persistent Northern Gannet that is still being seen on the Farallon Islands that has been here for years now (I'm going to see it this year, I swear).  Other birds like Slaty-backed Gull, Black Vulture, Crested Caracara and Le Conte's Sparrow were frosting on the vagrant cake for area birders.   

So while I can no longer flog the shrubbery and realistically expect to find a rare bird, I humbly await the flycatchers, vireos, warblers and orioles that will soon be upon us.  It won't be like spring in South Texas, a la 2014, but we all can't have spring in South Texas...at least, not all the time.

This bird was the most confiding owl I've ever seen, of any kind, unfazed by its attendant photographers, hordes of small, horrible children, and wankers blaring shitty music out their smartphones less than 20 feet away. I almost felt bad for the bird, but it had chosen to roost next to one of the busiest places in the park, so I chose not to feel bad for it.

I hadn't seen a Long-eared Owl in a long time, a long time, and I doubt I'll be meeting such a mellow member of its species anytime soon.

Everyone kind of likes harriers...if they weren't all over the place, birders would really like them, but familiarity breeds contempt and whatnot.  I'm always trying to get a decent harrier photo, and this bird actually obliged as the the sun began to set.  Peep those hearts on its flank! Photographed at Coyote Hills. 

Look at that half hawk, half owl face...I'm surprised that's not a more common feature in the raptor world, because harriers seem to have great success with it.  I wonder, to what extent, harriers actually use hearing in their hunting efforts. Are their ears offset at all, like an owl's? Strange ponderings on this March afternoon, before the night's beering begins.

Early this month, after dropping by the Rustic Bunting to say "hi" and get my Vague Runt fix for the day (I am a bird junkie, after all), I spent some hours lurking around the lakes at Golden Gate Park. A confiding Hooded Merganser was one of the highlights, as not only is it a charismatic bird, they're pretty damn hard to get very close to almost everywhere else in the state.  It's not like you can find them grazing on a lawn like a goddamn wigeon or eating wonderbread like a Tufted Duck.

Hoods up!  Check out the raging tertials on this bird.

I may not see another Hooded Merganser for many more months...I'm going to have to live with that. For the time being, my days spent frolicking with small, fish-eating ducks has come to an end.  No more walking around with my head in the clouds, knowing that at any time I could go someplace and see a sort dwarf merganser.  Oh well, at least baseball and Game of Thrones will be starting soon...

Mew Gull is definitely one of those birds we take for granted on the west coast...it's always disconcerting when a visiting birder tells you they are looking for a Mew Gull, but then again it makes sense.  They are only in the Lower 48 in the winter, and only on the west coast.  So for those of you who think that looking at a Mew Gull is a fabulous idea, drink it in.  Photographed at Golden Gate Park.

This bird may soon be nesting in a tree.  Can you imagine that?  A white-headed gull nesting in a tree.  That is what they do, at least sometimes...Mew Gull, just for once...let me look on you in your tree nest with my own eyes.

As long as we are looking at gulls with alluring orbital rings, check this bird out.  We don't get to see Herring Gulls in alternate plumage here on the coast very much, and I was really struck by how colorful this bird's orbital was.  Photographed at Oyster Bay Regional Shoreline, CA.

One's experience with Ridgway's Rails is difficult to predict.  It's easy to find out where they live, but seeing them is another matter...sometimes you would never know they are there, other times you can hear a dozen of them but not see a single one, and occasionally they are just out strolling around in the open with the discretion of a coot in the grips of avian cholera. Photographed at Arrowhead Marsh, Oakland, CA.

Luckily for birders, though they are fond of not being looked at, Ridgway's Rails aren't the wariest of birds and can present quality viewing/photo ops from time to time, showcasing their sturdy pink legs.  And yes, that is an antennae sticking out of the bird's back.

There's nothing quite like the golden hues of a Ridgway's Rail in the afternoon sun. It looks like...home. 

Despite their absurd abundance, I will still look at Black Phoebes and even photograph them. No one, in the scheme of things, is above liking a Black Phoebe.  It is the best phoebe, after all. Photographed in Golden Gate Park.

Fans of YANG MING will appreciate this...just when you think you are going to have a mellow day of kayaking out on the bay, FIRMAMENT ACE comes along to plow you into oblivion.  If you can't see them, the kayakers are on the waterline below where "ment" is painted on the hull. FIRMAMENT ACE was blasting their billion decibel horn at the kayakers to get the fuck out of the way, which probably added to the thrill of almost getting killed by a megaship (or, as they are called in the east bay, a hellaboat) named FIRMAMENT ACE.