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. 

Sierra Summer Birding Part II

Ahhh...this next batch of blogs is going to be very refreshing. Refreshing like how this Osprey feels when diving into a lake at 9,770 feet at Virginia Lakes. You see, I've largely managed to escape the "summer doldrums" this year, which is an important thing to avoid if you want to keep your birding sanity. Mountains have everything to do with it, not to mention early fall shorebirds...but that is for a later post. For now, its back to the Sierras.

After breakfast with the rosy-finches, Billy and I rolled down to the Bodie Hills to track down Pinyon Jays and Juniper Titmice. A jay abided, the tits did not. We did get a quality wildflower show, and Billy managed to find a solitaire nest under a boulder...a lifer nest! After leaving the hills, it was north to Bridgeport Reservoir, which I hadn't birded in many years. The south end was very birdy and coughed up a few county birds, the best of which was a distant Bald Eagle. In the afternoon Lee Vining Creek Delta (just north of Lee Vining, on Mono Lake) relinquished a few more interesting birds, in the form of Whimbrel, Caspian Tern, and some Great-tailed Grackles.

The following day we birded along the south shore of the lake and the "Mono Mills" area. Navy Beach was hella birdy, but since it was early June the diversity of species was abhorrent. Bleak, but as all the local birders must know, the potential here is real.

All in all it was a solid trip. We birded, we camped, we drank, we transported Art, and I turned 34. I'll just put up some photos now.

MacGillivray's Warblers were everywhere in the mountains. This bird was vigorously singing at our campground in Lee Vining Canyon, former home of The Grub. The Grub now lives at a nearby undisclosed location, where he has hummingbird feeders up that are currently being very well attended. That's right, The Grub has become a Geribirder.

This bird had raging hormones and let me approach as close as I could while it sang away...pretty crippling looks, probably the best I'll have of the bird this year. And who was MacGillivray you ask? William MacGillivray was a Scottish ornithologist. John James Audubon was his bro (brornithologist), and named the bird after Willie Mac. The species was actually discovered by John Kirk Townsend (of solitaire and warbler fame).

This Gray Flycatcher was south of Mono Lake, just west of the big Jeffrey Pine forest, out in the sage flats. We also had another Pinyon Jay out here, which is pretty typical despite the fact that we don't associate them with treeless areas.

As the #7 U.S. birder (according to the Global Birder Ranking System), I have something to admit to you all...aside from Buff-breasted Flycatcher, Gray Flycatcher is the easiest Empidonax to identify north of Mexico. Think about it...Willows look like Alders, Leasts can look like all sorts of things, Duskies look like Hammond's, Pacific-slopes and Cordillerans are identical, Yellow-bellieds can look like Leasts and Westerns, and Acadians can resemble all manner of things if seen poorly enough. Unlike these other species, Gray Flycatchers look incredibly consistent...in my experience they display little variability in color of the lower mandible and overall plumage. The long bill, dull color, stubby primaries, and amount of orange/yellow in the bill are very dependable field marks...the most variable field mark to me is the eyering, which can be weak to moderately bold. I reckon it is a pretty easy bird to identify, even without their distinctive summer/winter habitat preferences and tail-dipping habit that a lot of birders like to key in on.

The Jeffrey Pine forest south of Mono Lake was carpeted in Dwarf Monkeyflower. It was most mellow. This is a Pinyon Jay stronghold, the most reliable place to get them that I can think of. I imagine that every Pinyon Jays knows of this place, for it is sacred to them.

Huge blankets of the stuff turned the forest floor pink. Facemelting.

I thought this was a boldly-marked Sagebrush Lizard at the time, but now am not so confident about that. Birding is hard.

The Mono Basin is filled to the brim with Sage Thrashers in spring and summer. Funny how out-of-range Sage Thrashers tend to be so approachable, but they have always kept their distance from me in the places they "belong". One thing is for certain though...they belong in my heart.

Absurd numbers of Violet-green Swallows breed around Mono Lake. Tufa towers make very good homes apparently.

They also make good perches. For crushing. This Violet-green is not only sitting on tufa...it is being framed by tufa. Does anyone want to see my exif data for this photo? This was not in Colorado. And if any of you get that joke, my work is done here.

Ok, my work is almost done here. I'll leave you today with an excerpt from William Dawson, who has no equal in the realm of birdwriting.

What shall we do for the Violet-green Swallows? Simply this: we will call them children of heaven. 

To appear to the best advantage, this child of heaven should be seen on a typical California day, burning bright, when the livid green of back and crown may reflect the ardent glances of the sun with a delicate golden sheen. The violet of upper tail-coverts and rump comes to view only in changing flashes; but one catches such visions as a beggar flung coins, and adds image to image until he has a full concept of this rainbow hue. At such a time, if one is clambering about the skirting of some rugged precipice in Yosemite, he feels as if the dwellers of Olympus had come down in appropriate guise to inquire his earth-born business. Not, however, that these lovely creatures are either meddlesome or shrewish. Even when the nest is threatened by the strange presence, the birds seem unable to form any conception of harm, and pursue their way in sunny disregard. Especially pleasing to the eye is the pure white of the bird's underparts, rising high on flanks and cheeks, and sharply contrasting with the pattern of violet and green, in such fashion that, if Nature had invited us to "remold it nearer to the heart's desire," we must have declined the task. 

Still Ablaze

The internet is still ablaze after reading Cass' Ode a couple days ago. If you haven't done so yet, scroll down and read the screed that everyone is talking about. Indeed, things may never be the same...particularly how you feel about gymnosperms.

As for me, I'm exhausted, and my normally razor-sharp wit has been worn and weathered into a spongy and entirely uninteresting substance. That said, I do still have some bird photos that I think are worth tossing your direction. All photos today are from Agua Caliente Park.

Ash-throated Flycatchers are common in many habitats throughout the southwest. Although they are the drabbest (ashiest?) of the North American Myiarchus, you cannot help but want to be friends with them. 

California Quail have a plump and delicious air about them.

I really like the plume that sticks out of the foreheads of both Gambel's and California Quail. It is the jauntiest thing imaginable.

I don't know what kind of cholla this is, but I really like it. Such an inviting blossom attached to such brutality. If you haven't seen cholla, imagine what a porcupine would look like if it could assume plant form.

MacGillivray's Warblers are the brightly-colored treat that may or may not be lurking in the center of every shrub this time of year. Like it's cousins from Connecticut and it's other cousins in Mourning, they are adept at not being seen.  

I've been keeping eyes and ears fully popped and open for my first Swainson's Thrush of the year, but it has yet to materialize. Here is its commoner cousin, a Hermit Thrush. UPDATE: Right when this post was finished, I heard a distinctive, water-drop "Whit!" come from my backyard...looking out the door of my cabin, there was a Swainson's Thrush, perched upon the old Olympic racing boat that resides next to my cabin.

Phainopepla female. She's hot.

This male Phainopepla is a featureless black hole. Don't get too close, or you will be sucked in and spat out into some other universe...where Phainopeplas govern the laws of physics.

Bigelow's Monkeyflower may only be a few inches tall, but they bring the desert floor to life.

Dusky Flycatcher. I used to be hella good at telling Hammond's and Dusky apart, in the blink of an eye. Now, more often than not, trying to weave together the proper identification feels more like wiping my ass with stinging nettle. I don't hold it against the birds or anything though.

Well....it almost was a good picture. Black-tailed Gnatcatcher.

Compared to chollas, Barrel Cactus appear friendly and hospitable. It's spines are much more springy compared to the spines of other cactus. Sometimes I want to hug them, but sobriety prevents me from doing so.

I'm Intercontinental When I Eat French Toast

Some nights big flocks of Swainson's Hawks and Broad-winged Hawks come in to spend the night on the hill above town. As with all the pics here, double click to enlarge the specks.

April 23, 2011.

Five more days.

By the time you are reading this, I will probably be back in the virtual arms of the internet, being cradled by the collective lot of you. You will once again have more than one blog post a week, which I know you must have. No more will your nightmares revolve around the scarcity of photos on BB&B and weird formatting issues that I can’t seem to lose. Expect another interview and some new installments of Birders As Art. The Human Birdwatcher Project will once again rise from the ashes like a socially inept Phoenix, and BB&B will continue on its near-vertical trajectory of becoming the best bird blog. Of course, some would contend that it already is, and to you I say you are Right. But I must spread the word. The blogetite for BB&B is very strong, I know.

I hope you’ve all been birding much.

Besides vultures and birds of prey, other migrants like Anhingas, Wood Storks and these American White Pelicans can be seen flying over Chavarrillo as well.

Carlos is a master bird mimic. This is on top of the pigeon shuffle (which, not jokingly, I believe he does next to people as a territorial display), that all of you should be familiar with. The other mainstay is the rooster crow, which is incredibly annoying when he does it early in the morning in a confined space. Then there is the pigeon/chicken peck, which is how he occasionally eats his food. Yesterday I caught him doing what has to be a Melodious Blackbird song, at the top of his lungs. This is relatively easy to do if you haven’t hit puberty yet. He also displays some strange cat-like tendencies, such as mewing, hissing, lapping water from a wide, shallow bowl, and attempting to catch flies with his mouth.

The day before I leave Mexico I’ll be on the coast south of Veracruz, birding viciously. I haven’t seen the ocean since I flew down here in February and it will be cool to check out a new place. And its avifauna. Obviously. There are rumors of Thick-knees, Fork-tailed Flycatchers and Pinnated Bitterns there. Jesus! Tears are coming to my eyes just thinking about it.

Veracruz state is blessed with a strange mix of birds from both eastern and western North America, like this MacGillivray's Warbler. He is probably sulking about not skulking in this photo.

Standard counting swag. Coffee, data sheet, clickers (for Turkey Vulture, Swainson's Hawk, Broad-winged Hawk and Mississippi Kite, respectively), field notebook, ipod, nerd.

I highly recommend people come down to bird Veracruz state, if they get the chance. The quantity and diversity of birds here is amazing, and I wish I would have had the chance to experience more of it. In the spring, there is the raptor migration here in Chavarrillo to check out, and of course there is the River Of Raptors in the fall. There are coastal mangrove forests, marshes, rainforest, thorn forest, high elevation coniferous forest, and everything inbetween. Robert Straub, bird guru of Veracruz, has a great book on birding sites throughout the state that would be crucial to get your hands on.

The drug war seems like it’s only a rumor from where I stand here, but of course I know from personal experience it is all too real to the north…at any rate the risk of another Tamaulipas Incident here seems quite low. Let’s hope it stays that way.

Montezuma's Oropendulas are common around town. They are huge and ridiculous.

There is a big party building up in the plaza here for Semanas Santos. The godawful loudspeaker tower that is lashed to the roof of a neighboring house has been playing ridiculous music on a loop all morning. The chorus of one song is “I see. I know. Meow meow meow meow.”, followed by a synthesizer making cat-like mew sounds. The rest of the song is in Spanish. Pretty great.

The internet has been elusive for quite some time now. The only place in Chavarrillo with internet has been closed, and a journey to another town specifically for emailing also ended in failure. I must communicate. I guess its back to searching the sky until then.