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.

Hacking My Way Through The Field Season

I'm over halfway through my field season...time flies! The Global Birder Ranking System awarded me many points when I Haynored this female Lark Bunting through a dirty truck window at Christy Ranch last month. Not only a very rare spring bird anywhere in California, it is the first one ever recorded on Santa Cruz Island! This one is especially white and neatly-marked.

This Yellow-headed Blackbird (immature male?) was around for a few days as well. In fact, I got to put it on my meat list. I realize some of you think that I'm making me dumb Farrallon joke, but the original definition of this phrase (which came into existence years before) is far more perverse...I will enlighten you all soon.

I crushed this Rock Wren back in March, but I visited its territory again recently for another round. I think it likes the attention. I wonder what singing birds think when they attract a large half-asian birder instead of a female.

California Quail are introduced on Santa Cruz Island, but they don't seem out of place. A couple feather piles I've found make me think the foxes don't mind them being there either. My inner biologist tells me to shun them, but I like them anyway.

It seems I've never posted a Pacific-slope Flycatcher before. I practically melted my camera firing off shots of this confiding individual at the Scorpion Ranch visitor center. No one will ever call this bird a facemelter, but it's hard not to like them.

This is a nesting colony of Brandt's Cormorants, one of the things I'm paid to look at. By the time I get back out there practically ever Brandt's Cormorant nest will have hatched eggs, and some will have large chicks. The nests I'm monitoring seem to be doing pretty good, but we'll see how many chicks get fledged.

One of the views at Christy Ranch, one of my temporary homes for the summer. Not bad, eh?

Gratuitous Island Fox cuteness.

They seem to constantly be squinting. Maybe their allergies are as bad as mine.

A young Barn Swallow keels over and dies. The end of days are upon us. When the swallows fall from the skies, we can expect the skies to be falling right behind them. Repent! Repent for all your misidentifications! Repent for the times you nerdily tried to one-up another birder in conversation!

Who said that? This bird is just sunbathing.

The "jay crew" reports that Island Scrub-Jays are having a terrible year. Very few young are fledging, and they are finding some birds far from where they are expected (these birds are not prone to wandering). I haven't seen any juveniles at all yet. This can probably be directly or indirectly attributed to the drought, but its hard to say whats giving them problems for sure.

I'm really hoping the drought breaks next winter. Everything needs the water...of course, this is all just going to get worse as the years go by...life is pain, unless you are looking at an Island Scrub-Jay lifting its skirt.

I have seen this Zombie Spotted Towhee a number of times. I don't know what's going on with it; the other side of its face looks even worse, with a lot more blue-gray skin...as close to an actual Terminator a Spotted Towhee can get. Luckily for us, this bird only terminates seeds and insects.

A Full Tour In The Bag...Self-Inflicted Birdgasm...Thanks Nikon!

Birds on the Channel Islands were pretty screwed during the height of the DDT years. Peregrine Falcons have since made a strong comeback on Santa Cruz Island, and are not an unusual sight if you are walking the clifftops.

Well birders, I am back from the island after a successful first full-length tour of two weeks. The National Park Service boat we were scheduled to return on got cancelled due to high surf, but we made it back on an Island Packers boat instead....the ocean yesterday was essentially bullshit, I haven't been in seas like that since cruising down the Aleutian chain on the Tiglax a few years ago. When you are on a huge catamaran and still are going under swells that rise up over your head, that's when you know it's ok not to be birding....or so I thought until one of the boat crew (a birder) informed me of the Sabine's Gull he saw fly by. Goddammit! Would have been a year bird....

One of the biggest species of interest on Santa Cruz Island is Bald Eagle. Completely wiped out on the island by DDT, it was the loss of the resident Balds that was largely responsible for letting the Golden Eagles move in, which in turn is what practically wiped out the (still endangered) Island Fox population. That is some classic web of life shit right there. With the help of a reintroduction program, Bald Eagles are back and breeding on Santa Cruz, and without Golden Eagles the foxes are flourishing as well.

Western Gulls, unlike most of us, are not so happy about the eagles' return. The dislike is mutual.

The big birding news from my last island tour was a self-found American Oystercatcher that conveniently hangs out at one of our survey sites. While doing a foraging survey of seabirds, I was shocked to look down at the rocks below me and see this STATE BIRD waging war on a mussel bed. I may or may not have violently shat myself at this point. Although not a review species, American and Black Oystercatchers really like getting kinky with each other in this part of the world, so (in my opinion) hybrids considerably outnumber pure/ostensibly pure American Oystercatchers in southern California and its offshore islands. Sure enough, when I went back to resurvey the site last weekend, the American was joined by not one but two definitive hybrids, giving comparative looks that brought a whole new meaning to the word "birdgasm". How embarrassing...with established introduced birds, American Oystercatcher is #498 for California. I am so close to quinientos glory, I can taste it.

I love the panoramas my iPhone gets...and there is no shortage of breathtaking views on the island. This is one of our work sites. 

Rock Wrens are very common on the island, but I am still used to seeing them in mountains, not on vertical cliffs above the ocean.

This is one of the (few) things in life where being the Number 7 birder in the nation does not get you anywhere...butterfly ID. With help from Luke Tiller, I think we got it down to White Checkered-Skipper.

Finally, I recently had a little accident with my primary lens and camera (those of you uninterested in cameras and photography can stop reading now). At first I thought I was psyching myself out, and maybe I was just imagining all these mild imperfections in my photos, but after a few outings I realized my lens  (Nikon 80-400mm f4.5-5.6) was no longer performing like it used to and that something needed to be done...many images were very soft and had lens flare, shitty phenomena that this lens is famous for not having problems with at all. Enter Nikon's service department. Using nothing but their website to coordinate, I sent in my lens for repair, expecting a horrific cost and for it to be out for servicing for weeks. Lo and behold they had my lens back in one week! Impressive, to say the least. They essentially gutted the lens and replaced a plethora of parts, and although I haven't taken it birding yet, a few test shots taken in my folks' backyard show the results of their work...it's like new. And the cost? Let's just say that instead of a repair cost that would be equivalent to buying another used lens, it was a very reasonable price. Not exactly cheap, but for a man of my meager means, totally acceptable.

Song Sparrows on Santa Cruz Island are intermediate between the local mainland subspecies (heermanni) and graminea, of Santa Rosa and San Miguel Islands. Many passerines have subspecies endemic to the the Channel Islands; some birds have subspecies endemic to single islands (i.e. Catalina Hutton's Vireo, San Clemente Loggerhead Shrike, etc.). 

The Rhino. This is what we drive around out there. It's pretty great.

And that is the news of the day. I also got a new battery for my laptop, and my computer has thus been awoken from the barren wasteland of the electronically deceased. Although I will have a heavy workload the next few months, shit should now be firing on all cylinders enough to keep up some precious blog output. See you soon, nerds.

PS all photos today taken with a borrowed lens from my dad, and an iPhone. Not too shabby eh?

Island Scrub-Jays making out. Gross.

Rash And Awesome Behavior

Rufous-crowned Sparrow. One of the less-celebrated (WHY???) southwestern specialties. Mission Trails Regional Park, CA.

There is not much more out there that is more self-indulgent and narcissistic than talking about your year list. A year list is ultimately just yours, and unless you actually have a good shot at breaking some kind of record, no one is really going to care. I am keeping a year list, but am by no means doing a big year...my only goal, of course, is to see more species than I did last year, and I don't let silly things like international boundaries affect that.

That said, I'm always a bit interested when someone is keeping track of their year birds, although I'm not sure why....what good does that do me, and why should I be interested in the amount of petroleum they burn in their pursuit with no tangible benefits?

At this point in my life I don't have the time or resources to do a "big year" anywhere, not even on a county level, since I'm constantly moving. Maybe if some sort of kind philanthropist wanted to sponsor me (HINT HINT NUDGE NUDGE), things would be different. I would love nothing more than getting X number of dollars per species recorded and putting that into something like purchasing land for habitat conservation...but as far as I know, there is no precedent for such rash and awesome behavior.

Today's photos are all various year birds that I've seen since arriving in San Diego, for good or ill.

Lark Sparrow. Look at that face. Sorry Jen, you will see them soon. Kitchen Creek Road, CA.

This Rock Wren was sitting in the worst light imaginable, but at least it was abiding....not "confiding" (it told me no secrets), just abiding. Kitchen Creek Road.

Here is a Ash-throated Flycatcher for Laurence. He is a singer of their praises, and I don't blame him. Kitchen Creek Road, CA.

The ideal Costa's Hummingbird portrait features it's giant-but-tiny head lit up in a mix of ultrapurple colors that you didn't even think existed. Unfortunately the sun and the bird need to be in the right places for that, so I got this. Mission Trails Regional Park, CA.

Nashville Warblers are striking birds, and are one of the northbound migrants many Californians prowl the woods for. They won't be coming through for very long though. Kitchen Creek Road.

Black Skimmers are much sought-after birds, no matter how many you have seen. Here is a mirage of some. Mission Bay, San Diego, CA.

Yellow-crowned Night-Herons are busy nesting, at least a couple of pairs are. Got to see one calling and displaying a couple days ago, it was...dazzling, and that's not even taking into account those blazing orange legs. Imperial Beach Sports Park, Imperial Beach, CA.

A Reddish Egret stalks wildly. They are the only bird capable of stalking wildly. J Street Mudflats, Chula Vista, CA.

This Little Blue Heron was the most approachable individual I've come across...it was one of those birds that don't acknowledge your presence. I don't think I could even get it to look at me. But at this young age, it had already mastered the art of staying out of good light. Next time heron, next time. Famosa Slough, San Diego, CA.

In lagoons and estuaries all over the coast, terns of all sorts are flying around in courtship displays, showing fish to each other. These Royal Terns were at Tijuana Slough National Wildlife Refuge, CA.