It's Getting Late Early: November in The 5MR

This Common Merganser bellows a simple song: FIVE MILE RADIUS! FIVE MILE RADIUS! Photographed at Almaden Lake in San Jose.

And then it was November. Suddenly the heinous notion of the year 2020 is not such a far-fetched idea after all...it is a terrible reality, just waiting for us right around the corner, lurking in the shadows cast by the specter of what Hunter S. Thompson would surely call "this foul year of lord, 2019." By the time we realize it is here, it will be too late.

But Hunter has been dead since 2005, and from his point of view...maybe that was for the best. Here we are in golden weeks of 2019, an age when Hope is Dead and Idiocracy is Real. But one phenomenon swept over birders in 2019 that has changed many hearts and minds forever, and the world is not a worse place for it. No, it's not ID by democracy or identifying everything as a hybrid, it is the FIVE MILE RADIUS. It's high time BB&B checks in with my 5MR, which is running smoothly after a grinding start to the fall.

You may recall that I connected with an Eastern Kingbird in my YARD of all places back in June. July delivered a radial gift on a similar scale - a self-found Red-eyed Vireo, which I found by walking out my back gate out to the ponds behind my house. Red-eyed Vireo is a MEGA vague for Santa Clara County and the first I'd seen in California in many years, though they are more expected in coastal counties. Like the kingbird, it was a one day wonder and easily one of my top 5MR birds ever, let alone this year. Photographed at the Los Capitancillos Ponds.

But after a surprisingly productive summer, things really slowed when fall migration was supposed to get under way, at least on the year bird front. August had but a single new addition to the 5MR year list (Scaly-breasted Munia, ew), and September had only two, a Willow Flycatcher (clutch - they are very uncommon and come through for a brief window) and American Wigeon (a "gimme" I knew I would run into eventually). By the end of September, I was wondering if my radius would actually be fading in fall instead of lighting up. September was good for Vaux's Swifts at least, like this one at Los Gatos Creek County Park.

Incredibly (to me), on this day many swifts were foraging *on* several conifer trees - they would make contact or "land" briefly among the needles as they presumably gleaned insects. I have never seen a Vaux's Swift previously make contact with anything denser than air. Here you can see a swift entangled in the foliage, and yes, this is a Vaux's Swift-Anna's Hummingbird combo.

More gleaning swifts. There is also an eastern gray squirrel partially hidden in there, which I didn't see at the time. I love me some novel swift combos.

The fall rarity drought vanished as soon as the calendar changed to October. I successfully chased this spiffy Clay-colored Sparrow, which was also a county bird. Not only was it a county bird, it is the species that sparked the entire Lori Meyers fiasco from last year! Not the vaguest vanguard but a very nice rarity for the county. I would also go on to find two more Clay-colored Sparrows of my own last month, all in my 5MR! In the fall of 2018, Clay-coloreds went unrecorded in the county entirely. Photographed at Vasona Lake County Park.

This was the last Western Wood-Pewee I saw this year. Sadly, I likely will not be adding additional flycatchers in 2019, although I hold out hope for a vague runt Eastern Phoebe or something of that sort. I will most likely finish the year with a middling 9 flycatcher species, with Eastern Kingbird headlining that group and Western Kingbird and Olive-sided Flycatcher being new for the 5MR. I missed a locally rare Cassin's Kingbird last winter, and its likely Hammond's Flycatcher passed through undetected. Photographed at Vasona Lake.

One day, while sitting on the couch vacantly staring into my backyard, I saw a yellow-green bird appear next to the Rancho de Bastardos bird bath. I almost didn't look at it with binoculars, utterly convinced it would be yet another Lesser Goldfinch, but I am the Global Birder Ranking System's #7 U.S. birder, and one of the reasons you all look up to me is because I practice and preach DUE DILIGENCE. So I went ahead and hopelessly glassed the bird as it plopped down into the bath, and almost fell off the couch when I saw it was in fact a TENNESSEE WARBLER...which was not just a yard bird, not just a 5MR bird, but a county bird! And the only one seen in Santa Clara County in 2019. It was also the first warbler of any species to use the bird bath since April! I was, and still am, astounded. Don't you just love geri birding?

Minutes later, a Western Tanager dropped in. I had seen and heard them from the yard a number of times, but this was the first one *in* the yard. Quite the day of geri.

The yard has continued to produce good birds ever since baptized by the Tennessee Warbler. This Northern Pintail (left, Gadwall on the right) was not only a yard bird, it was a new radius bird! Cackling Goose, Greater White-fronted Goose, and Pine Siskin from the yard all were new recent 5MR year birds.

Ok, this is the last yard bird, I swear. Though I've seen one from the yard once before, a California Thrasher has been a totally unexpected addition to the yard flock, and it has been here daily for the last couple weeks. It's a nice bird to have in the 5MR, where they are fairly common at a few places, but it's a weird yard bird considering the less-than-marginal habitat in the area.

Seeing this normally retiring scythe billed friend casually hanging out with the sparrows, towhees and doves all the time has taken some getting used to. It seems to relish our wood chip situation, as it really flings those things with reckless abandon. It's not particularly wary. When in Rome, right?

I'm lucky to have a little bit of grassland at the edge of my radius. I recently hiked up here in a desperate bid to get a new radius bird (I had a few targets in mind) and was rewarded with a Prairie Falcon, my latest and greatest new 5MR bird. I got it only because I was doing a stationary count in a spot where a White-tailed Kite was sitting nearby - the falcon appeared out of nowhere and started tangling with the kite. This was part of the November 5MR Challenge, but of course you knew that. It was a steep hike so I didn't bring a camera (and I knew I would see something good if I left it at home) so here is a picture of the area from earlier this year when things were green - this is a good microcosm of my radius, awesome open space on one side colliding abruptly with urban sprawl.

Not new, not rare, and not photographed in my yard - I just like Red-breasted Sapsuckers and so do you. Glad they will be around again for the winter. Photographed at Vasona Lake.

I'll finish with 10 target birds I've got for the rest of the year, we'll see how it goes. Some are more likely than others, but all of these could be present...simultaneously...in my 5MR as you read this. A disturbing thought indeed.

American Bittern
Snow Goose
Ross's Goose
Greater Scaup
Western Gull
Mew Gull
Golden-crowned Kinglet
Varied Thrush
Swamp Sparrow
Evening Grosbeak

We'll see if I get many (any?) of these in about 7 weeks! My self-imposed 5MR bourbon challenge is still in play and I may find myself forced into buying whiskey any day now...my goal for the year in my 5MR is 185 and I'm so close I can taste it. Good luck to all you radius birders out there for the rest of 2019...you're gonna need it.

The Best Birding of The Year: April in Sabine Woods

I'm not sure if anyone has noticed, but I am pretty awful at finishing trip reports in a timely manner. However, I love trip reports (though they seem to be dying) and I love fantastic birding, so I would be crazy to not make one last installment from this year's trip to Texas. Our second trip to Sabine Woods not only warranted a blog post, it was the best birding I experienced the entire year. So hop on in to the BB&B time machine one last time, as we make the quick leap back to April of 2018...

The day started out innocently enough. After Great Success earlier in the week at Sabine Woods, Dipper Dan and I headed back, hoping for a repeat. The southerly winds that prevailed over much of the previous day had switched to winds out of the north, so conditions were right for a good morning, if not a facemelting one.

At dawn we started the birding the trees at Texas Point National Wildlife Refuge, which is right on the way to Sabine Woods. It's not an impressive looking patch (some pieces of private property in the area appeared better suited as migrant traps), but since this is the UTC it should be checked! It was really slow at first, but after a while we began to see sweet sweet migrants coming in off the coast. Not many were stopping, but it was encouraging. The Northern Parula above was very accommodating, and ended up being the only one we would see that day.

After exhausting the relatively small Texas Point patch, we returned to Sabine Woods. Birding was on the slow side at first...acceptable, but not anything crazy. The forest floor was not crawling with Ovenbirds and thrushes, like it was when we visited earlier in the week though. This Canada Warbler that Dipper Dan found was an early highlight.

After talking to BB&B reader Steve from Kansas City for a while and learning about how terrible fans of the Kansas City Royals are...and looking at the Cerulean Warbler he pointed out to us...I found this Blue Jay getting high on sunbeams in the forest floor. Things were getting interesting.

Incrementally, the birding got better and better as the morning progressed. What began as dull birding became mediocre birding, which turned into decent birding which turned into good birding. A few hours after we arrived, the number of birds in the patch had seemed to double, then triple. By about 2PM there were simply birds all over the place. Woods totally empty of Ovenbirds earlier now were filled with them. The birding had gone from good to great; migrants just seemed to be piling in to the patch.

Eventually, we came to that rare and special realization that it was happening, much like it was at High Island the first day of the trip. This was the birding I had come here for, the birding I had hoped to experience but dared not expect. There were simply too many birds, too many birds to look at, mainly thrushes, vireos and warblers. Migrants galore. At one point, Dan and I split up for a while, and he encountered this Swainson's Warbler (left). It was only a few feet from him, falling asleep inside a bush, so the only photo he could get of it was with his phone. Obviously, the bird had just dropped in from who-knows-where and needed a nice nap before turning up the skulk meter to normal Swainson's Warbler parameters.

Well, when it's happening, it's happening. This is the sort of thing that happens when it's happening.

I missed Dan's sleepy Swainson's by a few minutes but managed to find my own in a different part of the patch. It was slightly more cooperative than I expected, which I was happy about. The brown wonder was a lifer only a few days before.

We birded vigorously through the afternoon. It was great. Not a fallout...lots of very approachable but otherwise normal-acting birds...but I had difficulty thinking that the birding could be much better than it was.

Eventually, we were fully saturated by migrants and the day was drawing to an end. We made our way back to the entrance, where a confiding Worm-eating Warbler greeted me...

...and promptly flopped down to the pavement. I love seeing warblers flopping around on the ground...it is a sign of excellent birding. Sure, some warblers are inherent ground floppers, and some may flop at any height...but it can be a sign. Worm-eating Warblers aren't exactly ground-phobic though, so I merely appreciated the bird's gesture and went on my way.

But I didn't get far. The day's final act was about to unfold, and the few tattered remains of what was once my face were about to melt off completely.

Right next to the entrance, some birders were looking at some Blackburnian Warblers...certainly not an unusual event but I felt these Blackburnians needed some special attention.

It turns out these Blackburnians were especially tired. They were in full just-crossed-the-Gulf mode and treated us with the same amount of caution they would give to an oak tree...in other words, we might as well have been invisible. I've met some confiding Blackburnians before, but these really took it to another level. When one of them started passing out on an open branch about 15 feet away, I knew that not only was it happening, it was happening really hard.

In short order they flopped to the ground and did their best Brewer's Blackbird-in-a-parking-lot impressions. I've been lucky enough to be really close to Blackburnians before, but this was a different level of close.

Incredible.

Here is an uncropped photo - the dark blob on the right is my shadow.

I looked up into the trees and saw a Bay-breasted Warbler, then two. They had been fairly common the past few days, but it was strange to see them perched just a few inches from one another; I got the clear impression that they had just fallen out of the sky together, their long Gulf crossing just completed. The Worm-eating Warbler on the ground had foreshadowed what was unfolding before my very eyes...

Warblers were now flopping around on the ground in front of us. This adult Tennessee Warbler, a known ground hater, flopped about without apologies.

Another Tennessee jumped into the ground frenzy. The growing terrestrial congregation of fearless warblers wasn't completely surrounding us, but were very focused or concentrating on an area in front of us about the size of a small lawn.

A Hooded Warbler, known to groundabout, was especially floppy.

The pair of Bay-breasted Warblers descended from the trees to join the growing flock of warblers in the grass for soul-satisfying looks.

Considering all the warblers on the ground, gravity must have been especially strong. This Blue-winged Warbler felt the pull but mostly managed to stay a few feet above it.

Gravity's pull was so forceful here that it was holding on to a leaf with one foot for dear life. Clearly, this was some sort of Bermuda Triangle for warblers.

This crippling Chestnut-sided Warbler materialized a few feet above the ground-fray.

The Bay-breasted Warblers in particular had little interest in going back up into the trees.

We should probably make sure a combo gets in here...Blackburnian/Bay-breasted ground combo is a sweet one. There were other warblers here in groundtown as well, but this post has to end eventually!

I'm still not sure how to describe this event. This was not normal. Kansas City Steve, who had logged a great many years of springtime birding at Sabine Woods, admitted he had never seen anything like it. It was like what I expect a full-blown fallout to be like, except happening on a weirdly small scale. I have always maintained that there is no such thing as a small fallout, but it appears time to reexamine that position. Keep in mind, of course, that there were huge numbers of birds in the patch that were not acting like this, but I'm thinking a small wave of extremely exhausted migrants had arrived at the edge of the patch just as we were leaving, giving us....well...a micro fallout? It makes me wince to read that but I can't think of a better label for the event. No matter what it was, it was unlike anything I've experienced before, things will never be the same, and I really hope a springtime return to the Gulf Coast happens sooner than later. We ended up getting new high counts in eBird for Acadian Flycatcher, Swainson's Thrush and Ovenbird at this heavily birded site.

I did have one more day to bird in Texas with Dipper Dan and Officer Shaw at High Island, which was ok but nothing like what happened at Sabine Woods the previous day. We then went to Shaw's, where we drank incredibly good beer, I had an incredibly bad allergy attack (how embarrassing), and a freaking Chuck-will's-widow flew over his suburban yard in broad daylight!

This will conclude BB&B's coverage of 2018's fantastic foray to Texas. Thanks to This Machine Nate for coming all the way out to the coast, shortly before being banished to the depths of an uncharted corner of Ohio. Thanks to Dipper Dan for being my ride or die and coming out from SoCal. Thanks to Officer Shaw for meeting up with us (twice!) and letting us crash in the Land of Sugar. You all battled Geri, you all won, and you are all birding heroes.

Golden Birds, Blinging at Lake Merced, Unreadable Garbage

Yipes. It's the middle of October already. While San Diego has been seething with rarities the last few days and a mystery warbler on the Oxnard Plain has ground birding in Ventura County to a standstill, that means we've passed the peak of fall migration here in the bay area, at least in terms of Vague Runts. It went by fast. That said, the quality of rarities often overcomes quantity later in the fall, so anything can happen still...although I would be lying if I told you that the Galileo Hill Red-faced Warbler from last week didn't hurt me deeply. Luckily I have seen plenty of this crippling bird...just not in California. How much longer must I suffer without seeing this bird in my home state? Until that time arrives, I live in a state of purgatory.

Which you probably don't give a shit about. Right...I understand. Unless a birder is deeply competitive or otherwise grossly invested in Schadenfreude, they generally don't care about anyone else's lists. I know you don't care that I didn't see that Red-faced Warbler, but I just can't help myself. Bird bloggers talking about their lists is some of the most unreadable garbage imaginable. Anything more than a sentence about it is overkill. How do I know? Because I read it all the time, and I also write it. But can you blame us? When you write about birds all the time and you're always thinking about that next bird you want to see, it's a difficult thing to ignore. So I'll probably keep doing it, albeit not without guilt. And shame.

And with that, I have nothing thematic to offer today in terms of blog fodder, just some birds I've run into lately.

While I was lurking down in Monterey a couple weeks ago, a couple young Golden Eagles took me by surprise at Moonglow Dairy. They seemed to be working down the transmission line corridor west towards the coast, and both flew low over the car for some of my best looks at them ever. They were easily Bird Of The Day...or for you kids and social media fiends out there, #BOTD.

This individual was the older of the two, with limited white in the tail and no white in the underwing. You can also tell by the notch in the flight feathers of the left wing HAHA JUST KIDDING

Here is the second bird; hella white in the tail. It looks like a goddamn Zone-tailed Hawk. We are most fortunate that Golden Eagles develop their golden nape at a very young age...not that identifying them would be any harder, they just look better this way.

Hella white in the underwing as well. It might be some time before I get such crushy looks again, and it was nice to have a #BOTD for a change that is majestic instead of small and greenish-yellow.

Here is a golden bird of a different sort. This Prothonotary Warbler spent some time in San Francisco earlier this month. It made my face all weird and melty. Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, CA.

In the sun, the bird glows like nobody's business. Total fucking crippler. I wish these birds showed up slightly more often in California, but you know what they say...life is pain.

Here it is pretending to be a flower, or at least snuggling with one. Ain't that cute? It's also doing a convincing impression of a Yellow Warbler.

None of us were ready when the Prothonotary let out a mighty bellow and knocked us off our feet. I did manage to document the event, but at what cost? Fifteen (15) minutes of convulsions and trying not to choke on my tongue.  #BOTD.

Tennessee Warbler is just one of those birds that I have great difficulty seeing in California. There is no logical explanation for it. It is one of those "expected" rarities during the fall, but I just can't seem to connect with them. This one, in the same tree as the Prothonotary, is the first I've seen in the state in years. What gives? Birding works in mysterious ways. It is also hard.

What is there to say about a Tennessee Warbler that looks like this? It's caught somewhere in between a Philadelphia Vireo and a Blackpoll Warbler, and manages to be less appealing than either of those birds. But you know me, I've never been one to argue against the Economy of Style, especially if it's a plumage I don't get into imbibe on the regular.

Like the bellow of the Prothonotary, I was completely unprepared for this White-crowned Sparrow that was rocking jewelry. That's a USFWS band on the right leg, not a white color band. Anyone know where this bird came from? Is this a bird previously fondled by someone at Point Blue? Lake Merced, San Francisco, CA.

I was a bit more prepared for this banded Red-tailed Hawk; a lot of the Red-tails in the city have gotten bling. This Machine Nate, is this one of those Red-tails that are vastly superior to eastern birds? Photographed at Lake Merced.

I have waited my whole life to get a picture of a harrier that comes anywhere close to a crush. Harriers despise photography, which is unusual considering their abundance and conspicuous habits. I was stoked to see this young male hunting from my car on the oppo side of the road. Moss Landing, CA.

It's a slick bird, I reckon. Even if it wasn't #BOTD.

Migrants Oscar Mike

We are just past the peak of spring migration down here, but the migrants are still Oscar Mike and should be for a while. They say that May means empids in the LRGV...I've fared poorly so far...some Least Flycatchers and a "Traill's", and that's it. EBird is lighting up with Alder and Acadian reports, which I prefer to just think of as mostly misidentified Least Flycatchers and Eastern Wood-Pewees. This may be wishful thinking, but if you want to see some astounding feats of bird identification failure, this is a good place for it. The best one I've seen so far was a lady who identified a Black-bellied Whistling-Duck as a woodpecker.

As you know, I've been birding South Padre Island relentlessly this spring. I have major FOMO when it comes to missing interesting migrants on the coast, although by now I have seen many of them, and it is getting late for the one I am still really lusting after (Swainson's Warbler...there is a reliable eBird report from there this year...life is pain). So now I'm basically just going out to find some new Empids for the year, hang out with the expected migrants, and hopefully find a fantastic rarity like Black-whiskered Vireo or something that boggles the mind in a similar manner.

Mostly, I'm just enjoying eastern flavored spring migration, and seeing birds I don't normally get to crush or otherwise bump into very often. Newly-arrived birds drop in throughout the day, so the longer you spend on island, the more you will see. Just when you are ready to call it quits something fancy will show up, and after an hour, the process tends to repeat itself until you wonder how you managed to spend all day at two or three tiny spots.

Canada Warblers should be more regular this month, I only saw one in April. This bird is a real, honest-to-god crippler. The face pattern face melts. I mean, the eyering is two different colors...intricacies abound within the blinding goodness.

Thankfully, Chestnut-sided Warblers have become easy to find on SPI. They are very crushable. I find their plumage to be quite innovative.

It's like they have a moustache that goes all the way down their flanks. Pretty sick.

The Blue-winged Warbler photos I have now have improved since the last couple I posted. Like many warblers, this is a species that frequently is feeding only a foot or two off the ground here. Not what I would expect, but I'm not complaining.

I struggle to think of a caption for this. Not the crushiest shot, but you get the general impression of the bird. How do I go years at a time without seeing them? It can't be healthy.

After the scourge of Yellow-rumped Warblers departed (mercifully early), Tennessee Warbler quickly became the most abundant migrant warbler. Being nectar junkies, they are often quite confiding (see crush above). As of this writing, it still is the most abundant warbler out there. I have seen far more TEWAs in the last month than in all my life leading up to this spring. There sure are a lot of Tennessee Warblers out there.

Of course one of the downsides of having so many TEWAs around is that A) people misidentify them as Philadelphia Vireos and B) if you hear about a Philadelphia Vireo, you instantly become overly suspicious that this "vireo" is actually a Tennessee Warbler.

Rose-breasted Grosbeaks are often around in good numbers, although they don't seem to be quite as predictably abundant as the orioles. I think I like them better than Black-headed Grosbeaks. Sorry Black-headed Grosbeaks.

This one lacked the black breast streaking of the above bird. Younger individual?

Migrant sparrows are few and far between on the coast...Savannah and Lincoln's Sparrows, and some Clay-colored Sparrows (above), and not much else. Ever since my time working for Lostwood National Wildlife Refuge, I think of North Dakota whenever I see a Clay-colored. Their style is economical but I am a proponent of all the humble prairie birds.

Oops...not a migrant. Even Mottled Ducks come in to the bird seed that is scattered at the convention center. This is a bird that will never get anyone's pulse racing, but then again I'm happy to see one up close for once.

For some reason it seems immature and female Painted Buntings not only far outnumber adult males, they are also much more fearless. This is unfortunate. Can't say the same for Indigo Buntings.

Here's one of the few cooperative male Painted Buntings I've seen recently. Why does this exist? It's too much.

I have had the misfortune of seeing several mildly rare, western birds on South Padre Island. Of course a male Townsend's Warbler is certainly a crippler, but I would much rather see mildly rare eastern birds. Cape May Warbler? Yes please. I have no doubt that in the blink of an eye I will be knee deep in Townsend's Warblers again and longing for Black-throated Green Warblers.