Episode VI: RETURN OF THE GERI

Seagull Steve has returned to the state of Texas in an attempt to rescue his friend This Machine Nate from the clutches of the vile Geri Birders.

Little does Steve know that the GERIATRIC EMPIRE has secretly begun amassing an unstoppable army even more powerful than the dreaded hordes that swarm South Padre Island.

When assembled, this ultimate army of Geris will spell certain doom for the small band of birders struggling to restore good identification skills to the birding galaxy...

How does that grab you? I don't really have the capacity to do an opening crawl in blog format, so this will have to do. Though the Jedi were obviously the protagonists in Return of The Jedi, the Geri are decidedly not the heroes of Return of The Geri. They are the rising darkness, and we are the light to meet it. 

Always in motion is the future, but I can see it now. The mosquitoes will be thick, and Geri will be thicker. Photographers (Geri and otherwise) high on bird lust and low on almost everything else will inspire anger, fear, aggression. When brightly colored birds in plain view within spitting distance are pointed out, Geri will struggle mightily to locate them and demand more instruction so I cannot enjoy watching the birds myself. Birds will be misidentified constantly. Black-and-white Warblers will become Blackpoll Warblers. Tennessee Warblers will become Philadelphia Vireos. Eastern Wood-Pewees will become Acadian Flycatchers. Ovenbirds will become Wood Thrushes. All Catharus thrushes will become each other. Red will become blue and one will become two. There will be squadrons of Geri to wade through at many of the sites, indeed, an army I feel I may not be able to defeat. But does it spell certain doom? Perhaps, but much like Lando Calrissian, Nien Nunb and Wedge Antilles defied the odds and destroyed the second Death Star, we may be able to find a way around the legion of Geri and get into some fantastic birding. That depends on the birds, the weather, our birding strategy, and a lot of luck.

Geri may be a force to be reckoned with, but a confiding Hooded Warbler can become more powerful than you could possibly imagine. 

Cheesy/stupid intro aside, we are excited to announce that BB&B will be returning to Texas this spring. Ostensibly, I will be leading a custom trip organized by the up and coming MAX REBO BIRDING TOURS ("No one can find Ortolans like Ortolans!"), and meeting up with famed Bicknell's Thrush expert and Jawbreaker scholar, This Machine Nate. But the real reason I am going is to bend the knee and worship at the altar of Spring Migration. Like most of you, I have never seen a proper fallout...I've been around for some good waves of migrants (what some would call "modest" fallouts perhaps, which seems oxymoronic to me), but not the genuine article...warblers littering the ground, ungodly hordes of exhausted migrants, too much for one birder to possibly take in...one of the great climaxes of North American birding. I've been close enough to the real deal to develop a strong appetite for it though, and so I must head east.

I like to see Indigo Buntings. I like to see lots of them, at extremely close range. For the birder looking to get high on Indigo, spring in coastal Texas is the time and the place to do just that. 

Now, as you may have heard, I am the #7 birder in the country...it's not like I am going into this situation blind. Even if I was going to spend weeks out there (I'm not), I'm not expecting to be so lucky, or for the birds to be so unlucky. I will be completely happy just to reconnect with a bunch of different species and be there when a decent number of newly-arrived migrants drop in to the woods.  I am expecting some slow, perhaps excruciatingly slow, days on the passerine front...but this is what one must endure to have the best chance at being around for an iconic migration event. Or just plain old good birding! It's not like I require 25 species of warblers in a day to be satisfied.

I found this Scarlet Tanager in the middle of the day ("best time to make for great birdwatch", according to one notorious birder), smashing a large moth in the middle of a suburban street with nothing resembling respectable stopover habitat in sight. I shot this crippling lens-cracker out my car window. No doubt this is a bird that meets all standard fallout criteria (tired/voraciously hungry/in weird coastal habitat/totally oblivious to people/facemelting), but unfortunately one bird does not make a fallout.

Aside from seeing a lot of birds and getting some crushing in, I do have one particular target bird in mind - Swainson's Warbler. I have never seen a Swainson's Warbler, and I hope to rectify that unfortunate situation by the time I return to California. While pretty much everyone else is looking up for yellow, green, blue, orange and red, I will be looking down for brown...at least some of the time. I am merely mortal, unable to resist the canopy-loving species, and one in particular has a special draw. If you are new to BB&B, you may not know that I dream about Cerulean Warblers more than any other bird, and I dream about birds with embarrassing frequency. I think it's a fantastic bird to dream about! Just last week, in a dream, I had male Cerulean and Blackburnian Warblers in the same binocular view...what a combo! You could even call it a dream combo. Will these birds make the jump from my subconscious to my binoculars in a few months? And if they do...what are the implications? Can anyone be ready for something like that? If you missed it from back in 2014, From South Padre Island to The Astral Plane: A Cerulean Warbler Vision Quest is a pretty good read. It is completely accurate account, with no fiction or exaggerations of any sort. Big lenses may be raised against me in anger once again, but I am not afraid...

Right. The mind begins to wander. Possibilities of glory on the scale of an exploding Death Star or failure the size of Alderaan seem equally plausible. Is my fate intertwined with that of the Cerulean Warbler? Is my entire life just a Franzenesque cliche? A lot of questions may be answered on this trip.

When the Geri-to-warbler ratio is askew in the woods, there will be no shortage of other great birds to look for instead. Upland Sandpiper is one of a great many shorebird species that use the area in spring, and I haven't seen them since the last time I was in the Lone Star [Beer] State.

Well, now you know the main plotlines we will be working with. Top priorities are freeing This Machine from the carbonite, lifer Swainson's Warbler, ask Cerulean Warbler about interdimensional travel and astro-projection. Eastern Whip and Black-whiskered Vireo are both needed birds as well, but I reckon a lot of luck would be required for either and my expectations for those are not high. Most of the time, it will be all about year birds! And our clients, of course...MAX REBO BIRDING TOURS is famous for going above and beyond to coddle (not cuddle) clientele, and this trip will be no exception.

I guess I should wrap this, considering nothing has even happened yet and it is still winter. The passerines in this post were photographed on South Padre Island, and the UPSA was in some ag fields north of Harlingen. All in Texas, obvi.

High Counts and Nighthawk Stroking

Common Nighthawk is so sleepy, it would rather be crushed than have to wake up. Willacy County, Texas.

Well friends, my time in Texas is rapidly drawing to a close. The birds have been good to me, which I attribute to the many blood sacrifices I have made to various birding deities. I still find it a bit odd though, when you get an email from one of the legends of Texas birding, requesting 3 pints of fresh plasma to be shipped to him ASAP.

The theme today? High counts. A couple lifers aside, I've just been setting personal new high counts of a bunch of different species. It feels good...it feels right. However, if you are a Texan birder, this post will probably come off as serious robin-stroking to you.

Such nostrils. The patterning on nightjars amazes me. If you don't like it, you are jaded and should quit birding immediately. Develop a troll-like online personality and haunt every birding listserv, every Facebook group, every birding forum you can, but never look at an actual bird again.

Common Nighthawks are abundant here in the LRGV now. My life is enhanced. My homeland, on the California coast, is despised by nightjars.

Have you ever gotten sick with Dickcissel fever? I highly recommend it. Another common migrant in the valley, it has been a great honor finally getting to know these birds well outside of a vagrant setting. Hidalgo County, Texas.

Fact: Dickcissels love sunflowers.

I wish I could have dropped the ISO on this image some more, but this is one of the mellower shots I got this spring. So pastoral it hurts.

Scissor-tailed Flycatchers have been my constant companions over the past months. I don't feel ashamed to say that they are superior to my usual phoebe companions. Cameron County, TX.

Mmmmmm, salmon flanks.

For about a month, I was treated to Upland Sandpipers almost every day...this is something I was accustomed to my from my time in North Dakota, but to see flocks of them on the regular was something else. I had no idea they could be so abundant. Willacy County, TX.

The vast majority of them were in agricultural areas where no sane person goes birding. This one is in a cotton field.

That's quite the eyering. An homage to Empidonax, perhaps?

Solitary Sandpiper is a truly humble bird, but I am grateful to have a small Tringid to visibly feast upon. Ramsey Nature Park, Harlingen, TX.

There aren't obscene numbers moving through the Valley or anything, but they were pretty regular for a while. Now they are far to the north of us. My time in the Aleutians has prepared me for finding a Wood Sandpiper in the Lower 48 one day, but I'm not so sure about Green Sandpiper.

Yeah, I haven't been posting many "valley specialties". You're probably pretty pissed. Well, there are a lot of Great Kiskadees around these parts. This iconic bird is very adaptable and is not hard to find. It makes me wonder how Social Flycatchers have not shown up here with more regularity...like the kiskadee, there are a shitload of them in northern Mexico and they do well in many different habitats. Ramsey Nature Park.

Ah, a BB&B first. In mid-April, it seemed the world suddenly became alive with bobwhites. While it is known that Northern Bobwhite populations are fairing poorly through much of the U.S., they seem to be pleasantly widespread in the lower valley. I just wish they would sit still for harder crushes. Hidalgo County, TX.

Bronzed Cowbird anyone? There are hella around here now. This bird is superior to its more infamous, Brown-headed Cowbird. Part of that superiority stems from a male's bloated neck. Hidalgo County, TX.

See? It's actually a pretty cool bird. They often become incredibly inflated when there is a female around, and can remain that way for a long time, even in flight, which induces much humor. Willacy County, TX.

The Truth Is Out There

Swainson's Hawks ready to make sweet sweet love. They sexed for quite a prolonged period of time after this photo was taken, I was impressed. Near Camas National Wildlife Refuge, ID.

Everyone keeps asking me..."Seagull, where will you end up this year?". The truth is, I have absolutely no idea, but for the short term, I will go north. I seek the Snowy Owl, after all. Yesterday I began my migration that will culminate in dismal/dreary Port Angeles, WA, on the Olympic Peninsula....a place that some refer to as "where people go to die". I hope that's not true, or else I should seriously reconsider my motivations for going in the first place.

Being a Professional Crastinator, here are some more of my fav birds from last summer. Thank you, come again.

Gray Flycatcher, the baron of the sage. Mono Lake, CA.

Yellow-headed Blackbirds are obviously the best blackbirds. Camas National Wildlife Refuge, ID.

Franklin's Gull...an excellent gull. Redmond Lakes, ND.

Upland Sandpipers were a common sight for me over the summer. I guess that explains my face melting off several times a week. Redmond Lakes, ND.

Baird's Sparrow. If anyone gets a job at Lostwood National Wildlife Refuge this year, I can tell you where the magic Baird's spot is. Otherwise...just go to the Sharp-tailed Grouse blind, and don't misidentify the Grasshopper and Savannah Sparrows there. Redmond Lakes, ND.

Common Nighthawk. Peent! Peent! Peent! Redmond Lakes, ND.

Chestnut-collared Longspur. This was the friendliest longspur I met all year, on the entrance road to Medicine Lake National Wildlife Refuge, MT. Yet another prairie bird with an awesome song and tear-jerking flight display.

Black Tern. Des Lacs National Wildlife Refuge, ND, is awash in Franklin's Gulls, Black Terns and other shorebirds in the late summer. The terns act more like swallows than seabirds there, and are easy to get good photos of.

Before last year, I have never been someplace where Vesper Sparrows plague the landscape. Now that I lived in North Dakota, that has changed. Redmond Lakes, ND.

People Are Going To Work While We're Getting Cock-Eyed

Upland Sandpiper. Medicine Lake National Wildlife Refuge, Montana

In the spirit of Unemployment, I am beginning my morning with some Jim Beam Rye in my coffee. This seems like a proper way to celebrate Thursday.

Today, I offer you no cohesive theme whatsoever, but I do like all of these photos. The sandpiper was one of only 2 out of god-knows-how-many that I saw over the summer (love that prairie) that allowed for close approach. They are life-enhancing birds.

Yellow-winged Tanger. Chavarrillo, Mexico.

This is one of the many Yellow-winged Tanagers that dropped by our hawk counting tower and provided some extra entertainment. They seem well adapted to towns and are easy to come by...maybe one will pop into Texas some day.

Great Blue Heron. San Francisco, CA.

This bird was foraging at the Sutro Baths, ruins of an old bathhouse right on the beach.

TOAD. Chavarrillo, Mexico.

A toadular creature. I have no idea what sort (TELL ME). There were a few living in a little watering hole for livestock outside of town.

Sandhill Crane. Camas National Wildlife Refuge, ID.

I stopped at Camas last May on my way to North Dakota. I had never heard of the place before, but it was full of birds that wanted me to observe the crap out of them. A few cranes were hanging around, including one on a nest.

That's all for today....I've got to finish my 10,000 Birds post and get the rest of Cassowary's interview up...no rest for the wickedly nerdy.

Shark Week Can Suck It - Prairie Shorebirds II

Behold....the Upland Sandpiper. One of two cooperative birds out of hundreds I've seen this summer...but that's a lot better than nothing. They're so weird.....

An adult Baird's Sandpiper...damn, look at that primary projection. DAAAANNNNGGGGGGG...

Stilt Sandpipers (with a Wilson's Phalarope thrown in). So skinny!

Long-billed Dowitchers. Not as skinny.

Semipalmated Sandpipers hanging out by some weird poop.

Look at this Pectoral Sandpiper. It's just so...majestic. Truly, the eagle of sandpipers...

Killdeer. You know it. You have mixed feelings about it.

Spotted Sandpiper. About as widespread as Killdeer, but with much better manners.

This American Avocet wants to give someone a hug.

Well, that about does it I think. I've also seen Semipalmated and Black-bellied Plovers, Ruddy Turnstone, Greater Yellowlegs, Sanderlings and White-rumped Sandpipers here in "NorDak", but my photos of those are pretty poor or nonexistent...I'm now crossing my fingers for a Hudsonian Godwit (mmmmmm.....lifer......) and Buff-breasted Sandpiper before I take off...in LESS THAN THREE WEEKS!!!!!! The siren call of sweet sweet freedom gets a little louder everyday...long live the Perpetual Weekend!

Even juvenile Piping Plovers are disturbingly efficient predators...shark week can suck it! 

Wry Half-Truths From A Privileged Youth

Bobolink. Who does not sing praises of the blonde-haired black bird with the R2D2 voice?

And here we are. Late July is right around the corner, which means I only have one month left in North Dakota. To say that I'm stoked would be an understatement. Come August 20 I will hunt the horizon once more...Yellowstone National Park (for birding and charismatic megafaunaing), then Las Vegas (decidedly not for birding), then to the California coast. It will be truly cathartic to be among friends and like-minded souls once again, not to mention all the shows I have lined up (DESCENDENTS!!!!!!!!!!). But the price I will pay will be the hole left in my heart from the birds here. Shorebirds are beginning to migrate south already, but prairie celebrities like Sprague's Pipits, Baird's and Grasshopper Sparrows, and Chestnut-collared Longspurs are all still singing with gusto.

I do expect birds to quit singing within a couple weeks, but I am a stranger here. Who knows how long the breeders will keep at it? North Dakota is a bizarre place indeed.

One of the Chipping Sparrows that raised a fam next to my trailer.

Bank Swallows have recently shown up, presumably finished with breeding already.

Rad.

Redheads are common breeders around these parts. For some reason, Redheads and Ruddies are the only ducks around now who still bother to look good...all the other ducks are laying low in their homely eclipse plumages.

Upland Sandpiper. They are real, dignified sentinel birds, unlike those bullshit killdeer who just sit and there and scream. Any time you are walking around a wetland and take the time to look around, you may find an Upland high in the sky spying on you.

Wilson's Phalarope: THE SCOURGE OF THE PRAIRIE. I have come across a number of poor souls who have fallen to the needle-sharp bill of the phalarope. Their bodies are riddled with tiny holes...my sympathies to the thousands who have suffered death by phalarope.

This coyote and I were having a face-off, as there was a Piping Plover nest halfway between us I wanted to get to. Not wanting to show the coyote exactly where the nest was (they are a frequent plover predator), and with the coyote wondering what I was doing right next to its den, we just sat and stared at eachother. It was a cocky bastard, pretending to fall asleep while we waited.