Winter Mexican Tour Y2K16, Days 3-5: North of San Blas, La Bajada, Cerro San Juan

After winning all morning at Lower Singayta, we decided to go shrimp ponding north of San Blas. There are a large number of shrimp ponds out this way, and since four our of five of us needed Collared Plover, it seemed like a logical place to bird late in the afternoon.

The shrimp ponds were extremely birdy....a nice variety of waders, some gulls, some terns, sandpipers, passerines in the mangroves....great area to wrack up a big species list. However, we dipped on Collared Plover...which we would do for the rest of the time in Mexico. If a nemesis bird exists for me south of the border, it is this goddamn plover.

We came across one pond filled to the brim with wood storks. I've never seen so many in one place.

Wood Storks galore! Here is our best checklist from birding this area, which we visited multiple days.

At different points in the week we ran into local birding luminaries Mark Stackhouse and Francisco Garcia, who both offered good birding advice. They were both pretty stoked on Chacalilla, one of the emerging hotspots in the area. Chacalilla is a short drive from San Blas, and essentially any of the roads leading out of town can offer quality birding (thorn forest, open country and wetland birds). Here is male Orchard Oriole posing pleasantly, south of town.

The view east of Chcalilla; note the pendant cacique nests hanging off the tree. Shortly after this photo was taken, the sky became plagued with Lesser Nighthawks.

There are hella Common Black-Hawks down Mexico way, this one in Chacalilla. We saw several black-hawks that we were never able to ID to species, so there is a decent chance we saw Great Black-Hawk at some point and didn't know it. Birding is hard.

On Day 4 the nerds went to La Bajada, where the birding was not quite facemelting but it ended up being very, very good. Lifers for me this morning were Mexican Woodnymph, Gray-crowned Woodpecker, Rosy Thrush-Tanager (!!!), Rusty-crowned Ground-Sparrow, Red-crowned Ant-Tanager, and Yellow Grosbeak. Not bad eh? Another highlight was an enormous fruiting fig (aka "the miracle tree") that was overflowing with Citreoline Trogons and other frugivores...I've never seen a tree overflowing with trogons before, and I highly recommend it. You can see our La Bajada checklist right here.

On Day 5 the nerds went further afield, out to Cerro San Juan. We approached via the traditional northern route (Mark suggested approaching from the south instead, but we got lost). Birding was steady but never overwhelming...gobs of Tufted Flycatchers, some Slate-throated Redstarts, lots of Berylline Hummingbirds. Finally we got to the big open area where the road reached its highest elevation, and things got really interesting here. We started running into lots of nice flocks, and the abundance of hummingbirds was impressive...eventually we found a particular field that was buzzing with Rufous, White-eared and Berylline Hummingbirds...I've never seen anything quite like it, it was heck of intense. More and more trip birds began to appear...White-striped Woodcreeper (lifer!), Pine (lifer!) and Buff-breasted Flycatchers, Cassin's Kingbird, Eastern Bluebird, Grace's and Crescent-chested Warblers, etc.

The open area around La Noria is known for its accommodating population of Spotted Wrens. They did not disappoint.

The number of Greater Pewees we saw in Mexico leads me to believe that there are far more Greater Pewees in the world than I had previously conceived of. Don't worry, they never got old.

There was a lot of fear and loathing when it came to hummingbirds on this trip. One of the high-priority target birds for all of us was Bumblebee Hummingbird, which we successfully dipped on excessively. We spent a significant amount of time at the right elevation/habitats, but we were empty-handed in the end. Pain. Calliope Hummingbirds like this one offered false hope on several occasions, but hey seeing a Calliope is a lot better than seeing nothing at all.

It turns out that there are a shitload of White-eared Hummingbirds out there in the world. This should not surprise me, yet somehow it does. One would think I would have crippling photos to show for it, but I am putting this questionable one up instead. Blogging works in mysterious ways.

A long time ago, in a county far far away, I saw a Gray Silky-Flycatcher. It was in suitable habitat...suitable habitat in Orange County. It was weird. It was a known bird, and the ruthless Bird Police used their malevolent powers to reject the record based on grounds of uncertain origin. There are those who are still butthurt about this.

Finally, after all those years, I have seen other Gray Silky-Flycatchers. They have eluded me in Mexico before, but not anymore. They are birds impressive in mellowness and plumage. I counted this individual as a lifer. It felt really, really good.

In the afternoon, a random walk in the woods led to one of the best and most mesmerizing flocks of the trip, which was illuminated by this glowing male Flame-colored Tanager. More on those birds next time.

20 Years In The Game: Never Stop Birding...Sentimental HJs...Birds Remembered

Look at all these nerds. Although I am currently retired from bizarre field jobs, they have done a lot for me (and my life list). After the long and glorious LBJ days came to an end in Humboldt County, this was my first job...slavishly censusing Burrowing Owls for Jeff Manning (of "Two Jeffs One Cup" fame) and his mysterious dog Palouse in the Imperial Valley. Those times were good times, and things have never been the same.

As a birder, this month was special for me. Not because I achieved any sort of listing milestone or saw a particularly rare bird (groan), but because I realized that I've now been birding for 20 years. Of course there are a lot of birders out there who have been birding that long (and substantially longer), but I would wager that most of them are not 32. Let's face it...those people are old. OLD. One day I will probably be OLD as well, but other than an increasingly large beer gut and a decreasing amount of hair, I feel pretty good about myself, and I intend to enjoy the waning days of youth.  At any rate, this is truly an anniversary of an incredibly nerdy magnitude, and really, really embarrassing.

When I started birding as a stupid 12-year old, once I started it never occurred to me that I would ever stop birding. It was too good, even if I was doomed to be a nerd for the rest of my life. I became a bird addict, a depraved junkie who just cannot get enough...maybe not the kind who would give an HJ in a back alley in exchange for a life bird...ok FULL DISCLOSURE I actually invented that whole bird-hj bartering system and that is totally me. Buddies, I'm still waiting for all those HJs...

Right. Buddies. While I don't have the endless financial resources that some have to pour into their state and county lists (surely there is something better to do with that $$$...or is there?), I have made lots of friends on the way. And friends, to a birder, are worth more than any Code 5 rarity. Birders, as I'm sure you have noticed, don't have many friends, due to the weirdness in their brains and debilitating lack of social skills. Luckily somewhere between 12 and 32 I managed to trick some people into liking me and now I have many a buddy. So now when I run into an old friend at a bar, they greet me joyous cries of "Number 7!", whether they are a birder or not. I have a girlfriend, Booby Brittany, who forced us to chase a Little Bunting last winter because she knew my soul would shrivel up and die if I didn't (she also has a thing for Sibes, though). It has been an honor and a privilege to have met so many good people on this godawful, shameful journey. So to all my friends I've made while working weird jobs (birders and otherwise) that made life tolerable (birded/drank with me) and to everyone who has lent me a couch or showed me a lifer while on some fucked up birding road trip or were down to be dragged around through the Arcata Bottoms at incredibly slow speeds...you know who you are. I owe you a big fat HJ.

I guess you want to see some pictures or something. I can't share images from the 90's (although I do have slides somewhere) and from most of the 2000's, so I figured I would at least break out the old hard drives and post some random pictures chronicling some more recent Great Successes.

In February 2009, I ditched my desk job in Concord, CA, for a volunteer position with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on Midway Atoll. I wanted to get to know seabirds...and I got to know them quite well, particularly albatross. Truth be told, they are quite addicting. Anyways, though not really a seabird (although it does overfly vast distances of ocean), one of the birds I met on Midway was the Bristle-thighed Curlew, which is never something I had realistically thought I would ever see up to that point. This is the last North American bird to have it's breeding grounds discovered, and even there it is not very common. Saw hella on Midway though.

After Midway, I went out to Pennsylvania to work with Bat Conservation International, where I got my first taste of the wind energy industry and what it can do to birds and bats. After I finished there, I figured "Well, this is as close as I've ever been to Florida, so I might as well go". So I drove down to the Everglades, and picked up a quantity of lifers. Wood Stork was not one of them, but any place you can go where Wood Storks lurk by the roadside is a good place. Did you know they have pink feet? Ding Darling National Wildlife Refuge, FL.

In the spring of 2010, I took a job in southeast Arizona, one of my favorite places to bird. It's great getting paid to look at birds where thousands of other birders drool about visiting. We lived in Florida Canyon much of the time, and put up a bunch of hummingbird feeders; this Violet-crowned Hummingbird was one of the more unexpected birds to show up.

After Arizona, I thought it would be best to move to the Aleutian Islands for the summer. I got to meet many Asian strays and a shitload of amazing seabirds, but one of my favorite moments was finding this Ancient Murrelet chick after a night of mist-netting Whiskered Auklets. This little chick, just a few days old, was going balls-out for the water, leaping astonishing distances into the air like a goddamned kangaroo in order to get over the seemingly impenetrable boulder field on the beach. We could hear a parent calling to it from the water. I have no idea what terrain had to be conquered or how far that chick had to go to get to where I saw it, but I have no doubt that it made it to the water.

In 2011, I thought it was time to get weird. I completed a road trip through eastern Mexico, which was rad, although not after getting robbed by a cartel...which was not rad. A month after that incident I was back in Mexico because I am crazy, counting migrating raptors for the spring in Chavarrillo, one of best places on the continent for seeing birds of prey during spring migration. I was enamored with the swarms of Mississippi Kites that moved through later in the spring. Que chido.

After Mexico it was off to North Dakota to do Piping Plover monitoring for Lostwood National Wildlife Refuge. It was a weird scene (though not nearly as weird as Mexico), but the birding was great. We had field sites all over the place and some of them had good numbers of Baird's Sparrows, which worked out quite well for me since they are one of the most lusted-after sparrows in the U.S. This bird was on private property, but if you ever get out that way, look for them at Lostwood or Medicine Lake NWR over in eastern Montana. PS fuck frakking.

In January 2012 we were evicted from the Space Station, our squatter house in San Francisco, which sent me packing north for a doomy road trip. In Washington I finally got to meet the iconic Snowy Owl, one of the best birds in existence.

My most-crushed Vague Runt is this drake Tufted Duck, which has been wintering at Lake Merritt, a few minutes from my house, for years. Hopefully he comes back soon so I can crush him for the millionth time. You want to join the crush party? Come visit!

In summer of 2012 I found myself living in San Diego, toiling with Least Terns and Snowy Plovers for the San Diego Zoo, and living in a cabin in Jim and Jim's backyard. Jim and Jim were great landlords, and their backyard was an excellent place to party. Many good times back there. I managed to survive the toxic birding scene, did a lot of great birding and made a few buddies...and I still like terns and plovers. Here is a young Snowy Plover chick that hopefully is a lot bigger and more feathered now.

At the end of 2013 I migrated south to Costa Rica for a few weeks, which is still being chronicled on BB&B because I am so damn lazy...but not as lazy as Don Mastwell, who still needs to enter a bunch of eBird checklists. Anyways, the birding was facemelting. If you are contemplating taking your first trip down that way, don't let some hippie nonbirder friend of yours convince you to go to some other country down there instead where everything has been clearcut to death. Here is an Emerald (Blue-throated) Toucanet from La Cinchona.

Fast forward to this spring, when I moved to the Lower Rio Grande Valley for another couple of wind energy projects. I had ample time to bird and get to the coast, where I really got a heavy dose of migration in the eastern U.S. for the first time. I didn't really know what picture to put up to represent the birding there (a crowd of annoying/clueless photographers would have been appropriate) but I think this crushed Indigo Bunting from South Padre Island sums it up.

What better way to finish than with the rarest Vague Runt I've ever seen? A beloved albatross, no less? I've lead a lot of pelagic trips the last couple years, and this has been the bird of all birds. Thank you Salvin's Albatross, you were my destiny. Half Moon Bay, CA.

Carara Part III: The Pitta Incident

Turquoise-browed Motmot. Sweet dreams are made of these. Tarcoles, Costa Rica.

Finally! The last installment from Carara National Park and Tarcoles. It's been a long-time coming...we can now let go and move on to the next part of the trip...but that's for next time. For now, its a mixed bag of crushes, the obligatory crap pics of cool birds in a rainforest, and the first public detailing of THE PITTA INCIDENT.

The first few of these you see will really cripple you. They belong in that upper echelon of bird that make you doubt everything you know and hold dear when you see them. Tarcoles, Costa Rica.

One of my favorite Psittacid experiences of the trip (aside from the Scarlet Macaws) was with this roadside flock of Orange-fronted Parakeets, bucolically chewing on flower pedals. Amazingly, Pat had a male Yellow-billed Cotinga in these same trees the same day! Photographed near the Cerro Lodge, Tarcoles, Costa Rica.

Nom nom nom nom. Nom. I dig the head pattern of these birds.

Why hello Cocoa Woodcreeper, what a stout bill you have. Photographed in Carara National Park, Costa Rica.

For our second day of birding Carara, we met up with Pat O'Donnell, the great ex-pat birder and guide who has excellent content on his Costa Rica bird blog right here. I can't imagine going back to Costa Rica without spending a lot of time researching Pat's posts, as he is constantly reporting on new birding spots and updates on areas that draw a lot of birders. If you need a guide, he's your man.

Unlike us four idiots, Pat knows pretty much all the local birds by ear, so he was pointing out all sorts of things we would never have recognized. As we walked the trail system closer to the visitor center (highly recommended, don't just do the "river trail"), he heard a Streak-chested Antpitta calling. None of us had seen any sort of pitta before, so we were stoked. He whistled the bird in....and we were all able to lay eyes on this fantastic lifer. After a couple minutes it moved back into the underbrush. There was much joy and merriment...until I saw Stilt.

Stilt had not seen the bird, and it took me a few moments to realize that she was crying. I couldn't believe it! It was amazing! She was uncontrollably sobbing because she had missed a life bird. While feeling bad for her, I was also savoring the moment of just having gripped off someone so badly that they were in tears. She asked me to not blog about it, but seeing as it has been over a year...I am blogging about it. Has anyone else ever seen anything like this?

My one attempt at documenting The Pitta Incident. Don't worry, after Stilt pulled herself together she eventually got to see the pitta.

Here is a Black-throated Trogon, which took over a year to identify from this photo. In shitty light, they can look remarkably similar to Gartered (Violacious) Trogon; note the white eyering and slightly different tail pattern. Carara National Park.

I somehow managed to not crush this Great Tinamou that we ran into a couple times. Probably because I was too busy soaking it in with my eyes. Carara National Park.

Fiery-billed Aracari, forged in the fires of facemelt. Photographed at Cerro Lodge.

The Tarcoles area is one of the relatively few parts of country oft-visited by foreign birders where there is a nice diversity of waterbirds. This cooperative Wood Stork lurked next to the road just west of town.

What a face. What a bill. What a neck. What a....helmet.

Magnificent Frigatebirds are abundant in the area. I dislike living in a place where I don't see frigatebirds at any moment I decide to look up. Photographed at the Tarcoles River Mouth.

Double-striped Thick-knee!!!! How bizarre. Photographed on a road I don't remember near a town I don't remember near La Ensenada Wildlife Refuge.

After we left the wonders of Carara behind, we made our way northward to La Ensenada Wildlife Refuge to try to pick up some additional North Pacific Slope species. Well once we were almost there, it turned out a certain "Frank" had left his binoculars over two hours away back at El Cerro Lodge. We were all devastated...but brave Frank had the courage to keep on birding, even without binoculars. This turned out to be an excellent decision, as we managed to get a lot of good birds and a number of lifers all around...birds like Long-tailed Mannikin, Plain-capped Starthroat, Crested Bobwhite, White-fronted Parrot, White-throated Magpie-Jay, and Three-wattled Bellbirds (heard only, but there seemed to be many). Unfortunately, my camera battery died and I was too giddy on birds to realize I had a fucking car charger for the battery with me in the car...and so I missed countless crushes of Hook-billed Kites, Streak-backed Orioles, etc. One of the biggest birding fails of my life. I definitely want to return to La Ensenada again and give it the thorough bush-flogging it deserves.

On the flip side, El Cerro had Frank's binos waiting for him when we returned that night.

This was one of my main target birds for the trip, which I thought we dipped on once we left the lush pastures of Tarcoles behind. I still struggle to make sense of the proportions of these birds. Great success!

The Owls Are Not What They Seem...A Disgusting Return To Form...Storkspeed

A Burrowing Owl lets loose a withering hate look, with the aid of a bonus eyelid. No one could feel good about themselves after being the subject of such ancient scorn. Photographed near Finney Lake, CA.

As you know, it is not easy to be the Number 7 birder of the United States. Certain things are expected of me. The Global Birder Ranking System, while shrouded in mystery and intrigue, is also very demanding. For one, I am expected to identify birds accurately over 99% of the time, with some leeway allowed for misidentification (perish the thought!) outside of the ABA Area. Of course, it is my duty to educate the masses on how to properly look at a bird, and to help them improve their impoverished identification skills. I am also expected to bird like a Number 7 should bird...which is a lot, and in the right times and the right places. To fulfill this latter obligation, I find myself preparing, yet again, for a steamy Salton Sea trip this weekend...which is where I will be when you read this.

The vanity of a Burrowing Owl is not to be underestimated. Look at those beautiful owl-whiskers.

I'm glad I was able to get a foot-freezing shot. If you are someone who likes bristly legs (not that there's anything wrong with that)....then owls are for you.

My previous Salton Sea trip was a complete success, so it will be hard to improve on getting a state bird (Neotropic Cormorant) and whole flocks of year birds, which I did last month. Of course, as Number 7...I will endeavor to do so.

August is almost done, and with that, another field season is drawing to a close. Next week is my last week as an inhabitant of the Whale's Vagina...the urge to migrate overwhelms. BB&B will once again hit the road for points north...bay area birders surely dread my disgusting return, but there is nothing they can do to stop me.

Left to right: Northern Shoveler, Snowy Egret, WOOD STORK, Great Egret. Look how hefty the stork is compared to the comparatively bulemic Great Egret, which normally passes as a large bird. Photographed from Schrimpf Road at the south end of the Salton Sea, CA.

What a weird bird. FACT: Wood Storks feed by running their open bills through the water, and clamping down on a prey item as soon as they make contact with it. The reflex of the bill closing on prey is the fastest known reflex of any vertebrate in the world. Can you believe that? Pretty fucking awesome if you ask me.

Black Skimmers also feed by simply by trolling for prey; this is a lot more fun than watching storks do the same thing, but apparently they are not up to stork speed. Photographed at the end of MacDonald Road at the south end of the Salton Sea, CA.

A juvenile Snowy Plover. What excellent posture. Poe Road, Salton Sea, CA.

Shade is in high demand along the edges of the Salton Sea, even by species (such as Osprey) who normally shun it. I once found a Wandering Tattler (a quality bird there) quivering in the shade of a flimsy piece of dead brush out on some salt flats...which makes sense if you are an ocean-loving bird, confronted with 125 degree heat and a far more putrid habitat than what you may be used to. South end of the Salton Sea, CA.

Secret Boobies...The Gull Jedi Speaks...The Reluctant Bank Swallow

The view from the end of McDonald Rd., along the southeastern shore of the Salton Sea. Millet Island hides secret boobies in the distance. Not too long ago you could drive to the end of practically any road west of Davis Rd. and find crippling flocks like this....now everything seems overgrown with tamarisk and the sea has retreated. Life is pain. SoCal birders, do you know if the west ends of any of those roads (i.e. Pound, Hazard, Noffsinger, etc) are still good birding?

The end of July...time to take stock, and to prepare for the onslaught of fall. Now is the time to start reserving your spots for fall pelagics...here in California, it has been a poor year for rarities, unless you were lucky enough to be on one of the increasingly popular "repositioning cruises", which are becoming en vogue with the region's power-birders. I just reserved a spot on a Monterey Bay boat in September....fingers are crossed for facemelt...

Speaking of pelagics...at least in a roundabout way...be sure to check out Steve Howell's post over at the ABA Blog, where he talks a lot of shit about you and me and then somehow changes the subject to just showcasing his crippling photographs of flying fish. I don't know how he managed to combine these 2 disparate subjects...clearly he possesses some kind of blogger magic. If you don't know who Steve is, he ranks high on the Global Birding Ranking Scale, is really good at birding in Mexico, and is a Gull Jedi. He also is one of the few people who thinks Kumlien's Gull is its own species, which many others find embarrassing.

Aside from a few photos, most of my last few birding outings have been pretty lame in terms of photographic spoils or straight up rarities, with the exception of getting my 2012 Black-vented Shearwaters from a seawatch in La Jolla. People have been going nuts out there lately over a Pigeon Guillemot or two out there, which I find amusing for some reason. Anyways, I will continue to hammer you with Salton Sea pictures because that's what I think is best.

Black Skimmers were abundant and easy to see around Morton Bay. Whenever I see them recently I find myself looking at their strange overall shape and flight style, not just the humungo and freakishly disproportional bill.

Great Egrets are hot. Photographed west of Young Road.

I found a couple massive flocks of migrant swallows while I was there. I chose the perfect spot to look for Bank Swallow, a bird I hadn't seen yet in 2012. This one, along the Alamo River near Red Hill, did not look like it was enjoying its stay in the Imperial Valley.

See? It's about to keel over and die. These filthy young Cliff Swallows don't seem to be helping the situation at all.

Wood Stork is one of the Salton Sea's top tier specialty birds. The only way to see this bird west of Texas (north of Mexico, that is) is to come the Salton Sea in summer and sweat yourself to death. These birds, part of a bigger flock, has been dependable at Morton Bay for the last month.

Loggerhead Shrike. Crap lighting, but I like the picture. Look how haggard it is! Who knows how many songbirds it has slayed in its lifespan?

Laughing and California Gulls. So common on the Atlantic Coast that they make birders sick, Laughing Gulls are rare birds out west...except at the Sea of Salton. Did you notice that hideous, small headed mutant on the left?

Small gull. Big mouth.

Unlike the summer-only Laughing Gulls and Wood Storks, thousands of Burrowing Owls inhabit the Imperial Valley year-round. Photographed on Garst Road.