I Pelage Allegiance...

It has been two weeks now, two weeks since my maiden pelagic birding expedition out of Half Moon Bay. It has been two weeks since the hard lifering and substantial sunburn, the (mildly) choppy seas and foggy horizon. 

"Life will never be the same," some folks like to say. Well, that's not entirely true. My time and experience of birding in Phoenix in the past couple of weeks has been nothing to speak of, so there is some consistency. At any rate, I've waited long enough since this first Pelagic Date. I can post now without seeming desperate. I can play it cool and act like it's not really a foregone conclusion, my greatest dream and desire, to do it again. Even doing it again, it wouldn't be the same. It could be better and it could be worse. In fact, by most standards the Sept. 7th HMB Pelagic was mediocre. Even so, it's not every day one gets to see one gigantic lifer framing another with its 8 foot wing span.  

Rewinding a bit, this date was not a solo date--further reason why I can't get too clingy too quickly. With the incomparable Seagull Steve leading and chief lieutenants Party Don't Stop Jen and Nate "McGowan's Longspur" McGowan also on board alongside the expected slew of a dozen other birders, this boat was dorkier than a pod of titillated Sperm Whales.  Turns out, birders are way easier to photograph than birds on a Pelagic (also, always). Since many of the birds we saw were in unappealing mid-molt plumages, the birders were sometimes prettier. 

My pre-Pelagic poemy prayer had been answered. Although I arrived days behind and late to the party, Steve and Nate were good enough to take me birding Saturday afternoon at the Sutro Baths. There I was able to log Western Gull, Elegant Tern, and Surfbird, in that order, which meant ABA #500 was not the dreaded WEGU. That was but a taste of the tip of the sweet sweet lifeburg to come. We were joined later that afternoon by Jen in an ill-fated romp after a Sulphur-bellied Flycatcher, because the birding gods are not without a strong sense of irony. 

Sunday morning came both too early and too late. We were full of grogginess but not of grogg, and forgot to sacrifice to the necessary deities prior to departure. As you have no doubt read on other more punctual and better-decorted blogs, this trip was pretty muted by HMB standards. But luckily everything was new to me, much like the Common Murre chick first heading out to sea. 

These unassuming alcids proved to be one of the most common birds of the day, predominantly in their father-son dance pairs and often filling the air with grunts and croaks. All of the adult males I saw were well into their winter plumage (or rather, were well out of their breeding plumage). COMUs spend 1-2 months flightless as a part of their molting process too, but for the most part they prefer to dive anyway, sometimes past 550 feet!

The HMB harbor was littered with Brown Pelicans, Double-crested, Brandt's and a few Pelagic Cormorants, and Elegant Terns, as well as Western and California Gulls. Especially in the early morning and throughout most of the day, heavy cloud cover prevented sharp photography so we had to pass painstakingly close by these infrequent sights (for an Arizonan) and head for deeper water. The COMUs were waiting just as the harbor opened into the bay, and not long after that the tubenoses came, filling a void  in the soul that had been yawning open since nigh the days of puberty. 

**Since it was preponderantly overcast throughout the morning, I'm borrowing some photos from later in the afternoon to show birds seen first early in the day. 

Brand'ts Cormorants were one of few birds seen from the boat that were not a recently accrued lifer. They weren't even sporting their snazzy sapphire throats for the sex-making, but after so many, many years of Double-crested and Neotropic, any change of Cormorant is a good change. 

Of the truer pelagic birds, species one seldom sees close to shore, Sooty Shearwaters are the first to emerge. Their rapid wingbeats and no-nonsense drab plumage speak of the harsh life many birds endure out in the salted, alien world.  

Although Sooties are not especially unique as far as tubenoses or other recognizable pelagic birds go, the first one of these birds I saw made an immediate impression as it darted across the water. There are no birds I have seen over land with proportions or movement like this bird. It was at once drab and dazzling in comparison to so many more terrestrial species. 

Of course, as anyone who's weather a pelagic or two knows, the differences between these exclusive seabirds and those favored by us land-lubbers only grows more pronounced the far one creeps from shore.  

We only had two species of Shearwater on the day, missing out on both Flesh-footed and Buller's--probably the best looking bird found off HMB--but the Pink-footed stepped up their game. We encountered many rafts of these polymorphic tubenoses throughout the trip in addition to the singles and pairs that would fly strafing runs past the boat and drift into the gull-filled chum line every once and again. Though calmer in demeanor than the Sooties, the Pink-feet kept busy throughout the day, and likewise kept their observers busy and bustling around the boat. Whereas the Sooties were immediately recognizable even from distance, the greater similarity of Pink--feet to other Shearwaters made every distant bird worth an examination. Never long did the binoculars rest, nor the eyes that used them.

The night before our voyage we had sat and brooded (and brewded) over our most desired and possible species for the next morning. Northern Fulmar was one of my answers, a stocky, variable, and recognizable bird with perhaps the most pronounced naricorn of them all. This was one of those birds in the guide books to which I was drawn for no particular reason, maybe just because it stood out from most of the other shearwaters and gulls that all lumped together in my mind.
When Seagull Steve called out this dark individual floating twenty yards from the boat I felt great excitement...and to be honest a bit of disappointment too, for I had been looking at the thing rather blankly without realizing what it was.

That bill gave ol' Freddy Hitchcock nightmares as well as inspiration for sure. Like most of their pelagic ilk, Fulmars are more comfortable in the air than on water or land, and this bird soon attempted to get airborne...which it did with great difficulty. This molt = nasty.

Also nasty but cooler is the tendency of Fulmars to projectile vomit a triglyceride stomach oil at other predatory birds, matting their plumage and causing immobility. It is also as a food-source for young, used in the same manner as many humans use Prego sauce.

Less bilious than the Northern Fulmar, South Polar Skua was the other bird I put atop my most wanted list. There were three or four individuals on the day, none of which were very close nor quite as scrutable as the Fulmar. But hey, stocky, macho bird with blaring white at the base of the primaries...tis' only one thing it could be.

There were plenty of dull periods on the trip too. We had a constant stream of Gulls lured behind the boat with popcorn and beef grease, the idea being that baiting these birds would bait in other, more specialized birds to investigate the Gull party. Sometimes no one else would show, and other times there would be a flurry of activity, like when a gorgeous Sabine's Gull cruised directly behind the boat for a minute while lifer Black-footed Albatross cut past the wake.

...and then nothing again, just the cool breeze nipping at the neck. If patience is a virtue then I left mine stuck somewhere in a vice. Pelagic birds can be patient. Pelagic birders--at least, greenhorns--are an excitable and jittery bunch. 

There are multiple ways to deal with the highs and lows, the triumphant feeling of a sharp observation and the crushing blow of a miss (diving Cassin's Auklet) as well as the lulls in between. Likewise there are different ways to deal with the chilly weather and the possibility of seasickness. Most people bird as much as they can, snack, socialize, and sometimes fall into a snoozy state of being at the aft of the boat. Some people also choose to play solitaire on their iPad for, like, the entire friggin' trip, even when sweet birds are being called out. They then put their email address on the list at the end of the day to share in all the eBird sightings of the group...Well birders often imitate their quarry (except for really sociable birds), and many the bird poaches without shame, as a South Polar Skua would readily admit.



Speaking of poachers, a brazen Pomarine Jaegar cutting right across the chum line probably won the 'best sighting of the day' accolade from Butler's Birds (though no doubt the Sabine's Gull was pretty sweet). Where exactly these slender, aggressive Skuas came from is still open to debate, with some sort of extensive hybridizing between Arctic and Great Skuas eventually resulting in a separate species being one of the leading theories.

By ancestry this bird may be a bit of a bastards, and by attitude it certainly is, but the Pomarine Jaegar is also a tough customer, a commander of respect, a dropper of jaws. The sighting lasted all of ten seconds, typical for a pelagic bird. Alas that our chum line held nothing of promise for the bird and he cruised on to pillage elsewhere. 

The passing of the Jaegar and distance of other predatory birds was better news for this Wilson's Storm Petrel, one of only two species and two total procellariiformes seen on the day. How these dainty little birds survive out on the open ocean is beyond me. I need to see more, lots more, and further ponder, but mostly appreciate. They look like they belong on a placid pond in suburbia, and yet flocks in the thousands have been seen on these trips before.

We had our fair share of non-avian lifeforms too. Common Dolphin, Elephant and Fur Seals, as well as Sealions were all recorded. Though we went without whales, the mola molas were abundant. These giant, stony, prehistoric, even extraterrestrial creatures would suspend themselves near the surface for Gulls to come and preen them of parasites, before they would seemingly release ballast and sink back into the deep. (I know that's the opposite of how ballast works, but with these fish all the usual physics seem inverted. They're so heavy and bony, the water is their floating atmosphere).

Additionally impressive to me, among the many other things we saw on this trip if not a large overall number of birds, was how tirelessly the baited gulls stuck with our boat. Of course I wouldn't swear to it, but some of the individuals were pretty recognizable and they seemed to stay with us from dock to dock, a good eleven hours or so, only landing to scoop up the occasional popcorn kernel. 

Photo courtesy of Jen Sanford

Obviously flying vast distances is part of the daily routine for most pelagic birds. banding and geolocators and nesting sites and myriad other tools, as well as data, amaze us with the feats of travel they record or deduce from pelagic birds. But reading and thinking about it is one thing. Seeing a bird exerting itself for that long, with so little respite (especially a bird like a Western Gull, which isn't built for the same sort of flying as a Tern or Albatross) is another.

At any rate, after all my whining and worrying about Western Gull being my 500th ABA bird, it seems only fitting to make peace and end on a conciliatory note. This fellow was handsome--in far nicer, fresher plumage than almost every other bird we saw--and he might well have stayed with the boat all day, patiently waiting while we sought the looks and attention of other, more specialized or rarer birds, and happily drawing our attention back when he was all we were left with. 

Where next and when and how?? Any coast, ASAP, by any means necessary--take a page out of the larus handbook.

Vacation Birding sans Deracination: County Roots in Carolina

Automatic County Bird lists and the Top 100...two of eBird's greatest innovations in growing use and support for its admirable program. Every birder likes to watch his or her list grow (even if that's not the main goal), and some birders also like seeing their list grow in relation to other people's. There has always been that competitive element to birding. It's a very faint factor sometimes, and at others it is palpable. When one is birding with the local Audubon group there is seldom any Big Day-type competition. At the other side of the spectrum there is the World Series of Birding, Big Years, Big Day's, and Big Nerds, competitions over many timeframes and in many regions. EBird nicely keeps track of all of it for us. 

Gotta Catch 'em All!

Most birders have a life list, and many more keep national, state, and even county lists, in addition to yard or maybe work patch lists. The county listing is often the repast for very experienced birders, those who have seen just about everything they can in their state, or who do not travel very much outside of it. Seeing birds in one's home county, or every county in a state, provides new challenges with the same birds. EBird even solicits county moderators as the most local level of its information filtration. The longer you're in the birding circles, the more county listing seems to come up.

Truth be told, I never paid it much heed. There was still too much to do on the State and National level with the birdies (and yes, I realize this violates the sacred semi-libertarian principle of subsidiarity). In massive states like Texas it made more sense to me, but county lines seemed so arbitrary around Arizona I often found more annoyance than enjoyment in specified county listing. I had no county listing goals nor compared myself to other birders in Arizona. That being said, I kinda liked that eBird kept track of it for me anyway. This ambivalence changed for me this summer, when I spent a bit of time in Wayne County, one of 100 little boroughs in charming NC. 

As many other birders do before heading to a new area, I checked out the eBird data in this mid-state, coastal plain region. It was...unimpressive. In fact, it was paltry. There have been a total of 69 different eBirders in Wayne County, who submitted a total of 111 checklists. This is not a daily, monthly, nor even annual rate, as one might expect of counties in Arizona or California. Those are the All-Time totals. Wayne County NC (there are like 13 other Wayne Counties in the U.S.) has a total of 225 recorded species, with its All-Time leading eBirder standing at 96 species. To lend some perspective, a good day at the Tres Rios site in west Phoenix can yield over 100 species. There are hundreds of lists submitted in California and Arizona counties every day, and my home county, mid-state Maricopa, has over 400 recorded species. That being said, as mentioned in the comments below Wayne County does have some great birders and has played host to some great birds, but this doesn't carry over to a big presence on eBird.

I do not bring this up simply to dump on Wayne County. In fact, the relatively poor eBird numbers were not a deterrent whatsoever. It's not too far from the coast. There's plenty of water. There are some nice parks and plenty of forest, as well as farmlands and sewage ponds, lending some habitat variety even if there is little elevation. There are certainly birds in Wayne County, in fact probably not many fewer than in the heavily birded Research Triangle area around Raleigh/Durham. The stark reality is that very few people are eBirding in Wayne County (this is probably true, maybe even more so, for the identical counties around Wayne that have even smaller populations). Rather paradoxically, the very low eBirding done in Wayne County, the lack of recorded sightings and established information, as well as established feudal lords of the fief, was exciting for me. 

I've chased birds all over Arizona, but the county lists there seemed meaningless to me. There are so many people out birding every day, who have seen it all and seen it everywhere, so to speak. There wasn't many point in trying to compete or compare. But here in Wayne County I could be a pioneering eBirder again, I could accomplish something that was even relatively impressive for my low expectations. I could actually be a top county lister! I could be...NUMBER 1. In Wayne County NC, I could be the awesome guy on the far left, except with less bracelets!!!

This renewed enthusiasm was greatly helped by the fact that there were several possible lifers waiting in the vicinity, and bearing these things in mind I made sure to fit a few birding trips to the best-looking spots in the area. In early July and with limited time before returning to Phoenix, I knew the All-Time record was not yet in reach, but for the year..? 57 would win it. Since I would also be birding with birder-tolerant and bird-interested friends I could get away with the early mornings, but a visit to the local sewage pond was out. This meant that shorebirds, gruiformes, and their ilk would have to wait. The birds would have to come from the forest.

There are a couple of eBird hotspots listed in Wayne County, and seemingly the largest, most well-established is the Cliffs of the Neuse S.P. This sizable preserve has many different trails, paved roads, and even a small lake (with swimming kids, dogs, and almost no birds). I had the fortune of jogging here a few days before as a sort of preliminary scouting. Returning with all the birding gear, knew that the Spanish Moss trail would be the most productive, winding as it did through deciduous woodland, open grasslands, and recently flooded river banks. 

From the visitors center we scanned the lake for riparian birds and came up empty handed except for Kingfisher. We then walked to the less peopled, more overgrown section of the park, along the way recording chattering Titmice, Chickadees, picoides Woodpeckers, and hiccuping Summer Tanagers, one of which was uncharacteristically accomodating.

As soon as we approached the trailhead we were assaulted with the songs of Carolina Wrens and even more enjoyably, those of the Wood Thrush. This had been a 'heard-only' bird for me, and while the dense foliage and semi-cloudy skies didn't make for great photos ops, finally getting good looks at this bird was somewhat cathartic. Not Veery sighting cathartic, mind you, but still pretty good. 

True to the trail's name, the pine, cyprus, and oak woodlands were sufficiently overgrown with Spanish moss. Acadian Flycatchers and Northern Parulas maintained a formidable cacophony above the spooky paths, joined occasionally by inquisitive Yellow-billed Cuckoos and one very persistent, upset Red-shouldered Hawk. The Wayne County ticks were coming thick and fast; I was feeling I might have a place on the podium, when everything suddenly froze. Everything, that is, except for the larger, brownish and barred bird that flushed from near the trail. Finally...FINALLY...lifer Barred Owl was obtained. 

The Owl tarried but for a minute, allowing for the sort of blurry photo that would make Bigfoot proud before making direct eye contact, as if to say, "Alright, we're square," and departing.

Knees buckled, expletives were uttered, and there might have been excitement vomit too. Years of living in central Texas, birding in south Texas this summer, multiple attempts in Pennsylvania, and even a few days in Florida where these birds seem to grow on boardwalk trees...none had yielded the Barred Owl, none but for beloved Wayne County.

Hooded Warblers and Great-crested Flycatchers arrived just in time to stave off mosquito/tick-onset depression, and we emerged into a grassy clearing that provided Field Sparrow along with Indigo Bunting and Blue Grosbeak, always solid birds to find first time on a new site.
I had regressed well down from the point of specifically hoping or expecting to see Barred Owl--I just figured it would happen one day when I was 88 years old--and yet even this bird didn't quite steal the show. For Cliffs of the Neuse S.P. is itself a well-maintained park, but the Neuse River itself, or at least the Wayne County portion, well, it's flattered and appreciative when people only call it "icky."

Plenty of agri. and hog farm run-off, silt, and the normal gunk of lowland rivers all accumulate along its lazy, snaking course. It often floods its banks and leaves behind stinking mudflats pierced by mighty cyprus trees and their ambitious roots, with sagging willows bending obeisantly to gravity's demands in between. Yes Yes...pause to smooth the hair on the back of your neck--I must as well--for we have just traipsed through ideal Prothonotary Warbler habitat.
The bird that melted a thousand faces, the bird that undid Alger Hiss, the bird that convinced bananas to cease being green and turn to yellow...sing ye proud, Prothonotary Warbler.

This bird is "sweet sweet sweet sweet sweet"

I had seen one briefly--the original lifer--from across the closed gates of the Anahuac preserve in Texas (the aggravation of arriving here on a Tuesday and finding it closed shall not be mentioned in further detail, for sake of the children), and few more immature birds in Croatan N.F. on the inner banks. The earlier sightings were of an unsatisfactory nature at beautiful places. These Wayne County sightings were supremely satisfying, and took place along the banks of the gnarly Neuse River. The Prothonotary Warbler is a bird of supreme aesthetic, but it is not a snooty britches. 

Faces were cobbled back together and ice packs were applied. The Proths just did not care. They perched and sang like young Pavarottis. Absolutely no record, milestone, or other quantifiable goal was achieved by seeing this bird--it's expected and recorded in Wayne County already, by the way--but bar none it felt like the best bird of the day, even over the lifer BAOW, and one of the best birds of the trip.

Swinging through some larger-scale farmland produced Blackbirds, Meadowlarks, Grackles, and a few other list-buffers to round out the day. I finished my time in Wayne County on 57 species, the highest total at so far in 2014 with no waterfowl, herons, egrets, or shorebirds yet recorded. Perhaps this Christmas, and for sure by next summer, there will be a new (and only) birder in the Wayne County century club, and he will make T-shirts telling people about it. 

Does this fill me with an unwarranted, frankly embarassing sense of excitement and hubris? Yes.

Does this encourage down, dirty and thorough birding next time I'm in WCNC? Yes.

Is this county listing business outside of my own home state, with its much more heavily and skillfully birded counties (relative to Wayne County, not all Carolina Counties), a sign of insecurity and cowardice on my part? Yes.

Is this perhaps papering over an early-onset mid-life crisis? Yes.

Is all of that secondary because, Hell Yeah, Ima' be Number One at something birding-related? Yes.

Plus, I'll be bale to post up some useful eBird data for ornithologists and hobbyists alike to also use. The world must be eBirded!

*Please, any North Carolina birders reading this post, do not go wrack up crazy birds in Wayne County and ruin my dream. I have the eye of the tiger and the heart of the lion but they just couldn't take it. Incidentally, I am now forever banned from the San Diego Zoo, but that is another story...

The Rhyme of the Nascent Mariner

I be a nascent Mariner,

On maiden voyage to the sea.

By lack of beard, and tan, and glittering eye,

Thou rightly judgeth me.

I leave a land of scalded plain,

Of mountains, forest grown;

For pelagics and for lifering I leave,

The land-locked state that I have known.

The feet will lose their balance,

Their souls ride above the wave.

And the birds be Gray, though no longer Jay

Where color meets its grave.

The elements will differ,

The birds will seldom sing,

Witness struggles, witness life and death

All transpiring on-the-wing

The pelagic promise draws me on,

To abandon my craggy home,

And drink deeply of my dramamine,

As I swap for sea from stone.

Intrepid with excitement,


Like a Nuthatch with a seed,


Go I now to expand my List,


And pursue the birder's creed.

But shudder yet, a frightful thought,

That robs me of my sleep.

Though blissful dreams should mine yet be,

Of Shearwaters diving in the deep.

So now embark to bird the waves,

Seek that landmark number from the hull.

So prayeth and yearn ABA 500,

Please be thy not a Western Gull!

Local News: Birder Believes there is not enough Cheeky Wordplay in Birding Circles

In a recent interview with Butler's Birds: Local Edition, hobbyist birder and self-described "wordsmith" Norman Ecklebaum readily agreed that while the state of birding in North America is overall on the "up-and-up," there is not enough snickering wordplay with birding vernacular:

"Look, birding is more popular now than it has ever been before. My facebook groups are booming with pictures of cardinals on feeders; my photos are getting dozens and dozens of likes; I'm really impressing the gaggles of semi-centennial ladies on my Botanical Gardens Birdwalks...life is great. I even saw a Green Heron the other day."

Despite this reassurance, there was a noticeable expression of regret, of angst in Mr. Ecklebaum's face.

"It's just...I guess I'm a bit disappointed, or maybe unfulfillmared you know? There are so many bird names you can play around with, so many doubles you can entendre, so many puns you can really grab hold of and bash a guy over the head with. I know I'm no William Birdsworth : :: pause for audible chuckles:: : but there' plenty of Goldfinch rich material out there, and I don't feel like enough birders or bird bloggers are taking advantage of it. What's really tragic is that I feel like half of my jokes go right over people's heads."
"For example, just the other day for example I was hanging out at my local park, for example, and pointing out a Rosy-faced Lovebirds to literally everyone who was walking his or her dog. I said, "More like Rosy-faced Cutebird, huh," and most people just walked right by; only a few older ladies chuckled with me. I tried changing up my approach then, for example pointing out a White-winged Dove to people and making Stevie Nicks jokes. Again, I was met with little appreciation."
"It just speaks to the overall quality of birding. I hoped that with its increasing popularity there would be more clever people like me, for example people who get bird-related humor and pursue it relentlessly. But it's just lost on so many of them; they walk by or for example continue talking like they've heard all my jokes before, like there's some sort of cap, or tasteful limit with such things."

Mr. Ecklebaum was insistant that bird-related wordplay was not, in fact, a shallow reservoir, and the misfortunate, as well as the onus, was on those people he addressed who were unreceptive to his wit: 

"Look, for example there's a song called Tern, Tern, Tern and it's actually by a band called the Byrds! That's just the tip of the example iceberg too. For example, once in my scope I had : ::tee hee:: : a pair of Boobies, and another time for example I committed a...err hem...Cardinal sin by opening my kitchen door too near my feeders and flushing the Cardinals. This other time for example I was birding with a group in south Texas and it was a kinda lame day with not many birds. It was the perfect time to try out some new bird jokes on the other likeminded people, especially because we were all stuck in a group together and looking for birds was of secondary importance to me:"

"When is the best time to buy a bird? WHEN IT"S GOING CHEEP!"
"Anybody hear about crow on the telephone pole? IT'S MAKING A LONG DISTANCE CAW!"
"How does a bird with a broken wing still land? WITH ITS SPARROWCHUTE!"
"Why do Hummingbirds hum? BECAUSE THEY DON'T KNOW THE WORDS!"
"What's a Great Horned's favorite subject? OWLGEBRA!"
"Why'd the bird get in trouble at school? HE GOT CAUGHT PEEPING ON A TEST!"

"A couple of people chuckled at first, so I took this as invitation to continue practicing my wit, even while our guide said something about a Tropical Parula buzzing around. Then there was less and response, and by my last joke nobody was laughing, or even looking at me. They were focussed on something else. It was the worst day of birding ever."

The modern birder, his focus in the right place?

That's when I realized that these people couldn't have simply been focussed on the actual birds, the thing they travelled and paid money for. They must not have gotten my jokes. This led me to the belief that we need much wider education and spreading of bird-related humor. Starting with Audubon Societies and bird blogging. Because birds have wings; they use them. We won't always get to see what we want to see, but we can always chuckle and give each other attention, lots of attention, big irradiating piles of attention, in the mean time."

A Diamond (or some other Jewel) in the Rough

Late August is, at best, an interesting time to go birding in Arizona. In many ways, it is not ideal. Most of the summer breeders have concluded their business. Some have already left, and the majority of the remainder are coy and clandestine in their behavior. The allure of large-scale shorebird movement in a few weeks further contributes to the end of August seeming rather plain by regular birding standards. 

As is often the case, good birding is a question of knowing where to look, and then looking there for long enough (and also being a bit lucky). While most of Arizona's breeders have concluded by now there are a few species that are just gearing up, perfecting their beach bodies, their vocalizations, and their most enticing pheromones.

Magill Weber, an under-40 female ABA birding phenom with 730+ species, joined Butler's Birds for a foray into the Santa Rita grasslands to collect some nocturnal Year Birds and observe these better-late-than-never breeders in their brushy habitat, at their brushy best.  

Before the sun was up, driving Whitehouse Canyon and Proctor Road yielded Common Poorwill and Mexican Whip, as well as Elf Owls, though the Whiskered Screech near Kubo Lodge had vacated the premises. But the nocturne critters were only the appetizer. We had come to feast on passerines, little, loud, dull passerines.
Cassin's and Botteri's Sparrows both breed comparatively late in the year, waiting for the post-monsoon vegetative boom to start their mating songs. Once they start, these otherwise inconspicuous birds don't stop. We heard both at 5am, before sun up, and heard them all on the way out of the canyon again at high noon. Both birds score pretty solid points for their vocalizations, Cassin's all the more so for its flight displays. But my goodness is this Botteri's a crappy looking sparrow or what?

Truly, this bird was hit on the head--repeatedly--with the ugly stick. But hey they've found their niche and they fill it very well...or at least they will until the grasslands in the Santa Rita foothills are claimed by the ravenous mesquite. Despite my denigrations, these birds are still Sparrows and thus we must love them. It was a pleasure to see and hear so many, even if they were kinda turdy for photos.
Grassland birding is always a pleasure despite the species diversity being pretty low. This is largely because it's done half from the car, and because some of the other birds rubbing shoulders with the drab Sparrows are really, really ridiculously good looking, even if they avoid the camera more than Zoolander. How many Blue Grosbeaks do you see modeling?

 

After our early morning success with the sparrows, we returned to the famous Proctor Road turn off from the mouth of Madera Canyon. We had heard some of our Nightjars here earlier in the morning, but now were looking for Varied Buntings in the bosque and whatever else might be recuperating along the creek. The Buntings were not home but an interesting hummingbird added some intrigue to the little expedition.
The bird was entirely dark green on the breast and belly, which combined with the long bill to suggest Broad-billed was present. There was also some buffy, rufous tones on the tail primaries when this bird briefly hovered, which were also outlined in white. The tail characteristics combined with the gorget size and shape--which did not continue onto the forehead--to suggest Broad-tailed as the other piece of this puzzle. So, in the interest of science and labeling things, here is a possible Broad-Broad Hummingbird, also known as the General Hummingbird and the Side-to-Side Semi-Selasphorus.
Further input on this apparent hybrid's ID is appreciated. We named it Prius.

After trailing up and down Whitehouse Canyon Road and pretty much maximizing the Maderan lowlands, we decided next to head down along the dusty road towards Florida Canyon. We were not intending to gain altitude here nor to scrounge and scour for the resident Rufous-capped Warblers, but again were targeting the liminal grasslands and mesquite bosque, this time for a pair of Black-capped Gnatcatchers and Rufous-winged Sparrows.
The Gnatcatchers eluded us--no surprise at midday--but Rufous-winged sparrows, as always in this area, showed and sang very nicely. I was on the wrong side of the car/sun/bird/hemisphere to capture the birds this time around, so this shot is borrowed from an older post.

Magill called it early in the morning, and her premonitions were correct: Rufous-wings and Varied Buntings go wing-in-wing, err... hand in hand...really it's more like shrub-in-shrub. We had a few sightings of the VABUs throughout the morning but nothing great, nothing that did this plum pudding of a bird justice. There are not enough green birds in north america and there are also not enough purple birds in North America. Thank you, VABU, for bringing some royal colors to the continent (Purple Sandpiper and Purple Martin do their best).
This face-melting male was first perched high in a mesquite, quite near the road. When we came to a stop he ducked down lower into the tree, but in doing so actually offered better looks. For a moment he seemed crouched and poised for take off, ready to disappear into the drab, thorny wilderness and take his eximious colors with him.  

It's like a tye-dye Bobolink

Painted Bunting gets a lot of praise for its color palette, and with full justification. The boldness and the strength of its color-combo really is unrivaled in North America. And I'm not one to push against the conventional wisdom, not too much in birding, anyway, but man, a spiffy VABU can give the PABUs a run for their money. It still comes in second, I suppose, but there's an allure here in how the VABU tries to get every cents-worth from its single purple color spectrum, while the PABU just shamelessly raids several.
At any rate, there really isn't a species of bunting in North America that won't require maxillofacial surgery if gazed upon for more than ten seconds continuously. This post was written from a hospital recovery room. Scroll through the next few images quickly, or join me at St. Joe's.

After spending much of the morning chasing little drab birds through the thorny scrub and abrasive, chigger-infested grass, getting a full frontal flash of VABU was a cathartic experience. Not only did the bird show well, but it gave a little concert of its varied vocal talents too after getting comfortable with the audience. These birds do not have rainfall-contingent breeding like the Sparrows, so it was surprising to see this bird singing out its territory a good 3 or 4 weeks after the normal breeding timeframe. Life may never be the same. To anyone in Arizona or Texas trying to escape the late summer doldrums, I highly recommend a heavy dose of this bird.
Only in birding is bunting really knocking it out of the park. YeAh I sAiD It!

Take a Deep Breath: Birding in the Great Smokeys

While dawdling in North Carolina I had the great fortune to spend a few days in Waynesville, which is only a delightful 30 minute drive from some excellent birding trails in the Great Smokey Mountains, and equidistant from Asheville NC, one of North America's weirdest and most entertaining places.  Leaving before sun up, there was the predictably thick layer of fog along the mountain road, but even after the sun had its say, the mountains seemed to continue producing their own as the thick trees transpired with the cool morning air. It was beyond lovely, and it felt almost vulgar to zoom my focus in from the scenery and look at the little, mortal things. 

Juncos and Indigo Buntings were among the first birds to great the dawn, as well as Cedar Waxwings and a resident Golden-crowned Kinglet--a bird it felt very strange to see in late June. Because I couldn't find the famous Art Loeb trailhead, which I had driven past, I spent the morning on Black Balsam. It didn't pass through as much pine as Art Loeb, but the habitat was still gorgeous and there was plenty of activity. Chips and squeeks issued forth from the many tangles, while little flashes of yellow were more tantalizing, dare I say titillating, than an all-you-can-eat Thai buffet. 

The Chestnut-sided Warblers, seen the day before on Clingman's Dome, were still present and vocal, and another colorful lover of the elevated brush popped into view as well.  

Almost every eastern Wood Warbler feels like a long-overdue lifer, even though my opportunities for seeing them have been few and far between. It must be the saturation, the fact that so many of these birds' images are used on bird books, posters, club and company insignias, event or festival signs, and so forth. It's very understandable that these colorful fellows are the poster-children for birding paraphernalia, but the side effect is that, for one such as myself, it's like I've been missing a big, obvious, existentially essential aspect of North American birding (and to that point, I guess I have). 

The Hooded Warbler, with its obvious cowl, tries to stay out of the spotlight. The hood also doubles as a veil of anonymity for these birds, who have very controversial stances on Capital Punishment. J.J. Audubon nicknamed them "The Cheerful Executioners."

The Black Balsam trail was also the site of another personal victory, though one with less clear photographic proof. Through the misty morning the simultaneously mournful and delightful call of the Veery echoed forth from the thickly vegetated hillsides, as it had done the day before. This is a common experience any time I've birded near thick woods in the east, but never before had I actually seen the bird. 

Many of them called far from the trail, and the dew-soaked grass had already made my trousers chilled and uncomfortably form-fitting. But one bird called out just close enough to the path, and after some thoroughly saturating bush-crashing and a not inconsiderably amount of pishing (which may have had no effect), I finally stole a glimpse and a poor photo, of this woodland operatic phantom.   

As I mentioned before, one of the main attractions in Carolina was being able to explore beautiful areas without any pressures from time, temperature, or the Border Patrol. Taking scenery shots that really capture the atmosphere and environment of an area is very difficult, unless you're Jen Sanford. It's funny that in retrospect, scene shots such as the one below are pretty ubiquitous for the area. An American Dipper or two on the creek rock would be the only possible improvement.

It was a bit disappointing to miss the higher, thicker pine forest due to my choice of trail, but the alpine meadows and liminal brush between them and the deciduous woods had plenty of good stuff. The birds mentioned earlier made for a wonderful opening, but the last lifer of the day stole the show. Even with the incredibly high standards set by the Wood Warblers, this bird is a real looker. The vast majority of their breeding habitat is far to the north in Canada, but plenty of these birds, like many other Warbler species, stray down from their more northern range and breed along the Appalachians. 

The yellow spectacles and prominent eye, plus the bird's quaint accent and charmingly good manners all make it a winner. But best of all, this bird comes with its own built-in carcanet, a dripping medalion that draws the eyes up to the pure yellow throat and simultaneously down to the breast. Many would-be femme fatales and even ambitious trophy-wives cannot pull off this look, this balance, so well as the scrub-loving Canada Warbler. It's aboot time someone did it right.

I will have another opportunity to bird in this area, on the Tennessee side, next June, but for sake of my sanity and living in the moment, etc., I should say nothing more than that I am looking forward to it tremendously. There was still some birding work to do in Carolina, even after returning from the mountains. A little chunk of territory, Wayne County, needed to get its eBird information on the map.

Carolina Birding: Fun in the Sun and Green Glorious Mountains

Greeting Birders, Non-birders, and B.I.nocular-curious Bros who are sneakily reading here but if caught by your roommate Bradley would claim it's only because you were googling 'Boobies" and 'Breeding Great Tits' and not because you're a closet bird nerd. 

I have done woefully little birding in the last few weeks, what with school getting back in session and Butler's Birds taking the backseat to having a job and other considerations (bird blogging is predominantly a financial burden). But migrants will be coming south soon and we're lurching to another exciting time of year. Without more Arizona material though, it's back east we go.

After the Great Texas Birding Adventure it would have been such a fizzle-out, such a quiet goodnight, to merely head back to Phoenix and enter a state of torpor for the rest of the summer. The Texas trip was tremendously birdy and successful by my less-than-expert standards, but it was also pretty exhausting, perhaps by anyone's standards. Sometimes one has to vacation from a vacation, and in that pursuit I went to spend time in the Piedmont region of North Carolina. Of course, one doesn't go to Carolina and visit neither the coast nor the mountains. In fact, I was fortunate to see both. 

The gorgeous ranges to the west promised plenty of resident lifers, beautiful birds I could see, or not, on leisurely hikes through alpine meadows and semi-rainforest, quite the contrast to the time-budget, smash-and-grab (careful around Endangered Species) birding in Texas. 

: :: ack. swoon :: :

But first, a little demonstration of uncommonly seen bird behavior: sunning. North Carolina is fraught with Eastern Wood-Pewees. These are way better than Western Wood-Pewees because they vocalize loudly and humorously, while also being generally more accommodating. 

One such EAWP was getting the ol' preening gland fired up for some vitamin D-fueled, anti-parasitic hygiene. Or, according to some, this bird was playing dead as part of an elaborate reuse to lure in morbidly curious prey like House Finches, a demonstration of predatory thanatosis otherwise known to occur predominantly in species of ciclid fish...

(No finches, or even flies, came to investigate the carcass)

Can you imagine if we regulated our hygiene this way, sticking our faces into an oily gland (it'd have to be the armpit) and then a rubbin' it all over our bodies? Actually...I take it back. That sounds nice.

"Yeah! Fresh!! Deodorant is for chumps!"

One of the first spots I visited for recreational hiking was Clingman's Dome, named of course after Sir Reginald B. Clingman, who was well noted for the size of his kopf. The Dome features a 1/2 mile walk up a busy paved path that takes one to a lookout near the Carolina/Tennessee border, a pulchritudinous and panoramic view to be sure. Even better, the Dome trail intersects with a 1 mile stretch of the Great Appalachian Trail, the really big one some people take from Georgia or wherever up to Maine. Following this wilder trail I could hobble my ol' bones into the thick forest that carpets the Great Smokies. I felt like the Last of the Mohicans--except less agile and with a camera--exploring the dense woods. Of course where there's vegetation and water, and even some cooler temps, there are birds.
And darn it all, if I must come out of vacation to do scrutinize them, then so be it. The Eastern Towhee mirrors its western cousin well with its ever present pillaging and calling from the understory, a credit to whatever the hell a towhee actually is (it's a pneumonic name, for their calls?).

It's not often I get to sample flavors of non Oregon-race Dark-eyed Junco. In fact, Baskin Robbins doesn't even carry it anymore. Slate-colored is probably the most common, or at least the most widespread in North America, but it's still a change for a Phoenician. Turns out immature DEJUs look like an emo subspecies of Pine Siskin. Maybe we all are a little Emo Siskin in our immature, angsty days. Shoot, if the corners of my mouth were yellow and droopy too I'd be a party defecator (actually this guy was pretty chipper).

Where the trail was thick and overgrown the sounds seemed as muffled as the light, and this added to a very primordial feel in these old mountains. But where there were openings the light and sound reverberated (ok, light doesn't reverberate, leave me alone). The excitement of hearing a new bird call is  a recognized and yet still under-appreciated buzz. Several new calls still belonged to birds I had seen before, though not recently, but some were new entirely. One such squeaky serenade belonged to the Chestnut-sided Warbler, a much wanted and long waited Warbler species predominantly of the east. This bird's cheery song was a new one, but one with which I quickly became familiar.



The first couple of birds I picked out were distant and backlit with the overcast weather, but this warbler, even being somewhat mildly colored compared to its cousins, is still done justice with the saturated colors. Pretty but professional...this is a Warbler you can take home to your parents!

I'm trying to talk about this all cool, like it was no big thing, but truth be told I was fairly beside myself. Wood Warblers are not a group we see much of in Arizona. These colors and these songs are a rare thing indeed in the southwest. The vagrants we pick up are usually young or in bad shape, so I had long been yearning for some real, East Coast Warbler exposure. The more I stared, the more I ogled and frothed at the mouth, the more I muttered expletives and incomprehensibles, the more the intricacies  of this bird affected me. Close up Warbler require medication soon afterwards.    

It was cathartic. I was finally in the beautiful green country, the overgrown, rolling mountains with Warblers buzzing around, and I was comfortable. There was no sweat nor were there thorns, just soft and lovely nature stuff in which I had all day to wallow. I didn't realize, until that moment, how much I had really been yearning for the experience. I don't precisely recall, but I'm pretty the entirety of my being melted into a large, pulpy puddle. Fortunately, I was on a decline and the puddle must have seeped downhill. I regained consciousness near the car, and quickly made plans to get back up into the mountains the next day.