Vacay Birding: Keeping It on the DL

This past weekend Butler's Birds headed west to San Diego for some R&R. This trip was not a solo effort and as such the travel routes, travel times, and social entailment precluded any serious or concerted birding. Despite the allure of Jacumba and Anza Borrego, there were no detours between PHX and SD, and not just because all the driving was done at night. 

Even so, it has been touted much and more that one of birding's strengths is that is is easily doable in some capacity in any new area (or old) and this still held true on Coronado Island. As for that more serious birding trip out west...well that will be coming later this spring I think.

The west coast is famed for its birding and rightly so, but of no lesser notoriety are the aquatic mammal populations. To my mind, Sea Lions and their pinniped ilk are fascinating living links in the mammalian evolutionary chain. To other minds like those of some ancient sailors and perhaps modern day bronies, they were no doubt a troubling point of attraction that necessitated the invention of mermaids to assuage, justify, and bridge unnatural lubricious inclinations that develop after many weeks aboard a sea-vessel. There I said it. To be fair, they bask in the sun like Milanese in a coffee shop.

We spent a chunk of Saturday out on a whale and dolphin "safari," which was actually pretty cool for all the conversational pablum that sometimes accompanied the clientele.  At one point the catamaran became surrounded by a massive pod of Common Long-Beaked Dolphin, who can do a pretty good job of 'sharking it' with their dorsal fins and also, like most Dolphins, are probably more dangerous to people and animals than most sharks.

 

Beautiful, smart, and deadly...Dolphins are the femme fatales of the bay waters. They certainly slew me anyway. Apparently this huge pod off Dana Point is one of the largest in the U.S. and is composed of different recognizable sub-groups that have conglomerated over time. They operate with a republic-style government within this autonomous collective and also eat fish.

Even with hundreds of Dolphin, one sometimes feels a lack of mass, size, or grandeur when staring out into the vastness of the Pacific. Fortunately, there were a couple Gray Whales, presumably late migrants, making their way south along the coast. WHALES. I had never seen a whale before, and to be fair in a sense still haven't, at least not the whole thing, but if you take the pieces from these photos and glue them together you'll get like 62% of a Gray Whale.

 

 Even though neither crew nor captain nor chorus seemed to have an interest in pelagic birds, I was still able to snag a few species, including a lifer in the form of fly-by Black-vented Sheerwaters. It also provided a reminder that I am really bad at identifying Loons (not super a lot of practice in central AZ ya know). This bird has a stout beak and partial white collar, which would point to Common, but it also has a lot of white on the face, white speckling on the wings, and seemingly a hint of rust on the front of its throat, which could indicate Red-throated. My guess is the speckling is variable and the red is an artifact of light, but are Common Loons often miles out from shore?

Both going out and coming in, this fellow stood sentinel of the Dana Point harbor. Ever been mugged, shark-attacked, or otherwise accosted at Dana Point? Me either, and we have him to thank for this preservation.

Like the fellow above, Surf Scoters off the Tidal Park of Coronado Island provided another photo-first for Butler's Birds. I had a limited amount of time to explore this area Sunday morning and was tantalized all the more in that with it being east facing, the rising sun was back-lighting just about everything on the water. The male SUSCs were farther out from the shore/pier. A lone female was more accommodating but still...birding brings out misogynistic tendencies in all of us.

 

 

"Suddenly...Bushtits!!!" These loudly foraging birds were pretty common at the Coronado park. Their ability loudly and quickly to show up out of nowhere always impresses. They typically live around 4,000 feet in AZ so seeing them next to the ocean was a bit odd. A Belted Kingfisher also made for a pleasant and necessary sight at the so and so yacht club nearby.

The exposed rock along the muddy shore was largely devoid of peeps, no long-shot Wandering Tattler wandering or tattling through here. An accommodating Marbled Godwit did make for pretties, and reminded that two-tone beaks are often better than one, and even scavenging can be done with grace and poise. 

Alas, since I do not live in nor have visited the upper midwest or central Canada in the summer, I have never seen MAGOs sporting their coldstone marblery in full breeding force. Latin word on the street, of course, is that it is very imago dei.

There was another interesting Loon doing Loon stuff off the Tidal Park shore. He was accompanied off and on by a few Greater Scaup, one of which is included below entirely because I just now realized I have not posted any photos of that species before, and this causes me shame. Of course, one of the best ways to distinguish between Greater/Lesser Scaup is to view the birds in a blurry, out-of-focus way, such as to focus on the silhouette and not be distracted by other stuff.

 

The intriguing Loon was sporting much white on the neck and face, including in front of the eye. The beak is also very dainty and slightly upturned. It seems to be a good candidate for Red-throated, though I would be grumpily open to other suggestions.

 

I am led to believe that the bird below is a Black Phoebe based on plumage, behavior, range, and raw gut instinct. As GBRS #7 mentioned in a recent post and other have as well, this bird really drives the east-coast visitors wild. It makes for birding around urban water features in the southwest that much more exciting anyway.

More exciting, though less photogenic, were some Red-crowned Parrots that would streak overhead from time to time. No I am not proud of the documentation shot, nor am I super proud of listing established exotics. But I will do what is necessary to survive. We all have skeletons in our closets and dirty ticks on our lists or even elsewhere. When did you last do a tick check???

A little more clean to behold and clean of plumage and clean to list was a small flock of Brant feeding a little ways offshore. What was not clean was the murky oyster beds in which they were foraging for eel grass and other delectable slimes. Still, all in all, it was a pretty formal gala.

"Stubby Little Tuxedo Gooses" as Audubon once called them, the Brant are simple and striated creatures who enjoy pinacoladas, even if they won't admit it (this describes most people in part or whole) and long walks/waddles near the beach. Seeing Geese in the ocean was similarly odd to seeing Bushtits near the ocean. On the one hand, well, why shouldn't they be there? Of course they should. On the other hand it's like, Geese anywhere else hang out in freshwater ponds and lakes and are generally unscrupulous. Not these Brant; they were a very respectable bunch.

As for all those southern California endemics, exotics, and isolated Tri-colored Blackbirds, well, this weekend in San Diego was a passive warm-out. Those birds will be birded in a birdacious way sooner or later or somewhere in the middle.

Bogged Down Birding

Kicking off the new year I went one a pilgrimage to the Sax Zim Bog, perhaps the most singular northern birding mecca in the continental U.S. This was unfamiliar territory for me, territory I did not have a lot of time to cover but territory that nonetheless held massive lifer potential. 

I'll admit, I had also fallen away from the fold a bit, with work, social, and soccer demands substantially cutting into my birding time fall of 2015. The birding gods, they notice these things, and in their caprice they will make one pay for time not spent and homage not given. That is, of course, the only explanation as to why I didn't see the big owls. Also, look at the Gray Jay photo below. See something wrong with it? Exactly, that sky is blue, and no sensible boreal Owl will be perching out in that pleasantness, and it was super pleasant all of day one.



  

The Sax Zim Bog is also huge and necessitates vehicular birding for the most part, with a few areas and feeder stations being pedestrian friendly. Spending hours in 1st gear looking for perched owls can get somewhat tiresome if the Owls aren't around (and as I mentioned before, the two days we were there no one had any reported sightings), which made the brief excursions into the cold and snow, ironically, a welcome respite.

Black-capped Chickadees were exceedingly numerous, as one would expect, with their abhorrent cuteness masking their dynamic tungsten tonka toughness. Chuck Norris really has very little in terms of tough on a BCCH and their ilk. We also caught small flock of Pine Grosbeaks on the second day, giving me second looks at this species and a first experience with the males. It was too cold for my face to regular melt, but the intense coloration of these birds caused rapid sublimation and instead most of my face transitioned straight to a gaseous state and is still suspended somewhere over Lake Superior.

Also numerous were Common Redpolls, a belated lifer, including one pretty good candidate for the existentially crisised Hoary Redpoll. Knowing this bird was likely going to disappear from lists (which I totally agree with, btw), I didn't stress about it too much. Common is good enough for me.

Snow Buntings provided another nifty lifer, arguably cooler but also less accommodating than the COREs. Mud Buntings or Gravel Buntings might be more suiting monikers for their habitat preferences. Failing to capture closer shots or flight shots of these birds was a substantial point of sadness. Despite my preferences they did not allow for approach whatsoever. Snoots.

Since we weren't picking up the vibe from the SZ Bog by midday on day two, the Iowa Voice and I headed back to the Duluth suburbs in pursuit of Bohemian Waxwings. We struck out on those nomads, but while pausing to have consolidation beers that we had to open ingeniously with a tire iron, we were treated to a Sharp-tailed Grouse clumsily feeding on sapling buds.
I got out of the car to see if this bird would be approachable and sunk to my waste in snow, so that was the end of that.

I had to catch and evening flight back to Phoenix from the Twin Cities, which left us with a few hours for birding on the last day. Given our lack of luck in the SZ Bog and the presence of Gyrfalcons and Snowies in Superior, WI, we elected to work these southern spots. We had also chased these birds the preceding evenings without luck.
We tried for White-winged Crossbills near the Park Point strip, where some pine barrens jut out into Superior. Picking up Northern Shrike was dandy, but the drive out onto this isthmus cost us more time than we anticipated.

We drove unconscionably fast back along the one-lane road, but no amount of hurry is worth passing a Pileated Woodpecker, even if it is simply getting friendly with a utility pole. This is, I am ashamed to say, the first photo I've obtained of this species.

As I mentioned in previous posts, fortified patience was lacking on my end during this trip. We resolved to wait out of the Gyrfalcon first, since Snowy-chasing was erratic. The Gyr was sighted consistently in this industrial area every day...at some point throughout the day. The distance and conditions worsened our circumstances in that we did not have a spotting scope, but after about an hour and a half we finally spied the menacing blob atop some grainery equipment.

Like Ivory Gull, this was not a bird I had been expecting to see during this trip or really in the near future at all. Maybe the universe was just keeping its equilibrium in denying us the Owls while providing these vagrants. Fortunately I can make my way back to this area with more regularity than a vagrant, and I shall have my sweet snowy satisfaction--and no I'm not exclusively talking about snow cones, but they will be a factor.
Gyrfalcon was an awesome lifer with which to wrap up this quick trip. With more time and patience, this is a trip I will make again, or one much like it. Watch your backs, boreal birds.

Starting a New Streak

New Year's resolutions have always bugged me a little bit. If something is worth doing, or a change worth making, why not make the change immediately? Sometimes there are good considerations for waiting, but an arbitrary date? Nah.

That being said, I made a new resolution that does, indeed, coincide with the new year. This also coincides with the fact that I had not been birding much in the weeks preceding the close of 2015, and then did some hardy birding. At this point you're probably thinking, "Get to it already man, this is sorry stuff. Your exposition is boring and you should feel bad. Why are you belaboring the point? God you're like a filibustered on c-span 2." Well who's being long-winded now eh? eh?

That's the rub, fellow Impatients, because my resolution was to be a much more patient birder. My recent trip to Minnesota had some success and some failures that were down to weather and bad luck (or, more specifically, a lack of good luck). But plenty of it also fell on my impatience, an unwillingness to spend long enough in one area or another so that, in effect, I rushed between spots looking for this or that species and ultimately seeing neither. Especially in winter, when the birds are sparse and shy, one has to wait...and I really hate waiting, especially when it's for a cool bird that hangs out at a less-than-cool spot (or a really frigid spot).

  

I really hate waiting. The DMV gives me ulcers. I take red lights a suggestions. I burn down orphanages while on hold. I hate waiting for my laundry. I hate waiting for videos to buffer. I hate waiting for my waiter at a restaurant because, then, do I not become the waiter??? 

Alas, the simple, prolonged reality is that sometimes, as birders, we have to plunk down in less-than-ideal spots and wait.

While I was out of town over the winter break, a Streak-Backed Oriole turned up in Yuma, about 200 miles west of Phoenix. Rather improbably, this handsome bird stayed from end of December up through my return to Arizona Jan. 6th, and after re-igniting my bird-chasing engine in Minnesota and re-igniting my resolution-motron as well, this bird demanded a chase.

It had been seen foraging in some California fan palms in a little RV park near some wetlands. The dilemma was that in any given day, it would feed in these palms for one or two short increments, and then disappear into the recently flooded wetland area.

So I arrived at sun-up, at this little park without much else by way of birding, and waited. I was determined not to abandon my post. Eventually the bird would come. It's the motto of RV parks, "if you park it, they will come."

Orioles, like vampires and pizza-faced teenagers, need to feed. But 7:30am turned into 8:30, turned in to 9:00am. By 10:00am my species list had climbed to about 6 and the Oriole still was a no-show. My hope had been to snag the bird by 9am and be back in Phoenix by noon time. 10:30 and still nothing. 11:00am came and now I was looking at a 2:00pm return, still with nothing to show for my efforts.

When does one cut the losses? When does one try something new?

Well, the patience wore off and in one last desperate attempt I decided to do what came natural--I went bush-crashing into the wetlands, figuratively speaking. Despite all my lessons learned and promises made about being patient and waiting, I found the skulky bugger in about 10 minutes. 

At first the bird did not show very well, staying deep in the riparian thickets, but of course it was readily identifiable and gave its rattle call on several occasions. Patience and waiting be damned! I had the lifer! Other birders in the area were on the bird quickly too, and pretty soon there was a parapazzi blitz in progress. What happened next? Of course the bird flew across the canal and over to the RV park where I had been waiting dully for 3+ hours.

 

Photo-ops were a little better there until the paparazzi peloton caught up and the bird flushed back farther into the wetlands, at which point I called it a day 2.5 hours later than I intended. So what are the takeaway lessons? I did indeed exercise much more patience/endurance/perseverance and stayed until I found the bird. On the other hand, this was done by roving and wandering around per the old motions. Should I have stayed at the park and let other birders find and flush the bird over to me? Would the bird ever have turned up that day?

I don't know. Everything is bad and nothing is good. Except for Streak-Backed Orioles. Streak-Backed Orioles are good.