Work in the ornithological field.

Yesterday morning, even though it was raining, I stopped by Capitol Lake in front of the WA state house to try to catch a TUNDRA SWAN that a birder had posted from the day earlier. I had no luck, but did see a good number of ducks on the lake, mostly being BUFFLEHEAD.


When I got back to the house, Devin and I began working on making bird nesting boxes. A friend of Devin's applied and was awarded a grant to create 30 bird boxes for DOWNY WOODPECKER, HAIRY WOODPECKER, and NORTHERN FLICKER. The grant pays for 90% of the work, the landowner the other 10%. Apparently the grant pays about $40 per box.


The whole nest box is made from one plank, which I cut up in the backyard yesterday afternoon. During which, Devin was putting one together, and getting all the smaller pieces cut.

This morning, I headed to the Cannon Trail in town, where I could get some good views of the Puget Sound. I saw a good diversity of birds, including good looks at the very common GLAUCOUS-WINGED GULL, which I had been unable to fully identify until today. After, I went to try Capitol Lake again. No TUNDRA SWAN, but there were even more of a diversity of ducks. BUFFLEHEAD, CANVASBACK, unidentifiable SCAUP, and REDHEAD were the most apparent.


When I got back, Devin and I started working again. I put together the smaller, DOWNY and HAIRY WOODPECKER boxes, which we needed 10 of, and got some of the 20 of the larger NORTHERN FLICKER boxes that we need.

Western Washington rarities continue!

Last night, Clara got home from teaching swimming, and her, Devin and I had a mad good stir fry that Devin had made. Then we played some music, and went to bed pretty early because we all had an early morning to prepare for.

I got up at about 7am, which I was surprised that I was surprised that it is still moderately dark. I met up with a volunteer group from the Tahoma Audubon Society who were helping with a survey of the Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge. Our task was to write down every bird we saw, in 200 meter quadrants, within all of the refuge. FWS was looking for research on how he current restoration of the property was effecting birds, particularly shorebirds and waterfowl. It was very cold, but our group saw some decent stuff in the riparian areas and sloughs. RUBY and GOLDEN-CROWNED KINGLETS, CEDAR WAXWINGS, WINTER WREN, BEWICK'S WREN, and LINCOLN'S SPARROW were some of the notables.


When we were done at about 11:30, I drove up to a Tacoma marina to join the local, regional, and national birders who had "flocked" to get a glimpse of the seldom-seen in North America, BLACK-TAILED GULL. I found the extremely small flock of 3 birders at a pull-out on Marina Drive. All over the docks were BONAPARTE'S GULL and CALIFORNIA GULL, and I took the time to notice a HORNED GREBE. One of the people was my age, and he had relocated what he thought may be the gull using another person's scope. It was tough to see, as it was sleeping and tucking it's head in it's side. We got to talking after he was showing me how to identify the WESTERN/GLAUCOUS-WINGED GULL hybrid. He said he was from Salt Lake City, and as it turned out, he is a very good friend of the two guys, Jeff and Carl, that I had birded with in SLC. His name is Colby, and within a couple minutes, he was proved right, as the BLACK-TAILED GULL had given us plenty of authoritive looks.

Come As You Are

Last night, I went over to where Clara was staying, at her friend who had just given birth's house. Clara was supposed to have been there for the birth, but it happened super-early on Monday (2am-5am) and Clara missed the call. Regardless, she was to be over there for 24 hours to help her with anything she needed. We watched Year One, which was as horrendous a movie as it looks.


This morning I shoved off to Hoquiam, by way of Kurt Cobain's hometown of Aberdeen. I was in search of a few birds that had the "Patagonia rest area effect" going on. That's when a rare bird is spotted and reported, good birders show up to see it, and subsequently more good birds are reported. This was a trilogy of local rarities that included ORCHARD ORIOLE, CLAY-COLORED SPARROW, and CHESTNUT-COLLARED LONGSPUR.

When I first got to the wastewater treatment facility these were reported at, I didn't see any birders, so I too the time to tease out a MEW GULL from the close by feeding gulls. I then noticed some binoculized people, so I herded up with them. They were in the spot that the first two birds I mentioned were recently seen. Within 5 minutes, the CLAY-COLORED SPARROW appeared.


Since I have seen an ORCHARD ORIOLE before, I got the directions of a short walk down the road, where some birders had already rediscovered the CHESTNUT-COLLARED LONGSPUR, which was partially in breeding plumage. I got some excellent looks of it. I also talked to a local birder a bit about some other spots where rarities had been seen recently. He gave me directions to Tokeland, which was about a half-hour drive away.


When I got to the Tokeland docks, I found the pack of roughly 100 MARBLED GODWIT and WILLET that I was looking for, but was unable to track down the stray BAR-TAILED GODWIT that had been seen about 3 days ago. On the drive back, I stopped at Grayland Beach and Bottle Beach, with no spectacular sitings.

Northern West

On Thursday morning, Rupp and I headed to the Lower Table Rock, which is a pair of peculiar mesa-type outcroppings in southern Oregon. We took her dog Chiparre, even though I don't think we were supposed to.


She had ot head to class in the afternoon, so I got my stuff together, and headed out at about 4:30. I stopped in Corvallis on my way to Portland and had a beer with Florida's own Joe "The Barnacle" Cannon at a local brewery. I got to Portland just in time to pick up Ms. Rosana Portillo at the airport at about midnight.


The next morning, Rosana and I checked out the Cup and Saucer restaurant, and Hawthorne in general. It was pretty gross weather, so we took in Where the Wild Things Are. After the movie, we headed to the coast, and camped at Cape Lookout State Park, and the weather had cleared up for us. Saturday morning, we cruised up the coast, looking for birds and beauty, and found a little of both. I did manage to get a new bird for my list, a female HOODED MERGANSER, and we did get to take in the eerie Haystack Rock in Cannon Beach. We also gandered this marvelous fall at Munson Creek Falls State Park.


In the evening of Saturday, Rosana and I made it out to the Green Dragon, which had excellent beers, and shuffleboard. Then we checked out a McMenamin's, which had very cheap microbrew and veggie burgers. Sunday during the day, I had to let Rosana leave unfortunately, and she caught a long flight back to Florida that got her in this morning right before her school started.


I started my trek north and stopped at the Ridgefield National Wildlife Refuge, which someone had posted a SHARP-TAILED SANDPIPER at. I didn't come across any shorebird habitat in either of the units of this refuge. I did see a huge number of both SANDHILL CRANES and beavers!

In the evening I got to Olympia to my new temporary home at Devin and Clara's house. We chatted for awhile, and since the weather looked bad for today, and neither of them had Monday work, we checked out a couple bars downtown, and they too had shuffleboard.

Today has been a lazy rainy day, but I did manage to move in and make some birding plans for the next couple of days. Stay tuned... I know I will.

Fall in Southern Oregon

The drive through the Redwoods was incredible. Eventually, in the dark, I made my way to my couchsurfing host Jared's house in Grants Pass. He didn't get home until decently late, but allowed me to let myself in. He had been consoling a friend who is in the midst of a divorce. When he did get home, we chatted for a bit. He's a cool guy, fellow traveler who is currently a masonry foreman.


This morning I took the backroads to Rupp's house in Ashland. Very pretty drive, it is certainly fall with incredible foliage. When I got to her house, she had a bunch of birding resources written out for me by her advisor who is a birder. On of them worked, and I got this lifer AMERICAN DIPPER in Lithia Park!

Humboldt County (or, Awesome ducks!)

I drove up Route 1, then 101, to get to Arcata yesterday. I stopped by the Arcata Mash & Wildlife Sanctuary, which is a state-of-the-art wastewater treatment facility. The marshes here were full of ducks as well as BLACK-CROWNED NIGHT HERON. The GREEN-WINGED TEAL and AMERICAN WIGEON males were in their breeding plumage. Then I noticed a CINNAMON TEAL male, which was incredible!


This was mostly all I saw, besides MALLARD and GADWALL, so I headed to the outer lagoon. I ran into a local birder with a scope who let me take a look into the saltwater lagoon at the LONG-BILLED CURLEW, LEAST SANDPIPER, and DUNLIN. He mentioned that someone yesterday saw a male EURASIAN WIGEON in the ducky marsh I had been scanning. He told me a better place to look from light-wise, and within 5 minutes, I found the vagrant!


I met up with Kevin Damstra's friends Liz and Lou at their house in Arcata. We went to a pizza shop downtown, where I got a 6 Rivers IPA and some slices. These two were really cool, and incidentally went to college in the small town of Athens, OH where I had been earlier in the trip. We had some great conversations about Arcata's designer homeless, constructivism in education, and the amount of marijuana that is around Northern California. We talked about other stuff too.


This morning I called the Arcata Birdbox to get an idea of where I should go, and there was good stuff listed at "North Jetty". Since I didn't know where that was, I went to the Humboldt Bay National Wildlife Refuge. I stopped at the office first to ask some questions, where a young birder dude was working and was willing to talk me through where to go to see birds. He wrote out directions to a handful of places, which I ended up checking out including the south jetty, where he said I may be able to find the same things. He was right. I came across many SURF SCOTER, and 2 male and a female HARLEQUIN DUCK. On the shorebird trail near the headquarters, I saw quite a show put on by the resident WHITE-TAILED KITES. There were also an abundance of Aleutian CACKLING GOOSE.


Satisfied with the NWR, I headed up to some of the more northern places he suggested. Trinidad Headlands and Bay, as well as Big Lagoon were unbelievably beautiful. Now I'm heading into Redwoods National Park, which might be pretty.

Pelagification!

Camping on Saturday night at MacKerricher State Park was great. I got to sleep at about 10pm, which was perfect for how much sleep I'd need for my long day Sunday. The only problem was that even though it did not rain overnight, it is so humid and foggy on the coast that the trees dripped as if it had rained all night, soaking my stuff. This was the view from my campsite:


I got myself together at 5:30AM and headed to Noyo Harbor in Ft. Bragg, CA to meet the Telstar and the Shearwater crew. There were about 30 of us on board the charter fishing vessel, and we headed out in complete fog. Within the first couple miles offshore, we were seeing an incredible number of COMMON MURRE. The sheer number of them helped me get comfortable with this species. Pretty soon, one of the crew members was dropping popcorn off the stern to attract gulls, and later, cut up bait. This worked, and shortly thereafter, BLACK-FOOTED ALBATROSS joined the trail. At one point, we saw as many as 60 of these. In the picture below are the albatross, as well as a gray race NORTHERN FULMAR in the bottom right.


As the day went on, we started seeing some shearwaters. I got great looks at PINK-FOOTED SHEARWATER, BULLER'S SHEARWATER, and the rarer FLESH-FOOTED SHEARWATER. Unfortunately, a SOOTY SHEARWATER had been seen a couple of times, but I was not able to get on it. POMARINE JAEGER was another species that I dropped the ball on. Although I had looked at about 15 of them, I missed the field marks each time.


As the day went on, the diminutive CASSIN'S AUKLET and RHINOCEROS AUKLET would get scared by the boat, and try to fly away. Some succeeded, and I think the younger ones just did a half swim/fly thing to the best of their ability.


Marine mammals also showed themselves. We got close looks at white-sided dolphin, harbor seal, and near the end of the day, two breaching humpback whales. We thought that was the frosting at the end of our 11-hour day at sea. Instead, it was close looks at ANCIENT MURRELET. These are a fantastic bird, even more than the drab winter-plumed, but great-named rhinos.



After that successful trip (which many of the pelagsperts say was a not very diverse day, due to it being the last trip of the season), I took the advise from one of the local birders I was talking to on the boat, and headed back to MacKerricher. I didn't come across the PACIFIC GOLDEN-PLOVER that he said had been seen recently, but did get a BLACK TURNSTONE.

As it got dark, I headed over to my couchsurfing host, Ted's house. He lives right on the water, just a mile north of MacKerricher State Park. His house was beautiful, and I had dinner with Ted and his friend who was in town. They are both Buddhists, which set the tone for some very calm and interesting conversations. This morning, since Ted was really interested in the notion of birding, he came with me to bird along the beach in front of his house, which coincidently was a place suggested to me by the local expert on the boat. There was a big pack of large and small plovers. Try as I might, they were BLACK-BELLIED PLOVERS and SNOWY PLOVERS, and not the PACIFIC I was hoping for. Regardless, conversations with Ted were incredible. He has this ability to frame things, and ask questions unobtrusively in a way that made me question a lot of what I do and why I do it. Rather Socratic.

I left there at about 11AM today after another great vegan meal, and started heading up the coast. It's been rainy all day, so I haven't been birding the rocy cliffs as much as I'd like to. There's always tomorrow... and the next day... and...

Pre-Pelagery

I got to Tyson's house in Chico, CA at about 6pm on Thursday. One of his first questions for me was, "do you like beer?" Needless to say, a lot of beer was drank between then and going to bed last night. Tyson brews his own beer, and had 5 home-crafted types in his kegerator.


After trying one of his "special" beers, we checked out the Sierra Nevada brewery, as this is their hometown. I got a sampler that had 16, 1.5 ounce beers. There were some very nice ones. I think the coolest thing about the place is how sustainable their business is trying to be.


Friday morning I woe up and headed to the Llano Seco unit of the Sacramento River National Wildlife Sanctuary. It was nice, but the water levels were down, so not much in the way of shorebirds or ducks. There were at least 30 SANDHILL CRANES out in the wet prairie.


In the afternoon, I checked out the Chico city park called Bidwell Park. This is a nice riparian stretch that has campsites all along it, but for day use. I day used one for a nap. At the end of the lower park, there is a place that they opened up and cemented to make a swimming pool type area.

Last night, Tyson, his friend Derrick, and I headed out to a few bars in town. The bars in the downtown remind me of some of the bars in Tallahassee that I did not chose to frequent very much. The only difference is that these bars all have great microbrews on tap.


This morning I drove the 3+ hours to get back over to the coast. I set up my camp at MacKerricher State Park this afternoon, and this place is beautiful. Just on my short coastal hike, I noticed BLACK OYSTERCATCHER, many SURFBIRD, and female WHITE-WINGED SCOTER. There are also tons of white seals hanging out on the rocks here.


I checked out the port that I need to meet at for my trip out to sea tomorrow. Here's my ride:

Central Valley

Last night was weird. I arrived at my host's house, and asked for the wrong person. I was really confused but they let me in and I sat down with 5 people watching the documentary "The Devil and Daniel Johnston". After the movie, a couple people were playing guitar, doing handstands, and arm wrestling. The beers were flowing.

I was really confused for the whole night as to who my host was. I finally figured it out about 10 minutes ago. I emailed two different people who were roommates asking to stay, both Shannon and Amanda, not knowing they were roommates. A different roommate called me on their behalf, and had a conversation about wildlife. I wrongly called her Tracey on the phone because I had asked another person on couchsurfing if I could stay in Sacramento with them who listed on her profile that she was a wildlife biologist. When I got there, the person I conversed with was not home yet. When she did get home, she did not make it apparent that I had talked to her on the phone. I thought I was at the home of a person who had emailed me back earlier in the day offering to host, that I had replied no to. It turns out I delined to one of the roommates who just wanted to send me her phone number in case she wasn't home when I got there. If you're confused reading this, then you probably understand what I felt like last night.


Anyway, this morning I got up and went ot the Sacramento Audubon Society's Bobelaine Sanctuary. It was an incredible riparian system. I spent half the day there, seeing a WESTERN TANAGER, NUTTALL'S WOODPECKER, and BEWICK'S WREN. The best part was when I was checing out a flock of BUSHTIT, RUBY-CROWNED KINGLET (which I could see the ruby for the first time!), and a few BLACK-THROATED GRAY WARBLER, I noticed an odd looking yellow-headed warbler. I lost him, but stayed with the flock for about 15 minutes. Luckily he showed himself again for a good bit, and confirmed my suspicion that he was a HERMIT WARBLER.


On my way up to Chico, I stopped at the Sacramento National Wildlife Refuge complex. My first stop was Colusa NWR, which had an insane amount of GREATER WHITE-FRONTED GOOSE. I also got good looks of a RING-NECKED PHEASANT here.


Just up the road, I went to Delevan NWR and Sacramento NWR. I noticed, and had to back up, for an AMERICAN BITTERN. There were also thousands of SNOW GEESE here. On the day, I would have to say that I saw no less than 100,000 GREATER WHITE-FRONTED GOOSE.

I also came across some recent research today that shows that my September 23rd posted picture of a Richardon's subspecies of the CANADA GOOSE is actually now recognized as a separate species, CACKLING GOOSE.

Jackpot!

In the rain, but the YELLOW-BILLED MAGPIE has been birded!

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Did I get all of the birds?

Yesterday had incredible storms on the California coast. Winds were over 20 mph and there was constant rain. Needless to say, I used yesterday as an administration day, and didn't bird at all. Last night, Kevin made some pasta, and we watched the second in that National Parks documentary that was recently on PBS.


This morning I said goodbye to Kevin and Kelly, and birded the East Bay. My first stop was Sobrante Ridge, which was decently birdy with BUSHTIT, BROWN-BACKED CHICKADEE, OAK TITMOUSE, and lots of WESTERN SCRUB and STELLAR'S JAYS. I also got great looks at a CALIFORNIA THRASHER.


Next I went to Big Break, which is a new shorline park. According to Kevin, there have been WHITE-TAILED KITE there, but I didn't see them. I then headed to the Dow Industrail Wetland Preserve, which was kind of weird. I'm not sure that it's a wetland as much as a pond. I thought I saw a NUTALL'S WOODPECKER and a GREAT-TAILED GRACKLE which would be a bit out of range, but I could't confirm with myself either of them.


I tried to go to the Antioch Dunes National Wildlife Refuge, but it is closed, only opening for docent led walks once a month. I got my oil changed and decided to make my way to Sacramento. I stopped in town at Southside Park to look for the YELLOW-BILLED MAGPIE, but no luck. Out of 52 species today, only that one thrasher was new for my list. I think I've beginning to hit a standstill with my coastal CA novelties.

Now I'm at Pangaea Cafe' enjoying a snack before heading to my couchsurfing hosts house here in Sacramento.

Ah-a-a-a-a-alcohol!

When I got back Saturday evening, we decided to go out for sushi. It was a pretty good restaurant, that gave us some ideas. Since Kevin and Kelly had the last two days off, we planned out our time a bit, which started with some jacuzziing.

Yesterday morning, I walked up the hill from their place, which is a private property trail that a few miles away connects to the Marin Headlands. I got a pretty long look at a lifer WRENTIT on this walk.


After, we got ourselves together and took Kevin's dog Ronin to get shots at PetCo, which was not as bad as we thought it would be. Then we moseyed to the farmer's market and bought some stuff that we would need for otu eggplant lasagna dinner. After the market, we went to Sho Chiku Bai Sake factory in Berkeley where we checked out their museum, and had a 7-course sake tasting. Kevin is no longer a sake hater. To spend a little more time in Berkeley, they showed me a pretty good brewery called Jupiter, which has a bluegrass band playing.

This morning I went to a brackish wetland I had seen on the previous day's driving. I had seen a couple of terns and waders, and thought it might be worth checking out during a low tide. It was. I saw 6 species of ducks, including bird #250 of the year, a BUFFLEHEAD. The wetland, Corte Madera Shorebird Wildlife Sanctuary, was incredibly diverse avifauna-wise, including AMERICAN AVOCET, BLACK-NECKED STILT, BLACK-CROWNED NIGHT HERON, DOWITCHER, YELLOWLEGS, and FORSTER'S TERN, to name a few.


Kevin, Kelly and I went to Napa in the afternoon, since they had to get some things taken care of on their new used car. While they were fixing the small issues, they gave us a courtesy car, which we used to hop some wineries. Kelly is a club member of the Whitehall Lane Winery, so we got a personalized tour and free tasting.


On our way back to the car dealership, we decided to hit another one, Chandon, which specialized in champagnes. It was decent, but the reds at Whitehall were hard to beat. I can say that now, because I'm kind of a wine professional.

San Rafael farmer's market

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A bird a day keeps the blue angels away.

Yesterday morning I drove to Muir Woods, which is a small patch of redwoods north of Sausalito. While the trees are undeniably insane, the place had a bad vibe. It was like walking in Times Square: crazy busy, loud, and people speaking a variety of languages. In some ways it was worse though, as everyone was staring up, bumping into each other.

I headed to Muir Beach, with Kevin's JEEP brand scope. It actually works pretty good, but it has a bunch of attachments that are meant for stargazing. Regardless, there were not any exciting birds there besides a RED-THROATED LOON.

Defeated bird-wise, on my way back, I stopped on the side of the road at a marsh, hoping for a bird for m'list. Luckily there was a pack of WILLET, in addition to BLACK-NECKED STILT, and a SAY'S PHOEBE.

Last night, Kevin, Kelly and I made some pasta and watched the Sox ruin themselves. Kelly and I planned out today.

This morning, Kelly and I went to Marin Headlands, which is the northern natural area of the Golden Gate Bridge. We stopped at Hawk Hill, but it was extremely cloudy. It was actually so cloudy that the Blue Angels canceled their air show that was supposed to be this afternoon. We then went to Rodeo Lagoon, and went for the couple mile hike around it, with nothing special showing itself. Kelly was tired and had some stuff to do, so I went on to Point Bonita to check out the avifauna. There were some far off cormorants, WESTERN GREBES, and a couple of BLACK OYSTERCATCHERS around there.

I then headed under the highway to Fort Baker. This was a little cove that could have housed some interesting ducks and grebes, but there were so many people around, waiting for their gashawks, scaring any potential for birdery.

San Francisco Treats (aka lifers)

Kelly was willing to take me to San Francisco this morning. I didn't want to pay the $6 to go over the Golden Gate Bridge, so since she was going anyway, I went with. She let me borrow her car to drive around the Presidio, which is the northwestern part of the city, part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. Right at her building, there was a little scrubby valley. I checked it out, and in there was a CALIFORNIA TOWHEE, many LESSER GOLDFINCH, FOX SPARROW, and ANNA'S HUMMINGBIRD. A great start to the day.


I took the car over to Crissy Field and looked out into the ocean and marshes for birds. By Fort Point, there were a good number of WESTERN GREBE, and a small cormorant near a DOUBLE-CRESTED CORMORANT. After a few minutes, I determined that it was a PELAGIC CORMORANT.

I stopped at Baker Beach, and found a RED-THROATED LOON, and another further out that took me awhile to allow him to be a COMMON LOON.


Needing a break, I drove down to the Haight. Since it was a quarter for every 7 minutes of paring, and because I got the point quite quickly that marijuana is awesome and Bush was the worst president ever, and partly because there were too many designer homeless people, I was ready to get back to birding.


I stopped at the Cliff House and Ocean Beach to see if I could pick up any other ocean-dwellers. I did see some unidentifyable scoters fly by in their V formation, and the cormorants on Seal Rock were also to go unidentified.


I took the bus home and left Kelly her car. The bus driver was very mean to me. I guess I'm the first person to ride his bus that was not from here. I did not know I was supposed to wave down the bus while I was at the bus stop, and exactly how to use the odd card swiping system.