Birding over Tea

I had my afternoon tea at Steve and Betsy's on Thursday November 8th following their report of a male Williamson's Sapsucker appearing in their yard most afternoons. The bird was there when I arrived and stayed for at least 15 minutes giving excellent close views.

Three days later in my own yard a Sharpie caught end devoured a Eurasian Collared Dove at teatime. 

Sharp-shinned Hawk

River Trip

On Saturday November 3rd we took a half day river trip from Glen Canyon Dam to Lee's Ferry. Highlights included a Peregrine, Long-tailed Duck and Barrow's Goldeneye just below the dam, Horned Grebe and Golden Eagle a little further along the river and two California Condors closer to Lee's Ferry.

Lesser Earless Lizard

AZFO Meeting

I had eagerly signed up for the AZFO meeting in Lake Havasu when I heard that there was a Friday afternoon boat trip on the lake before a day of presentations on Saturday and a choice of trips on Sunday morning. But the lack of many interesting sightings before the event couple with falling behind with things at work, I decided I would go for the 'pelagic' and return on Saturday. But on reaching a windy Lake Havasu City, I was not surprised to hear the boat company had canceled. I went to Rotary Park with a group, but with high winds and few birds I headed home. Six hours of driving for 90 minutes of bad birding - an experience worse than chasing and dipping on a rarity! A good day's working would have been better. We did find an immature California Gull with a deformed bill.

California Gull

Washington DC

I had a two day trip to Washington DC in which there was little opportunity to bird. I decided to simply walk around the park close to my hotel with 3 possible targets. I did well finding Carolina Wren and Tufted Titmouse but could not find Carolina Chickadee.

Tufted Titmouse

Chicago

A short trip to Chicago allowed for a long morning's birding on the Saturday and some casual birding on the iit campus. Campus brought me a surprise bird on Friday October 12th when a Winter Wren hopped around our feet as we headed for a late lunch.

Saturday was the planned birding day and Pat picked me up from my hotel to join the Wooded Island field trip as I had done a year ago. I picked up several expected species such as Yellow-bellied Sapsucker, Downy Woodpecker, Golden-crowned Kinglet, Palm Warbler and White-throated Sparrow but I saw some that I did not expect such as Gray Catbird, Eastern Towhee and especially Red-bellied Woodpecker, while a flock of Pine Siskins was more interesting to the others than to me! Dark skies and some drops of rain brought Chimney Swifts down to eye-level.

Hermit Thrush

White-throated Sparrow

Following this trip, we were joined by top birder Randy and we headed out to McGinnis Slough where we saw many ducks, including Black Duck, and a new ABA for me in Mute Swan. I had seen them before in Ottawa but these were 'gifts from the Queen' and not allowed to count. We also had an American Toad on our walk back to the car and a  Blue Jay from the parking lot as we were about to leave.

American Toad

A trip to see the excellent Extreme Mammals exhibit at the Field Museum on Sunday ended with a surprise Blackpoll Warbler feeding on berries on the ground close to Buckingham Fountain. On Monday and I heard and then saw two Monk Parakeets on the iit campus. These were officially lifers for me although I had seen the colony of these birds in Casa Grande, AZ in 2009. Those birds were also uncountable.

Blackpoll Warbler

Half Moon Bay Pelagic

Although I finally met Debi Shearwater, the weekend's second pelagic was not as good as the first. This was a 10 hour trip but following a sighting of Marbled Murrelets as we left the harbour, began with a straight 2 hours into the Pacific in which we saw very little. The real highlight was getting great views of all four skuas - South Polar Skua and Pomarine, Parasitic and Long-tailed Jaegers. We saw a couple of Northern Fulmar, had a couple of brief sightings of storm petrels and came across an area with many phalaropes on the water. We did not see any cetaceans but Northern Fur Seal was a new mammal for the weekend.

Black-footed Albatross

Rancho San Antonio and Half Moon Bay

On Sunday September 30th, Ducky took me to the Rancho San Antonio park, just off the San Jose to San Francisco freeway, for a morning's walk. This proved to eb the perfect spot and I caught up with many of the common California birds that I had missed at Garland Ranch the previous day.

After lunch I drove to Half Moon Bay, inching along bumper-to-bumper as many Bay ares residents took advantage of 80 degree weather. Once there I did get to find many wadres (shorebirds) on the mudflats including a bunch of Sanderling.

Red-shouldered Hawk

Sanderling

Carmel

On the Monterey Bay pelagic I had told someone that I wanted to spend Saturday September 29th looking for common California Birds, and I had received a recommendation of Garland Ranch regional park down Carmel Valley. Dense fog kept me in my hotel later than planned but I headed out to the park for the morning. I hiked 5 miles around the park but found nothing new for my year's list - Stellar's Jays, Western Scrub Jays and American Robins were commonplace but I found none of the birds I was seeking. Getting back to my car, I had a Red-shouldered hawk fly over!

Song Sparrow

I did much better at my next stop, a walk around the headland at Carmel to Carmel River Beach. Here I found 17 Snowy Plover, far more in one place than I had ever seen before.

Snowy Plover

Western Gull

Returning around Carmel Point to my car a young girl brought my attention to some California Quail coming out of the scrub and crossing the road into people's yards, and soon after I found a Whimbrel on the rocks near some roosting Black Turnstones and Willets.

California Quail

Black Turnstone

Whimbrel

Monterey Bay Pelagic

I was at the Monterey Wharf at 7 a.m. on Friday September 28th for my first real pelagic birding trip (Lake Havasy doesn't really count). I was a little apprehensive about being on a boat for 8 hours and had taken my Dramamine pill as suggested on the Shearwater Journeys website. However there was no need to be; the bay waters remained calm all day and, with 9 lifers I had my best birding day since Khao Yai National Park 18 months earlier. This must have been the most ABA lifers I had seen in one day for about 20 years!

The most remarkable thing was that things were going on continuously for the whole trip, starting with Surfbirds and Black Turnstones on the breakwaters as we left the harbor, the Common Murres that we had immediately and the Sooty and Black-vented Shearwaters we had soon thereafter.

Common Murre

Sooty Shearwater

The Black-footed Albatross and Buller's Shearwaters were the loveliest of the birds we saw. Pink-footed and Flesh-footed Sheartwaters, Cassin's and Rhinoceros Auklets; South Polar Skua and Pomarine Jaeger made up the rest of my lifers. We spent some time watching Humpback Whales and found both Pacific White-sided and Risso's dolphins. However the cetacean highlight were a pod of Dall Porpoises (aka Mini Orcas) that swam in the bow wave just metres from where I was sitting.
Remarkably we ran into some passerines some 20 miles out to sea, a Red-winged Blackbird, 3 Lesser Goldfinch and a Red-breasted Nuthatch who worked its way down an antennae before eventually resting on someone's head! Removed with the hat, this bird was released once we returned to shore.

Back on land at 3pm I ventured out after tea in search of some California land birds, but Frog Pond (close to my hotel in Seaside) did not deliver the good birds I had seen posted on eBird - just one California Towhee! 

Moss Landing

I arrived at San Jose airport in the late morning of Thursday September 27th and drove my rental car down Highway 101 to the coast at Moss Landing. My only stop en route was at a dairy farm a mile or so inland where I knew Tricolored Blackbirds would be easy to find in with the Red-winged Blackbirds. They did not disappoint.

I parked at the beach  where I immediately had Marbled Godwit and Willet along the water's edge. It did not take long to find Black-bellied Plover - the Grey Plover I had seen on Mersea Island, Essex, UK in late July - and Heerman's Gulls.

Marbled Godwit

Willet

Black-bellied Plover

Heerman's Gull

Harbor Seals

California Sea Lions

I spent a little more time in the area, first crossing the main road to visit a marsh and then driving to the beach. Besides a Long-billed Curlew, the highlight of the mash was seeing a small dog harassing a sea lion.

Long-billed Curlew

American White Pelicans

Turkey Vulture

Having had a surprisingly good stop at Moss Landing, I then headed to my hotel in Seaside and, after tea, drove to Monterey Wharf to make sure I know where I had to go to catch my boat in the morning. I found a bunch of Elegant Terns on the beach, buoys and boats as I arrived at the wharf.

Elegant Tern

Glendale Recharge Ponds

On Sunday September 16th I drove down to the Glendale Recharge Ponds following some postings on Saturday. I was rewarded with my lifer Stilt Sandpiper, two new state birds - Roseate Spoonbill and Snowy Plover - and a good variety of other birds. One change form the visit two weeks earlier was an increase in the number of (eclipse plumaged) ducks.

Roseate Spoonbill