Olive-sided Flycatcher (Dane County year bird #231), photobombed by a proud Ruby-throated Hummingbird.
Pheasant Branch, WI
#259
One had been reported at Los Alamos County Park, which was sort of on the way for my trip home, so I stopped in to see if I could find it. It was very windy, which had the birds under cover and made it hard to hear vocalizations, but it still was fun (fact: birding is always fun).
I’d given up and was walking back to my car when I saw a bird fly to the top of a tall radio antenna on the hill west of the park. It was pretty far away, but in the binocs I could see the short tail, big head, and white belly contrasting with the dark sides. Yay! The universe rewarding me again!
June 21, 2016 – Bell’s Sparrow (Artemisiospiza belli)
Found in sagebrush, chaparral, and other scrubby, open habitats of California and western Arizona, these birds and the Sagebrush Sparrow were previously considered the same species. First known as Bell’s Sparrows, then split into two species, they were lumped again as the Sage Sparrow in the 1950s, before being split once again. They eat seeds, insects, spiders, small fruits, and vegetation in the breeding season and mostly grass and other plant seeds in the non-breeding season, foraging mostly on the ground. Females build open cup nests in or under shrubs, from twigs and grasses, lining them with fine grasses, thin bark, feathers, wool, and hair.
#258
I’d seen their previous conspecific Sagebrush Sparrow on our Mammoth trip, so I knew what to look for. These shy LBJs are hard, though.
Prairie falcons in flight in Arizona. Top photo is a wild bird (we think juvenile, but not positive) and bottom photo is a young bird being trained for falconry. She was trapped a few weeks earlier and this was her first free flight training session.
There were tons of prairie falcons in Arizona during my trip. On the first day we were there, Kai refused to hunt with us because a wild prairie was hunting nearby (we didn’t know this until afterwards). A forest-adapted goshawk out in the open desert is no match for a prairie falcon in their natural habitat, so he took off towards the cover of neighborhoods and led us on a tail chase for 10 minutes. It took a lot of convincing to get him to come down. It was scary, but also so fascinating seeing how different species interact with each other.
#256
This was the bird I was most hoping for when I made the last-minute decision to head to Cuyama yesterday. Since it was a solo trip I couldn’t spare too much attention from driving, but what I could was dedicated to scanning telephone poles and prominent rock piles and anything biggish and flying for the slim figure of a big falcon.
Until mid-morning today it was mostly Common Ravens (Edgar would have liked them), some Red-tails, and a few Swainson’s Hawks. And then, as I was driving along Foothill Road toward the dairy where I planned to look through blackbirds in hopes of a Yellow-headed, I saw it: Trim and fast, pointed wings but clearly way bigger than the kestrel I’d seen earlier. I braked and got the car to the side of the road, jumped out and raised my binoculars, but even without them I knew it was good; the sandy color and black axillaries looked just like the Prairie Falcon I’d seen near Bridgeport on our Mammoth trip last month.
The bird was chasing a raven that had something in its beak. After a few seconds the raven dropped whatever it was and the Prairie Falcon grabbed it in its talons and flew off screeching. I don’t know if the falcon was robbing the raven or just stealing back something the raven had stolen first.
That’s bird-watching: Hours of driving and camping over two days for twenty seconds of awesomeness. Totally worth it. 🙂
These small nightjars are found in dry grassy or shrubby areas of western North America. Foraging mostly at dawn, dusk, or on moonlit nights, they catch insects in the air, making short flights from the ground or a low perch. During cold weather, when the insects they feed on aren’t active, they can enter a state of torpor, dropping their body temperature and slowing their metabolism. Females lay their eggs directly on bare ground, gravel, pine needles, or dead leaves without building a structure. Both parents feed the chicks with regurgitated insects and can move either the eggs or chicks to a new nest site if they are disturbed. The down-covered chicks can move around by hopping or somersaulting.
#255
Nightjars are improbably cool. I’d never heard this one until an hour ago. It sounded adorable. 🙂
western screech owl, M. kennicottii, held among pear tree blossoms.
#254
My trip to Cuyama was mostly to spend the night at Aliso Park Campgorund (where I am now; yay cell coverage) because I need a couple of nocturnal birds that have been reported from here recently. First up was this little charmer. (Actually, first up were Great Horned and Barn Owls. But I had them already.)
I love these guys. A few early migrants had been seen here and there on the south coast, but I hadn’t had any luck so far. Then some birders reported seeing a lot of them at Barka Slough near Lompoc, and today I had a chance to stop by there on my way to an overnight birding trip in Cuyama.
It was quite windy when I pulled up at Barka Slough, but I figured I’d give it a try. I’d taken only a few steps down the road when I heard a metallic call and there he was, in the tall grass 15 feet in front of me.😀
I’m glad it isn’t always this easy. But it sure was nice this time.
I went to the Carpinteria Bluffs this morning and had a grand time, topped off by my first-this-year (and second ever) Palm Warbler. I saw one at the Greenwell Preserve last fall when I was scouting for the upcoming Christmas Count, but this one today was in its breeding plumage and much spiffier looking, with crisp streaking below, a yellow throat, and a rufous crown.
Peter Gaede saw a Palm Warbler in pretty much this same spot on January 5 for our Christmas Count, which led Eric Culbertson to wonder if the bird I saw today is the same bird, having overwintered there, or a different bird, having wandered in as a spring vagrant. Who knows? (Well, the warbler in question presumably knows.)
There are two hummingbird species that are common around Santa Barbara year-round: Anna’s and Allen’s. Each spring we get four more: Rufous, Black-chinned, Costa’s, and Calliope. I picked up the Rufous, Black-chinned, and Costa’s pretty quickly once migration started, but I couldn’t find a Calliope.
Today at lunchtime my birding friend Eric phoned me up. I get excited when I see his name on my phone because he doesn’t bother to call unless he’s got something good. “I’m looking at a Calliope Hummingbird on Santa Monica Creek.”
I grabbed my binoculars and was out the door, and five minutes later I was looking at the bird. Thanks, Eric!
It’s nice that for this round number I got such a spectacular bird. I’d never seen a Least Bittern before (never seen an American Bittern before; hitherto I’ve been completely bitternless).
A few days ago Will Knowlton found a Least Bittern skulking in the reeds at Lake Los Carneros, and since then a number of people have spent time looking for it, the lucky folk catching occasional glimpses of the super-shy, super-tiny heron. I’d tried a couple of times, but had struck out so far. Then, as I was watching this morning, I got a quick glimpse of the bird; it was hidden back in the reeds but I could make it out with the spotting scope. I wanted to share the view with the two birders standing next to me, but had to lower the telescope for them, and while I was doing that the bird disappeared into the reeds.
I felt good that I’d seen it, but it wasn’t the most satisfying view, and I felt bad about being unable to share it. So we kept looking, and a half hour or so later (after some other birders had also arrived), I was looking at some swallows that were flying by the reeds when suddenly I saw the bittern in my field of view, flying. I abandoned the swallow I was looking at and shouted excitedly to the other birders, and several of us were able to watch it as it flew for a few seconds before landing in the reeds and disappearing again.
Seal Rock State Park, OR June 11, 2015 Robert Niese
This Tattler was certainly wandering! It’s breeding season for most shorebirds this time of year, but this lone Wandering Tattler is hundreds of miles away from its typical breeding grounds in NE Russia, Alaska, and NW Canada. What’cha doing here, buddy?
#249
Reading the blog from Glenn Kincaid’s 2015 Santa Barbara County “Green Big Year” was a big part of what got me excited about keeping a county year list this year. Mine isn’t remotely green (I feel fairly conflicted about all the fossil fuel I’m burning), but reading Glenn’s account of the different species he was able to find and the places he found them made me want to do some of that. Glenn hadn’t been birding much in Santa Barbara County this year (he was traveling, I believe), but he’s back and entering eBird lists, and yesterday he reported two Wandering Tattlers from the Santa Barbara Harbor breakwater.
I headed out there this morning and walked to the sandspit at the end of the breakwater. There were lots of cool birds; loons and Black-crowned Night Herons and a huge flock of Elegant Terns. But no Wandering Tattlers. I was philosophical about it. They’d probably continued their wandering. No big deal. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I turned around to walk back off the sandspit, and… there they were. Three of them. I know I say they’re all cool birds, but these ones were really cool. Nothing like an unambiguous shorebird, right there in front of you.
Common Ground-Dove Bellflower, CA July 10, 2013 Taken with a Canon PowerShot SX50 HS
#247
Uncommon and declining in Santa Barbara County. 😞
I know them from when I was a kid birdwatching in Florida, and have seen them a couple of times in Carp, but not recently.
So I set the alarm and headed up this morning to Farren Road on the other side of Santa Barbara, where a few have been seen lately in an avocado orchard. I didn’t see any, but heard two of them clearly enough to count.
This afternoon I headed to Goleta Beach County Park, where some early Elegant Terns had been hanging out with Royals and Caspians. It was just what I needed to further my tern education: all three species hanging out together where I could study them in the spotting scope.
I’m definitely getting more comfortable with all three. 🙂
There are some decent-sized holes in my birding knowledge. As I was discussing in connection with terns yesterday, there are certain groups I’ve tended to avoid in the past as requiring too much work.
“Little olive jobs flitting in tree canopies” is one of them. Until recently I haven’t really put in the effort. As a result, until this morning I’d never (knowingly) seen a Cassin’s Vireo.
But with the year-list obsession I have no excuse. People started reporting them around here few weeks ago in eBird, and I started keeping my eyes open. And this morning I was successful! I was looking at migrants in the willows at the Greenwell Preserve; the sun had just come up and the trees were full of singing. At one point I thought I heard what sounded like the Cassin’s Vireo recordings I’d been listening to, but it didn’t repeat, and I gave up looking for the singer and went back to all the awesome Orange-crowned and Nashville Warblers. And then there it was, plain as day! Spectacles, gray head, wing bars… I even got a glimpse of the yellow edging on the secondaries.
Making Waves A Wilson’s phalarope I found swimming in a flooded field, near the Bloody Dick Creek Road last spring. Nikon D7100, Manual Mode, Tamron 150-600mm VC, F/6.3, ISO-400, ET 1/800, Focal Length 600mm, Hand Held Vibration Control on
#244
One was reported yesterday at the Coal Oil Point “dune pond”, not far from Devereaux Slough, so after seeing the Caspian Terns I headed over to see if it was still there. It was!
I’d been seeing these for a few weeks, I’m pretty sure, but I hadn’t seen one well enough to be confident of the ID. Terns are one of those groups that I’ve tended to avoid in the past as “too hard”, which of course creates a self-fulfilling prophecy: not knowing the bird = avoiding the bird = not knowing the bird. I’m addressing it now, but I’ve needed an unambiguously close view to be sure of my identification.
Devereaux Slough is where they’d been reported most frequently lately, so this morning I got myself up before dawn and headed up there. There were a few tern fly-bys that seemed pretty good for Caspian, but not good enough for me to be sure. I’d resigned myself to going without them yet again when a group of four flew in and landed in the slough. They weren’t as close as I would have liked, but I got the spotting scope on them and cranked up the magnification and… yes! They had the dusky tip on the beak that was the feature I was looking for.
I present to you one of the worst photos ever of Caspian Tern:
May 25, 2016 – Lawrence’s Goldfinch (Spinus lawrencei)
These finches are found only in a small range from California through northwestern Mexico. Though migratory, they tend to move east and west instead of north and south. They eat mostly seeds, which they pick from plants while perching, along with some insects. Their cup-shaped nests are constructed from leaves, grass stems, and sometimes lichen. Females do all of the incubation, while males bring them food and both parents feed the chicks. Males’ songs sometimes mimic parts of the songs of other species.
#242
Seeing these felt really special. We saw a bunch of them when we scouted Jameson Lake for the Christmas Count last fall, before the Thomas Fire. Then, when we went in on the rescheduled count day (January 5), there weren’t any. They’re considered “fire followers”, and in a couple of years we’ll hopefully have a lot of them because of the new growth that will appear, but so far this year I hadn’t had any unambiguous sightings of them.
I’d had a few ambiguous hearings, though. On my hike last week up the Franklin Trail I thought I heard them a couple of times, but never saw one. I didn’t feel comfortable listing them based only one what I’d heard; I’ll do that for a bird with which I’m very familiar, but for this bird, and especially for my county year list, I wasn’t willing to list it.
In the past week I thought I heard them a couple more times; once at the Carpinteria Salt Marsh and then again at the Carpinteria Bluffs, but each time I wasn’t able to see the bird.
Guy (our Sedgwick tour leader) to the rescue yet again! He pointed out their calls several times as we did the tour, and toward the end we got great views of a pair of them feeding on a grassy hillside. Such a beautiful bird.
I know Chipping Sparrows are considered common, but for whatever reason I’ve never become very familiar with them. I think it’s a combination of having always lived places where they’re not especially easy to find, and having been a fairly casual birder when it comes to certain “hard” groups (like sparrows).
No more. One of the things being list-obsessed has given me is new motivation to get out there and find all the species I can. I knew Chipping Sparrows had been seen at Sedgwick recently, so I asked Guy, our trip leader, where they’d seen them. Unfortunately it was in a place we weren’t going to visit during the public tour, so I reconciled myself to not getting them for my list today.
Hah! The universe came through again! (And so did Guy, who actually found the bird in a tree near the end of the tour and pointed it out.)
The birding tour at Sedgwick Reserve was great. Clear, calm, and warm (a little too warm, maybe, by the end, but that’s okay), and lots of great birds. The first new one for my county year list was a completely unexpected one, a legitimate rarity, especially inland: my first-ever Solitary Sandpiper.
