CAL-GAL #2

More fine work from the lens of Barbara Bens on our PIB trip along the California Coast earlier this month:
Brown Pelicans at ease around the ocean.


Pair of Condors high over the ridge at the top of Pfeiffer-Burns State Park, Big Sur.

Elephant seals scuffling at Piedras Blancas.

Not all elephant seals are warlike all the time:

Great Horned Owl in flight at Drake’s Beach, Pt. Reyes

Heermann’s Gull thinking deeply. Could be anywhere in coastal California this time of year.

California Quail at Pt. Reyes National Seashore visitors center.

Rockpipers: Surfbird on left, Black Turnstone on right. Asilomar State Beach.

Red-shouldered Hawk in fog east of Morro Bay.

Western Scrub-Jay:

Warerfall at Pfeiifer-Burns:

White-crowned Sparrow in flight:

Flying Willet

CALIFORNIA BIRDING

I just got back from leading a six-day birding trip across Central California. We hit San Francisco, Pt. Reyes, Livermore, Sierra Foothills, Monterey and Big Sur. We had 149 species before six of our birders took the extension pelagic trip with Debbie Shearwater out of Monterey Harbor.
Biggest bird, of course, was a pair of California Condors about sixty feet overhead. They turned out to be father and son. Each free-flying condor carries a wing number.


Some other highlights included such California specialties as Oak Titmouse, Nuttall’s Woodpecker, the endemic Yellow-billed Magpie, California Thrasher on Mines Road south of Livermore, Townsend’s Warbler (a wintering species), Tricolored Blackbird on Pt. Reyes Peninsula and California Towhee.
Uncommon migrants included 2 Harlequins at Pt. Reyes, a Pectoral Sandpiper at Asilomar State Beach in Pacific Grove and a Chestnut-sided Warbler at Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park.
Birds that are generally not found east of the Sierra Nevada included: White-headed Woodpecker, Hermit Warbler, Sooty Shearwater, Black Turnstone, Surfbird, Black Oystercatcher, Heermann’s Gull.
Other birds of limited range included Elegant Tern, Marbled Godwit and Snowy Plover.
We saw hundreds of Red-necked Phalarope:

Altogether we had two dozen shorebird species on this trip.

WINTER BIRDS OF THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST

UPDATE: SIGN-UPS FOR THIS TRIP CLOSE ON NOVEMBER 15, 2011.  This coming January PIB and Minneapolis Audubon are teaming up on a trip to the Pacific Northwest.  For Minnesotans the weather will seem mild despite the rain.  The wintering birds will agree.  Most have come down  from the Arctic to enjoy the temperate weather of coastal Oregon and Washington State.  The trip will begin and end in Portland.  For a complete itinerary, dates and list of target birds click here.

Here are soe pictures taken by birder Bob Shade on one previous trip:

Male Barrow’s Goldeneye on Hood Canal.

Black Turnstone on the rocks at Seaside, Oregon.

Pair of Harlequin Ducks just off the ferry dock at Keystone Harbor on Whidbey Island, WA.  This photo by tour leader, Harry Fuller.

A Pacific Wren in brush at Fort Lewis, OR, near the mouth of the Columbia River.  And a Surfbird with its gray back on the same stretch of beach as the turnstones.

A bunch of Brant watching a bunch of birders near Hama Hama, WA.

Other birds we see on this trip include: Red-throated and Pacific Loons, Black Oystercatcher, Long-tailed Duck, Pigeon Guillemot and Rhino Auklet, Glaucous-winged and Western Gulls, Chestnut-backed Chickadee, Anna’s Hummingbird.  We will also visit Ft. Clatsop where Lewis & Clark spent the winter 1804-5 and a Native American cultural center for the S’Kallam Tribe.

Here’s a link to blogs done during last year’s trip.

CALIFORNIA DREAMIN’

If you’ve been birding east of Sierra most of your life, you’re missing something.  Definitely you’re missing a list of birds that are awaiting your visit to the Pacific Slope.  The Pacific-slope Flycatcher would be one.

Here is one of the Pacific-slope Flycatchers I watched carrying insects to a nest in July.  And there’s the nest on the ledge of a park service building at Pt. Reyes National Seashore.  The large object next to it is my wallet for a size comparison.

Note this bird’s broken eye-ring, short wing extension, moderately heavy beak.  Also a bit of a crest showing.

To see this bird, let PIB plan your spring visit.  At that time of year you’ll also see Allen’s Hummingbird, Chestnut-backed Chickadee, Brandt’s Cormorant, Hooded Oriole, Hermit Warbler, California Thrasher.  With some luck, we may find Lawrence’s Goldfinch.

If autumn is a better time for you to travel, try this:  Wandering Tattler, Surfbird and Black Turnstone sharing the same seaside boulders.  Hundreds of Red-throated and Pacific Loons on migration.  All three scoters.  Check out the southbound raptors with Golden Gate Raptor Observatory on Hawk Hill with a stunning view of San Francisco and the Golden Gate Bridge.  Heermann’s Gull and Elegant Tern.

Here’s a Heermann’s landing on the beach.

Here’s a Surfbird on his beloved coastal rock.

This is a seaside scene you can find any time of year:  Western Gull loafing, Pelagic Cormorant clearing debris from its water-soaked plumage before the next dive.  Other year round birds in Northern California include White-tailed Kite, western Red-shouldered Hawk, Hutton’s Vireo, Anna’s Hummingbird, California Towhee, Nuttall’s Woodpecker, Oak Titmouse and Wrentit:

The Wrentit, on the berry branch here, is the only American species in the large, Old World family of babblers.  They’re all brownish, secretive, forest birds.  Only Wrentit made it across the Siberian land bridge to Oregon and California. It is one of the most sedentary birds in North America.  It will NOT show up at a feeder in Colorado or Minnesota.

And there’s this guy, a California endemic.  Not many states in the U.S. even have an endemic species, right?  This Yellow-billed Magpie is 50% of the endemic species of California.  The other is also a Corvid, the Island Scrub-jay.  An extension to our regular California birding trip can get you BOTH of these endemics.

SO JOIN THE PIB CALIFORNIA BIRDING TRIP IN 2012. 

The tour leader is Harry Fuller who has over two decades of California field trip experience.  In less than 5o0 square miles of San Francisco’s urban habitat he has well over 300 lifetime species.

SEABIRDS IN THE RAIN FOREST

The continental United States has only one rain forest.  It stretches along the spectacular Oregon and Washington State coastline.  The evergreens reach two hundred feet into the skies, often disappearing in the low-lying clouds.  The Pacific and Puget Sound shoulder up to a rocky coastline with scattered bits of sandy beach.  The cold, wave-churned waters are rich in critters from plankton to Orcas.  And here the seabirds pull out onto huge floating logs carried down from the forest just uphill from the water’s edge.

Last year PIB had two winter birding trips to the Northwest Coast for those wintering birds down from the Arctic.  Here are a few of the photos taken by birders on those trips.  Take a look, because we are once again offering this great photo safari into the great American Northwest:

TOP TO BOTTOM:

Northern Shrike at Nisqually NWR, Washington.  Photo by Ms Jennifer Hyypio.

Harlequins off the shore of Whidbey Island.  Photo by Steve  Murray.

Pelagic Cormorant and Glaucous-winged Gull pole sitting.  Photo by Ms J. Hyypio.

Gang of Bald Eagles patrolling the edge of a marsh at Nisqually.  Photo by Ms Hyypio.

Red-throated Loon in Hood Canal.  By Mr. Murray.

Rhino Auklet over Puget Sound.  By Steve Murray.

Surfbird along Oregon Coast.  You’ll wait a long time before this species shows up in Colorado.  Photo by Steve Murray.

HERE’S LINK TO OUR 2011 NORTHWEST TRIP SCHEDULE.

Still More of Murray’s Marvey Images

Black-bellied Plover on lawn, Whidbey Island.

All thee Pacific coastal cormorants on the dock next to Keystone Ferry Terminal, Whidbey Island.  The lone Brandt’s Cormorant is third from the right.  That species has become hard to find in lower 48 because of El Nino and the lack of upwelling and thus fish along the coast.  On a recent visit to San Francisco I saw ZERO Brandt’s though they traditionally cover the sides of Seal Rocks.

Three Harlequins, male on the right.  Off the beach at Whidbey Island, WA.

This bird needs no introduction, no caption.

Glaucous-winged Gull feeding at Sequim.

Surfbird on the rocks, Seaside, Oregon.

Seabirds From Boatside

How many Pigeon Guillemots can you see before you stop seeing them?  Our count this final day in the field was in the hundreds and our group noticed them every time.  Birders from land-locked Colorado were expertly spotting the PIGUs at half a mile before the day was out.  Adult on the left.

This pair is likely a male with his young, the pale bird on the right.

Adult Pigeon Guillemots.  They were the most plentiful of the alcids but we saw numerous Rhino Auklets and Marbled Murrelets, plus one each of Cassin’s Auklet and Common Murre.  Most were too far away for even attempting photos.

GOOD GREBE AND SHEER LOONACY

This loon with the flat top is a Common, motoring away from us.

Much less skeptical of our presence were the Red-throated Loons that seemed to know we couldn’t approach them in deep water.

Horned Grebe, which was one of the two most abundant off the Olympic Peninsula.  The Red-necked Grebe was also plentiful but stayed away from land and boat alike.  Many of these pictures were taken from the Port Townsend ferry dock or on Whidbey Island to the north.

ONE GOOD TURNSTONE DESERVES ANOTHER, AND ANOTHER, AND…

A turnstone tornado on the structure of the Port Townsend ferry dock.  Those would be Black Turnstones.

That gray one with the yellow legs: one of the two Surfbirds I saw among the darker and slightly smaller turnstones.

Northwest Birding Gallery, February, 2010

One of the numerous Bald Eagles on Sauvie Island, west of Portland, Oregon.  The large number of wintering waterfowl attract the predatory eagles each year.  The competition is easily viewed as mature eagles like this one frequently swoop in and displace a younger eagle from its perch with a clear view of the lakes and marshes.  Geese and ducks are spooked into swirling flocks aflight whenever an eagle soars over their location.  Harriers can also raise a cloud of birds. The potential prey does not act the same way when a Red-tailed Hawk is seen.

Below:   Peregrine overlooking marsh on the  west end of Sauvie Island.

Top to bottom:  Looking east across the flats of Sauvie Island.

Dawn at Astoria near the mouth of the Columbia River.

Eagle pair overlooking Columbia from perch in Warrenton, Oregon.  After they left this lone young eagle took the same perch, well known, apparently, among local eagles.

Two Surfbirds on the boulder beach at Seaside, Oregon.  As usual, they were mixed in with a flock of Black Turnstones.  Offshore were White-winged Scoters.  On the right: single Surfbird and starfish on rocks.

Alcids all around

Two adult Pigeon Guillemot on the left.  Adult with immature on the right.  The medium-sized alcids were abundant today in Admiralty Sound off Port Townsend.  We also found a Common Murre, one lone Cassin’s Auklet, scads of Marbled Murrelets in pairs, some young Rhino Auklets and then a dense float of adults.  The latter were about a mile offshore from Point Wilson, Fort Worden State Park.

Altogether our group had over 75 species on the day, our most productive of the five-day PIB Northwest birding trip.  We had over 115 species for the trip and everybody picked up lifers.  And photos of many of our birds will be forthcoming on this blog.  Here are a couple more:

A Turnstone Tornado.  Over 120 Black Turnstones on the wooden pier structure of the ferry terminal at Port Townsend.  They were accompanied by shrill whistles and a couple Surfbirds.  That’s the Surfbird with yellow legs in the final picture.

We also had a trio of Trumpeters in a pasture on Whidbey Island, giving us a total of 30 waterfowl on the trip.  We chose to spend our time chasing a Yellow-billed Loon off Point Wilson rather than pick up the 31st, Ruddy Ducks in a pond in Port Townsend.  We didn’t get the loon but did see the float of adult Rhino Auklets, some already in breeding plumage.