Change of Pullets Plan

So... my poor girlies have been in Monterey at their Auntie Barbara's house since mid August. All alone, they have to be separated from Barbara's flock whose hobby it is to beat the $%*# out of my girls, Babette & Adele. Oh well, I guess even chickens are entitled to hobbies, right?

My poor girls think they they are serving '20 to life' in Sing-sing

Anyway, mid August Barbara and I got new chicks, of which I was going to take 2 'Easter Eggers', which Barbara was raising for me. Easter Eggers lay either blue or green eggs and I do like a lovely palette with my morning egg.












You might remember that Ms. Pink, Barbara's buff (in all senses) hen, the dozen new chicks, and my 2 girls were all in a pen together. Ms. Pink's hobby was beating the daylights out of Babette & Adele.




So, Ms. Pink had to be kept out of the pen where my girls were boarded, and of course, Ms. Pink took her foster chicks with her. End results: Ms. Pink and her chicks ran free range and that means Ms. Pink's babies grew to be tough, buff and pugilistic pullets.

In other words, both Barbara and I feared - quite literally - for the lives of my 2 Faverolle hens if they had to live together with the 2 young Easter Egger pullets at my home. Ever heard of pecked to death by ducks? Well, pecked to death by chickens is a real deal.




Well, HAPPY DAY! Barbara got an idea. She found a local chicken person who is raising a type of chicken I have had my eye on breed wise, the breed being Black Copper Marans. Now, Marans lay deep chocolate brown eggs, as such...



Cool, heh? So, long story short - and you know I could make this post, a zillion pages longer if I felt like it , so count your lucky stars - below you can see my new little Black Copper Maran girlies, Barbara picked up this afternoon for me. They're now penned up with Babette and Adele, and as they are smaller than my Faverolle hens, the idea is they'll all get used to each other, thus avoiding a chicken blood bath of Friday the 13th intensity.

Now I'm even more excited about bringing my girlies home. And what am I going to name my new Black Copper Maran pullets? Penny and Onyx? Oh well. No worries. Probably won't be able to tell them apart anyway.


So, where's the wall-to-wall
carpeting we were promised?

The Big Year

So, bright and early today I raced off to the early bird showing of The Big Year. I'm mentioning it here because anyone who wonders whattheeff is up with birders, this flick offers just the tinest glimpse of what makes birders tick. I enjoyed the heck out of it, and even found myself a little weepy at some of the sites - I was all sort of 'awww... yeah, Attu was awesome' and 'yeah, the Brownsville landfill sure reeked', and '$#%@!, I have got to get to High Island '.

Anybirder will love the movie just for the joy of bitchn' over movie errors. For example, on Attu a blizzard is a good thing; and I mean freakn' spectacular good. There was a blizzard when I was there that blew wonderful vagrant birds to the island (yes!) AND it bought me several extra days on the island because Reeves airline couldn't fly in to get us. GO BLIZZARDS! Awesome. I'm tellin' you. Freakn' feathered awesomeness.

So, go see the movie. And remember, you don't have to sink a b'jillion dollars into seeing all the North American species in one year. You can see them all over your lifetime, like I'm doing. Just look out your window at some birdie passing by and think about it... it can FLY for free, and chances are, you can't.

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Honestly... I can't believe they got Martin, Black & Owen to do this movie, AND not a fart joke to be heard.

Icy cold, wet, salty and still a FANTASTIC Pelagic voyage day

Whimbrel on the rocks
I love pelagic birding. Nothing like that fresh air, salt scented breeze and a shite load of gulls squealing at the back of a boat. In August I had 3 pelagics Hatteras North Carolina canceled because of Hurricane Irene. So tagging along with my birder buddy Don for some pelagic birding off Half Moon Bay will be my soul pelagic adventure for 2011. Pathetic, neh?

That's trip organizer/leader/birdie_guru Alvero 2nd from left

Birder Bud Don who tossed out popcorn to gulls like a trooper
The short shut out of Half Moon Bay was heartening - loads of cormorants, shore bird types and pretty good photo opts. I got numerous shots of Black Oystercatchers.

Black Oystercatcher calling on the wing
Little Black Turnstones sat on the jetty and on top of the jetty were all three species of cormorants; Double-crested, Brants and Pelagic. My favorite jetty bird was a nice Surfbird and I was tickled to get a fairly nice photo of it.

Surfbird - yes, the bird is smiling!
Once the boat made it past the harbor opening, we spotted the 'little ones' that always amaze me. They're often barely up to a robin in size, yet there they are, out on the frigid ocean, their little bills not even chattering with the cold. How do they do it?

Common Murre, late afternoon, on cold, choppy waters
One of the crew said he's heard people who see Common Murres from the shore, think the little birds are penguins. Well, at least the little birds are in the right color palette; black & white.

North American Penguin or another Common Murre?
The nice sharpish photo above makes it seem the photos are as easy as point and shoot. Nope. Try standing on a teeter totter while trying to photograph a ping pong ball balanced on another teeter totter, that someone keeps throwing a blanket over; that's what ocean photography is like. I'm lucky all my photos aren't as shaky as this little Rhinoceros Auklet below.

Rhinoceros Auklet
I must have taken 30 shots of the preceding, adorable Auklet and that was the best shot I managed.

I took maybe 50 shots of this Tufted Puffin, and most of them were shots of empty waves, which kept churning up and blocking my view of the little bright billed mite.

Tufted Puffin
After a couple of hours, we made it out to where the deep sea bird life hang out. Suddenly there were Black-footed Albatross and several species of Shearwaters. Shearwaters are like fast cruising fighter jets, shooting just above the waves. Get it? They shear the waters. They beat Nascar any day of the week.

Flock of Buller's Shearwaters and a
Pink-footed Shearwater on the far right
Arguably the prettiest Shearwater is the Buller's. By the way, their mantles (back of the wings) are designed by the same people who design the Nascar race cars. Snazzy birds.

Buller's Shearwater
Marin County Weather Bouy was
accompanied by a herd of California Sea Lions
Some birds you see on almost all pelagic trips, but that doesn't mean you don't love seeing them again. The Northern Fulmars are one of my favorites. I think I enjoy them because they have really fancy noses that drip salt instead of snot, and I guess I appreciate that. Can you drink salt water instead of fresh, and dribble salt from your nostrils? Don't you admire a bird that can do that? Sure you do!

Northern Fulmar
Northern Fulmar
Pink-footed Shearwater
Pink-footed Shearwater on take off
There were nice views of 2 of the 3 local species of the Jaeger species; Pomerine and Parasitic Jaegers. The name Jaeger means 'hunter' and these birds are playground bullies, as they still rip off the lunch money (caught fish) from other pelagic birds. Yes, I know that's not cool, but at least they don't torment the other birdies to suicide so they're still better than real school yard bullies. Today we didn't see any Jaegers tormenting other birds. I think the weather was doing such a good job of that, the Jaegers didn't have to.

Parasitic Jaeger
Pomerine Jaeger
And while I'm on the topic of bullies, there is another bully that came to the boat and did its thing; the South Polar Skua. They're the gulls on steroids you see picking up and eating baby penguins on National Geographic specials. They're hard core but I really like them anyway, after all, I'm not a penguin.

South Polar Skua
I'd high hopes we'd see lots of whales on this trip, but I knew the chances were slim. Whales are usually plentiful when there is cold waters, which is like saying 'when the dinner plate is full'. Unfortunately, the dinner plate was kind of skimpy (waters were warm) so I was lucky to get a quick glimpse of 3 passing Pacific White-sided Dolphins and one long lovely look at the back of a Humpback. That was it! Early in the day a few Harbor Porpoise were seen but I didn't see them.

The ride back to Half Moon pier was so rough, it rained salt water. I was so cold my teeth chattered and my core temperature must have been 3 degrees. Happily, post trip, Don cooked up some nice New England Clam Chowder from scratch. Yum, nothing like hot food to warm the cockles or whatever else you have in your heart region.

Next morning Don gave me directions to Sunnyvale Baylands Park, where I checked out half the park for the mini warbler fall out that happened a day or two ago. No luck, the only warblers I found were an Orange-crowned and some Yellow-rumped (AKA butter-butts). I did manage to get a fairly nice pic of a Bewick's Wren. So it was a fun weeekend, even if wet and cold. Honestly, any cold, wet salty birdy weekend, beats a warm, sunny birdless weekend.

Bewick's Wren showing of its good side

Orange-crowned Warbler staring at me