Saturday Morning Birding

Swooping Redtail
Birder buddy Don was in town so we went on a nice morning birding trip in my neck o' the woods. I drove through the same area only a few days ago and the stars of that drive were Tundra Swans. I spotted a couple of their hiding places where they and some assorted other waterfowl, such as American Widgeons, Canvasback and such paddled about. It was fun getting to show off those spots to Don. This morning there was also a quite far off flock of White Pelicans - too far for any photos.

First Horned Lark of the Year
For today's stars it was all about the Raptors. Simultaneously we spotted two different raptors, of which mine was a buteo type hawk far off on a hillside. Don however spotted the first Prairie Falcon I've seen in eons! He got it in his spotting scope and I used my iPhone to digiscope it. I managed 4 quick shots before the falcon took off. Don's scope is a bit smudged, but the shot came out fairly good when I consider how far away the bird was, how small it was in the scope and what a pain it is to get the view in the iPhone. In the shot below the bird had its head turned to show off its profile. The whole shot is smudged but I'm still thrilled to have any shot of such as cool bird as a Prairie Falcon.

Prairie Falcon through my iPhone looking through Don's scope
Prettied up but still smoodgie
The second, but no less exciting bird of the day was also spotted out the car window by Don; a Ferruginous Hawk, that was hunting over the open pastures along Meiss Road. I had my binoculars on it as it swung by over head, then it occurred to me - try for a photo! By the time I got my camera up it was in the distance, but oh well - better than a sharp stick in the eye. This particular Ferruginous was very white on the entire underside. Unfortunately none of that can be seen in this photo.

This quarter-of-a-mile away shot doesn't do justice for
the white undercarriage of this Ferrugenous Hawk
The male Northern Harrier below had us pretty excited when we spotted it just off road in a pasture, eating something tasty. A female (brown) Northern Harrier flew over the male, but he just picked up his lunch and dragged it off. No sharing, get your own damn mouse!

Male Northern Harrier having his breakfast
Female Harrier flew overhead, "Oh yooo hooo!
You ain't workin' yer female whiles on me!
Git yer own danged mouse!
This young buck was hanging around Twin Cities Road a few miles from Rancho Seco. He was a pretty boy!

Who was a pretty boy? Who's pretty?
Aw shucks M'am... I ain't all that purdy!"
For the morning's birding we did pretty well. We both saw our first Lewis's Woodpeckers for the year - none of which were close enough to photograph, but the year is still young! All together we saw 44 species, that is, 44 varieties of winged marvels.

Valentines Day Birding

Suffered from a bit of premature Spring fever this morning so I headed east to Ice House Road, over in Placer County. No surprise the mountain top was composed of snow and I nearly had the place to myself - except for a nosey doe and her previous year's fawn.


'Wha... is that thing? A lumpy human?'

'Let's outta here. I know she's thinking venison steaks.'
So help me, other than a couple of flashes of grey feathering, the only bird I saw on the entire mountain was a Ruby-crowned Kinglet. I can see those through my living room window. So, I headed back home and stopped at a couple of American River Parks to see what was around.


Acorn Woodpeckers look, and sound like clowns

No need to go all huffy dear - you do look a bit clownish.

One of the endless supply of Yellow-rumped Warblers
After Rosmoor and El Ma-what'sit, I took a brief venture into Sailor Bar, which is just up the road from my house. I marvel I can never visit there any more without seeing dozens of Lark Sparrows. Where they around 17 years ago and I just never noticed them?


Lark Sparrow
As I left Sailor Bar, just beyond the entrance gate a long line of turkey hens crossed the road. I wasn't fast enough to photograph them on the road, but I got them after they went down the ditch and up the opposite hillside.


Heigh Ho, Heigh Ho, it's off to Roost we go
Too bad there were nine, as 7 would have fit better with my captioning. Hum... but maybe there was something of a fairy tale I saw over at Rossmore Bar. What the heck! It makes a nice Valentine's Day tale. Once upon a time there was a handsome, yet lonely, Common Merganser lad.


All alone on Valentines... If only there was
a hen merganser, just for me

So he looked up river and lo! There, along the misty river shore stood the magical Island of Lovlies! Eight, beautiful and vivacious redfeathered Merganser females lounged about clad only in their feathery dainties, and guarded by the powerful eunich-egret.

Magical Island of Lovlies and their Eunich-Egret guard

"Ah... on second thought, mused the Merganser lad,
"I wonder what's going on downstream"?
Oh dear... hope he feels a little more courage later when Spring arrives.

Drama at Fort Baker

The day began with my 5:30 AM drive to Emeryville to have my Sisterlocks hair tended to. Success!

At 10:30 AM I traversed over the Bay Bridge and north over the Golden Gate Bridge to Fort Baker in the Marin Headlands. I'm sure Fort Baker is a beautiful place with a museum or two and such, but I really couldn't have cared less - I was there to look for an Iceland Gull, that showed up there a few days ago.

View of the Golden Gate Bridge from the Fort Baker pier

When I arrived, Birders were already in place looking for the Iceland Gull
Of course, there were a lot more Gulls present than birders, hundreds of gulls. I spotted: Western Gulls, sparse California Gulls, Mews, Glaucous-winged and one lonely little Heerman's Gull. The Gull family reunion was brought on by a bumper crop of Herring roe in the waters along the beach. As the tide receded more and more gulls showed up to feed at the free caviar bar.

Loads of Western, Herring, Glaucous-winged
Gulls and one Brown Pelican hidden in the middle
The previous day the Iceland Gull had flown in around 3PM so after an hour or so I thought I might as well sit in my car and have lunch while waiting for the Iceland Gull to fly in. So there I sat, eating blueberries and scanning my Sibley's guide when I heard the sound of people racing in rubber boots. I looked up to see a good half dozen heavily rubber-clad men and a woman headed for a little hut alongside a big Coast Guard type boat. A Black Labrador dog was with them and it veered off the path to the boat and raced along the beach, scaring up every mother one of the hundreds of gulls that sat there. Oh well!

One of the Coast Guard types yelled and hollered, recalling his dog and a few minutes later the big patrol boat sailed out, headed for the Golden Gate Bridge. My cell phone rang with my birder buddy Don's ring tone; I answered.

"Hi Don! I'm at Fort Baker, but I haven't seen any Iceland Gull yet."

"Did you see the Slaty-backed Gull?"

"What Slaty-backed Gull? Today?"

"There's a report they spotted a Slaty-backed a few minutes ago and..."

I was needless to say, perplexed. Long story short, while I was watching the Team Rubber racing to their boat, the birders out on the pier were watching a v. exotic, Slaty-backed Gull! Of course, the Slaty back took off with the rest of the gulls when the Labrador took its beach run. Had I forsaked my blueberries I could have seen an adult Slaty-back Gull!

Oh well. Back on the pier I held back my foul blaspheming as one lucky birder showed off the exquisit photos he had taken 5 minutes earlier of the adult Slaty-back - from the bird's red orbital eye ring to the tip of its primary flight feathers featuring the 'string of pearls' pattern that all birders hope to some day see for themselves and analyze.

As I was about give in to some hearty swearing, word came the Iceland Gull was on the opposite side of the pier, not far from where the Coast Guard boat launched from. I was off & running! Hurrah! I got my lifer Iceland Gull.

The Iceland was enjoying a nice splash & a bath
The Iceland heading for shore

Venturing onto shore the Iceland - right - tries to fit in
Close-up of the 1st year, immature Iceland Gull
I can't tell you how relieved I was to not miss seeing that ensie little gull. I was disappointed about not seeing the Adult Slaty-backed Gull, not because I've never seen one before, but I want to try my hand at getting some decent photos of one. But just as I was whinging to myself, another birder came up to those of us admiring the Iceland to tell us there was another possible Slaty-back Gull on the very pier I had just run over from. 'Possible' because this second Slaty-back was an immature and those are a little sketchier to get a good identification on. Here is one of my photos of the immature Slaty-backed Gull. Narrow-ish bill, smaller than a Herring Gull's bill? Check. Dark mascara around a pale eye? Check. Pale base of bill? Check. Slaty-backed Gull? I think so. However, my opinion and $1.75 will get you a cup of coffee at a Starbucks.

Immature Slaty-backed Gull - or not, the jury's still out
Ah! And now for the 'drama' I referred too. Around the time we were gawking at the immature Slaty-backed, the Coast Guard boat returned - body-bagged corpse in tow. ARRRGGH! Apparently someone either jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge, drowned or was bobbing along in the surf. Very sad, and quite dramatic. Now, how about those Gulls!

That's my Honda just in front of the Police car and Ambulances