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

End of Vacation: Crescent City

Crescent City's Battery Point Lighthouse at dusk
The last few days of vacation took Barbara and I driving from Klamath Falls, Oregon to a favored destination, Crescent City, CA. The drive there was uneventful other than a 'Zambini Sisters' U-turn so we could visit a rock shop. We were thrilled because each of us found our birthstones. Barbara bought a beautiful silver set turquoise pendant, while I got a natural pink star sapphire (corundum ruby) which I all but snatched off the shop keeper's neck.

In sunlight, the rough sapphire
shows a fantastic six-rayed star

How wonderful to squeeze in a visit to Crescent City! Barbara and I were happy not only to get our usual motel room on the beach, but we got to visit with our friend Inez too.

We started out early our second morning, Inez volunteered to drive in her faithful car Ivy, so Barbara and I could stare out the windows and take in the towering redwoods. Inez is fun to tour with. From the time she was a child, she gathered ferns, Salal and other wild plants for the florist trade down in San Francisco. Growing up in the redwoods means she learned loads of really cool stuff. For example, she pointed out to us what I never would have noticed at all; red disruption of soil on a slope. Inez told us either deer or bear slid down the slope, accessing the road below. Is that cool or what?


Bear or Deer slide

Bear Berries

Inez also really knows her redwood forest plants. She was good at pointing out little snacks for me as we wended our way through the forest too!

Red Huckleberries

Mid-morning snack; Red Huckleberries

Redwood burl

Wee Barbie deep in the woods

I was pleased to realize I've known Inez for more than ten years now. We met at a Passports in Time event called "Follow the Smoke" in 2001. On that week event we both helped the Karuk elders collect several different plants for basket weaving and dying. We ran across one of our favorite such plants, the Five-finger Fern, whose stalks make the shiny black roving in Karok and Yakut Indian basketry.

Five-finger Ferns

Five-finger fern's shiny black stems

Inez hiked downhill to look at the river rocks

Inez at the river bottom

Nice fat Banana Slug

I was tickled to hear Inez call the fungus below a 'conk'. I haven't ever heard such tree hugging fungus called that before. Cool!

A redwood forest 'conk'

After our driving tour with Inez, Barbara and I hung out in our beachfront room at the Crescent Beach Motel. Neither of us were inclined to actually go out and walk on the beautiful beach, but it has been a long vacation and we were at the vacation point where your brain is focused more on home than seeing anything else. Oh well, we had a fun couple of weeks!

Quite mysterious, when we arrived in town on Monday afternoon there was nothing along the shore by the piers but gulls. Two afternoons later, Barbara and I saw this incredible sight; a ship wreck on the beach!

Ship wreck by the Crescent City Pier

Maybe this is one of the boats destroyed by the recent Tsunami that hit Crescent City. And how amazing it should decide to wash ashore during our visit.

Ship wreck at high tide

After behaving ourselves for most of our trip, eating humbly, and mostly buying and eating groceries, we ate out every chance we got in Crescent City. We adore the local Thai House Restaurant which has my favorite food in the world, bar none - Thai chicken lemongrass soup. We also had one of Barbara's favorites, Thai Vegetable rolls. Oh yum! We also have a favorite breakfast spot, which is new and the decor celebrates Plains Indians.

On the morning we left, heading out, we saw this local Crescent City car parked outside the breakfast restaurant. The back of this little car was so wonderfully colorful and interesting to read, it made a nice good bye before heading down the coast, through the Avenue of the Giants and on home to Fair Oaks.

The tilts a bit to the left

Along the Avenue of the Americas