Smith Oaks, Hooks Woods, Eubanks Woods Sanctuaries

Smith Oaks was extremely productive for us on multiple days and hella fun to bird, generally better than Boy Scout overall. Smith was consistently somewhere between "moderately birdy" and "guhhhhhh birds everywhere" throughout the week...eBird checklists were best characterized as "corpulent". Here are a few of the hundreds of migrants we met there, starting with this Chestnut-sided Warbler.

As expected, the always becoming CSWA was a fairly common migrant throughout the week at all the migrant traps we visited.

A female Blackburnian Warbler with a trophy-sized worm of inches.

This is the same male Blackburnian that was hanging out next to the egret rookery in the last post. I'm still suffering from heart palpitations from seeing so many of these crippling heart-stoppers that week, which were one of the most common warbler species. So many glowing Blackburnians everywhere were difficult to cope with, physically, emotionally and spiritually.

Another crippling gasper, Golden-winged Warbler was certainly not a common migrant, but we did connect with more than I thought we would. We didn't come across any particularly confiding birds unfortunately, but who is complaining? Not me. A couple of them were singing, which is the first time I've ever heard them.

Though not a lifer, Cerulean Warbler was one of the main target birds of the trip for Yours Truly, #7. We had great success, and pleasantly saw a modest number of them.

Also like Golden-wingeds, they were hard as fuck to photograph/see well. Fitting, I suppose, for such a sought-after gem of a bird.

Female Cerulean, showing off her distinct long undertail coverts and almost stub-like tail.

Hella Wood Thrushes that week; we saw hundreds of them. This is not something I expected or have experienced before. Stoked.

When one encounters This Machine Nate on a trail, only one thing can be said for sure: you are in for a treat.

Nate's treat was met by a mix of intrigue and revulsion.

We also spent a lot of time at Hooks Woods. It's a lot smaller than Boy Scout and Smith, but it's the closest patch of trees to the coast, the habitat is good, and the concentrations of Geri there seem to vary between "low" and "bearable". This was the first Blue-headed Vireo of the trip; we would go on to see a handful spread out over the week.

I should mention that birding the road in front of the sanctuary can also be productive; this is where This Machine lifered Black-billed Cuckoo.

Here it is, your friend and mine, SWAINSON'S WARBLER, THE BROWN WONDER. This one was Dipper Dan's lifer. This was a good spring for these skulkers on the UTC apparently.

A surprise to one, Eastern Wood-Pewees adorned the migrant traps in large numbers. Lord knows how many of them were misidentified by Geri and friends.

Veeries were uncommon but dependable throughout our trip. Hooks Woods, and the lawn directly across the street from the entrance, was spilling over with Catharus the entire week. Thrushes were just littering the ground. We even saw some poor completely black thrush that had clearly just taken a bath in an oil pan someone had left out.

What a fucking bummer.

Where there are mulberries, there are Rose-breasted Grosbeaks. Mulberry trees are magic.

On our last day of birding the coast (April 27), Officer Shaw picked out this Olive-sided Flycatcher up in the canopy at Smith Oaks. Though not a late migrant on the west coast, it is in the eastern half of the country. It would be the only classic "late" migrant we would end up seeing; we did not connect with Alder, Willow or Yellow-bellied Flycatchers, or Mourning Warbler. We somehow dipped on Least Flycatcher as well, which seemed bizarre to me. I don't know if they are just not abundant on the UTC, or if they simply weren't moving through the area that week for whatever reason. We had several days with tons of Acadians...migration is weird.

Wrapping up High Island...Dipper Dan and I birded the High Island Historical Park (walking back to Guirdy Road) during the one very brief "slow" period we encountered....it was predictably slow, but I could see it being good when there are migrants around. We checked out Eubanks Sanctuary (mostly because we kept driving by it) on a birdy day and found it to be rewarding, although the habitat is overgrown and pretty much the same throughout the patch. Here is our eBird checklist; of note were Cerulean, Golden-winged and Canada Warblers (a new bird for the trip at the time). There is a pond in the back of the sanctuary that attracts a lot of birds, it is worth loitering around there for a bit. And amazingly, there were no other birders there! So if there are birds around and you want to take shelter from Geri, it is worth taking a look. We never did make it to the Crawford or Gast sanctuaries.

That wraps up our High Island coverage; in summary, it was as advertised. Absolutely ace birding, hordes of Geri, rampant misidentifications, and worthy of revisiting repeatedly.

Anahuac is up next!

Boy Scout Woods: Facemelt, A Lifer, The Faint Scent of The F-Word

On the first morning of sweet sweet UTC birding, This Machine Nate, Officer Shaw and I headed straight to Boy Scout Woods on High Island. Upon getting out of the car, it was obvious there were a lot of birds around; it was happening. The first (and last) Yellow-throated Warbler of the trip was out along the road as soon as we left the parking lot.

The crowds of birders that I expected did not disappoint...there were so many birders....or, in festival parlance, so. many. birders. It was ghastly. But the birding....ohhhhhhhh the birding was off the chain. The cold front that just blew through left hordes of migrants in its wake...there were birds everywhere. It was everything I had hoped for and more. I even managed to find my lifer Swainson's Warbler there that first morning (no photos), which was a huge relief...in part because I didn't want to owe someone an hj. Meeting the big brown ground warbler with the long bill and rusty cap was a very pleasant experience, and like the multiple others we would see later in the week, it was within a few feet of a Wood Thrush. You show me a Wood Thrush and I will show you a Swainson's Warbler. I'm already working on the paper, don't steal my idea. We also found our first Cerulean Warblers of the trip, which we would go on to see somewhere almost every day we were there.

Boy Scout is probably the best known Audubon sanctuary/birding site on High Island, though arguably not the best to bird - the habitat there undoubtedly has huge value as a stopover site, but much of it is fairly homogeneous and doesn't have a whole lot of openings/edge habitat, which can make viewing canopy species difficult. The ponds/drips are nice though, for sure, if you can cut through the Geri to see them (we never bothered trying to get into the photography blind). So much of the sanctuary is great for Catharus and ground-loving warblers, but due to the closed canopy one has to work a bit harder for many of the other warblers that prefer to be above eye level. I went three times, so that makes me an expert, right? I also highly recommend birding the road/across the street from the entrance.

Another afternoon Dipper Dan and I spent some time at the "grandstands" near the entrance, a target of much scorn from some birders but placed in a good spot to see birds. A Scarlet Tanager was coming down ridiculously low to feed on precious mulberries, repeatedly within 10 feet of me...what a crippler. It dropped a mulberry on my head so I crushed it.

We saw lots of Indigo Buntings every day, including some pretty big flocks. Stunners.

I know, I know, this isn't a good picture, but bear with me. On the first morning, this Painted Bunting dropped into the trees across from the sanctuary entrance (I believe this is known as "the barnyard", and demands to be birded) and immediately started passing out - it clearly had just finished its Gulf crossing and needed to recuperate - too tired to feed. I don't think I've seen anything quite like that before. We then went around the corner to go after a Cerulean Warbler that This Machine had seen, and was greeted by this bird instead...

A Prothonotary Warbler falling asleep on the ground! Keep in mind this is all happening at about 8:00 AM in the morning, these aren't birds taking mid-day naps in unusually visible places. I would not dare say the F-word here, but with the numbers of birds present we would see at High Island that day and birds doing crazy stuff like this, the smell of F-word was certainly in the air.

Prothonotary eventually woke up to do some preening and light foraging, glad we didn't watch it expire on the ground. We would find no more Prothonotaries after the first day.

This is no ordinary Little Blue Heron, this is a Little Blue Heron (present in this same pond for days) that Geri proclaimed to be a Reddish Egret, the first ever seen in Boy Scout Woods! Hooray!

Kentucky Warblers were common all week long at many sites. I haven't seen hella before this trip, but now I can say I have seen hella and I had a great time doing it.

I just know you were waiting to see some Geri...here they are! I think they were looking at a Blackburnian Warbler.

As This Machine pointed out, how about getting Swainson's Warbler, Swainson's Thrush and Swainson's Hawk all at the same spot? We enjoyed triple Swainson's at Boy Scout our first morning there. Overall we did not fare well with raptors on the trip, but that is not something I am about to whinge about.

The number of birds on the ground at times was staggering. Thrushes, catbirds, Brown Thrashers, Ovenbirds, Hooded and Kentucky Warblers, etc., were ceaselessly thrashing and sifting through the leaf litter or parading around on lawns and paths. On several occasions over the week, at Boy Scout and other spots, there were simply too many birds to look at, which is a phenomenon I generally reserve only for birding in the Neotropics. Wood Thrushes were abundant throughout the week, rivaling Swainson's Thrushes in numbers.

The crowds here are no joke.

Another Scarlet Tanager shot, just because.

All photos were taken at Boy Scout Woods, or across the street from it. Much more Texas material coming up!

Maynerayge, Days 1-2: Maine is Hot, Maine is Cold, Iced Coffee For All

And then it happened...I was in Maine.  On a birding trip.  To say that I needed this would be the most severe understatement.  The spring birding I've been able to do here at home has mostly sucked, I needed a break from Oakland, and I was ready for the chance to get some sweet sweet life birds. And so four nerds assembled: one Seagull Steve, one Flycatcher Jen, one This Machine Nate (Nate is open to another nickname by the way, if you have any suggestions), and one Dipper Dan.  None of us had birded Maine before, and the potential for lifers for all of was alarmingly high.

The first day we arrived, Dipper Dan and I took a cab from Portland down to Pine Point, which sits at the mouth of the Scarborough River and the massive Scarborough Marsh to meet up with Nate.  We had rented a house there for three nights, since as a group it was affordable and we were within walking distance of high quality birding.  A couple of Nate's friends who were in town had went out to the beach to walk their dog, and so we three nerds decided to follow.  "I'm going to leave my camera here so we can see something good", I said, and Nate and Dan decided to do the same.  It turned out to be a very wise move.

It took me 15 years of birding before I ever saw a White-rumped Sandpiper...now, of course, I don't go through so much pain to find them so we are able to hang out with some regularity.  Because I suffered for so many years in White-rumped Sandpiperless agony, they now hold a special place in my heart and I will always spend some extra time with them.  Photographed at Pine Point, ME.

The orange base to the bill is an extremely helpful field mark for birds in alternate plumage, something I don't think field guides emphasize enough.  Yet another bird who looks remarkably good while staying within the notorious confines of The Economy of Style.

Although the beach had a number of people walking around, it wasn't long before we started picking up on some birds.  A large raft of sea ducks feeding offshore turned out to be a mixed flock of White-winged and Black Scoters, the latter of which was a life bird for Nate, the first of many that our group would be getting.  We walked down to a large group of Bonaparte's Gulls feeding in the surf, and I mentioned the distant possibility of a Little Gull being mixed in with them.  I have seen one Little Gull ever, and I think that was over ten years ago...seeing another one would be a relifer of sorts, a great birding victory. Despite the fact that I was looking specifically for this bird, I could not believe it when I saw a bird with jet black underwings alight on the water...there it was!  A Little Gull in high breeding plumage...what the fuck?!  Good thing I didn't bring the camera...ugh.

The bird was both incredibly good-looking and incredibly cooperative, constantly showing off its unique wing pattern and eventually coming up to the beach to preen right in front of us.  At such close range, the bird really did stand out from the surrounding Bonaparte's Gulls...the bill was even a deep, dark reddish color, something I did not expect to see on this bird.  The light was fantastic.  We felt bad for Flycatcher Jen, who was not there and getting gripped off horribly because United Airlines decided to delay her flight over and over again.  Had we brought our cameras, we could have absolutely slayed it...these photos were taken the following morning from some distance, but they will have to suffice.

I later found out that the bird had actually been discovered by other birders earlier in the day, so although it was an awesome self-found rarity it wasn't actually a found rarity, oh well.  This bird was easily one of the highlights of the trip, and a tremendous way to kick off our spring tour.  We celebrated with Nate's friends in Portland that night with tapas, cocktails, and the first of the million beers that would be consumed during the trip.

On Day 2 we kicked off our birding back out at Pine Point, where to everyone's relief Flycatcher Jen lifered the Little Gull and several of us lifered Purple Sandpiper and Roseate Tern.  The Purples looked more distinct from Rock Sandpipers than I thought they would, and I was surprised by how much the Roseate stood out from the surrounding Commons...it is a tern that is far more elegant than an Elegant Tern and a tern far less roseate than an Elegant Tern, if you ask me.

One of the most visible birds in Scarborough Marsh were Glossy Ibis, a bird I haven't seen in a few years.  We had one flock foraging relatively close while searching for sharp-tailed sparrows, which was a good thing considering how uncooperative the sparrows were that morning.

The last time I thought I saw a Glossy Ibis, the bird turned out to be a hybrid...no doubt about the genetics of these birds though.  A blue face is a good face.

Those who live in the east are probably wincing looking at this mediocre Common Grackle photo. Well, I don't get to see many Common Grackles!  As you can probably guess, these birds are widespread and common in much of Maine.  Photographed at Pine Point, ME.

After birding Pine Point and Scarborough Marsh, we spent the afternoon looking for migrant passerines.  One of our stops was Evergreen Cemetery in Portland, which had a few nice birds including some Wood Thrushes.  Wood Thrushes are one of my favorite birds...some say that Hermit Thrush is the best singer among the Catharus, but hearing a Wood Thrush always strikes a special chord with me.  A couple were foraging out on a lawn and allowed better looks than usual. 

Yeah, I know, pretty far from a crush but I'm enthusiastic about these birds, what can I say? We didn't run into any big migrant flocks here or at Capisic Pond, but there was plenty to keep us entertained.  Flycatcher Jen was lifering birds at a remarkable pace.  Too bad we never got to bird these sites during the morning, but we had our hands full wallowing in other good birds.

Pink Lady's-slipper is wonderful plant to gaze upon, and has a winning name as well.

If this were another blog, this is where I would make some grimace-inducing euphemism about squirrels liking each other. That is not science. What is science? Boning. Boning is science. These squirrels are boning. They were hella into it too, constantly flipping over and changing positions. The best part of it was that that there was another squirrel about 3 feet away watching everything very intently.  Maybe it was a cuckold?  You may doubt the complexity of squirrel kink, but who are you to doubt an animal that is known to masturbate with great purpose?