The American Mothmasher, The Good Vireo, and The Dixie Warbler

It is December, and I still am not done stoking/bumming people out (depending on your attitudes towards jealousy) on my October Dry Tortugas trip. Hopefully I'm throwing enough other birds in the blog cocktail to keep things interesting...anyways, although American Redstart is one of the most abundant North American warblers, you don't hear anyone complaining. No one doubts the face-melting power of an adult male.

Moths are a popular item for destruction by migrant passerines on Garden Key. They are often a bit big for warblers and vireos to immediately gulp down, so it was not infrequent to see birds brutally bashing them to bits to make them a more manageable size for consumption.

Never have I witnessed such an act of ruthless moth-bashing, but I have to give credit to the redstart for being effective. Next time I am faced with a piece of living food that is too big to swallow whole, I will simply hit it against things over and over again until is smaller.

Booby Brittany photographed this Philadelphia Vireo with a point and shoot. We walked right up to it. Like a dumbass, I did not have my camera on me for some reason. In case you are wondering, yellow vireos are good vireos. In fact, this is one of those species that is often on birders lists for having a crappy name (this is not a particularly common bird in Philly)...why not "Good Vireo"? No one doubts the instrinsic goodness of this uncommon, exceptionally positive bird.

Magnolia Warblers are best observed when on the ground, 10 feet in front of you. This is a bird that warms the heart.

Fort Jefferson. From the outside, looking in.

From the inside, looking out.

Indigo Bunting, probably a hatch year bird. It will be a long stretch of buntingless months before they start reoccupying the country in April.

Why hello Ovenbird. No, I don't mind you hopping around my feet like a goddamn House Sparrow, make yourself at home.

Prairie Warbler is another one of those misnamed birds, although "prairie" does have a nice ring to it. I propose it be rechristened Dixie Warbler. Now that really has a ring to it. Only saw 1 or 2 on Garden Key, although they must move through in big numbers.

One of the most unexpected birds I found on Garden Key was this American Coot. It takes a lot for a coot to make it to the hallowed pages of BB&B, but since this one had found itself in the middle of nowhere, that's good enough for me.

Making Sweet Sweet Bird Love

An American Coot and Tufted Duck race. The duck, a born Winner, not only challenged the local coot cabal to races, he flogged them regularly...just for being coots. Lake Merritt, Oakland, CA.

Well, between plovering, assisting The Great Ornithologist Felonious Jive in his next cathartic 10,000 Birds post, and a quick and bird-saturated desert camping trip....I don't have much to say today. Work is good, ravens and coyotes are eating plover nests left and right (not good), the migrants are migrating, and the weather is fine. Here are a few pictures from back in the bay, earlier in the year, that I haven't posted yet.

Have a positive weekend...I'm sure you won't have trouble picking up a couple year birds.

A less-frequently seen perspective of Hooded Merganser. From this angle, it is clearly a Rail-headed Merganser. Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, CA.

Glaucous Gull, my one and only for the year. It is a beefy gull. It didn't do much except bob around in front of me, but at least it floated into some interesting light. Golden Gate Park.

Dusky-capped Flycatcher, at this point also my only one of the year. This one also holds the honor of being a very rare bird. Golden Gate Park.

Black Phoebe. Not a rare bird, but master of the two-tone. Golden Gate Park.

American Kestrel. Have you ever thought it odd that we have all these other kinds of falcons around, and none of them hover? Heron Head Park, San Francisco, CA.

A menagerie of shorebirds. Long-billed Dowitchers, Marbled Godwits, and a lot of Willets. Radio Road, Redwood Shores, CA.

Spotted Sandpipers should be adding their summer spots now, but even in winter, their obsessive-compulsive tail-bobbing captures our attention. It seems like predators would have caught on to this strange habit by now...photographed at Heron Head Park.

A Double-crested Cormorant with a mouthful, and then some. You can also see that Double-cresteds take great pride in their magnificent eyebrows. Lake Merritt.

This Iceland Gull, unlike the Glaucous, cannot be characterized as "beefy". It's smallness is what made this particular bird so popular in the first place, and it didn't take much guff from the mud-blooded Olympic Gulls (rear).  Fort Baker, Sausalito, CA.

Another day at the Albany Bulb. Photo by Brittany Lassiter.