The Serpentine Sparrow, The Frog of The Falls

At the end of March, Billy and I were growing bolder about where we would take Annabelle, as she was a couple of months old and seemed like a fairly robust little creature, at least compared to her ultra-larval state that she was in back in January. We decided to go for a hike out on the Pine Mountain Fire Road in Marin, where I could potentially get a precious Marin county bird and there was a good chance we would see some decent wildflowers. A few Band-tailed Pigeons crossed over the ridge and into another drainage when we arrived.

Look at this sick habitat shot...BB&B is "not just a bird blog", eh? EH? Sound familiar to anyone? Anyhow, it didn't take long to figure out we were in a serpentine zone, as evidenced by the soil color and interesting plant community that made up this large, impressive swath of chaparral. A Black-chinned Sparrow was found out here after I moved south to San Jose, can't say I was surprised.

I reckon this is Bolinas ceanothus (Ceanothus masonii), which is a serpentine-loving Marin endemic. It was blooming all over the place that morning.

Less endemic but more familiar, a handful of red larkspur (Delphinium nudicaule) was in bloom down near Carson Falls.

Rufous-crowned Sparrow was the main draw for me that morning. We managed to find one pair, but oddly they weren't in any of the huge chaparral patches. They were frolicking in a grassland just downslope from a modestly sized patch of chaparral.

Rufous-crowned Sparrow is very uncommon in Marin, so it was great to check out a new zone and snag a desirable county bird at the same time.

We unwittingly found another highly local being, this one even rarer (but perhaps more dependable) than the sparrow. Carson Falls still hosts foothill yellow-legged frogs, which have been extirpated almost everywhere else in the county.

These stream-loving/pond-hating frogs love a good current and some good basking sites nearby. COUNTY FROG!!!!!!

This was the best flower of the day, checker lily (Fritillaria affinis), looking all dewy and soothing.

Little crippler!

My bastard girls with some nice yellow-legged frog habitat. There's so much good stuff in Marin, it was great to be so close for a few months. Now I am in the process of discovering the good things Santa Clara has to offer. There's no Point Reyes...or ocean...but the shorebirding is great. If only there were some sod farms...

On another day in March I was back at the Las Gallinas Ponds. Cinnamon Teal were still looking as Cinnamon Teal should back then. All the ducks are currently recovering from eclipse plumage now, and don't look like a whole lot.

What a strange body type you have Common Merganser.

This is a long bird. Beware.

A Bewick's Wren offered itself up for a solid crush, which I was obliged to partake in. I'm sure I've mentioned it before, but I can't help but mention it again...Bewick's Wrens are so abundant and adaptable in California, it's strange to think that their eastern populations have fared so poorly in comparison. Is competition with other species (other wrens?) to blame?

Bewick's Wrens have little to fear from Marsh Wrens. By this time Marsh Wrens were belting it out in full force, beckoning the Least Bitterns (local legends) to return. It only works when you do the splits though, which this bird knows. I did snag one of the bitterns for my YOHOMBSLBFTINFOLF eventually, though it was heard only.

Pied-billed Grebe is one of those birds I see constantly but photograph rarely. This extra-fluffy one was too good to pass up.

No wings. Only fluff.

Adults in alternate have a solid black throat, which I admittedly forget about sometimes since I don't spend a lot of time looking at Pied-billed Grebes, despite all the opportunities I have to do so. How would you describe the voice of a PBGR? Jon Dunn (via the Natty Geo field guide) says they deliver "a loud series of gulping noises". Pretty good, they are certainly loud, though American Bittern is considerably gulpier. I would go with loud and hollow "coos" and "cowps", and a series of nasal, rapidly uttered "hey-hey-hey-hey-hey-hey-hey-hey" delivered in the same pitch. Ugh, I can't imagine having to describe a field guide's worth of bird vocalizations.

I Got Rails, Rails Around My Feet

The bay area is blessed with numbers of a couple very special rail species - Ridgway's and Black. Luckily, Ridgway's aren't nearly as elusive as Black Rail, which I've still never actually seen (they slip in and out of other dimensions at will, it is known). One day last winter I was out in the saltmarsh during a particularly high tide, and the Ridgway's were forced out of their usual haunts. Several rails had their souls stolen on that fateful day. Corte Madera Marsh, Corte Madera, CA.

Behold the peerless grace and unmatched power of this ultra-efficient flying machine.

Though rails are famously good dispersers and accomplished migrants, this bird did little to convince me it was capable of dispersing more than six feet.  Here it is falling out of the sky. Have some dignity, rail.

Ridgway's Rails aren't afraid to go for a swim...in fact, there is little that they are afraid of. Their courage compensates for their wraithlike, shadow-dwelling Black Rail relatives nicely.

This is a weird juxtaposition. Those are 2 Ridgway's Rails aquatically convening in the foreground, which is an odd thing to see in and of itself. More noticeable is San Quentin Prison in the background, which houses a great many inmates on death row.  It was also the venue for one of my favorite live albums, Johnny Cash's At San Quentin (yes, I do think it is better than At Folsom Prison).

I wasn't at Corte Madera for rails though, what really lured me there was this SONG SPARROW.

Just kidding. I can robin-stroke with the best of them, but even I cannot pass off such bullshit to my treasured readers. I was there for the Nelson's Sparrows, obvi.

Sweet, sweet Nelson's Sparrow. A regular wintering bird in many marshes up and down the state (though you are overdue for another, Humboldt), yet rare enough to cause a lot of birders to chase. I suspect they are also regular winter visitors to parts of Baja, but incredibly this species has yet to be eBirded from anywhere in Mexico.

Who will be the first to eBird a Nelson's from Mexico? They have been recorded in the country, just not eBirded yet.

Nelson's, as anyone who has seen one knows, is one of the best sparrows in existence. They are mild-mannered to a fault, inhabit very interesting habitats, and of course are marked boldly with artisinal streaks and stripes. No one would describe their song as inspirational, but few birds are perfect. A high quality county bird to be sure.

On another day, I met up with Matt Sabatine and had good luck with the Harris's Sparrow that was wintering at the Las Gallinas Ponds. Like the Nelson's Sparrow, the Harris's had some mellowing ochre tones in the face that were hard to resist, not to mention a comforting plumpness.

This Cinnamon Teal would not lift it's head up, even though I hurled numerous rocks at it (like any good photog would). This made Matt very uncomfortable, though I have no idea why. In the end I accidentally crippled it with a piece of cement and all I got was this lousy photo to show for it.

Kidding, kidding...I don't really consider myself a photographer.

Let's wrap up this post with Bufflehead, because Bufflehead.

The Shit and The Sand-Plover

What's that sound? Can you hear it? Maybe not, but I can smell it...the shitwinds are blowing, and you can bet that this is just the calm before the shitphoon that is about blow ashore...

We at BB&B are not the type of people to be optimistic about the next four (or eight) shitty years, not in the slightest. We are not the type of people to ask our brothers and sisters to reach out across the aisles of shit, to attempt handshakes that will just cover your hands in shit. We are far too realistic. For birds, the environment, and yes people too, the waves of shit are now towering above our heads, and when they break there will be nowhere to run. Drowning in shit is a frightening and very real possibility. The last Republican administration was a hellish thing to experience (on environmental and a great many other fronts), but remember this...even George W. Bush admitted that climate change was real, and who knows how things would have played out if his wife wasn't a birdwatcher! It's no coincidence that Papahānaumokuākea National Monument was created after Laura Bush visited Midway Atoll.

That said, I'm already sick of the blame game, the soapboxes, the half truths, the clickbait...especially the clickbait. We may be hanging our heads, but we are not the type of people to beat a dead shithorse. We will not drag this out any more today, just as we seem to be shaking off the great national hangover. But make no mistake...the shitreaper is coming, and we should all be very, very afraid. - Felonious Jive

Fall is winding down now...many of the summer's birds are already making themselves cozy on their wintering grounds, and we await for the winter's crop of waterfowl/raptors/gulls/rarities (???) to pile in. But the bay area's October bore one last juicy piece of fruit for me...LESSER SAND-PLOVER. After Matt Lau (birding hero) found and babysat the bird for several days, a small nerdsquadron was dispatched to make contact with the wayward Russian. Though a great many struggling birders had complained about the long, sandy walk out to the bird, we made a effortless beeline straight from the RCA Patch, complete with the blessing of the National Park Service as we were caught jumping the gate. Navigating our way through the dunes, we quickly found Matt Lau and a contingent of nerds, who were already on the bird.

I hadn't seen a Lesser Sand-Plover in a long time...a long time. Over 20 years in fact (thanks Don!). Now that I think about it, there is no other bird species I've seen before that I'd gone so long without seeing again. The plover did very plovery things, actively feeding almost the whole time we were there, which we appreciated considering that it does register pretty high on the drab scale.

Other birders really crushed the shit out of the bird on previous days, but we were in a foggy soup the whole time and wanted to avoid pushing around the Snowy Plovers it was with, so I'm happy with the mediocre images I got. Typically, one clueless birder coming towards us walked straight through the Snowy Plover flock without pause while we were waving our hands and shouting "no!" at him...ugh. Unbelievable. Not that a disturbance like that is the end of the world, but it's poor form to say the least.

Not that you can tell from these photos, but the thing that really struck me about this bird was how big it was...it was much, much bigger than its Snowy Plover buddies, and really stood out. It was also not particularly cute, which is unusual for smaller plover species. The bird I saw previously seemed very small at the time (but it was completely alone) and was also as cute as goddamn button, but it was an obvious juvenile. I'm not sure what the consensus is on the age of this bird. At any rate, I'd been hoping to reconnect with this species for a great many years, and was stoked to do it in a county I love birding in. Thanks again Matt!

There was also a pair of Red Phalaropes feeding on the open beach, which is super weird. There have been hordes of them inshore this year though, so it wasn't totally shocking.

While this has been a great fall for birding, it has not been so for photography, for some reason. Here are some American White Pelicans that helped buck the trend at Don Edwards National Wildlife Refuge.

White pelicans rank very high on the majestic scale, and I'm happy to have them around.

Not all monarchs migrate to Mexico; California has many important wintering sites as well. As with many birds, both the western and eastern monarch populations have experienced precipitous declines in the last 20 years. That's some shit. Photographed at Point Reyes, CA.

My last trip out to Point Reyes with Don Francisco was solid (hello golden-plovers, 112 species on the day) but did not produce anything interesting in the vague runt traps. The resident Great Horned Owls at Mendoza that roost above the cattle guard could give a fuck, but then again they don't seem to give a fuck about anything except sleeping.

I went out to Marin again last weekend to check out the new tidal marsh at Hamilton Field for the first time...damn, that place is good! Much vague runt potential there, and an impressive example of what restoration can do around these parts (it used to be an airfield). I stopped at the Las Gallinas Ponds on the way back, and had nothing unusual save for a brown blackbird with a yellow eye that I could not will into being a Rusty. This immature Red-tailed Hawk let me walk right under it though, so I gave it a quick crush.

Gadwalls...what would we do without Gadwalls? It is a necessary duck. Mark my words...the day Gadwalls go extinct will be the day human beings go extinct.

The bay area offers a great many opportunities to observe and photograph waterfowl at close range, but Cinnamon Teal are not particularly confiding, especially now that the Radio Road ponds are going to be out of commission. This hen didn't seem to know that though. She had a very drab, almost featureless facial pattern typical of the species.

That's all the time we have today. The Great Ornithologist Felonious Jive would like to thank the phenomenal Trailer Park Boys for his inspiration today. Until the next post, I highly recommend you hang up your keyboard commando boots and go birding...

Or drinking. That helps too.

The Right Side of History...Amateurs of Skulk...A Fowl of Mystery

This mama harrier was being followed around by a gaggle of needy juveniles. Nesting season has about run its course, and now thousands of birds are getting ready to fly the wrong direction and vagrate their way to California.  Coyote Hills Regional Park, Fremont, CA.

Before I start rambling about recent bird sightings, I need to talk about the last post...I couldn't believe the response that it elicited. That post rapidly rocketed to the second most popular post BB&B has ever put out, and really it is the most popular post among birders (Reddit traffic accounted for the higher popularity of another post).

This took me completely by surprise...but I think it captured something that no one had bothered to really explain before, at least not in depth. And the people were ready for it. Birders were coming out of the woodwork to congratulate me on that one, and amazingly I have yet to be trolled. Maybe it's because I have birding history on my side?  Or maybe the birders who prefer asking the internet for bird identification rather than opening a field guide don't read BB&B?  I don't think anyone read that post and thought "Things will never be the same...", but as #7 I have no choice but to bellow my trendsetting voice into the Birdosphere and hope the people will hear me.

And now, on to birds.

It's always deeply unsettling for birders to see harriers soaring high above them. Maybe because we are not used to it? Or maybe because this is the last thing millions of birds and rodents have seen over the years before they met their demise? This must be a terrifying angle of harrier-viewing for many creatures.

Big flocks of American White Pelicans wheeling around in the sky is never an unsettling sight. I can still remember how remarkable I thought it was the first few times I ran into some some big migrant flocks. Though no longer remarkable, I still find it difficult to look away. Photographed at Coyote Hills.

Lesser Goldfinches don't make it onto BB&B very often, mostly because I see them constantly. Familiarity breeds contempt. I don't despise them, it just doesn't occur to me to put them on here...and I don't know why I'm still trying to explain all of this to you. Lesser Goldfinches are late nesters, as evidenced by this female enthusiastically gathering nesting material. Photographed at Coyote Hills.

You know what they say...if you are going to put up pictures of absurdly common birds, you better crush them. This is for all of you out east who live a lonely, single-goldfinch-species-life.

Monarchs are suckers for milkweed, aren't they?  This one was busy laying eggs, not something I see very often with any butterfly. Photographed at Coyote Hills.

Not long ago one Flycatcher Jen graced the bay area with her brownish presence, but it was a bit of a struggle to figure out where we should go birding. Finally we settled on chasing a bizarre rarity...of sorts...with a stop for Least Bitterns on the way. The bitterns were not hard to find (a luxury when looking for Least Bittern, trust me) and we got solid looks at this mostly-grown chick. Photographed at the Las Gallinas Ponds, Marin County, CA.

There were two chicks doing a mediocre job of hiding in the reeds, with at least one adult flying around foraging for the chicks. I did not expect to be seeing Least Bittern chicks...they are masters of skulk, but I guess the young ones were still working on their mastery. This was a sweet sweet lifer for FJ, and a savory Marin County bird for me.

There were hordes of Common Gallinules out that day, with HY birds and chicks everywhere. I was dumbfounded when I saw this HY gallinule feeding a chick, which is obviously not its own (too young to breed). Maybe a sibling from a different brood? Anyone seen this before? One of the parent birds was very nearby and seemed ok with it. Photographed at the Las Gallinas Ponds.

This Cinnamon Teal hen was loafing in the sun with a few ducklings. The lighting was rough but it was too cute to not try for photos.  Photographed at the Las Gallinas Ponds.

We also saw this creature. Do you recognize it bellowing?

You probably recognize it, good for you. This Black-bellied Whistling-Duck was seen by birders for about a week on the east side of Santa Rosa before it disappeared. It is a troublesome bird, not because it was hard to find or because it attacked people with incapacitating whistles (I heard it whistle hella, and I remained capacitated), but because it is difficult to know where it came from.  It had no bands, no missing hallux. Could it be a natural vagrant? Maybe. Could it be an escaped bird? Maybe, but my source says it definitely did not come from Safari West, which houses myriad exotic animals. Photographed at Lake Ralphine, Santa Rosa.

The bird was hella tame, which some birders thought was indicative of a captive origin, though these birds are about as wary as your average park-dwelling coot or Mallard down in Texas.  I didn't find that very concerning. As the old saying goes, waterfowl can be wary or not depending on their location...my old Tufted Duck friend from Lake Merritt probably spent most of the year fleeing people on sight and the rest of the year swimming a couple feet away from horrible children hoping to be tossed a bread crumb. On one hand BBWD are notorious for being found far north of their normal range (mid-spring through early fall, generally), but on the other hand they don't have much of a pattern of occurrence for doing that in California. It's a tricky bird, more so (in my opinion) than the Gray Thrasher found in San Diego the same day, but a betting man would not put money on this bird getting a stamp of approval from The Bird Police. Such is birding.