Rarities Return, Featuring: Parakeet Auklet, Little and Red-necked Stints!

Every now and then a birding community will be struck by a rarity so bizarre and unlikely that we are left running around slamming into walls, foaming at the mouth, bleeding from headwonds, uttering incoherently about needing to be somewhere, at any cost. A Parakeet Auklet in July (July!) in San Francisco did exactly that, smashing the 2017 summer doldrums into oblivion and sending birders scurrying to SF. The story of how this vague runt was found was truly unlikely; a birder found it in the water off Sutro Baths in the summer of 2016, but it was never seen again...a year later, the same birder relocated the bird while kayaking less than a half mile further up the coast. This time, the bird was seen sitting on seastacks and cliffs, which as far as I know is the first time a healthy individual has been seen on solid ground in the state. There is a good chance the bird was doing the same thing the previous year, but no one saw it!

I appreciate a good Parakeet Auklet, and this being a good Parakeet Auklet (and a state bird) I dragged the family up to the city kicking and screaming for a chance at this bird...but despite staking it out for hours, it never showed. It was a tough dip to swallow, and most everyone who actually dips will tell you that all dip is tough to swallow to begin with...I'm talking about chewing tobacco of course, but hey it applies to birds as well.

While doing the drive of shame back to San Jose, I analyzed my chances of getting the bird the next morning if I made another chase attempt and decided against it...which I immediately regretted the next day when the bird was relocated quickly. My heart was filled with hate. By mid afternoon I was twitching uncontrollably from the constant updates of resightings, said "fuck it" and rocketed back north. This time I found the bird in about 30 seconds, circling behind Mile Rock. It eventually landed on a distant rock just a stone's throw from the shoreline, which I pointed out to several birders who were clearly there for the same reason as me.

Incredibly, one of the birders I updated totally ignored what I had just said, and instead told me that he believed the bird was currently sitting on a seastack right below us. Keep in mind I had a spotting scope and he did not, so I must have seemed absolutely incompetent to him. Friends, do I give off an air of complete ineffectiveness? For those of you who haven't met me, next time you encounter a birder in the field that you believe has utterly no idea what they are doing, just go ahead and assume it is Seagull Steve.

I had to look at this man's auklet, of course. It turned out to be not a guillemot, or an oystercatcher, or a black bird of any sort...it was a shadow. A shadow.

I booked it to where the actual bird had been sitting and eventually ended up below it, as it had flwon from its rock and was roosting high up on a cliff. Talk about something I never expected to see outside of Alaska. July in San Francisco? Get out of here. State bird! Though California has accrued quite a few records now, this is a very unreliable bird to see anywhere in the state....as Flycatcher Jen would tell you, good times.

July isn't all state birds and Parakeet Auklets though. Least Sandpiper is much more typical birding fare around these parts, and much more confiding as well. Photographed at Don Edwards NWR.

My god...could it be? SHARP-TAILED GROUSE???

No, it can't be, but this Least Sandpiper is striking a pose remarkably similar to what displaying Sharp-tailed Grouse are known for. This bird was having a territorial dispute with another Least.

Remember the barren dowitcherless times? It sure is nice to have dowitchers again, especially pink and orange ones. I think these are all Long-billed.

On another July day, I was out birding and saw a report of an alternate plumage Little Stint that was within easy driving distance. It wasn't a lifer/state/county bird, but seeing as I had gotten to look at all of one (1) before, I picked up the scope and hustled back to the car. The instincts that made me the Global Birder Ranking System's #7 US birder made me stop and scan a blackbird flock just long enough to find my county Yellow-headed Blackbird on the way back, and I was still able to make it back to the car quickly. Things were going splendidly. Unfortunately, at that point my instincts ceased to serve me well...in my haste to get on the road, I broke off TWO door handles to my car. What the fuck?! Who does that? This wasn't even for a life bird. That's what those two gray things are in my palm, freakin door handles.

And to top it off, later that day I was playing bass and I ripped off the plug to the amp from the power cord. Nerd strength was just pumping through my veins that day.

But hey, I saw the Little Stint! Talk about a completely rubbish photo (digiscoped). The light wasn't great and the bird wasn't very close, but I did get really nice, prolonged views. Lifer plumage! Year bird! It was nice to continue my long running streak of taking terrible stint photos.

A few days later I went back to see if the stint was still around (it was not), but I did find a very interesting peep that had me confused for a bit. Not that you can tell, but the bird's back was very bright and boldly marked, with lots of orange and red tones. With the short, straight, tapered bill, it was an intriguing combination, but at the end of the day it was just a Semipalmated Sandpiper.

Just a Semipalmated Sandpiper? That's a bit of an understatement...despite a great deal of looking at peeps all around the bay for many years now, until this bird I have never been able to find one in any bay area county. Anyone who has birded much around here would find that baffling, and they would be right. This was a hard-won bird, thus you are forced to look at a photo (digiscoped) so awful that it is, in fact, art. It was also the most colorful individual I have ever seen, but again you cannot make that out whatsoever. Because art.

Sorry about the run of appalling photos. Here is an alternate Western Sandpiper pondering life in its reflection. This looks to be a male, judging by the relatively short and straight bill.

This adult has already acquired a lot of basic plumage, but retains some old summer chevrons on the breast. More of a femaley bill on this bird.

Oh why hello RED-NECKED STINT. It sure is nice to see Red-necked and Little Stint in the same week! That's California birding for you. This one was at Elsie Roemer Bird Sanctuary in Alameda. As I mentioned back in 2015, this place had been due for a great bird! As with my other Red-necked Stint experiences in California, nice prolonged looks at a spiffy alternate bird that was either distant or in crap light. Not sure how that keeps happening, but when one is looking at a stint one cannot complain. But now I really, really need to get a good photo of some kind of stint eventually...

Although they don't inspire the panic of a stint, Baird's Sandpiper is a refreshing fall migrant that only has a short window here. They are refreshing birds in and of themselves, but their presence is always a tasty precursor of things to come...if you are looking at a Baird's Sandpiper in California, chances are you are only a few weeks away from experiencing that holiest of months, SEPTEMBER.

I know, I know, you can roll your eyes, we are far removed from September, but I'm getting there! I won't say that blogging is hard (it isn't, despite everyone who starts one and then gives up), but I will tell you that blogging with a baby is hard. As Corey Finger rightly pointed out to me last year, it's not that you won't have time to bird anymore once you have a baby, it's that you won't have time to blog. This is true.

Refreshing birds are often found in disgusting places. That's not a gross mudflat the birds are on, it is a much filthier floating mat of algae. Juvenile Least Sandpiper on the left for comparison.

Has any bird mastered the filthy floating mat dance like the Baird's Sandpiper? Unlikely.

Ok, I'll throw in a token resident bird, and one that BB&B doesn't cover much. This juvenile California Gull was also holding down the algae mat along with the peeps. I know birders in most states don't get to see this short-lived plumage very often, and we are balls-deep in gull season right now, so enjoy! The Baird'seses and the gull were at Coyote Hills Regional Park in Fremont, CA.

Train Wreck: The Siberian Express Derails in California

Spring is a loathsome time in California when it comes to rare shorebirds...compared to fall migration, they are very, very hard to come by. It is worthwhile to search for the very occasional Hudsonian Godwit or White-rumped Sandpiper, sure, but what about Sibes? It is a sad state of affairs.

Several years ago, while I was out in Texas, a freak Marsh Sandpiper was seen for a couple days in Solano County. A Marsh Sandpiper is a meguh. It's a species birders wistfully look at in their books and think "maybe I'll see one in Alaska some day", or, more commonly, "yeah, right". Being out of state saved me from some of the pain and stress I would have experienced if I was back at home and not seen it, and I just wrote the bird off as one of those things that I will just have to live with. Something to live with, and something to die with, in a nagging, unresolved way.

Earlier this year, the impossible happened...a Marsh Sandpiper was reported less than two hours from my house. In April! An hour later it had been confirmed, and I was on my way. After a short wait, the bird reappeared and provided great looks for the next hour and a half. This was not a life bird I was anticipating to get on this continent, but that is California birding for you.

The bird showed off its distinct white back wedge on a number of occasions. Though it never wandered very close to the birders, it was very cooperative. I couldn't believe my luck. I always thought I would see something like a Spotted Redshank (which is absurdly, painfully rare) in the state before a Marsh Sandpiper, yet here the bird was.

It had something like a Wilson's Phalarope X Lesser Yellowlegs structure. Luckily, I did not have to listen to any birders make the ludicrous suggestion that this is what the bird really was. Yeah, it's gotten to the point where I'd rather hear about blatant misidentifications rather than hybrid conspiracy theories.

This is one of the best birds, in terms of rarity, that I've seen in California over all these years. Considering I really like Sibes and I really like shorebirds, it's a tough one to top (though Common Scoter and Salvin's Albatross come to mind). It's not a flashy species, but damn it was a satisfying bird to see.

What is the deal with Red-necked Phalaropes? They are very pleasant birds. They are shorebirds, but they swim. You can see them way out at sea or far from the sea. They look fantastic in spring and not so bad in fall. Impressive credentials. Photographed at Don Edwards National Wildlife Refuge.

Red-necked Phalaropes are masters at picking edible crud off the surface of the water, and they make it look good.

Eared Grebes were also in abundance, all in slick black and gold alternate plumage. But Red-necked Phalarope and Eared Grebe were not the bird we were seeking. In a dramatic development, a Little Stint had been found here two days previous. That's right...another April vague runt shorebird...another April Sibe...another bird I had never seen in California, or any other place in my life. What were the chances? We trolled the side of a salty impoundment, back and forth, until finally another birder got all stinty.

Little Stint! Little Stint! Unlike the Marsh Sandpiper, which is unfathomably rare, this is a bird that I had been waiting a long time...a long time. They are pretty much annual in California, but I had never come across one, and my time on Buldir Island back in the day had yielded only (!) Red-necked and Long-toed. The bird foraged earnestly out in the impoundment with a group of Dunlin and Western Sandpipers...this may sound dumb, but I didn't expect it to be so...little. The bill was indeed slight with a fine tip, not at all what I would expect from a Semipalmated...but that seems like something that could be easily overlooked by just about anybody who didn't have spring stints on the brain.

The internet played a big role in developing the story of this rarity as well...Will Brooks, who found it, originally thought (as almost anyone would) that this was a Semipalmated Sandpiper, but the eBird reviewer (I believe it was Marshall Iliff) who looked at his photos thought Little Stint was a better fit. Word got out, and the following day photos were obtained showing that the bird lacked any webbing between its toes. The rest is birding history.

That's it on the left, being dwarfed by a Western Sandpiper. Even in the harsh light at a less than ideal distance, you could make out the rufous edging to the alternate tertials that had recently molted in. I couldn't believe my luck...three consecutive weeks in early spring had bore fruit in the form of Glossy Ibis, Marsh Sandpiper and Little Stint, a state bird and two lifers. This put a temporary end to whisky-fueled nights of screaming unintelligible obscenities and shaking my fist at the night sky.

I went back a couple times afterward to get better looks at the bird, to no avail. Instead, I got to see these avocets fuck. They sure make it look elegant. Pretty sure people look like trolls in comparison when they do the deed...actually, I am absolutely sure about this.

Even the dismount looked graceful.

Post-coital avocets are just the cutest thing. This is their version of spooning.

Even in the eye of a spring storm of Siberian meguhs, I can still stop and appreciate the rufous and chevrons of a Western Sandpiper. Ignoring Western Sandpipers isn't going to solve anything.

Of course, April birding in the bay area is not all hot-shit vague runts, hell, this might be the first and last time...but there are locally rare my grunts to look for. I live just a couple minutes from Emeryville, so one day after work I lurked over to the Emeryville Marina to check out a Gray Flycatcher that Aaron Maizlish had found.

Aaron was actually leaving when I pulled up, but was kind enough to go back and point the bird out to me. He's a BB&B reader, so naturally he is a good person. The Gray Flycatcher was a nice year bird and addition to my home county list, which I generally am not very excited about. Why that is, I couldn't tell you. Gray Flycatchers are always worth garnering some excitement for, though maybe its just because I don't see them on the regular.

Compared to Dusky vs. Hammond's Flycatchers, identifying Gray Flycatchers is a walk in the park. The bill alone is usually enough to clinch it for me. Grays are rare but regular along much of the California coast; they are much easier to find as my grunts in the desert or breeders (brie duhrs?) in or near patches of sage. If there was a Sage Flycatcher, I think this would be it, but since Gray Flycatcher is a spot-on description (albeit boring), I can live with that.