Owls of The Ground, Owls of The Pine, and Stroking of The Robin

A Belted Kingfisher hunts at Middle Harbor Shoreline Park, Oakland, CA. This is a great birding place where I see the same common species over and over again, which is in high demand these days.

BB&B has been very focused on exotic birds so far this year. I know it. And I know what you really want to be seeing are incredibly common, run-of-the-mill birds that anyone can see without even trying! Am I right? Or amirite? That's what the birding (or perhaps the bird photographing public) seems to crave these days I think, so if that's what the public wants, that is indeed what they shall get! Also, my GLOBAL BIRDER RANKING SYSTEM rank in Mexico isn't anything worth bragging about (Felonious Jive, The Great Ornithologist, has a much better standing than I do), so while posting about Mexico has been fun, it's not a good platform for touting where the GBRS puts me. However, as you may recall, I can totally brag about my GBRS score for U.S. ranked birders.  That would be #7, in case you have forgotten...but how could you? Anyways, lets take a look at some abundant, widespread birds.

Here is a Snowy Egret! Oh, joyous day! How pretty!

My goodness! A fish is pursued!

Ok, I'm not knocking Snowy Egrets and Belted Kingfishers or beginning birders (well...I am a little bit), I just thought I would change things up. I've got a big backlog of pre-Mexico photos to deal with, you know? I wasn't seeing many rarities in late fall/early winter so this is what we are stuck with. And if you are not happy about that, how do you think I feel? For good or ill, any kind of wader is fun to photograph when it gets giddy about catching fish. I'm still waiting for my epic, point-blank Reddish Egret photo session, so until I get spoiled with that we will have Snowy Egrets...

...and Forster's Terns! This is the one and only tern we have an abundance in the bay area in winter. It's a sad state of affairs. We don't even have many tern species in the summer. I miss living in places where seeing Black Terns is a normal thing. Ballena Bay, Alameda, CA.

At high tide, this bird was roosting on a little floating piece of driftwood, and drift it did until it was crushed into oblivion.

Ok, I reckon you have had enough of all the robin-stroking. Here is a Ferruginous Hawk, a bird superior to most birds. Salt Springs Valley, CA.

Judging by the extensive amount of white on the underwing and underparts (including the shaggy legs), this is a young bird. According to Dipper Dan, famed Calaveras County birder, Salt Springs Valley is the best winter birding the county has to offer. I reckon he is probably correct on that account. While we dipped on Rough-legged Hawks (this hasn't been a good winter for them), there was an abundance of Ferruginous Hawks and Lewis's Woodpeckers, and Tricolored Blackbirds and Bald Eagles were refreshing birds as well.

Refreshing birds are nice and all, but certain species reside on a higher plain of perception and enjoyment. I have a special place in my cold, nerdy little heart for Burrowing Owls.

This is the other half of the pair, presumably the male based on the paler coloration (or colouration, if you are so inclined). Shortly after this, while I was attempting the most epic photo anyone has ever taken of a Lewis's Woodpecker, my SD card took a shit and it was hell trying to get the photos off of it...not that you care, but it was a relief to rescue some decent owl shots.

Sometimes I post things photos of things like Black Phoebes, which is not a momentous achievement but it seems to drive the easterners crazy. In that vein, I offer you this California Towhee. Back in December, I went on a ragey camping trip that happened to take place where a few birds live. This brown beauty belongs to a breathtakingly common species, and it also happens to be disgraced former Bird Policeman Adam Searcy's favorite bird...and lets face it, he needs some cheering up. Only a month ago, The Bird Police relegated the besmirched Mr. Searcy to a boring subcommittee and stripped him of his former power. Will he ever rise again, like the phoenix, to become a voting member? We may not know for years. In an apparent snub to Mr. Searcy, Officer John Garrett celebrated Mr. Searcy's demotion by finding a briefly-chaseable Kelp Gull. It rained on Officer Garrett that night...droplets of Glory soaked him for hours. Pinnacles National Park, CA.

While northern California has a deficit of winter terns, we at least have a couple species of quail. California Quail is a fine state bird I reckon, delicious both to the eyes and mouth. Such plumpness and fine patterning is a thing best beheld in person, and behold I did.

Fantastic patterning on these birds, though their roundness may be even more remarkable. And no, we did not see any California Condors.

After Pinnacles, it was out to Mercey Hot Springs in Fresno County. Everyone in the group was excited about soaking in the hot springs...which was fun and led to exacerbated inebriation, but I was looking forward to Long-eared Owls a lot more. I had heard this place was the best place in the state to see LEOWs, and I had also heard that birders can't just show up there anymore without paying (which I cannot confirm or deny to be true at the moment), but I didn't care since we were paying to camp. The owls were easy, really easy to see, thankfully, and my nonbirder roommate Arrison found them before I even arrived.

While I was there, all the day-roosting birds I saw were all in a single pine tree. They were used to people, so it was no problem walking under them and getting a good look. Now this is a bird I will never get tired of seeing.

Incredibly, there were TEN Long-eared Owls roosting in this tree! Here are five of them, looking like oversized pine cones. I never thought I would see a flock of them, but you know what? I have seen a flock of Long-eared Owls. Imagine that. Shortly after this photo was taken, I became completely incapacitated with a hangover. As Flycatcher Jen says, good times!

p.s. #7

So Long California

Sometimes a bird will be so used to people that it maddeningly won't acknowledge your presence. If a bird can't be bothered to look at you, then the best thing to do is to crush the rest of its body. Great Blue Heron, Marin Civic Center, San Rafael, CA.

I've noticed that most of my posts lately have had some kind of central subject or theme to them, which is very unlike me...it's high time I do a potpourri (aka diarrhea) post. I don't do a very good job at keeping BB&B in sync with current events and photos that I take, so here's some randomness from the last couple of months...it may be my last California post for a while.

I haven't done that much birding lately...my year list could be a lot higher than it is, but that is something I can live with. If it wasn't for time spent in Baja, it would be borderline pathetic. Maybe that's not something the nation's #7 birder should readily admit to, but such is life. Of course, not being able to live with this fact would be shameful...I am not just a creature of lists and ticking. Tomorrow I embark on my road trip to the Lower Rio Grande Valley, so all that will change soon. My eBird rarity alerts no longer feature counties like Alameda, San Francisco and Marin...instead they are set to unfamiliar names like Cameron, Hidalgo, and Starr. The winds of change are blowing strong.

If you missed it, The Great Ornithologist Felonious Jive posted at 10,000 Birds on his feelings about being birding's ambassador, and how you too can share the stage. I can offer my own advice on the matter...more bourbon, less bitching.

Watching birds take baths is always fun. There seems to be a tangible enjoyment that they take in it...although I have seen a couple night-herons that seemed completely dismal about it. Snowy Egret, Marin Civic Center.

More plumes. I don't think of American White Pelicans as a tufted bird, but that's because I'm an idiot. Photographed at Lake Merritt, Oakland, CA. This is a free-flying bird, not Hank (a non-flying bird).

There is more than one tufted fowl that allows crushes at Lake Merritt.

I generally don't bother photographing this bird until February every year, because it just kind of looks like shit earlier in the season. It's flanks are now pristine and it's tuft grows more voluptuous by the day. I reckon it will be around for at least a couple more weeks.

It took me a few years to get a decent open-wing shot; this one works for me.

Birds are funny. Great Egret, Lake Merritt.

I am unhappy with all the Barnacle Geese that show up in the northeast every winter now. Not because I think they are all escapees, but because thousands of birders are gripping me off. At least we have Ross's Geese. Marin Civic Center.

Why the rippley neck? One of the great mysteries of the universe.

A drake Gadwall displays his bulging, scallopy breast. It's hard to look away. Marin Civic Center.

So majestic. Soon, I will find myself beleaguered by Mottled Ducks, which has been nominated for Most Boring Native Bird. Of course, two species of whistling-duck will be providing me company as well.

If Slartibartfast designed ducks instead of continents, there is no doubt he would get an award for Northern Pintail. Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, CA.

This Yellow-bellied Sapsucker (a BB&B first) was a cripple. Not a crippler, since it's pretty shoddy looking, but a cripple; it's right wing is pretty mangled and only useful in that it can aid in fluttering to the ground so the sapsucker could make it's way to the next closest tree. Canada Larga Road, Ventura County, CA.

Hopefully the wing injury wasn't permanent; at least the bird had a good food source.

Loggerhead Shrike is a fairly common bird that I love that I just have not administered a brutal crushing to yet. I'm working on it though. Canada Larga Road.

Cropped differently than the above photo. I think I like this version better.

Shorebird enjoyment: one of the handful of "family-friendly" activities that I can also condone. Middle Harbor Shoreline Park, Oakland, CA.

Dunlin and Western Sandpipers comprise the bulk of the big sandpiper flocks in the bay area in winter. The economy of style is almost too much to handle...thankfully, most other birds don't wear such dismal attire. Middle Harbor Shoreline Park.

American Avocets were one of the first birds I was really fond of before I became a birder. Not a trigger bird per se, but a solid gateway species. Middle Harbor Shoreline Park.

I get dangerously accustomed to Heermann's Gulls sometimes. They really are striking, and we are lucky to have them. Berkeley Fishing Pier, Berkeley, CA.

This gull had put on some eyeshadow to get the cat-eyed look that's popular with the ladies these days. It will undoubtedly be participating in numerous copulations once it gets to Baja.

Batting Away Terns/Birding Poe Road

One of Poe's many Forster's Terns. This picture summons up Charley Harper artwork for me. Do you see, Flycatcher Jen? Do you see?

Poe Road is the southernmost access to the Salton Sea, a little bit removed from the heavily-birded area between Bowles Road and the Wister Unit and not as well known as the end of Vendel Road (i.e. Bean Goose town). I'm always impressed with the numbers of birds here, and I don't think it will be long before some ubervagrant shows up on this prime piece of shoreline, although I'm sure plenty have in the past. When I lurked out there last week there was a big flock of terns sitting around, as well as a horde of Brown pelicans, decent numbers of shorebirds and some much sought-after Yellow-footed Gulls.

Since the level of the Salton Sea is always changing (I would say "shrinking" is the general trend), there is now a pretty solid roadway of sorts that goes all the way to the shore now; this is easily driveable by any vehicle (assuming no recent rain or Salton Sea level rise), making it a great place to both bird/photograph from your car and set up a scope in a desperate and probably futile attempt to find a Blue-footed Booby plunge-diving offshore. Make sure you check this spot out if you haven't already.

Forster's Tern. The grayness of the bird has shaken the birding community to its very core, as this field mark is popular for people to use in separating Forster's and Common Terns (only Commons are supposed to be this gray). However, after seeing gray-bellied Forster's Terns in San Diego all spring and summer, I say this field mark is helpful at most, and to solely rely on this makes you a sketchy birder. You heard it here first, Sibley!


Seriously though, if you have any more compelling reasons to tell me why this is a Common Tern, I would love to hear them...especially if your name rhymes with "Benn Baufman". The bird strikes me as too long-tailed and long-billed...but I am no Benn Baufman, who ranks pretty high on the Global Birder Ranking Scale.

Forster's Tern (same bird as in the above photos).

Black and Forster's Terns milling around in the awful heat. It was blood-boilingly hot that afternoon, which adds to the surreal feeling of birding the sea in summer.

Caspian Terns are thick at the Salton Sea; easily one of the commonest birds there this time of year. This one is sharp-looking.

Terns are generally really good looking birds in spring and early summer, but they are cursed with baldness for their youth and for many months of the year.

This is a little tilapia that a Forster's Tern dropped. More like a Falling Fish than a Flying Fish. I wonder what it was thinking when this photo was taken.

The salty bird gods of the Salton Sea allowed me to get a bit closer to Western Sandpipers than I normally do.

Western Sandpipers. I would guess the long-billed bird on the left is a female and the one on the right may be a male, just going by bill length. 

Just a giant pile of dead fish, par for the course at the Salton Sea. Man, what a fucked up place.

All the crap and dead trees that litter the shoreline of the Salton Sea can really add to bird photos. This Snowy Egret shot is 70% better with this dumb post in the foreground than it would be without it.