To Live and Die in Arcata

Cato & Co,

Settle in for a tale that will ruffle your feathers! Our goal for the day was finding the locally rare Brambling that's been reported in Arcata, CA for the past several weeks.

After driving 5 hours to get we were dismayed to realize that nobody had reported seeing the bird for a week (yay, planning!). So, after 2 fruitless hours of searching the residential neighborhood where it had been reported consistently until we decided to chase it, we gave up.

Instead, we drove to nearby Arcata Marsh, a nearby hotspot with ponds, marsh, bay, and the requisite sewage treatment plant that birds love so much.

We spied this guy lurking along the marsh edges. Can you find him?

Here's a closer view:

Our first-of-year American Bittern gave us a brief glimpse before diving back into the reeds. You may not have heard yet, but I have been lobbying to have the Bittern formally renamed to "Marsh Zebra", or "American Marsh Zebra" (for the patriots out there). Much more appropriate, don't you think?

After lunch, though, is when things got exciting.

We arrived on the bay's edge, and were amazed by a humongous flock of shorebirds:

Video! A little shaky because hand-held but cool: 

Closer view:

How is it that people can't drive on a straight road with painted lines without colliding, yet these birds can fly in a tight group without whacking each other?

They would sit on the bay edge for several minutes at a time, then get spooked and all take off in a fling of shorebirds, then land again.

After several minutes of watching their act repeat, we saw a small, dark shape swoop through the sky -- a Peregrine Falcon! Yo, birdies, this is not a drill!

The birds noticed the falcon, and took off even more wildly than before. The falcon circled above the flock, dove straight down through the middle of the flock in the blink of an eye, and pulled up before it hit the water. We thought it might have missed, but we were wrong... it swooped down and landed in the shallow water, then took off again with something in its talons. Not a great picture, but you can kind of see two tiny legs trailing behind him:

He landed in a distant tree for a well-earned meal. Meanwhile, the entire shorebird flock departed for another part of the bay, and we didn't see them again the rest of the afternoon. They must have put up a virtual "There Be Dragons" sign.

Tomorrow, we're taking another run at the Brambling, then down to Fort Bragg for some more coastal birding. Keep an eye to the sky, and may you never meet the falcon's talon.

Grimly,
Me