Fools and Englishmen

Saludos fiesta gente!

The insanity has reached new levels, heretofore unparalleled in my personal existence. Yesterday, we drove 500 miles to go birding in 114F weather, to find a little gull who got lost, as so many do nowadays.

Now I'm not English (although some of my best friends are), so clearly Noel Coward was onto something.

In this case, however, it wasn't just any little gull, it was a Little Gull! This is a rare visitor to California, possibly from Asia, and has the distinction of being the smallest gull in the world. If you're a Bird Nerd, you would appreciate that this gull appeared to be only somewhat larger than a phalarope. If you're not a Bird Nerd, then please realize: there is still time.

Our target was reported earlier this week near the town of Lemoore, CA. Now we had never been to Lemoore before, but our first impression was positive. On the way into town, we passed Lemoore High School, which must be a FANTASTIC place to be educated because (A) there was an actual fireworks stand in the parking lot selling actual fireworks, and (B) across the street from the school is a restaurant named "Lolita's". Undoubtedly, that would have brought a tear to Nabakov's(*) cold, steel-blue eyes.

The one downside to Lemoore is that they apparently have The World's Largest Outdoor Furnace, and it was turned to SCORCHING. When we first arrived at the ponds where the gull had been reported at about 3PM, our car's thermostat read 110F. When we returned to the car after an initial failed attempt to locate our quarry, the temp read 114F. Fortunately, the furnace must have run out of hydrogen, as the mercury had "cooled" down to around 100F by the time we left at 6:30.

If you're curious about what a Little Gull looks like, glue your eyes to this pic:

Little Gull stares pensively into the mirror, contemplating his own mortality as he wonders what the Hell that was that died in the background.

If you'd like to see a little action, then check out this video we took with an iPhone through our scope (the gull is in the middle):

Now, there is clearly a lot going on here, much of which I attribute to Delirium from the heat:

1. Our protagonist, the gull, is Riverdancing his way through the puddle.
2. The tall pink-ish/orange-ish headed bird in the foreground, the American Avocet, is a drama queen, strutting about majestically, swiping its bill through the water with dramatic pauses. His stationary partner to the right, clearly embarrassed at this display, refuses to look at him.
3. The small birds on the left, Wilson's Phalaropes, are playing Dizzy Bat, except without the Bat or the footrace that traditionally follows.

Fortunately, the temps didn't get any hotter, or who knows what deranged acts we may have witnessed?

Speaking of hotter, the next few days will find us in Arizona, chasing some exotic hummingbirds and a few other targets. We are visiting just at the beginning of monsoon season, so maybe we'll also get a terrifying torrential thunderstorm or two!

Hasta la vista,
Me


(*) Fun Regional Fact about Nabakov that I learned while doing extensive research for this blog post. Apparently, he lived in Ashland, OR for a while and finished the novel Lolita while there.

Not What We Expected, But It Turned Out OK

Eureka! from Seward, Alaska!

I didn't see that coming.

Sunday, we set out right on schedule for our boat trip, checked in with no issues, and were the second people on the boat. We departed at the proper time, gently cruised out of the harbor on glassy water, and then picked up steam crossing the bay. Then, about 90 minutes later, after sightings of Bald Eagle, porpoises, and orcas, one of the boat's two engines died.

Now, I'd like to say that it went down like this:

Boom! The engine exploded into a huge ball of flames! The boat rocked forward, then backward, then heaved dramatically to the left...we were taking on water! Automatic life support systems caused life rafts to deploy! Passengers were tossed life vests and the Captain shouted, "Prepare for the worst!" But, then! Lo! A pair of whales breached right behind the boat! Their splash put out the fire! And -- believe it or not -- the whales then nudged the boat forward, and then pushed us all the way back to the harbor. True, 'dat.

Actually, we just limped back to the harbor on one engine, and the boat company offered to fully refund everybody or rebook on a different day. We opted to rebook for Monday, and gave it one more shot yesterday.

Man, was that a good choice!

The weather was nearly perfect, with blue skies and sun all day. We saw incredible scenery, had about 15 minutes of watching a Humpback Whale repeatedly breach and slap its tail, got up-close and personal with a glacier, and added 3 life/year birds. Fortunately, a birding tour group happened to be taking the same boat, so we were also in proximity to two expert guides to help with Bird ID, and the captain went out of his way to pull up next to places that were known to be good for birds.

If you ever find yourself in Seward, I highly recommend a trip with Kenai Fjords Tours. The captain was great, the boat was comfortable (although the food could have been improved), and when something went wrong, they did a perfect job of customer service.

So, in the immortal words of The OG William Shakespeare, all's well that ends well!

We're finally headed home today, with only a few days for work, laundry, and cleaning cobwebs off the walls before embarking on our next journey: a short trip to Tucson to find some weird-ass hummingbirds and a rare visitor from Mexico called a Tufted Flycatcher!

Hasta la vista,
Me

Dall's Porpoise. It was completely underwater and swimming alongside the boat, so you can see how glassy the water was at that time.

Northwest Glacier

Momma sea otter with pup

Parakeet Auklet!

Thick-billed Murre! Like the Common Murres we see in Cali, but note the blacker color; thick, almost raven-like bill; and white line on the side of the bill.

Look! It's Humpy the Humpback Whale doing the Tootsie Roll!

Postcards From The Edge

Wet fishy kisses from Seward, Alaska!

The town is named for William Seward. Old Billy was the savvy Secretary of State to Abraham Lincoln who conned Russia into selling us Alaska for all of about $7 million, or $0.02 per acre, in 1867. Since that deal worked out so well, maybe we should keep investing in real estate? Mexico seems like a good "buy low" opportunity, and doesn't "Tequila: Made in America" have a nice ring to it?

Seward is also known for being the start of the Iditarod trail, of which we saw the finish line in Nome. I believe we earned an Achievement today for seeing both ends of the trail, but XBox hasn't yet credited my account. I'm still waiting, XBox.

It's also home to the famous Polar Bear Jump-Off, in which clinically insane people jump into the frigid waters of Seward's harbor IN JANUARY to raise money to fight cancer. Maybe they should be raising money to fight brain damage, which they clearly all have, but, hey, to each her own.

We are in Seward tonight in preparation for tomorrow's boat trip out to the Kenai Fjords National Park. This may be a shock to some of you, but the highlight of the trip is...drum roll... Fjords! Besides being a fun word to pronounce (roughly "fe-YORD"), these are narrow, steep-sided valleys formed by glaciers and then flooded by sea water. Aside from dramatic cliffs and coastline, we should get glaciers and a number of marine mammals. Importantly for our Biggish Year, it's also our last chance for Alaskan seabirds, so we will have our attention torn in many directions!

As this trip winds down, here are a few of the sights you missed by not coming with us. I mean, we didn't offer, but you still could have popped over for a few days.

It's never too early to re-model your home...

But that DIY is some seriously tiring work, man!

Seriously, give it up for the Arctic Tern. These sun-loving birds breed in the Arctic during June and July, fly south to ANTARCTICA to hang out during the southern Summer, and then fly BACK again the next spring! At a minimum, this is about 24,000 miles of flying per year, and many birds take meandering courses that are much longer, up to 57,000 miles per year!!! They often live to be more than 30 years old, so in a typical lifetime, they could fly a distance equivalent to going to the Moon and back three times. And here I get tired walking from the couch to the fridge and back.

A wonderful creature is the Caribou
His antlers can grow more than an inch per day
I don't know how the Hell-he-do.

Denali, covered in clouds, like it apparently usually is. Even in the summer, about half the days the mountain is enveloped in clouds and is not visible at all.

Jaeger coming in a for a landing.

Dall Sheep in Denali. Two mammal pics in one post is evidence that I'm not JUST about birds!

Rusty Blackbird says, "Seriously? Can't a guy eat lunch without somebody whipping out a camera? Why you gotta point that thing at me? Jerk."

Until next time,
Me.

Spotted

A mis amables osos polares,

This missive is fired your way from Denali, Alaska! We flew from Nome back to Anchorage on Wednesday and then drove up here on Thursday. Today was our tour of Denali National Park, which involves a 66-mile bus ride from the park entrance to the Eielson Visitor Center, located about 30 miles away from Mt. McKinley, and back again.

You can't appreciate how big Mt. McKinley is unless you get a clear view of it. Like LeBron James surrounded by the Fern Grove Elementary basketball team, McKinley literally towers above the other mountains around it. I've seen big mountains before, but nothing like this, which was a very cool experience.

Aside from the scenery, the other cool thing about today's tour was the fauna. We saw Moose, as well as our first-ever sighting of Caribou and Dall Sheep! Plus, we found one of our two target birds for the park, a beautiful Gyrfalcon hanging out on a cliff ledge near its nest! (pics to follow soon)

But, the weirdest thing happened on Wednesday.

We were sitting in the tiny Nome Airport, and I was reading the daily Rare Bird Report out loud to The Wife.

"Hmm...maybe we should go to Tucson soon to find the Tufted Flycatcher," I mused aloud.

At which time a voice behind me says, "Hey, are you Ms. Biggish Year?" apparently to my wife.

"Uhhh....," says The Wife, stunned, "yeah?"

"And are you Mr. Biggish Year?" he asks me.

"Well, ummm...." I said, thinking quickly about how the heck he could have known our names, and where the closest exit door and security officer were.

"Cool. We saw your names on eBird reports and so knew you were around. My buddy here is doing a Big Year and he's near you on the list. We've been following your progress, so were wondering if we'd run into you."

Now, I've been doing my own share of cyber-stalking this year, identifying several people we've met in the field by comments they made, their first names, and eBird reports. But of course I didn't tell them that; having a stranger call your name tends to freak people out.

But, the tables had turned! Now, we were the ones being stalked! Freaky!

Fortunately, the guys were very nice, and we exchanged stories about our experiences in Nome until the plane boarded. They had spent a week in Nome and found many more birds than us, which made us insanely jealous and instantly started us planning how we could get back to Nome before the snows hit. Which, sadly, probably won't happen.

So, guys, if you read this... congrats on your week and good luck the rest of the year!

At least there weren't any paparazzi...yet.

Me

Nome

How the heck did we end up in Nome, Alaska?

Just a few days ago, we were hanging out on our deck in Napa, CA, enjoying dinner on our deck on a warm spring evening.

Today, we find ourselves on the edge of the Arctic Circle, birding one moment in dense fog, another in 30mph winds and 45F temperatures, and another in California-like blue skies and 70F.

Nome is a 75-minute flight north of Anchorage, or almost the same distance as between San Francisco and Portland. So, while Anchorage is currently experiencing 20 hours of daylight, Nome is getting 22 hours! While I'm writing this, at 11:30PM local time, the sun is still well above the horizon and won't dip under until about 2am, only to pop up again at 4am.

A challenge in small towns is finding good food, and the food here has been OK. Tonight we dined in an Italian/Korean/Japanese restaurant, not an unusual combination for small towns. We chose our cuisine based on the ethnicity of the hosts, assuming they would know the most about that type of food, and sure enough, the Bi-Bim-Bap was pretty tasty.

The birding has been great, as Nome is far enough north to get birds that don't like to travel to where the weather is decent. So, our list now include some exotic names like Northern Wheatear, Eastern Yellow Wagtail, and Bar-tailed Godwit. But, the bird of the day was this sexy little number:

The Willow Ptarmigan is wearing Uggs. In June. Apparently, he's a California Girl at heart.

Note that, the wife cracked herself up when she came up with this, said in the style of Chubby Checker:

The young-un's should consult YouTube for a reference

The remaining lyrics are left as an exercise for the student.

One more day here in Nome, and then we fly back to Anchorage on Wednesday evening. We are only 13 birds from our original goal, and that may be achievable in our remaining 5 days in Alaska!

Ptarm-igan-ing, like we did last year
Me

72 Hours in Alaska

Greetings from Anchorage, Alaska!

Great White North my ass. This is the Blue-Green North, where the skies are clear and a beautiful deep indigo, the forests are fiercely verdant, and yesterday’s temperature topped out at…

So, I can confirm that if your concept of Alaska evolved from watching too many episodes of Ice Road Truckers or Deadliest Catch, and you think that the entire state is permafrost or constantly battered by horrific storms, then you would be wrong. (But BTW, if you have not seen Ice Road Truckers, then what the heck are you doing with your life?)

On the other hand, if you’ve heard of Alaska as “the land of the midnight sun” then you would be correct. Sunset in Anchorage today occurs at nearly midnight, and here is what the street outside last night’s restaurant looks like at 10:30pm:

But, you ask, what about the birds??? The past three days for us have been a blur or birding and traveling, as 20 hours of daylight means lots of time to look for birds!

We arrived in Anchorage on Thursday evening and birded some of the local area. A common thread of the past few days has been that birdie babies are just now hatching and stretching their wings, such as these Arctic Terns from a park south of Anchorage:

Friday, we drove down to Homer, and along the way encountered our first Moose. If you’ve never seen a moose, you might think of them as large cows or elk. If this sounds right to you, then you are comically mistaken. An adult male moose is about the size of a Mack truck, or so they appear from relatively close distance: from about 100 yards away, we saw a moose run across the road and behind a group of motorcyclists, and I swear that it looked more than twice the height of the cyclists.

Saturday, we boarded the ferry to Kodiak, and proceeded to spend most of the next 23 hours on the ocean, as Kodiak is a 10-hour one-way journey. Why in the world would we do this? Well, we couldn’t find a pelagic birding trip that worked with our schedule, so we decided to take a ferry instead!

An ocean-going trip to look for birds consists of long periods of boredom interspersed with short periods of frustration, as you attempt to identify birds you’ve never seen before while the boat is moving one way and the birds are moving another. Thanks to years of experience combined with the famous Spray-And-Pray photographic technique, we managed to bag several good birds including:

The incomprable Northern Fulmar

The freaky cool Fork-tailed Storm-petrel. How fantabulous is it to have "Storm" be a part of your name!

Tufted Puffin, who *just* missed being a spokesmodel for Jheri-curl

While scheduling the ferry on these particular days worked great for our timeline, it also meant that the morning of our wedding anniversary was spent in separate twin bunk beds in a tiny cabin. Fortunately, she is used to such inconveniences and will likely value the Storm-petrels more than any other gift she might have received, so all will be well. One hopes.

Next on the itinerary is Nome, Alaska, the home of the finish line for the Iditarod race and not much else. But, the birds are supposed to be amazing, so wish us luck!

All the best,
Me

Packing bags

¡Hola, desconocido!

Well, it's summertime, and the livin' is easy. At least, it has been for the past couple weeks, as we've been getting back into our normal routine, hosting a friend, and taking some time off of birding.

While I was away, it looks like Dr. Sayornis did her usual stellar job of imparting some high-quality education. Thanks, Doc Say, for filling in!

Before I get into the update, I have a favor to ask! Every non-profit could use a little extra cash, and if you use Amazon.com, then they have a very easy way for you to help out your favorite non-profit: Smile! Just go to smile.amazon.com, sign in with your Amazon account, and choose the non-profit you'd like to support. Now, every time you buy something using Smile, Amazon will pay 0.5% of the purchase to that organization! We would appreciate you choosing "Napa-Solano Audubon" as your non-profit, but any group will do. Thanks!

Now, it's time for vacation to end, and for us to get back into the birding groove. Later this week, we depart for a 11-day trip to Alaska, where we'll visit Anchorage, Kodiak Island (briefly), Nome, and Denali National Park. We're only 41 birds from our year goal, and we have a small chance of hitting that mark during this trip!

Meanwhile, we sharpened our skills with a little excursion to the Central Valley, including Rush Ranch for our first-of-year Barn Owls (can you believe we went this long without a Barn Owl?) and the outskirts of Davis for California's own Yellow-billed Magpie.

Pics or it didn't happen? Here you go...

The few, the proud, the Tri-colored Blackbird

Late spring is when fledglings start spreading their wings, but this little Loggerhead Shrike isn't quite sure he digs the flying.

Rush Ranch has a huge barn, and big thanks to the staff member who unlocked the doors so we could get a good look at the resident Barn Owls!

Stop doing that, Owl #2, you're freaking me out.

A cow, some birds, what else could they be than Brown-headed Cowbirds! If you really want to feel bad for the cow, zoom in on the picture so you can see just how many flies she has.

Now, back to filling up those suitcases!

Adios,
Me

Bird Finding 201, Class #3: The Importance of Paying Attention!

Students, attention! Stop messing with your phones! Dr. Sayornis is in da house!

Well, my disciples, we have journeyed long and hard to reach this crossroads in our learning. This is our final lecture, and after today, I will continue onward to more great Bird Finding feats, while you will do...something. Whatever it is that you do. I'm sure it's fine. I don't judge.

In our recent lectures, I have sown several seeds in the fertile soil of your minds, digging into the importance of Time and of Place in Bird Finding. Today, I will dump a big steamy load of high-nutrient compost on these seeds, as you will learn the secret to transforming from a plebeian-grade bird finder into a Ninja Bird Finder Extraordinaire. Because, scientia ipsa potentia est.

Here's the secret: Pay Attention!

But wait, you say, quid est hoc? Actually, that's what *I* would say, as you students wouldn't know the Mother Tongue si momordit vos in nasi. Kids today! When I was a young scholar, school was for learning! Not socializing or playing the foot ball or whatever it is that goes on in "school" today! And if you didn't learn, the good Sister had a ruler that would beat Knowledge into you! But, I digress; mox nox in rem.

Now, the road to finding a bird is paved with feathers from the birds that you missed, so it's thick and fluffy and a little hard to walk upon. But, birds leave clues to their location and identity like a politician makes promises at election time, so just Pay Attention! and birds will literally jump out of trees at you.

To illustrate, let me regale you with tales of how the good Doc Say did or didn't find his bird due to attention.

In Florida, at Bahia Honda State Park, I was scanning trees for warblers when a cuckoo landed nearby. Having seen cuckoos many times before, I just glanced casually at the bird before walking on. I assumed it was a Yellow-billed Cuckoo, as I had seen these recently, but when I checked online to see how often they had been reported, I was shocked to discover that NONE had been reported. However, the elusive Mangrove Cuckoo, had been reported several times at the park! So did I have the first sighting of a Yellow-billed for the season, or my first ever Mangrove? I hadn't looked closely at the field marks, so I had no idea, and sadly had to eschew reporting it.

In Cave Creek, Arizona, I was strolling through a campground, watching the sky for hawks, when something caught my ear:


Unfamiliar with the sound, I traced it to a small branch high in a tree, only to be blazed by the iridescence of a Blue-throated Hummingbird! Had I not noticed the sound, I never would have seen that bird.

Sometimes, an unusual situation should cause your attention to be raised. Earlier this year, at Estero Llano Grande State Park in Texas, I unexpectedly discovered a large flock, a dozen or so, of Clay-colored Thrush feeding on ripe berries from anacua trees. Previously, I had only seen these one or two at a time, so I should have been more interested in studying them, but instead I walked onward. Just the next day, Rare Bird Alerts were afire with news that a very unusual White-throated Thrush had been seen in those anacua trees! Had I seen it? I don't know, because I wasn't freaking Paying Attention!

The last piece of advice I would have along these lines is semper paratus. You know better than to take your final exam without studying (don't you?!?!), so why would you venture into The Field without knowledge of what you might see? In Arizona, I was hiking a trail through dense mesquite brush, when a small warbler with a solid gray head and yellow chest popped into view. Knowing that these field marks could mean only one of a couple birds, I quickly looked for the definitive mark: indeed, he had a broken white eye ring, which could only mean a MacGillivray's Warbler! So, by knowing the field marks and what birds were likely in the area, a bird could be identified with only a brief glance.

And with that, our Bird Finding 201 class concludes. For your next Bird Finding Expedition, you will know to prepare in advance, go to the right habitats, spend the proper time, and dammit Pay Attention!

Now, go out there and make me proud,

Dr. Sayornis
In vino veritas