New England is Adorable

Tomorrow we fly back to Tucson for the long drive home, with maybe a quick stop for one more bird. We had a few misses on this trip, but lots of success, and so we stand content with the results.

As we've been driving around quite a bit (about 1200 miles on the rental car in 7 days!), we've seen a fair amount of the New England area, from Connecticut up to Maine. And, for the most part, the thing that stands out is that it's so darn cute!

Towns have olde British-y names like "Peabody" or "Manchester-by-the-Sea", and people live on streets like "Old Straitsmouth Way" or "Bartholomew Avenue". Roads are gently curved and hilly, with rarely a straight line. There are Brooks, Necks, and Runs, and communities are called "Villages".

Lawns are impeccably manicured, and fences tend to be of the white picket variety.  Houses are clad in weather-aged shingles, or neatly painted clapboards of gray with white trim, both of which contrast pleasingly with the pale blue sky of a clear, cold winter's day. And even a modest-sized home is called a "cottage".

Nearly every angle presents a postcard-quality view.

But as quaint as this is, and "quaint" is very appropriately used in this context, there are a few downsides that we've discovered from spending a total of about 2 weeks here this year:

1. Weather, specifically the Winter weather. We saw a sign today along a road that ran right beside a beach which said, "Caution: Drifting Snow". Snow drifts? Next to the ocean? That's just wrong. And it gets cold... despite being about the same latitude as Medford, OR, the average high temperature in Boston doesn't get much above 40F, and the lows are typically below 30F for the entire winter. Between the frigid temperatures and snow (remember, Boston received nearly 11 feet of snow last year!), many businesses, from stores to inns to restaurants, just shut down during the winter, some from November until May.
2. Accents. For some reason, the New England dialect just grates on my nerves. If I never heard another, "Pahk the cah ovah theyah," I wouldn't feel that my life was worse in any way. 
3. Lobster. OMG. It's so overplayed. Every corner store sells lobster, and it shows up on menus in odd ways because every restaurant must offer lobster but the chefs are bored to tears with Lobster Rolls and Lobster Bisque. So, how about lobster in an omelette? Or lobster ice cream? And, of course, you can purchase lobster t-shirts and lobster Christmas ornaments and even lobster-themed children's books.

Despite this, I highly recommend a trip here, especially if you take time to visit some of the museums and historical sites to learn about the history of this country. Just don't come in the summer,... May or October are so much less crowded.

Now, if you came here for a birding update, I will satisfy your vicarious curiosity: We found two new birds yesterday, both Life Birds for us. A flock of Purple Sandpipers perched and dozed in the sun on a seaweed-covered rock, and we were able to get within about 6 feet of them without scaring them off. And thanks to more eBird Detective Work, we discovered a King Eider, although it was about 1000 feet away and sleeping, so we didn't get the best of views of that one. I guess that will be an excuse to come back next year!

Off to have some lobster cocoa before bed,
Me

Wild Goose Chase, Part 2: The Lon Guisland Express

Happy Thanksgiving! ¿Todavía ama pavo?

I hope your Thanksgiving was well spent with favored friends, family, or both, or neither if that's how you roll, and at the very least it was pleasantly calorie-laden.

Our Thanksgiving weekend has been extremely busy, and not due to the usual preparation of feasts, or shopping expeditions, or finally thinking about taking down last year's Christmas lights from the front porch before you realize that it's time to put them up again and feeling clever at your efficiency. Or whatever normal people do.

First, where are we? We spent the past few days in a wonderful place, Provincetown, MA, where the Mayflower landed in 1620, on the very far tip of Cape Cod:

The key thing to note about P-town, and the reason we made it our destination, is that it is located about 20 miles offshore of most of the rest of the continent, so it's a good place to look for ocean birds that you might otherwise require a boat trip to find.

[Aside: If you're from the Left Coast or geographically challenged, other key things you might notice include:

1. There are a lot of famous places all crowded together near Boston, like Salem and Plymouth. That's kind of cool.
2. I've heard of Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket. And those places are islands? Seriously?
3. But Rhode Island isn't really an island? That's messed up.]

So, our last three days have involved rising around 6AM East Coast time, so we could get outside by dawn, trekking to key locations, then poring over flocks of birds for ones we need:

Most all the birds were a few hundred yards offshore, so most of our "birding" was hunching over a scope, with one eye closed, peering at the mass while waiting for the waves to move them up and down for better visibility.

The number of new birds we saw for all this effort? Exactly zero. So while we had a great time on the Cape, the time was a bust as far as birds go. 

So, yesterday we heard about this goose... Yes, another rare visitor to North America, and this Barnacle Goose had been reported for a couple days in a row on Long Island, NY. The site was about 4.5 hours south of Cape Cod with a ferry ride (ANOTHER BOAT!), not a terrible distance given what we've done so far, and we've never been to Long Island, so...one hotel and one ferry reservation later, we were headed south, to Greenport, NY.

Rising at our usual pre-dawn time this morning, we guessed at which of two reported sites it might be at, and started scanning through hundreds of Canada Geese again...and voila!

Mr. Goose is the black and white bird right in the middle.

Woohoo! And off we went, to catch our ferry back to Connecticut.

[Aside #2: We wondered what came first, the Goose Barnacle or the Barnacle Goose, why their names were so similar. Long story short, the bird was named first, and in the 1100's somebody claimed they grew from driftwood and matured underwater during the winters in the form of a critter they named the Goose Barnacle. And we thought drugs were a problem TODAY...]

After striking out on a couple of other locations, we decided to chase a nearby report of a Black-headed Gull. If we didn't it, we would have to trek hundreds of miles south and east to Maryland or New Jersey, or scratch it off the year list, so we really wanted this one. Rain was starting to fall, but gulls live on water, so they wouldn't mind a sprinkle, right?

In eBird, the close bird was reported in two places, one being in the center of the town of Westerly, RI, and the other was about 5 miles away on the coast at a state beach. Fortunately, the town report had a comment: "Seen near the main parking lot with other gulls".  Google Earth views of Westerly didn't show anything we would call a "main parking lot", so we guessed that it was mismarked and headed for the state beach. (Doing a Big Year does require more than a little detective work!)

Arriving at Misquamicut State Beach as the rain picked up, we found this:

Why do gulls like to stand in parking lots? Are they just fascinated by cars? Do they secretly aspire to become valets? 

And a quick scan of the flock found this!

The Erudite Birder will acknowledge the deep red bill and legs, light back, black spot in front of and behind the eye, and dark wingtips, all hallmarks of a Black-headed Gull. The rest of you will be asking, "Why doesn't it have a black head?" To which I will say, "To make blog readers ask questions!"

Now, after having visited four states in one day, we're settled near Boston, getting ready for one more shot at some of those coastal birds tomorrow. 

Phew!

Wild Goose Chase

Las colinas están vivas con el sonido de los gansos,

Having exhausted the list of birds we wanted to find in Florida, we moved our flight to Boston to one day earlier, to allow more time for chasing some of the unusual birds that are being reported here in the Northeast.

The bird upon which we set our sights is the same bird that ended the movie The Big Year: the Pink-footed Goose. A report had rolled down the pipes of the Interwebs just a few days ago that one of these geese was found in Connecticut, just outside of Hartford. Until the 1990s, this was an extremely rare vagrant to North America, and while the frequency of reports has increased in the past 20 years, there are usually only a few that show up across the entire continent in a year. So, we gotta get it!

Our flight to Boston landed at 5pm, and it turns out that leaving Boston-Logan at rush hour is a rotten idea. We decided to pull over for the night in Worcester, which it turns out is pronounced "Woostah" for reasons probably dating back to William Shakespeare. Despite this flaw, there's a fantastic pub in town: Armsby Abbey is highly recommended.

The next morning, we headed straight for the park where the goose had been seen, and pulled into the parking lot along with two other cars, both of which contained birders on the same chase.

We all walked to the area where the reports directed us, and then started scanning the approximately 2500 Canada Geese for one little Pinkie.

Which one of these is not like the other?

Didn't see it? How about now?

OK, those were a little unfair because while the goose is there, its head is tucked under a wing, so it's very tough to see (for fun, try downloading the photos, zooming in, and try to find it).

I'll make it easier on you:

In this shot, you can see a bit of its pink leg:

That was one of the rarest birds we've seen in North America this yet, and yet one of the easiest, too. I love it when a plan comes together!

Timing is Everything

For the past several weeks, reports have filtered out of South Florida that a somewhat unusual bird, the Smooth-billed Ani, was hanging out in Jonathan Dickinson State Park, near Jupiter, FL. And by "several weeks," I mean that the first report was posted on Sept 19, and subsequent reports followed almost daily. It was the definition of "reliable".

However, two days before we arrived in town, the first good rainstorm of the Fall dropped 1-2" of rain in a couple of days. This turned the Ani's favorite haunt, a large grassy bowl right next to the camping area, into a large swimming pool. And since Anis like to forage on the ground, this was, as they say, "no bueno".

So when we arrived at the park, the Ani had not been seen for several days. And despite our best efforts, it still has not been found. She could still be there, but the park is HUGE and nobody has re-located her yet. DRAT!

Next target: American Flamingo. While "American" is in the name, only a few of them show up in America each year, mostly in the shallow bays just offshore of Everglades National Park. Turns out, a pair of them showed up recently near Flamingo Visitor Center, in an infamous bay named Snake Bight. I call it infamous because anybody who has tried to hike the eponymous trail knows that this is one of the worst places EVER for mosquitoes. As one reviewer on TripAdvisor wrote, "As well as other reviewers, I only walked one minute, before running back to the car, due to mosquitoes". Our experience a few years ago was similar.

So, you can see the Flamingoes in one of two ways: you can hike the mosquito-infested trail and hope they happen to be standing in the relatively small viewing area from the end of the trail, or paddle a canoe from the Visitor Center about three miles and have 360 degree views of the entire bay. Obviously, the canoe is the way to go.

After our strikeout with the Ani and a three hour drive, we ended up at the Visitor Center. The sky was dark, and rain had fallen almost the entire drive. The canoe rental guy was very skeptical about letting us have a canoe:

"You can try if you want," he said, "But you only have an hour until low tide, which means you have to go the long way around. The sun sets in two hours, so unless you want to canoe in the dark, you're going to have to paddle like hell to make it."

Unfortunately, the forecast for the following day was for thunderstorms and strong winds, although mostly in the afternoon. His advice was to come back at dawn and make our journey as quick as possible.

Discretion vs. valor and all that, we took his advice. But given the concerns about tomorrow's weather, we decided to attempt the 1.5 mile Snake Bight trail just in case the Flamingoes were there.

So, although the temperature was around 80F with 95% humidity, we geared up: long pants, gloves (winter gloves, the only ones we had), and raincoat with hood up, all of it spritzed with 100% DEET. And it's a good thing we did, because not 25 feet down the trail, this is what The Wife's back looked like:

And, of course, after a sweaty 3.6 mile Death March, constantly swatting skeeters off the tiny patch of exposed skin on our faces, there were no Flamingoes.

So, time to find a hotel for the night. Driving out of the park to Florida City, however, we noticed amazingly heavy traffic, with orange cones blocking the left-hand turn we wanted to make and police directing traffic. Pulling over to do research, we discovered that a major NASCAR race was being held this weekend at the track in Homestead, with 50,000 fans expected in the area. And, it turns out, those fans need hotel rooms, because literally every room within an hour's drive was booked. DOUBLE DRAT! We considered just sleeping in the car, but really needed showers after the hike, so off we went, back up to Fort Lauderdale.

The next morning, leaving at 5AM, we drove through a tremendous downpour, the kind where the windshield wipers on Extra Fast can't keep up, and you have to slow to 30 mph to have any idea where the road is. We considered bailing, but knowing that Florida weather changes quickly, we drove on.

Fortunately, by the time we arrived at the Visitor's Center, the skies were blue, winds were calm, and the sun was shining brightly. It was a beautiful day for a canoe trip! Or so it seemed...

We are fairly novice Paddlers, but familiar enough with the techniques to make our way in a reasonably straight line out of the harbor. As we rounded the first sand bar, we noticed that the wind was a little breezy, as we were paddling on our left about three or four strokes for every one on the right for our "straight" line. But, we were making good time so thought nothing of it.

About an hour later, we had reached the bay and were scanning the hundreds of egrets, pelicans, and other usual birds for our quarry. A couple of Roseate Spoonbills got us excited briefly, but after about 15 minutes of paddling around, success! Here's a picture of the two flamingos feeding:

[Actually, there is no picture, because I was pretty sure the canoe was going to capsize at some point and didn't want to ruin my camera, so I didn't bring it. But, you know what a flamingo looks like...]

We turned the ship around and began the trek back to the harbor, this time taking the short route because the tide had risen enough to cover the mud flats. The paddle across the bay was smooth, as we were getting into a good rhythm, and then we rounded the corner for our straight shot to port. And were smacked in the face by the wind.

If you've ever been in a canoe, you'll know that canoes are great sails: their sides are fairly high and straight, so they present a nice handle for the wind to grab. When we were facing directly into the wind, we made some slow progress forward, but if the tip of the canoe veered slightly to one side, the gusts would literally spin us 180 degrees or push us into the mangrove trees.

Pulling the paddles with all our strength, and taking a few rest breaks when we got stuck in the mangroves, we managed to inch our way back to the harbor.

Upon arriving at the dock, the Canoe Guy was happy to see us.

"Oh, good, you made it back!" he exclaimed, "We were wondering if we were going to have to send a boat out for you. These winds really picked up earlier than usual, and they're strong enough now we're not letting anybody else out."

And that is how we narrowly avoided being killed by flamingoes.

Thanks to the wonders of GPS technology, you can actually see the route we took. The more red the color, the faster we went, and the more blue, the slower:

We're missing the first part of the trip because we forgot to turn on the GPS. I guess technology can't solve all problems yet.

What's next? How about New England for Thanksgiving? We're headed to Provincetown, MA, on the far tip of Cape Cod, to see how the Pilgrims lived and to pick up a few winter birds. The weather looks good, so our fingers and toes are crossed that it stays that way!

I really hope that's the last boat of this year,
Me

Exotics

Buenos días from Juno Beach, Florida!

In our last episode, your Intrepid Birders were scouring Arizona grasslands for a Short-eared Owl. Alas, the owls were absent, but we did take a nice panorama of the grasslands to show you loyal readers what it's like:

Heading back to our campground, our hearts nearly stopped when we saw an owl sitting on the post of a guard rail right beside the road!

Alas again, it was a Great Horned Owl, a perfectly nice owl, but just not the one we wanted to find.

The next phase of this operation takes place in South Florida, so we relocated our truck and trailer to Tucson International Airport's Long-term Parking, and flew into Miami Beach from TUS.

Our targets are a few local resident birds, as well as a couple of strays from elsewhere. We started bright and early the next morning, seeking one of the locals, White-winged Parakeet. Like so many birds we've seen this year, these birds aren't native to North America (the only native parrot, the Carolina Parakeet, went extinct about 100 years ago due to loss of habitat and hunting). In this case, the parakeets were brought here from South America as pets, escaped or were released, and set up colonies in South Florida.

Now, while some of these flocks hang around bird-friendly places like the University of Miami or lush residential neighborhoods, some of the easiest to find are near the Miami airport at a bank/movie theater complex. So, your Urban Parakeet Experience goes something like this:

We took this standing across the street from the bank, looking across six lanes of traffic toward the trees where the parakeets like to hang out. What you can't quite tell, but which made this experience Very Miami, is that we're standing in a used car lot, which for some reason has speakers blaring Latin music (nothing makes me want to buy a car more than a little La Vida Loca, amirite?). And yet, while we were deafened by cars + planes + tunes, the parakeets seemed perfectly happy to fly around and just be parakeets. After about ninety minutes of stress-accelerating, non-stop noise, a flock of five of them flew overhead and landed in one of the palms. Yay!

Parakeet lovers will note the diagnostic white patches on the back of the wings.

Our next target was another escaped-now-established bird, the Spot-breasted Oriole. We have tried to find these little rascals at least three other times this year, but failed each time. So, after our Parakeet Experience, we drove up to Fort Lauderdale, to a cemetery where they had been reported consistently and frequently. No brainer, right?

After another two hours of wandering between headstones and mausoleums, the only interesting thing we found was at least 30-40 Green Iguana hanging out in the trees:

These things are huge; Wikipedia says they can be between 5-6 feet long and weigh up to 20 lbs, and I believe it. 

And when I say "hanging", I should mean "precariously balanced", because we actually saw two of them FALL out of the trees, at least 15-20 foot drops. A Local walking her Spaniel told us that she sees them fall out of trees all the time, and it freaks out her dog!

That aside, we needed a new plan for this oriole, so we retreated to a nearby Greek restaurant, Gyroville ("Authentically Greek" is their tag line, which is really reflected in the very Greek name they chose). Munching our gyros, we debated different approaches, and then refreshed our phones to see where else we could look.

Wait, there's a report from today. Just an hour ago! And it's not far away! And the name of the person who reported it is familiar... (think, think)...it's somebody we met in Texas a few weeks ago who was a very good birder! And he left precise directions in their report about where the orioles were seen! And he saw three of them!

So we pounded the last of our gyros, washed it down with some Authentically Greek Coca-Cola, and practically sprinted across the parking lot to our car. Twenty minutes later, we were standing at the place where the orioles were reported. And we heard something.

It didn't sound quite right, but it was similar enough to our recordings to pique our interest. We wandered about, trying to get a look at whatever was making that call, for about 30 minutes in the blazing sun before I saw a flash of movement deep in the brush. Could it be?

The movement slowly climbed higher, until it popped into view. Oriole shape? Check. Bright orange with black mask and throat? Check. Black spots on the breast? Check. Bingo!

So while I was trying to get a NatGeo-quality shot of the bird, The Wife was watching the whole scene.

"There's a 2nd one in there," she narrated, "Oh, wait, there's the 3rd. 1, 2, 3....no, there's a 4th. 1, 2, 3, 4...wait, there's a 5th! There are 3 up here, and 2...no 3 down there! Wow, there are 6 of them!"

If he ever reads this, here's a big Shout Out to Kyle for helping us find our first six Spot-breasted Orioles!

Now, we're in Juno Beach, about 20 minutes south of Jonathan Dickinson State Park, the place where a Smooth-billed Ani, a visitor from the Bahamas or elsewhere in the Caribbean, has been reported for several weeks. Hopefully we can locate him tomorrow morning!

And now, we're off to battle the local retirees for dinner at a popular local restaurant. We're hungry, and know how to use our elbows, so I think we'll be OK.

Thirsty Turtle, here we come!
Me

The Waiting Game, Part 2

Stupid robin.

We never did find that bird, despite spending hours hanging out and waiting, although we did convince the entire neighborhood we are insane, stalkers, or both. And did you know, you can purchase a nice 3 bed, 2 bath house in Ajo, AZ on a 1/3 acre lot for less than $100,000? Or that Ajo is the home to Arizona's first copper mine? These are the things one investigates when one is bored out of one's mind.

Our next destination was the San Rafael Grasslands in Southern Arizona, a beautiful valley of gently rolling hills located about 50 miles southeast of Tucson (although given the road layout, driving there from Tucson takes nearly two hours). Our goal is to find exactly two target birds at this place: Baird's Sparrow, a secretive little pest that we spent hours trying to find in North Dakota, and Short-eared Owl, which isn't secretive but is somewhat scarce and elusive.

We arrived late last night at a relatively nearby campground, Patagonia Lake State Park, which happens to be one of our favorite parks in Arizona for its scenery and proximity to birdy locations. This morning, the alarm went off around 5am local time, and after blearily making coffee, we headed for the hills.

A tip from the local birding email list suggested we start looking for the bird just after entering the grasslands. So, we pulled over about 100 yards past the intersection, and played our recording of a Baird's Sparrow.

After, oh, maybe five seconds, sparrow jumps out of the grass and flies to a nearby bush to give the invader a piece of his mind. A quick glance through the binos showed this:

Check! And this moment goes down in history as the fastest we've ever found a target bird.

But, now, we need an owl. They're usually only seen around dawn and dusk, and we didn't find one during the two hours we drove around the valley. Although we did see five cowboys rounding up their cattle into a pen. Grass-fed beef, anyone?

So, now it's mid-afternoon, and we're waiting. Again.

We'll try for the owl one more time tonight, and then on to Florida tomorrow.

For some reason, I think I want a hamburger for dinner,
Me

The Big Sweep

Bienvenidos!

The time is 2:40pm on Tuesday. A Fall chill is in the air, although the sun is shining brightly with not a cloud to be seen. Three young boys are playing basketball in the city park adjacent to which our truck and trailer are parked. We are in Ajo, Arizona. Waiting.

Why we came here will be clear in short order. How we came to be here sounds crazy but is simple enough: we have embarked upon our last major trip of the year, in which we have driven from Napa to southern Arizona, from which we will fly to Florida, then New England, then back to Arizona, for the return drive to Napa. This smells like Madness! And yet, with the gentle aroma of Logic about it.

You see, our route is surgically targeted at areas that still contain birds we need, with the objective of quickly locating those birds and moving on. A Birding Blitzkrieg, if you will.

The first two days of this adventure have involved about 500 miles of driving per day, surrounding a few brief but successful interludes of Bird Finding. And this isn't your typical "take a stroll through a verdant forest and see what you see" birding. No, this is hardcore: go to where you know a bird is at, find it and move on. Muy rápido!

Our first stop was Mercey Hot Springs, a resort in the edge of the Panoche Valley, about 60 miles west of Fresno. We visited this rustic, remote resort not for its famous pools, but for its owls:

"Hey, buddy. You got any mice? No? Then get outta here, or I'll talon you. In the eye."

"Are you looking at ME? Are YOU looking at me? Are you LOOKING at me? Whatever."

For some reason, a large parliament of Long-Eared Owls finds the tamarisk trees at this particular resort to be delightful winter roosts, and they've been returning here for years. Maybe the owls fancy a restorative dip in the bubbling waters at night?

Next stop, another regional attraction that a certain bird finds irresistible: the Calico Ghost Town, outside Barstow. This place is an old silver-mining town that was founded in the 1860s and eventually abandoned when the miners looked at each other and said, "Barstow? We're in Barstow??? Guys, what are we doing? Vegas is just up the freeway! Let's gooooo!"

The arid, rocky hills of this Ghost-Town-slash-County-Park-slash-Tourist-Trap are adored by a large group of Chukars, a quail-like game bird that is native to Asia and was introduced into North America (like the Snowcock and Gray Partridge) because hunters needed more things to shoot. While most birders look for Chukars in picturesque locales like the Sierra foothills, we knew these birds were resident in the area... and not just in the area, in the freaking parking lot:

Chukars, conveniently located between the dumpster and the old lookout tower. 

"Paparazzi! Run! Run!"

Check! So, to the next bird, wiki wiki. Before we arrived, however, we passed through Quartzsite, AZ, a dusty area off I-10 that is one of the Great Wonders of the World. As in, "I Greatly Wonder why the hell so many people come here in the winter when they could be *Anywhere Else*?" The answer, apparently, is cheap camping + rocks. Seriously, people? Rocks? Sigh. Onward!

Last December, had you given me the opportunity to list 100 places we would visit this year, this destination would not have made the list. But, for a bird? We would absolutely drive to the US Army's Yuma Proving Ground for one of them.

Fortunately, they were not testing missiles or shells or whatever else is meant by the sign, "Ordinance deliveries use gate 1B". Unfortunately, we did not see any cool new vehicle prototypes being tested. Fortunately, the Mud Course gates were locked, or I just may have tried driving the F-250 through it. While towing, natch.

But, after driving past the twin artillery guns at the entrance, and then the parking lot of tanks at the visitor's center (Welcome!), we arrived at a golf course just west of the military facility. A Ruddy Ground-Dove, an unusual visitor from Mexico, had been reported in the parking lot, brazenly consorting with Inca Doves. And sure enough:

The Astute Birder will note the lack of scaling, short tail, and white edges on greater coverts of the bird to the far right. The Less Astute will weep.

And thus sprach Zarathrustra: ONWARD!

So, why we came to Ajo on this particular day is, as you guessed, a matter of a birdy importance. Our target? A Rufous-backed Robin, another unusual Mexican visitor. Just one of the three that had been reported here would be sufficient. And according to eBird, everybody who has come within 100 miles of Ajo has seen one.

Us? Not so much.

We arrived here a little past 10AM, and spent two hours walking the neighborhood, trying to scare one up. Every local knows the bird is here, because they've seen the crazy birders wandering about, and we have been asked several times if we had seen it yet ("If I had, would I still be here?" I wanted to reply, snarkily. But, thanks to the elbow of The Wife, I didn't.) Retreating to our trailer for lunch, we were interrupted by a couple of very nice retired ladies who knocked on our door, thinking they may have the bird in their back yard...but alas, it was a Cardinal.

Our current hope is that it will swing by later in the afternoon, maybe once the bars close for siesta.

And, so, we wait. And blog.

Patiently,
Me.

p.s. This is post #100 for the year! If you've read all 100, then you are My Best Friend! If you skipped a few, then no hard feelings... but go back and read them all if you want a Christmas Card. And click on an ad to truly redeem yourself.

Shock to the System

As the great chanteuse Katy Perry once belted out insightfully, "You're hot then you're cold". Truer words have never been sung, especially about the past few days. Nice work, KP.

Late last week, we were boiling in South Texas, suffering through low-90F's temperatures with 90% humidity. Sunday, when we first stepped outside our car at a location high in the Rockies where a Boreal Owl had been reported recently, the temperature was around 19F. And falling. With snow on the ground.

After nearly an hour of standing in the frigid air, playing a recording, getting no response, and then diving back into the car to warm up, we decided to quit for the night. Darn! 50% of our Colorado nights were done, and Lady Luck still had her cold shoulder turned.

While consoling ourselves at a local brewpub, the Dillon Dam Brewery, I encountered an interesting item on the menu. If you like spicy food, you'll know that descriptions in menus often fail to live up to expectations, with dishes often being much milder than advertised. So tell me if you would have been afraid of this:

The Ghostrider Burger

HOT!! Smoky ghost pepper cheese, hot chili sauce, fresh jalapenos and candied jalapenos.

Maybe the inclusion of ghost pepper should have scared me, but I've had other sauces with this ingredient and barely broke a sweat. Maybe I should have visualized a mound of mouth-searing jalapeños dwarfing the burger and gone with a salad. But, why listen to those little voices when history has proven them wrong?

When the burger arrived, it didn't look all that scary. But after a bite? Ho. Lee. Crap. It tasted great, when the fire had subsided enough for my tongue to register anything besides molten lava. Of course, I ate the whole thing, whimpering "it burns us! it burns us!" the entire time. Because like Mahatma Gandhi, I am not afraid to suffer for my cause.

Night #2 found us in on Highway 14 at Cameron Pass, Colorado, about 75 miles west of Fort Collins. Our fortunes had to change here, as eBird reports imply that you can't throw a stick without hitting a Boreal Owl (Note: I did not actually try this. No owls were harmed in the making of this blog post. That I know of.).

This HAD to be our spot, right? But those mountains are home to several other species of owl, and owls don't typically call at this time of year, so it wouldn't be easy.

At dusk, we had equipped all the hats, coats, and wool socks that had been stuffed into our suitcases, and were standing at the westernmost place on the map where an owl had been reported, with the plan of working toward Fort Collins. Using our super-cool portable Bose speaker(*), we played a few calls, but like the night before, we got no response. Second spot. Nothing. Third spot. Noth...wait, what was that?

We had heard a single sound that was like, "SKIEW!" and some clicking that sounded like a bird's bill snapping. The call came once more, but then we couldn't coax out anything else.

Hmm. Curious. As is par for the course, we hadn't deeply researched this bird aside from listening to all the calls that we had in our library, and the call we heard wasn't in the library. Could that be our owl?

We drove to the next stop, and played the song. Again, we got a "SKIEW!" back, but nothing more. And nothing at any of the other stops, before we gave up due to low temperature and high winds.

After dinner and checking into our hotel, we dug deeper into the available research, and found this blog post, which almost identically described what we heard. And we found another article that mentioned the owl does bill clicking in response to a threat. So, while we would have liked a richer experience, we're convinced we heard, twice but briefly, a Boreal Owl: bird #675 for the year!

And, fortunately, we got out of town the next morning, because then a blizzard hit.

Now, we prepare for what is likely our last big trip of the year. To where? Stay tuned...
Me


(*) The Bose Soundlink Mini speaker is awesome because it's wireless (it connects to your phone or laptop over Bluetooth), rechargeable, very portable, and it has very good sound quality. It's great for playing music in a hotel room to drown out the neighbor's TV or enticing owls to talk back to you. Highly recommended! 

Aside: Updated maps and stats

The pages listing where we've been and some of the numbers behind our year so far have been updated based on our recently completed trip. If you're viewing this on a mobile device, then check it out by tapping the "Home" link above. If you're on a desktop computer viewing the full web site, then just click the links above.

The page "Where We've Been" is a map of our travels, "Stats and Stuff" has some interesting numbers about our trips, and "Critter List" contains many of the animals we've seen.

Cheers,
Me

The Gods Must Be Angry

In the words of the immortal band Talking Heads, "My god, what have I done?"

Ah, how good were those Halcyon Days of Innocence. Those times when we believed new birds could be found around any corner, when our cache of Karma would see us through our trials and tribulations. Our list increased nearly daily, and Things were Good. But, that was Then.

In this new, crueler world, the Good Deeds of the Past have been forgotten by the Birding Gods. Did you help that rookie birder identify a sparrow? Bah. Did you pick up and properly dispose of carelessly discarded fishing line, preventing a bird from becoming entangled? Not good enough.

You see, Gentle Reader, we have been abandoned by those Birding Gods that once aided and supported us. The past week has been a Miserable Failure wrapped in a Waste of Time, as we have struck out on every bird we hoped to find in the Rio Grande Valley and a side trip to New Mexico.

As you already know, the pelagic trip into the Gulf of Mexico produced exactly 0 (zero) new birds. A guided field trip to several Rio Grande Valley hot spots? Nada. Three days of chasing Hook-billed Kite reports? We may as well have been looking for an Ivory-billed Woodpecker.

Plus, somebody bought my winning Powerball ticket and the weather was hot, humid, and foggy. Just look at what we had to deal with:

I've never experienced fog when the temperature was 80F before. The air was so wet, we felt raindrops even though there were no clouds.

Thinking a change of scenery would be good for our luck, the past few days saw us chasing a report of a rare oriole in south-eastern New Mexico, and trying to scare up a late-season Lesser Prairie Chicken. FAIL and FAIL.

So, as a consolation prize, we took a side trip to visit Carlsbad Caverns National Park. It’s absolutely beautiful and amazing, and worth a trip if you’ve never done it:

Tiny stalactites on the ceiling, a couple huge stalagmites growing up in the middle, and other formations on the far right. 

But consistent with our week, the elevators were closed for repair. So, while our audio tour crowed about how wonderful the elevators were going to be, we enjoyed our 1.5 mile hike back up an incline as steep as 20% to reach the top. Sigh.

Tonight, we’re in Colorado, outside Denver. We’re taking two evenings to try for a Boreal Owl, which is going to be tough, but our spirits aren’t completely broken (yet).

Because Hope is a Thing with Feathers. Or a Thing that seeks Feathers. Or it Tickles you with Feathers. Whatever.

Things are gonna change, I can feel it,
Me

Notable November Naughts

Estoy tan cansado de barcos,

My friends, fewer than 60 days remain until the end of 2015, which would also (mercifully) happen to be the end of this Big Year.

As we wrapped up our Yellow Rail Fest, we interrogated the Festival Organizer for how and where to find an elusive Bachman's Sparrow (well, really we just asked nicely, as she was pretty cool). She told us about the habitat it preferred (grassy areas in pine forest), and her main tip for finding it at this time of year was, "Just zig-zag through the grass until one pops up". OK, that sounds like something I can do.

We drove about 90 minutes north into the Piney Woods of Louisiana, to the point on a forest road where the birds had been reported recently. Sure enough, the road was surrounded by pine forest (hence the name!) and knee-high grass interspersed with small islands of brush. Wandering randomly through the grass, a sparrow flushed within about 30 minutes and started yelling at us. As she gave us her opinion on how grossly offensive our presence was, we got one really good look at her perched on a branch and sure enough, that was a Bachman's Sparrow! Check.

So, now what? We had a whole weekend until our boat trip out of South Padre Island, and the drive there was only about 9 hours. [Note how twisted one's perspective becomes after a Big Year... a 9-hour drive is "nothing"!] No birds we needed had been reported along the whole Texas coast, so we decided to just take things easy for a couple days.

Pro Tip: If you're going to make a last-minute trip to a city for a few days, check the weather forecast before you book your trip!

Given its proximity to our route, we made San Antonio our destination. Which, we discovered after making hotel reservations, was under a Flash Flood warning. The weekend turned out fine, and running to dinner in a dumping rainstorm was kind of fun, so all's well that ends well.

Fun Fact: Did you know that if the government issues a flash flood warning, your cell phone will start screaming an alarm? Even/especially if the warning is issued at 2AM? And if you have two phones, they both will go off?

So, after a semi-relaxing weekend, we arrived in South Padre Island on Sunday night, and woke early Monday ready to check off all kinds of new birds on our last scheduled boat trip of the year!

Unfortunately, nobody told the birds.

On the entire 12+ hour trip, we found maybe 15 species of birds, most of which were seen in the first hour, and zero new birds for the year. This trip defined, "slow day". Bummer! So, we're still stuck at 674 for the year.

Next up, we'll attend some of the festivities at the Rio Grande Valley Birding Festival here in south Texas, then take a field trip on Thursday, and then we're not sure. We have a trip booked to hunt for Lesser Prairie Chicken and Boreal Owl, but those are both going to be very difficult. We may rebook our trip to hunt for something else. My Excel script is crunching the numbers as we speak...

Crunch, crunch, crunch,
Me