California Rainin' (Dreaming?)

Several months ago, birding buddy, Tommy DeBardeleben and I talked about doing a pelagic birding trip out of San Diego.  Tommy had never been on one before, but it was not due to the lack of trying.  He and another birding friend of his, Dominic Sherony planned a pelagic trip out of San Diego in 2014 and unfortunately, bad weather canceled that pelagic for them.  I have actually taken a pelagic trip once before and that was in the fall of 2013 out of Half Moon Bay, California.  While I participated in that trip, I did succumb to seasickness and although I did get some life birds out of it, I was not able to enjoy it as I would have liked.  So we made plans to take a pelagic out of San Diego, which would a first for Tommy and for me hopefully a reprieve with a much better ending. 

We had our spots reserved well in advance and decided to add a couple of days of land birding while were there.  At the beginning of the week the weather looked like it might have an effect on our trip, but since Saturday was the main event, the forecast was indicating that the storm will be moving out on Friday night.  We had plans to bird all day on Friday so we departed on Thursday so we could be get in as much as we could.  With the approaching storm on Thursday night, we made one stop along Kitchen Creek Road on the way into the mountains approaching San Diego.  We quickly found out how the temps had dropped and the rain had started along with the wind.  About the only thing of interest was seeing a 'coastal' Western Scrub-Jay. They look very different than the Western Scrub-Jays we have in Arizona.

Western Scrub-Jay

 

We spent the night in El Cajon and early the next morning with a steady rain coming down, we opted to purchase some umbrellas for the day.  We were not so worried about getting wet ourselves, after all it is just water, but we wanted to protect our binoculars, cameras and scopes as much as possible.

 

Our first stop on Friday was Mission Trails Regional Park a spot where Tommy had found California Gnatcatcher a year ago.  This would be a new life bird for me and complete my list of all 4 gnatcatchers in the United States.  It did not take long and we found a family of 5 of them and the male would pop up from time to time and Tommy was kind enough to hold the umbrella for me while I got some photos.  We then switched rolls and I held the umbrellas while Tommy took photos.  Teamwork and ingenuity at work for us die-hard birders! 

 

 California Gnatcatcher

 

After taking our time adding this, my first life bird of this trip, we then headed to Tijuana Slough National Wildlife Refuge.  We quickly discovered how unique this place was and took off exploring this place with our gear and umbrellas in hand.  Good thing we had them as you might notice that severl of the photos in this area have rain drops in them.  One of our target birds at this location was the Yellow-crowned Night Heron, which would be a lifer for Tommy. I had seen this species a year ago in Texas, but always desire more looks at a bird that I have not seen enough of.  It did not take long in locating one and it was quite content and not at all concerned with our presence.  It allowed us some really great looks and now we were tied with 1 life bird apiece for this trip.

 

 Yellow-crowned Night Heron

Tommy and his new lifer!

 

We ventured further south along the trail and eventually arrived at the end of the trail with a bench and our view out over the slow moving Tijuana River making its way west where it flowed into the Pacific Ocean about 200 yards west.  This place was swarming with birds with at least 6 species of terns and one of those species was the Gull-billed Tern which would be a lifer for both of us and it did not take long for Tommy to spy one, then two, then three and more!  All of these terns were taking the rain in stride.  But by now, Tommy and I had figured out how to hold our umbrellas and take photos at the same time.  But our legs were not protected and our jeans were soaked. 

 

 Gull-billed Tern

 

And a couple of the other terns:

 

 Caspian Tern

 Forster's Tern

Least Tern

 

Another bird of interest to me was the Little Blue Heron.  I had briefly seen on in Texas a year ago, but it was brief and no photos.  This time we saw 3 of them, 2 adults and a molting immature bird, and I was able to get photos this time. 

 

Little Blue Heron

 Little Blue Heron, Immature

 

After exploring the salt water marshes, we then moved over to the beach area of the Tijuana Sough where the waves of the ocean were washing ashore.  This area has many signs and a roped off area where Least Terns and Snowy Plovers are nesting.  One can still walk the beach area, but it is very wise to not spend too much time near the fenced off area so as not to disturb any of the nesting birds.  Least Terns were by far the most numerous with various birds hovering, landing, and some even nesting on eggs.  Some males were delivering their small fish catches to females. I got lucky and spied one of the birds leaving the sandy area and discovered a nest of 2 eggs.  Thankful for a zoom lens to be able to get a photo of the eggs.  This is our smallest tern in the United States.

 

 Least Tern

Least Tern nest with 2 eggs

 

Good numbers of Snowy Plovers were also there, but not nearly as numerous as the Least Terns.  Since they were basically a ground bird, the best way to find them was when they would scamper a few feet and detect their movement.  This has to be one of the cutest little birds around.  I also discovered one of their nests as well with 3 eggs.  Once again took a photo from the distance and left it alone.  Once a person sees how well these eggs blend in with the sand, it is easy to see why the nesting areas are fenced off.  It would be easy to step on a nest of eggs.  Sometimes, some of the birds nest outside the roped off area so it is worthwhile to watch your step at all times.

 

 Snowy Plover

Snowy lover nest with 3 eggs

 

By this time the sun had come out and dried out our clothing that got soaked.  We enjoyed what turned out to be an awesome day with 2 new life birds for each of us.  With that, I will leave you with one more photo; this one is a flock of Sanderling on the beach.  We needed to get checked into our motel and get a good nights rest for the pelagic trip the next day.

 

Sanderling - I think I counted about 78 of them in this photo

 

 

 

 

 

Utah - The Final Post

Torrey, Utah is just west of the entrance to Capital Reef National Park, a park that does not draw the number of visitors as the others, but it is equally as beautiful and worth the visit.  With fewer visitors, it does tend to cater to birding enthusiasts such as I.  When I was planning this trip to Utah to visit relatives, I did a lot of research on eBird to see what species have been reported in much of the area that I was visiting to see if there were any possibilities of any new species to be found.  And I found only 1 species and that was the Chukar, an introduced game bird in the western United States that has become established in many areas.  The sightings had all come from Capital Reef National Park, with the last report dating back to May of 2014.  I was confident that the birds were there somewhere, but did not have high expectations in finding any.  Must have been my lucky day as I stopped in one of the shops in the park and was visiting with 2 ladies that worked there and while I was visiting, one of the local Park Rangers came in with some freshly picked peaches for them to sell and overheard me asking about Chukar sightings.  He quickly mentioned that he had seen a fairly sizable flock just the day before in one of the fenced off, enclosed and locked orchards and he asked me if I wanted he would take me there!  What an incredibly nice man to offer to take me to where he had seen Chukars.  We drove about a mile down the road and came to the enclosed orchard and then unlocked the gate and we took off looking for this bird.  We walked and scoured the rocky hillsides and grassy areas for quite a distance and I was beginning to think our timing was off as we were coming to the end of the orchard.  And suddenly, there they were, 8 of them running in the grass.  Might not have been the best photos, but just being able to add them to my life list was really sweet.  We watched them for awhile and then quickly retreated to leave them alone and cause any undo stress to them..

 Chukar

 Chukar

Chukar

With my one and only target bird finally conquered, I considered my vacation a rounding success for birding.  

Capital Reef National Park

One other bird that I was able to capture a photo, was a Plumbeous Vireo in Capital Reef National Park.

Plumbeous Vireo

In the afternoon, we all took a drive to Bicknell Bottoms, where I added several other birds to my Utah list.  I was surprised to hear and then see about 10 Sandhill Cranes, and if I had been paying more attention looking out my window, maybe I could have gotten a better photo than I did.

Sandhill Cranes

A few bird photos from the yard included a regular Western Scrub Jay and a Pine Siskin.  

 Western Scrub Jay

Pine Siskin

Finally Friday rolled around and it was time to depart and head back to Arizona.  For the trip back we headed east on Highway 24 through some very desolate areas where the pit stops and human habitation were few and far between.  While traveling down Highway 95 in Glen Canyon National Recreation Area, where cars were few and far apart (averaged meeting only 1 vehicle every 6 miles), we came around a bend and found some Bighorn Sheep.  The adult ewe was grazing on grass along the highway while 2 younger lambs were keeping a safe distance in the rocky cliffs on the side of the highway.  To find this on last day was pretty awesome!  Not always easy to see these mammals up close and personal.

Definitely an outstanding vacation and it makes we want to return.  There is some really awesome wild and remotes areas to be found in Utah and northern Arizona.  Will add this to my lists of places to return to.  

Opposites - Glendale Ponds and Mt Ord

After my return from Texas, birding friend, Jason Morgan and I teamed up on Saturday and Sunday to do some birding in Maricopa County.  On Saturday we met up at the Glendale Recharge Ponds early in the morning knowing that this place is rather unforgiving in the summertime as there is no shade and when the
Arizona temperatures start rising, this can be a miserable place to be.  But there were some reports of some shore birds that had been migrating through and timing has to be right to find them before they move on.  We managed to find 2 new life birds for Jason, the Marbled Godwit and an unexpected Bullock's Oriole.

Bullock's Oriole

Marbled Godwit

We also found plenty of evidence of some of the resident birds already nesting.  We found 3 nesting American Avocets and 1 nesting Black-necked Stilt and one more pair of Black-necked Stilts preparing for the nesting process.

American Avocet - nesting

American Avocet - nesting

Black-necked Stilt - nesting

Black-necked Stilt - (Aren't they acrobatic???!!!)

We had made plans in advance to visit Mt Ord on Sunday as it was a new area for Jason, so we met up at 6:00 am the next morning and headed north on the Beeline Hwy to the Mt Ord turnoff.  The target bird that day for Jason was the Black-chinned Sparrow and this spot is one of the most reliable places to locate this much sought after Emberizid.  It was not long and we quickly found them and from there on, anything we found were going to be icing on the cake.  Gray Vireos seem to also favor the same habitat as the Black-chinned Sparrow and we found these as well.

Gray Vireo

Rufous-crowned Sparrows can also be found in this location as well and at least one of those showed itself in the open instead of hiding low to the ground in the in the grasses and shrubs.  An Ash-throated Flycatcher was also found in the lower areas of Mt Ord near the sparrows and vireo.

Rufous-crowned Sparrow

Ash-throated Flycatcher

As we moved up to higher elevations, the warblers became more common along with some flycatchers and a very colorful tanager and a gnatcatcher that was found everywhere and feeding some fledglings..

 Blue-gray Gnatcatcher

 Black-throated Gray Warbler

 Painted Redstart

 Olive-sided Flycatcher

Western Wood-Pewee

Western Tanager

Western Scrub-Jay

At the top, we found a mass of Ladybugs swarming a small clump of grass, which was really quite awesome.  I have never seen this many in one spot in my life.  We also discovered a baby Greater Short-horned Lizard, which are always a great find and on the 1688 road heading back to our car we found a very calm but stunning Gopher Snake crossing our path that was about 3½ feet long.

 Ladybugs

Greater Short-horned Lizard

 Gopher Snake

Gopher Snake

This was a great day to be out and enjoying nature at its finest; awesome selection of birds with a few cool insects and reptiles thrown in for good measure.  I believe Jason got 4 new life birds on this trip and coupled with the 2 from the day before it was a 6 new bird weekend for Jason.  It is always a pleasure and a lot of fun to find new birds for others and birding with Jason is always a great experience.