This Is the West

I have just returned from a three-week visit back to Southern California, where, like here, it was the midst of the summer birding doldrums.

Two years ago, I would have found my last three weeks of birding thoroughly boring. But since moving away from California, I looked forward to trips back to revisit all the birds I used to take for granted. All those drab, common, little brown or gray things that haunt back yards and parking lots in the Los Angeles area--California Towhees, Bushtits, Wrentits, Black Phoebes--simply do not occur in Florida (ever) and I missed them.

My trip back was mostly filled with family events centered around the arrival of a new nephew (welcome aboard Quinten!), so I didn't get to do as much birding as I would have liked. Still, Glenn and I did manage to get out and revisit a few old haunting grounds.

We met some old birding pals at Bolsa Chica one weekend just to see the sights and catch up with the regular populations of nesting Least and Elegant Terns. But we also got to see the one and only rarity known to be hanging out in Orange County that week: a strangely sedentary Sooty Tern:

Shortly after our visit to Bolsa Chica, we visited the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, which houses a large collection of taxidermied birds. One exhibit stated that Sooty Terns hold the record among birds for the longest period of time they can endure in the air without landing. I don't remember the exact duration (weeks? months?) but it was pretty mind-boggling. This made me wonder what the deal was with the mysterious Sooty loafing on that sandbar at Bolsa Chica: Was this normal behavior? Was he sick?

On the way down the coast to visit one of my sisters in San Diego, we stopped by San Joaquin Wildlife Sanctuary, one of other other old favorite spots. Ducks and shorebirds there are plentiful and easy to see, which makes the sanctuary a popular spot for photographers. We saw, among other things, several young American Avocets, still covered with baby fuzz, as well as Black-bellied Plovers and a number of other goodies:


Now I'm back home. There are no Bushtits or Anna's Hummingbirds or Spotted Towhees anywhere near here. But my yard is filled with Northern Cardinals and Tufted Titmice and scolding Carolina Wrens. I rather missed them when I was gone.

Is Avocet Right For You?

Seasonal Birding Disorder (SBD) is a serious ailment that affects thousands. If you are a North American birder who suffers from ennui, irritability, or depression during the summer birding doldrums, you are not alone. And there is a solution.

Try Avocet. Avocet is easy to take—only a few doses a week have been shown to alleviate the major symptoms of SBD:

Avocet is most effective when taken with water.

Avocet should not be taken by those with chronic vision problems, or people suffering from liver disease or high blood pressure. Avocet is not for everyone, including birders who've just returned from New Guinea, Costa Rica, or Alaska. Side effects may include sunburn, dry mouth, and increased hormonal activity.

Prolonged or excessive use of Avocet may result in drowsiness or a return of SBD symptoms:

If you experience drowsiness or other SBD symptoms while taking Avocet, stop immediately and contact your mental health professional.

Avocet is available without prescription and is not covered by most insurance plans. If you suffer from SBD, ask yourself: is Avocet right for you?

Good Shots From Far Away

This weekend's birding was both boring and frustrating: Boring, because I hardly saw any birds; and frustrating, because I could hear any number of unfamiliar calls and songs in the distance that I was sure came from interesting early migrants. But I could never get the visuals on any of these birds, and nobody else was around to help me with ID.

My husband Glenn, however, has had better luck as of late. He hasn't had much time to bird, but has managed to get some nice shots during his limited time out. So for a change of pace, I'm sharing some of these.


This Red-throated Loon was hanging out in the big pond on the west side of Huntington Central Park, in Huntington Beach. The fact that it was (1) in a fresh-water pond for several days (Red-throated Loons prefer salt water or brackish water) and (2) sitting on the edge of the pond for hours on end, unconcerned about photographers and birders only about 15 feet away, suggested that it might have been sick. We posted the photo on the Orange County Birding listserv, and the fine folk at the Wetlands and Wildife Care Center agreed with our assessment: the bird's behavior just wasn't right.

But when they sent their team to the park to catch the bird for rehabilitation, it took one look at them and flew off. Sick? Or just lazy? I hope it's the latter.

At Bolsa Chica, one of our favorite Huntington Beach haunts, Glenn got a nice sunset shot of some American Avocets. We like how this looks as though they're racing to cross a finish line:



Waders such as American Avocets and Black-necked Stilts are pretty routine sightings in southern California, but much less so in north-central Florida. (This runs counter to the popular notion that all of Florida is Big Wading Bird Central.) About a week and a half ago, I commented to Glenn that I had never seen a Black-necked Stilt out here. But a few days later, I saw my first one in Florida, in Alachua Sink, off the La Chua Trail. This surprised me, and when I e-mailed the local birding guru to ask about it, I was even more surprised to learn that I had broken the county record for the earliest spring sighting of a Black-necked Stilt! (So they do occur here, but not year-round.)

My lame documentary shot of the Alachua Sink bird is here. Below is Glenn's far-superior shot of one of its California cousins:


One reason why my weekend birding was such a wash was today's weather--I awoke at 6:30 to heavy rain and lightning, and even after the rain passed, the winds stayed heavy and cold and kept most of the birds away. In a way, this was a relief, as it forced me to stay inside and get ahead on my lecture planning. In a week will be spring break at UF, and while my gentle charges are off doing Jello shots in Fort Lauderdale, I'll be busy spending time with my family and (yay!) doing some serious birding. And Glenn will finally be coming out to Florida to see everything here for himself.

I can't wait to show him everything I've seen here.

Teenage Angst

My, how much you've grown!

Life moves at warp speed in the bird world. The baby American Avocets at San Joaquin are already starting to show their breeding colors through their fluff, and the little baby Killdeer are looking and acting more like their parents:

For reasons I won't go into, the past few months have been really rough for me, and birding has been a source of both sadness and solace. Sadness, because the swiftness with which their lives unfold remind me of how short life is, and how much of my own life has been wasted. Solace, because, well, any world with Yellow Warblers in it can't be all bad.

Some of this year's babies have hit adolescence before I even realized they had been born. At Canyon Park yesterday, I saw lots of little olive-and-yellow birds darting about in the underbrush, chirping strangely. I'm guessing, from their numbers, their size and shape, and their behavior that they were young Common Yellowthroats. Noisy Hooded Orioles were everywhere, rattling and whistling from the treetops. A few, I suspect, also appear to be young ones just getting their adult plumage, such as this not-so-brightly-colored male:


EDIT: I checked Sibley, and found that this is a first-summer male, one this last year's babies.

It's fitting that the birds hit flight-readiness during graduation season. And they don't have to sit through pompous speeches about following their dreams and making the world a better place for the following generations of Orioles/Killdeer/Avocets. Their job is just to be.

Making the world a better place for them is our job.

Little Pleasures

A baby American Avocet at San Joaquin Marsh

Cheapness and sloth have kept my birding outings close to home as of late. For various reasons, I haven't felt much like driving, or taking the $5 gamble of going to one of the OC regional parks only to find it birdless and crammed with partygoers.

And this doesn't seem like the season for finding rarities. Instead, I've been quite content to visit and re-visit my usual haunts, all mere minutes from home, and watching the local landscape shift and change from week to week. After all, if Emily Dickenson could see the universe in a flower (and turn out an admirable body of poetry without ever leaving her house), a reasonably competent birder could certainly stay entertained within a 10-mile radius of Costa Mesa.

So today, it was back to San Joaquin Wildlife Sanctuary. I arrived just after 8, and immediately spotted a female Western Tanager on the path in front of me. Further on, two loud Yellow-breasted Chats were engaged in what sounded like a singing duel.

One of the birds I've been trying to get all season is the Least Bell's Vireo: they've been singing like mad at San Joaquin for the past month of so, but I've never managed to actually see one. (They're not much to look at, but it's the principle of the thing...) Today, I got lucky: I heard them, as usual, singing by the boardwalk. After I crossed the boardwalk, the singing got progressively louder: I followed the singing and finally got one of them in my sights.

And even better, I saw it fly into a nearby tree and snuggle up to another bird. I then realized that it was feeding a fledgling!

Baby Bell: A fledgling Least Bell's Vireo

The adult flew off as soon as it passed a fat little grub on to the baby. But the fledgling stayed on for a few minutes before hopping out of sight. I love watching baby birds, and seeing a baby of a threatened species is always cause for hope.

In the front ponds were a pair of Egyptian Geese, looking weirdly sinister as usual. The baby Avocets look more and more grown up, and feed with the same sideward bill-sweeping motion as their parents.

I went home at noon, just as it started getting seriously hot. It's great knowing that one can find such great little surprises so close to home.

Hot Fuzz

Nothing is more inspiring than the hundredth American Robin of spring!

Spring migration is definitely over, but the spring breeding frenzy continues. At Huntington Central Park and San Joaquin Marsh this weekend, just about all the songbirds we saw were dashing about with beaks full of down and twigs, and pairs of dualing and/or mating Black Phoebes and Downey Woodpeckers were chasing each other noisily through the treetops. Glenn's cameras are in the shop (all the pictures here are mine), all the exotic migrants are gone (no one had seen the Huntington Central Park Yellow-throated Vireo in several days), so we resigned ourselves to kicking back and watching the locals make out.

At Huntington Central, we found Yellow Warblers, Bullock's Orioles, Western Tanagers, and Black-headed Grosbeaks (among other birds) near the island, as well as a very loud nesting House Wren. There were also a large number of singing American Robins.

And the Robins made me think of the weird East Coast bias that seems to permeate U.S. cultural education. It still seems odd to my SoCal-based birding brain that these (and Northern Cardinals) are considered the canonical backyard birds that everyone knows: I only got my first Cardinal last week, and it was most likely an escapee. Robins are not exactly rarities here, but they're not all that common either. I don't remember ever seeing one when growing up in the Hollywood Hills, where we had a ton of birds. I do remember seeing dark brown birds with reddish underparts—which I realize now were California Towhees—and thinking to myself that these HAD to be Robins, since according to every science text and children's novel I had ever read, every red-blooded American had Robins in their back yard! And Northern Cardinals. I figured that for some reason, our Robins were a bit plain, and thought it was grossly unfair that we didn't have any Cardinals. And that we didn't get to go out in the winter and tap maple trees, like the kids in all my school readers. Or get snow days.

It would be a great day for cross-cultural education when East Coast school kids have to slog their way through stories about Dick and Jane assembling earthquake kits, or learning the fundamentals of surf etiquette or draught-resistant gardening.

End of digression.

At San Joaquin Marsh, we lingered at the front of the reserve. The singing Yellow Warbler was still in his favorite spot right across from Pond E. In Pond E, we saw three fluffy baby American Avocets—potentially the children of the courting pair we had been following for about a month:

Uncharacteristically, there were almost no ducks in Pond E. We soon found out why: as soon as any Mallards tried to land, the Avocets, who normal co-exist quite peaceably with them, would chase them off. Apparently, the babies need all that extra space and protection.

Further along, on the edge of Pond C, we found a pair of Killdeer with three fuzzy babies:



They were interesting to watch—Killdeer parents keep a close eye on their young, and the young stay close to them. The little one in the picture above eventually snuggled up to his mother (or father) and tucked him/herself under the parent's wing.

And from all the nesting activity going on this weekend, it looks like more little ones of any number of species are on the way.

Love Story

Sometimes, one can learn more from watching one bird in action than from chasing down dozens.

For the past few weeks, I've been lustfully (and successfully) pursuing spring warblers at San Joaquin Marsh: Yellow, Hermit, and Townsend's Warblers seem to be everywhere, along with the resident Orange-crowned Warblers and Common Yellowthroats.

Meanwhile, in the front ponds, the ever-present American Avocets are pairing up. Animal reproductive rites can be fast, crude and, well, animal, but every pair of American Avocets we've seen has carried out a lovely, highly structured ritual that could well be a motif out of a classical Kabuki play.

First, the male fights off potential rivals (in the marsh, there are many). The female puts her neck and head down while he gently walks around her, sprinkling water on her with his beak:

Then, they consummate their relationship—a tricky balancing act that not all pairs pull off successfully:


(We did actually see one unfortunate male fail in his mating attempt: he lost his balance and tumbled into the water as his stunned mate looked on. If Judd Apatow did nature documentaries, he would have loved this.)

At this point, the male of another species might just shuffle off (or roll over or light a cigarette). But the Avocets linger together, the male protectively draping a wing over the female. The two cross their beaks, as if to formalize their bond:


I know it's unwise to anthropomorphize animals: for all I know, these elegant gestures have the same emotional import for American Avocets as blinking and sneezing have for me. But if this is so—isn't it cool that something this starkly utilitarian could be so beautiful?