A Perfect Day in a Parking Lot

Don't hate me because I'm beautiful: A Yellow Warbler at San Joaquin Wildlife Sanctuary.

We started our Saturday morning at San Joaquin Marsh out of obligation, and ended up spending most of the day there for the sheer joy of it.

I was scheduled to lead a tour of the marsh at 9, so we got there at 8 to catch some of the early morning songbird action before the tour. As soon as we stepped out of the car, we spotted flashes of yellow overhead: at least half a dozen bright Western Tanagers flitting from tree to tree in the parking lot.

And that was just the beginning...

At least two Yellow Warblers were singing loudly in the parking lot, along with graceful little Warbling Vireos and the usual noisy Song Sparrows and Spotted Towhees. Orioles darted back and forth high above the parking lot, and in the distance I could hear the waterfowl and shorebirds squawking away.

Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately), the tour ended up being cancelled due to low attendance (the three people who did show up were charming), so Glenn and I were free to bird on our own. There was so much going on just in the trees by the parking lot that I ended up spending most of the morning there. Among the treats we got in the parking lot was a male Hermit Warbler, who was hanging out in the big eucalyptus by the chicken coop in the back end of the lot:

This rather scraggly tree was filled with warblers: at the same time we saw the Hermit, we also spotted a Black-throated Grey Warbler, a Nashville Warbler, and a Yellow-rumped Warbler.

At noon, we headed home with full memory cards and happy hearts. By 2:30, we were bored, so we headed back to the marsh. I wasn't optimistic: could it possibly be as good as it was that morning?

Things didn't look promising when we arrived. It was still hot and the parking lot was quiet. But soon, the sun started to recede and the Yellow Warblers resumed their chorus, and the Hermit and Black-throated Grey emerged for encore appearances.

At the front ponds, things were also quite active. The American Avocets were fighting for territory, the Marsh Wrens were singing loudly, and a few Spotted Sandpipers had actual spots on them:


In this area I got my other good bird of the day: a Common Ground-Dove, who was flying between the ponds and feeding in the brush and grass along the pond edges:

This certainly wasn't a big day by any respectable standard (we got about 60 birds). But it was jaw-droppingly big fun.

As much fun as anyone could ever expect to have in a parking lot.

Grail Birds

See? There really WAS a Hermit Warbler at Canyon Park!

After our morning trip to San Joaquin on Sunday, I decided to take a quick spin through Canyon Park in Costa Mesa to look for warblers and see if I could find the Hermit Warbler and Lazuli Bunting I saw last week. And I got them both: the Hermit Warbler was in the same tree he was in last week (which makes me think it was the same individual). There were also a large number of Wilson's Warblers there, but mysteriously, none of the Black-throated Grays or Nashville Warblers who were there in profusion just two weeks ago. I guess they were just passing through.

I was about to give up on the Lazuli Bunting, and was on my way back to the parking lot when I saw a flash of blue and red in a bush just off the trail: there he was! And he was being remarkably sedate for a Lazuli; he actually stayed still long enough for me to get a couple of (bad) shots of him.

This was a great treat for me: Glenn had gotten his long-sought-after Marsh Wren shots (and a few unexpected Wilson's Phalarope shots), and I finally got my grail birds for the week. Just seeing them was a pleasure enough, but being able to share them with others—however lamely—is even better.

And even better, now I have proof that I wasn't making all these sightings up!

Shoot!

Spring migration continues to bring both delight and frustration. This week, I got some wonderful first-of-season birds--but failed to get any pictures of them. Glenn gave me one of his not-so-old SLR cameras and bought a me a new 300 mm lens for Christmas, just so I could get decent documentary shots of birds on the days when he was sleeping in or off shooting something else. But a combination of pathologically slow reflexes and Luddite tendencies (instruction manual? What's that?) meant that my photos of that gorgeous Lazuli Bunting and Hermit Warbler hopping about in THE SAME BUSH AT THE SAME TIME at Canyon Park last Sunday morning turned out as indecipherable blurs. If you saw them, you wouldn't even be able to tell what kind of bush they were sitting in.

Grrr. I hate being incompetent.

The only somewhat recognizable shot I got all weekend was a pair of Downy Woodpeckers just moments after they mated (I wasn't fast enough to get them in the act, so no bird porn!) This was taken by the island at Huntington Central Park on Saturday morning:


(Here, I could insert a totally tasteless joke about getting a woody. But I won't.)

I also got a horrible blurry photo of the American Redstart at Huntington Central: as usual, he was in a cluster of bushes not far from the Slater Street parking lot.


Luckily, Glenn's photos from the weekend came out great, as usual. We spent a lot of time admiring a very noisy Bullock's Oriole at the Shipley Nature Center on Saturday:


The Black-chinned Hummingbirds are back at Huntington Central Park, and Glenn spent a lot of time shooting them while I trolled the rest of the park for warblers and other goodies:


Yup, he a million times the photographer I am. But I can still spell better than him. And cook better. And I'm better at math, too.

So there.