Lots of Stuff at Bolen Bluff

A Yellow-throated Warbler at Bolen Bluff

This month's good news on the home front is that Glenn landed an interesting-sounding freelance gig that will look great on his CV (and replenish his photo-gear budget). The bad news (for me) is that said gig is back in California and starts tomorrow—where he'll be until Thanksgiving. So much for his very first East Coast fall migration!

But before his departure, we made a point of trying to squeeze in as much birding time as possible. Last week, I took him to Morningside Nature Center to see, and photograph, a couple of birds new to him: Red-headed Woodpeckers and the locally famous Brown-headed Nuthatches, whose only regular spot in Alachua County is at Morningside.

The Red-headed Woodpeckers were noisy and abundant, giving us a morning full of good looks and pix. We found three Brown-headed Nuthatches only feet from the parking lot, squabbling with each other in a tree by some picnic tables. But they flew off before we could get any decent photos.

Glenn won't count any bird as a lifer until he gets a good sharp photo of it, so the Nuthatches remained an unattained goal. So we went back on Friday (the one day I don't teach--I made up for my day playing hooky by working most of today)--and found the park filled with people bearing leaf blowers (WHY? It's a freaking NATURE CENTER) and the birdy area where we had seen the Nuthatches the preceding week ominously surrounded by orange netting and peopled by guys in hard hats. Uh-oh. It looked like someone had decided to "improve" the park with some kind of development. At any rate, the roar of power tools and leaf blowers drove off any birds that might have been around.

So much for a quiet morning looking for Nuthatches!

We beat a quick retreat to the Bolen Bluff trail, where we figured (1) there wouldn't be any construction or a whole of lot people and (2) we'd find some warblers or other cool stuff. We were right on both counts.

On the woodsy northern part of the trail were big flocks of chattering Carolina Chickadees and Tufted Titmice. We scanned the flocks for warblers and found an American Redstart and several Yellow-throateds.

We ran into other hikers who told us there was "lots of stuff" out on the prairie. It wasn't clear what kind of stuff they were talking about, but we went out anyhow. Just as the woods gave way to the prairie, we saw a bold little Northern Waterthrush, hopping about on the trail, bobbing its tail. The brush and trees along the edge of the prairie trail were filled with Palm, Prairie, and Yellow Warblers:

We also spotted a Northern Parula (whose presence in the open brush rather than in the woods threw us for a loop). And all through the woods on the way back to the trailhead, we could hear calling Ovenbirds. This gave us an eight-warbler morning—a good number, even if comprised of unsurprising birds.

Later, we learned from friends with connections to the park service that the work being done back at Morningside was not, as we feared, a nefarious attempt to cover the center of the park with concrete, but preparation for their annual native plant sale. And we were assured that if someone did try to pave over Morningside, there would hell to pay; there would be no way local birders and park lovers would put up with it.

It's always a happy surprise to find that not all civic authorities are short-sighted and evil. But it's sad that this should have to be surprising.

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.

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.

Two Days at the Marsh

On Saturday, we did one of the dumbest things one could possibly do during a heat wave: we spent the day birding San Joaquin Marsh. And it ended up being so rewarding that we went back again on Sunday.

Our original plan was to bird Bolsa Chica, which we hadn't visited in a while. But when we got there, both parking lots were full and from PCH, the trails looked crowded. So it was time for Plan B, and for no particular reason, we headed to San Joaquin Marsh.

At San Joaquin, the avian hormone level was off the charts. The Tree Swallow nest boxes were all full, several pairs of American Avocets were mating in the front ponds, and the Marsh Wrens, usually (and frustratingly) invisible despite their loud singing, were now perched high on the tops of the reeds, singing up a storm.

Other interesting voluble singers were a Yellow-breasted Chat and a very bright Yellow Warbler, who was working the trees by the Audubon House parking lot and the construction site behind it. We also saw a Sora in the reeds on the edge of Pond D, and some mother and baby American Coots, also in Pond D.

Glenn was particularly interested in getting photos of the elusive Marsh Wrens, but wasn't happy with the harsh late morning/early afternoon lighting we had. So we went back on Sunday morning, bright and early. to take advantage of the pleasant light and relative cool.

And it was even better than before. We saw the same cast of characters with a few new additions: a group of White-faced Ibises, some really bright Western Tanagers, and about four still-bright Wilson's Phalaropes in Pond C.


Plan B turned out to be a winner. Thank goodness Plan A didn't work out!

The More I Bird, The Dumber I Get

"Every time I learn the name of a student, I forget the name of a fish."
—David Starr Jordon (ichthyologist and first president of Stanford University)

Right now, I'm suffering the opposite problem of the late Dr. Jordan: Every time I remember the name of a bird, I forget the name of a student. Or something I'm supposed to be teaching that student.

Maybe it only feels that way. Before I got into birding, I thought of it the same way most non-birders do: as an amiably mindless activity for children and people in the twilight of their lives. Once I got into it, I thought birding would be a skill like long-distance running or learning a second language: it would get easier with time and experience.

Instead, it just kept getting harder. The more I learned, the more I realized what I didn't know and should know. And every time I mastered some new and useful habit of bird observation ( the beak! the beak! Quick! Get the shape and length of the beak!), I learned of a dozen other things I was supposed to have noticed in the three-second period when a new bird comes into view.

This weekend presented a wealth of opportunities for me to face my ignorance. It started (as usual) with docent duty at the Least Tern reserve at Huntington State Beach. The breeding season is winding down: a few young chicks are still present, but most of this season's hatchlings have fledged and are in full undergraduate mode (flying and hunting imperfectly yet independently, and still happy to take handouts from Mom and Dad).



A pair of birders came by to check out the chicks. We started chatting, and I realized I was totally blanking on most the their questions: How many chicks hatched this year? (I had gotten an e-mail on this very topic earlier in the week, but had completely forgotten the numbers.) How long has that fence been there? (Beats the hell out of me.)

After our shift ended, Glenn and I dropped by Huntington Central Park. High in one of the trees between "the island" and the pond behind the library was a bright yellow warbler. I knew it was a warbler because of its fine bill and inability to stop moving—but what kind? Bright yellow with olive wings around here= either a Yellow Warbler or a Wilson's Warbler. But I couldn't see any of the Yellow Warbler's red streaks on its breast, and it was too high up for me to tell if it had the telltale black cap of a Wilson's Warbler.

There are no doubt ways of distinguishing the two birds apart from these obvious fieldmarks, but I have no idea what they are.

Saturday night was the Sea and Sage Audubon Summer Barbeque. The invited speaker gave a terrific presentation on the pelagic birds of Southern California—all fascinating, and none familiar to me. Many had migration and breeding patterns that reminded me of back-cover blurbs on fat historical romances ("An epic tale of sex and danger spanning four continents—Buller's Shearwater!") The speaker explained with great care and passion the tiny distinguishing features between the dozens of jaegers and petrels. They were easy to see on his well-focused slides, but would I be able to catch these on a flying bird while on the deck of a rocking boat?

Probably not. At least not yet.

Yet more stuff I now know that I don't know. Oh joy!