Common Poorwill, Ya'll

We were hearing a Common Poorwill somewhere at close range on this weekends backpacking expedition.  Each night, just after 11 p.m.  COPO would start with his simple night song:   

Common Poorwill Song

Looking forward to this weekend with K. Gin in TUSCON!

Bobo's

Took the morning off today and went with Karah and the boys to see some Bobolinks.
We have never seen them before and they were a target bird for me this summer. We saw 6 and tons of RWBB's along with a King bird nest and an Orchard Oriole pair nesting in the same tree. The local Eagle scout herpetologist was there and found some toads for Henry and Ellis in between their swims in the parking lot mud puddles. Got some great close up looks at Eastern Meadowlarks and the Bobo's through the scope.

The Hunter

Awesome Phalarope Matt. That is really exciting I would love to see one.
Guys I have done no birding other than calling out over the country side for screech owls while Caleb and I drank beers and talked over a fire late Saturday night. No response though.
We have a cat that the family has adopted  since last fall. Sunshine is avid hunter and has figured out that the best hunting grounds are right outside of his door at my moms bird feeders... It is pretty sweet to watch. He will be stalking some unsuspecting bird on one of the bird feeders and then a few finches will fly in, not noticing him. All of the sudden he will rocket straight up, 5 feet in the air doing a back flip and almost snatching the finches right out of the air! Most of the time thought he sneaks up on birds that are in a blind spot, eating on the opposite side of the feeder. He will creep up and then launch up and slam dunk the house sparrow into the feeder. most of the time they get away. Other times I find a pile of feathers at the base of the wisteria. Thats the only bird news from Barto.

my first Phalarope

I like watching Poppy-dog chase crows at the beach.   I try to call her in when she wants to chase the  Whimbrel's or curlew's or other plover's though -  and she listens pretty well and seems to understand that those birds aren't for the chasing.

Poppy seemed to understand the significance of the situation yesterday when a single Red Necked Phalarope was piddling around the shoreline, moving unhurriedly along with us as we walked up the beach with some neighbor friends.  She stayed close with me as we watched the bird poke around about 20 feet away.  

The bird was smaller than I had imagined it, but was looking real nice - in almost full breeding plumage.  Wish I had a picture to share - but we were lucky to see this bird.  I've never seen one on the beach since we've moved here - and I never see any reports of folks seeing them on the beaches here.   I think it was odd for it to have been on the beach, solitary on shore like that.  It did swim around for a bit before it took off, back out to sea.   WOW!

ps.  a horse swam out to sea this week from the same spot where I saw the Phalarope.  The prized Arabian swam out 2.5 miles before the Coast Guard coaxed it back to shore.  Pete and Kev, maybe that crazy guy we talked to at Coal Oil point was right, maybe there is some kind of cosmic crystal out there in the Santa Barbara channel and all of the animals are starting to get kooky about it.   The truth is out there

Western Wood

I have been birding a lot at UCR, Pasadena, and the San Joaquin (Irvine), but only one new bird to add: Western Wood Pewee (314).

Pasadena has parrots flying around everywhere, which I should probably ID one day.  My first big outing in Pasadena was a bit of a downer: only saw a few species, but I did get great looks a Wrentits

At San Joaquin yesterday, other birds included Bonaparte's Gull, Yellow Warblers, Orange-Crowned Warblers (my first since January), and Ash-Throated Flycatcher.

UCR birds have been alright as well.  Come to think of it, I should probably bird a little now.

Kevin

Week 3 of birds and breakfast. Highlights: so many scarlet tanager looks, bay breasted, chestnut sided, parula, blackpoll all new warblers for the b and b crew, lady with scope found a haggard looking indigo bunting, magnolia, redstarts, yellowthroats, huevos rancheros, more handstands, and so many people. 26 on the walk and 30 for breakfast. Really great morning.

Bird Boy

"I wanna go wook at some birds with my noculers(noc-u-wers)." -Ellis Davies

Post 1 Birds and Breakfast is in its sophomore season after finishing up last year with a solid performance during its 5 week season. The bird sightings and the breakfast bitings will be hard to beat from last year but the team is poised and ready and after week 2 it seems B and B is catching it's stride, and coming back from the off season with grit and bounce. Week 1 Beautiful morning for the opening kickoff. The Brookfield Farm parking hummed with anticipation around 6:55 AM as 8 bird curious folks showed up for the walk and subsequent breakfast. The group was made up mostly of beginners and a few folks with some field tested experience. We birded two main locations: home farm and the Snyder farm. The former abutting a 1000 acre swamp and the latter tied into almost as much semi divided farmland. The home farm provided great looks at Yellow and Black and White Warblers. We focused on 3 bird calls for the morning, the three most prolific during that time: song sparrow, chipping sparrow, and the bouncing whistles of the northern cardinal. By breakfast most everyone was pointing them out to me with some real pride. At the Snyder barn complex brown thrasher stole the show early. He flashed through some low brush and finally popped up to sit all streaky breasted on some rose. Chalky blue bluebirds were the treat for the walk back to the cars after seeing osprey, red tails, and crowding around my book to make certain they were indeed savannah sparrows. Breakfast followed and was bang up from the eggs, potatoes and muffins to the table clothes, flower arrangements, and beautiful outdoor seating. Everyone ate, drank coffe and tea, chatted with each other and slowly filtered out. A great start. Week 2 Overcast and chilly to start but soon sunny with a nice light breeze. Multiple returners from the previous week and host of new people as the walk grew to 11. A harder week for interpretation due to the amount of bird activity. I would find myself starting to talk about orioles, their nests, habits and then a black throated green would fly in to take my attention and just as people were doing their best to train their binoculars on the bird it would have flown as well as the orioles. This kind of thing happened a lot. Blue winged warbler singing then a loud Drink your Tee would sound, a kinglet would fly up to a branch with an American redstart and both would fly away. It was awesome but the looks were fleeting and the group rarely had a look long enough to get on it and really check out these birds. I minded more than the group, they were loving it and blown away by all the "magic". We spent the whole walk at the home farm because there was so much going on I didn't want to leave it. The walk back to breakfast gave us killdeer displaying, a female rose breasted grosbeak, Pileated overhead, and another osprey. Breakfast was delicious and plenty. Spuds, frittata, fruit, yogurt, rhubarb bake, coffee and tea. 2 hours of walking and all they want is to sit down and get down on some food. Everyone sits and chats, trades stories sometimes bird related sometimes not. I feel like a proud papa looking down the table and seeing everyone smiling and talking, eating and listening. I challanged Arianna, a 9 year old and gymnast stud, to a handstand competition. She beat me in the following events: headstand, handstand, bridge, cartwheel, walkover, round off, and splits. She was really cute and would do some trash talk but also encourage me and say that's pretty good for a guy or my dad can't do that or well, gymnastics might not be for you. She and her mom are signed up to come back to the next 3. Arianna and I's competition inspired some others to join and soon the backyard was full of people, young and old, trying moves they hadn't attempted in years. There were hoots and hollers, falls, drops, thuds and lots of laughs. The folks cleared out eventually, I cleaned my kitche and , watched my neighbors high school ultimate frisbee game. Week 2 might be hard to beat.

Big Year or Bust

I have been layed up for the last day and 1/2 puking my guts out and feeling like I got hit by a car. So I am late on the news of reaching the goal. 
Great job Ryan, Kevin, Matt, Pete, Karah, Bethany, Henry, Ellis...
We accomplished our goal not even 5 months in. That is awesome. Under promise over deliver. I wonder if there is a way we could up the ante like getting all the gull species or all the warbler species. Maybe we should just keep going without a specific goal. I think that by this point we are all have some good momentum.
Anyway, I accept Pete back into the fold. Once Ryan is living at the doghertys again, he and I will continue birding together.
Thanks for the sweet videos and photos Matt.

-Ben

300!

Hey Guys, It's been pretty busy with our move to Pasadena, but Liz and I spent a couple hours birding Sunday. Highlights: MacGillviray's Warbler (299) Lazuli Bunting (300) We saw some other good birds too, which I'll elaborate on later. Just wanted to say congrats to you guys: we got 300 and it's only May. New Goal 400? Kevin

Figueroa Mountain extras

Thought I'd try the other video that we took today.  And add a couple of photos:

Yellow Billed Magpie on Happy Canyon Rd.

I'm pretty sure that you can see a UFO above my head if you enlarge this picture. 

 That, or a Violet Green Swallow

Countdown to Glory

This is it guys.
I added #298 Solitary Sandpiper, to the list today.
I'll leave the last 2 for you Kevin and Matt.
Thanks for the video Matt and Beth. I have made some too with our little cam but it doesn't transfer to a mac.

love,
Ben

This is Karah: I saw my first Indigo Bunting this weekend at a Griswold Girl's wedding (Katie Vernier) near Gettysburg. It was high up in a tree and far away, but still such a lovely shade of blue. Cherice and I drove through Messiah Campus for old times sake. And it was so nice to see some memorable things like our old apartment, Beth's old apartment, Trout Run, Breeches, and the railroad tracks.Those were some good, good days. Most excellent memories, dudes.

And cool QUAIL Matt and Beth! Cool Empidona, Kevin!

On a really sad note, I hit and killed a Wood Thrush tonight. I got out of the van and picked it up with my jacket and brought it to show Ben. I cried when I told Ben what happened. It's such a beautiful bird. I don't know what that means for the bird list?



Love Karah

Migration Nation

Hey gang,
Seems like the migration is treating us all really well.  Ben and Kev, I was very excited to read about your recent birds from this past week.  It's really fun to be inundated with new, colorful birds after the favorites of winter have started moving along.  Most excellent birding, dudes!  

I'm flying pretty high right now - just getting home from a fun trip up to Figueroa Mountain.  Beth and I brought Poppy the pup up to the spring California Poppy bloom and the catch some good spring birds.  It was serene, man.  We slept out last night under the intensely full moon and got an early start.  We walked East Pinery rd. and had quite a cast of characters most notably:
Mountain Quail (lifer)
Hermit Warbler (life bird for me!)
Olive-Sided Flycatcher (singing it's "quick three beers" song)
Red Breasted Nuthatch
Rufous Crowned Sparrow 
Violet-Green Swallows
Mountain Chickadee
Brown Creeper

I tried to take a few videos to record the calls of the Mountain Quail.  It might be possible to hear the Olive Sided Flycatcher's and a singing Black Headed Grosbeak in there too:

Fulshaw Craeg

Karah dropped me off at the Fulshaw Craeg preserve yesterday morning for 3 hrs.
Probably the most peaceful 3 hrs I've had an a long time.
Matt you know that place. It's just so pure and pristine  and beautiful.

The List 
Scarlet Tanager (#292)
Baltimore Oriole
Blue Grey Gnatcatcher
Called back and forth with a Eastern Screech Owl for 1/2 hr
Magnolia Warbler (# 293)
Prarie Warbler
Northern Parula
Blackthroated Blue Warbler
Blackthroated Green Warbler
1 milliion Yellow Rumpies
Wormeating Warbler
Waterthrush Sp. ( I am not good enough at their songs yet to tell the dif.)
Black and White Warblers
Eastern Towhee

If I was better with Warbler calls I suspect there would have been a few more to add to the list b/c there were a lot that I heard but I can't ID them.

Hermit Warbler

Ben: this is a baby bird list compared to your warbler-a-thon.  It sounds like you were pulling out all types of awesome birds.  If I were there I would have been averaging 2.5 lifers per hour.  It's a good thing we have you on the East coast.

I birded San Joaquin Wildlife Preserve (Orange County) again.  It's my routine to stop there for a half-hour or so after my Wednesday night class in Irvine.  Here are some new or interesting birds from the area:

Hermit Warbler (291)
Townsend's Warbler
Wilson's Warbler
Empidonax sp. (Pacific Slope Flycatcher?)
Forster's Tern
Black Skimmer (about 30 total)
Green Heron
Cinnamon Teal

The Hermit Warbler was a life-bird for me.  The Townsend's looks were the best that I have gotten.

Warbler Wonderland

This week the warblers have finally hit.
Today Cameron and I went to Nokamixon state park and birded in the rain for 3 hrs.
We got soaked but it was well worth the effort. With Cameron's keen ear and our sodden pairs of bushnells and swarovskis, we were in the warbler zone.

Warblers
Prairie (#287)
Yellow
Blue-winged (#286)
Black and White (#283)
Black-throated Blue (#284)
Black-throated Green #285)
Oven Bird (#290)
Common Yellowthroat
Northern Parula (#289)
Worm-Eating (#288)
American Redstart (#282)
Yellow Rumped

Cool thing is that not only was I able to add these warblers to the Big Year list but they are all also lifers for me. We may have had more sp. of warbler b/c the trees were full of them but we couldn't see through our bins b/c the lenses were soaked. We will try again soon.

The list also included
Wood Thrush
17 Common loons
Red Breasted Mergs
Great Egret
Osprey
Barn/Tree/Bank Swallows (#278 listed as "Sand Martin") (lifer)
Baltimore Orioles (#280)
GBH
Eastern Towhee
Blue Grey Gnat Catchers (lifer)
Am. Goldfinch
Flied/Song Sparrows
Ruby Crowned Kinglet
Indigo Bunting (#281)
Ruby Throated Hummingbird (#279)