Merced National Wildlife Refuge Video

One of the goals I set myself this year was to try to do more storytelling instead of just posting images, so one of the things I’ve started doing is experimenting with different tools to publish that help tell a story.

This is one of those experiments, a video slideshow of Merced National Wildlife Refuge, which by now you’ve probably figured out is a favorite place of mine. Nothing too fancy here, just working out the workflow and making sure I can go end to end through the tools, but I think it turned out pretty well (would love to get your feedback on this…)

Merced National Wildlife Refuge from Chuq Von Rospach on Vimeo.

 

identifying western and clark’s grebes

Western Grebes are common here along the coast of northern california, and along with the Western Grebes you can find a few Clark’s Grebes. The differences between the two are subtle, the Clark’s has a bright orange beak and the eye is firmly in the white feathering of the face instead of the dark.

The problem is that the location of the delineation between white and dark on the face of Westerns is variable, and many are hard to distinguish from the Clark’s in the field. Here’s one I found at Moss Landing last weekend that at first I thought was a Clark’s candidate:

In the full light of the sun, the beak was much brighter and orange than this photo really shows, and while this bird was close, at distance in a scope could you really tell whether that eye is in the white or black?

Let the bird turn its head, and it becomes clear:

That’s a Western Grebe bill.

For me, this was a bird that was a great example of why you can’t make snap judgements on the ID of these species.

 

 

Coming in for a landing….

A red-breasted merganser hits the water and puts on the brakes, flintstone style.

But not without leaving a few skid marks… Gotta work on that landing, pilot.

 

Merced Birding…..

I have acquired a strong fascination with the cranes and geese that visit California’s central valley in the winter. There are a number of places you can go to take them in, but one of my favorites is Merced National Wildlife Refuge, which is roughly halfway between Santa Nella and Merced. It’s about two and a half hours of driving from home, so it’s not a trivial drive, but it’s very much something I can do as a day trip.

The cranes and geese start arriving around the end of October, and start leaving in February or March. I’ve gotten into the habit of trying to get out into the central valley three or four times a winter to visit and photograph the birds and the area; more if I can. Some of those trips Laurie and I do together and make it an outing, but sometimes, it works best for me to go solo and just focus on trying to get pack as much into the trip with as much intensity and focus as I can.

There is just no way to be enthusiastic when the alarm goes off at 4AM. The best I can muster is not turning it off and rolling over; a quick hot shower and I’m off after clothes stashed in the other room, because my one goal right now is letting Laurie get back to sleep. Some mornings, you walk out the front door and look up into the dark sky and realize you’re screwed, and you might as well go back to bed. It’s 4:30, it’s 40 degrees, and it’s clear skies.

South to Gilroy, I find the open Starbucks (thank you, bless you). Over the hills, and down into Santa Nella and Los Banos. And into the fog. Now, I’m worried; I might arrive and be fogged out. The fog is playing games with me, though, as Tule fog can; sometimes it goes away. sometimes it’s impenetrable and you’re driving by braille. Outside of Los Banos, it lifts, but only about 20′, so it’s as if I’m driving in this weird grey tunnel. It’s a weird feeling, with the air completely clear around you, but when you look up, you can see nothing.

I make it to the refuge at 7:15, beating sunrise by about ten minutes. The fog is there, but not heavy. When the sun hits, it’ll build a bit, then it should burn off before too much time passes. I pull into the refuge to set up the cameras and get ready for the show. I can hear the geese stirring in the distance. My car thermometer reads 35 degrees. I reach for my coat, and realize I left it at home. All I have is my in-car denim jacket that lives there for these kinds of situations. It’ll help, but it’s really not heavy enough.

I’m the second car into the refuge. One has already headed up the auto tour a bit. I’m in the entrance area, unpacking gear and setting up the car the way I like it for these trips. A lone bird flies through. It turns out to be one of the few glimpses of an Ibis I’ll see today.

Those who have a fantasy that the life of a nature photographer is a glamorous one, set the alarm for 4AM, drag your butt out of bed, and go sit on a bench in the local park for a few hours and wait for something to happen. Maybe something will, maybe it won’t. That, in a nutshell, is nature photography. As you get better at picking locations, the chances something interesting will happen goes up, but it’s never guaranteed. Hours of prep, minutes of opportunity. Maybe.

Some people like to visit a lot of places. Get to know a few places well, rather than see lots of places superficially. You can go overboard on that, become too insular, too “cocooned”, but for me the attraction is to understand a place, not just see it. To watch as it changes over time and through the seasons.

 

This trip to Merced is my “new job vacation”; instead of taking time off and going somewhere, I took the accrued vacation and put that money into gear. It’s also my first “serious” trip to start learning how the gear should be used in the field. I’m consciously experimenting more with the wide angle, forcing myself to use it and not get so heavily into the rhythm of shooting at 400mm and seeing everything in that mono-vision.

I am going to have fun today. I don’t intend to let the cold stop me. Or the fog. Or even doofuses. Those are all things to work with, and around, they can only be excuses if you let them. Early on, the fog makes bird photography tough, putting everything into soft focus. I spend more time thinking about how to bring the refuge to those that can’t be there.

Opportunities do exist, of course.

A loggerhead shrike sits up for a portrait session. This has been one of my nemesis birds; I have lots of so-so images of them. I don’t have many I’m proud of.

Now I do.

I spend the afternoon with the geese, alternately trying to figure out how to show what it’s like sitting out in a marsh with 10,000+ birds, and trying to get some good flight and landing shots.

How do you describe 10,000 birds visually in an image?

That seems a good start. It’d be a better image if it was a panorama, but I didn’t want to get out of the car and risk spooking them to set up for a formal pano, and the handheld one wasn’t very good. Some days they work, some days they don’t.

Geese, everywhere. Never quiet, and there’s always motion.

Every time I visit a refuge, I want to do video, I want to do audio. I want to try timelapses. I now have most of the gear I need for these, but haven’t had time to practice the setups. Next visit, hopefully.

Then the geese explode; they’ve been spooked. The entire flock hits the air at the same time. The noise is intense, almost as intense as the visual chaos. Birds are flying everywhere. I don’t know how they avoid collisions, but they do.

 

And then it’s quiet, and empty. The geese have gone in to settle for the night. I can feel the first tendrils of fog seeping back into my It’s time for food, something hot, and the drive over the hill home. Until next time.

All of the images from this trip have been collected into a slideshow. To view it, click this image:

 

taking a bath.

Feeling a bit down, a bit stressed? Relax, and take a bath. It’ll do wonders for you.

The intelligence of birds (or — a skiing crow)

This video has been making the rounds, showing a Russian crow skiing, using a jar lid. It repeatedly grabs the lid, flies to the top of the roof, stands on it, and slides down the roof. Okay, maybe it’s sledding. Whatever it’s doing, it’s doing on purpose, and the purpose pretty clearly seems to be having fun.

There is more and more evidence piling up that humans don’t have a monopoly on intelligence or the ability to think. Animals and birds are increasingly found to be tool users and to be able to create tools to solve problems; that their ability to communicate is more advanced than we’ve given then credit for. We’re starting to see evidence of birds able to create concepts long thought to be the unique domain of humans.

I’ve lived with a cockatoo for twenty-some years now. She is about at the level of a four year old child — albeit one with a claw hammer and an air horn, which makes her hard to ignore when she puts her mind to it. She’s not a super linguist, but she uses volume and tone to get her point across (her primary word is “hello”, spoken 50 different ways).

She knows what the rules are. And like any four year old, there are times when she doesn’t care. So one of her tricks, when she’s not getting enough attention or not getting what she wants, is to break one of the rules — and then put herself into her cage for her time out before I can. (“if I do this, I get in trouble. I do this.”) — I’m convinced this is her way of showing an utter lack of respect for my authority (not that I need and hints where I stand in the pecking order around here). She knows what causes a time out; so when she does it, she does it and then goes and serves it. Just to make a point.

it’s not hard to see intelligence in these animals when you live with them.

Cockatoos are in many ways the same ecological niche as crows, and crows, like their cousin ravens, are well known for tool building or raising havoc, just because it amuses them.

Here’s a raven in Yosemite. What’s it doing? It’s attempting to break into an SUV. Why? Because it saw a power bar on the seat. But the door is closed and locked. Notice, though, that it’s figured out that the door handle is what controls the opening of the door. What you don’t hear is that every time the raven tried the door handle, it yelled a loud “BOOP! BOOP!” first.

Why? think about what you do when you get to your car. You pull out your wireless door unlocker thingie, push the unlock button. The car chirps and unlocks the door. Then you grab the handle and pull, and open it.

The raven is reproducing those actions as well as it can. It doesn’t have a wireless remote, but it’s trying to simulate the sound of the door unlocking, because as far as it can tell, it’s the sound that unlocks the door.

God help us if ravens ever invent lock picks.

(but think about just how far down the logic chain this bird’s gotten. It’s figured out to open the door, you have to use the handle. to unlock the door, you have to get that “bloop! bloop!” sound. This is not “random stuff happens and if I get lucky the door opens”, it’s figured out a lot of details that are not trivia — and gotten them right.

This is why I’m fascinated by birds.

Here’s a raven in Yellowstone. he and his cohort have found a pickup with a a bunch of stuff in it. Very likely, they can smell the food in the ice chest that’s in the back of that truck, under the tarp (by the way, this is a bad idea in bear country. the bear will win this fight, where the ravens won’t).

We sat and watched these birds for about ten minutes. This one had one of the knots about 90% untied when they were chased off by the owners of the car returning. They had a solid plan of attack — and they were untying the knots to move the tarp, not just tugging at things or trying to rip through the material.

This is why skiing crows surprise me not one bit….

 

This is probably bad, right?

 

Maybe it’s just me, but if this were to fall off my car while I was driving it, I’d probably notice it. (found about halfway through the Merced auto tour. It was gone when I did my second trip through…. I note for the record I didn’t even see the rabbit until I looked at the picture…..)

Our mystery bird revealed!

Yesterday, I posted a picture of a mystery bird, which basically showed a small brown lump hiding among the grass.

Here’s the bird, in a less obscure pose. It’s a Wilson’s Snipe, a small brown shorebird who’s coloration is such that when it’s not moving, it can be incredibly hard to notice. Their primary defense against predators is to get in among the foliage along the shoreline and then not move.

Here’s another shot of the Wilson’s Snipe.

I was actually feeling pretty good about myself catching that one along the shore, until I got home and looked at the pictures, and in a wider-angle version of that shot, saw two more snipe hanging out that I never had a clue were there while I was searching for them both no more than 2 feet from this bird.

 

Hutton’s Vireo: Life Bird 257

During my trip out to Merced, I took a couple of mid-day hours and went off to the O’Neill Forebay, which is near the San Luis Reservoir and a good winter birding spot, especially for ducks. It was a nice break, and is near Santa Nella where I grabbed lunch. Birding was nice but not astounding, and I didn’t get many interesting pictures, but here’s one of them.

I initially thought it was a ruby-crowned kinglet, but on watching it a bit, it was clear it wasn’t. Then I realized it was a Vireo, but I wasn’t sure how to ID it past that. This was the only usable shot of it I got. When I got home, I hauled out the field guides and the image, and finally decided it was a Hutton’s Vireo. I then went to eBird to sanity check, and sure enough, that’s a Vireo that’s seen in that area in the listings for this time of year. Good enough for me. This is my first life bird for the year, and not a bad start, especially since I’m weak with Vireos in general…

O’Neill is a great place for flight shots of Canvasbacks and Buffleheads, if you’re patient.

Today’s Mystery Bird

Without clicking through to see the answer, can you figure out what species of bird this is? For those that are wondering “What bird?” it’s got its beak tucked and its in a sleeping position, although if you look really closely it’s eye is open and it’s watching me like a hawk. But it’s not a hawk.

Hint: it’s a bird well-known for it’s camouflage ability to blend into the terrain.

 

 

A red-Tailed Hawk

 

 

To be honest, this young red-tailed hawk seems to be enjoying this warm, sunny morning almost as much as I was….

 

 

Dawn at Merced National Wildlife Refuge

 

A lone ibis flies through the fog at dawn. The few hearty souls here are bundled up against the chill of the morning. The birds seem to awaken slowly, almost regretfully. The Sun makes her appearance, or tries to. All that’s missing is the Hound of the Baskerville, howling in the distance. We’ll have to make do with the Coyotes….

 

Great Blue Heron

A Great Blue Heron seen at the Merced NWR.

 

Quality time with an American Bittern

American Bittern, Merced National Wildlife Refuge.

This bird flew out past my car, doubled back and disappeared into the rushes. I didn’t expect to see it again, but when I drove up to where it had bee, there it was, hanging out halfway up the reeds and trying its darnest to convince me it wasn’t there.

At this point, I am maybe 3 meters from it. It was wary but didn’t seem to be stressed, so I took a short period of time to get some images, and then got away from it so it could get to a safer place. There is a judgement call to be made in a situation like this. You don’t want to stress the bird or cause it problems. I am, honestly, way too close to it, but I don’t have many options because I can’t move the car without risking making it flee. If it’d shown any sign of panic, I’d have left and gotten away from it. It seemed comfortable that I didn’t see it and was willing to watch me instead.

I stayed with the bird for a total of three minutes, trying my damnedest not to make any moves it would see as a threat. It didn’t move at all, other than shifting a tiny bit to keep a watch on me. After that, I thanked it for its patience and got far away from it so it could get to a more defensible position and relax. When I checked back later, it was long gone (but probably within 50 feet of where I’d seen it, just out of sight).

 

How not to be a doofus with a camera

The one thing that marred the visit to Merced was that I ran into a couple of doofuses. Here’s a quick guide on how not to be a doofus with a camera (or binoculars).

The “Area Beyond This Sign Closed” sign evidently didn’t apply to this couple, who entered the refuge shortly after I did and headed back into tour area ahead of me. The car is significantly beyond the “do not enter” sign, and they are significantly beyond that. What you don’t see or hear here were the three or four coyotes that were actively making a lot of noise somewhere off to the left of this scene but between me and them. Sorry, but “it’s okay if the ranger doesn’t catch us” doesn’t sit well with me. I guess it’s also okay if the coyotes decide  not to catch them, too.

These two seemed to be fairly knowledgable birders and at first glance their gear seemed to be of the “okay, they’re serious about this” quality. Not “take out a mortgage” glass, but “we’ve upgraded once or twice” glass. One would hope that serious birders would know to stick to the rules and not do things that impact the birds. Unfortunately, for some birders, “getting the bird” is most important, even to the detriment of the bird.

In fact, this is a minor transgression. They’re on a maintenance road. It’s just annoying to me when I see someone who’s first act when they arrive at a place like this is to put themselves above the rules. Rules which are there to protect them and to protect the birds they were interested in enough to come and visit. I just don’t have a lot of patience with the “it’s okay if I don’t get caught” mentality. Of course, you never know who might know the rangers and email them a picture of them, their car, and their license plate…

Just saying’.

But the big doofus was in the afternoon. I’ve made my fourth trip through the refuge, this one to sit with the geese until the light fails or they leave. The geese are being moderately cooperative, with about 10,000 sitting in a large group with the close edge about 50 yards off the road, just past the back observation area. I’ve found a parking spot where I have good views, good light, good angles, I’m off the road, and I’m in the car shooting, watching and hanging out.

And along comes a photographer, walking up the access road, camera, tripod. Pro-caliber Nikon body, pro-caliber nikon lens. expensive tripod. He walks up, and proceeds to set up and start shooting. Right directly in front of me, directly in my line of sight.

Okay, say freaking WHAT? It’s not like my car’s invisible. I decided to defer having a cow and give him some time to get some shots in. Instead, I grabbed my long lens and started taking flight shots around him, since he only moderately impacted that. When he heard my camera going off, he looked, saw the lens, and asked me if he was in my way. And I noted that yes, at some point he was going to be impacting my shots. So he then said “well, tell me when I am” and turned around and went back to shooting. After about five minutes of that, he graciously decided that was good enough and moved to a new location off my rear fender that was out of my line of sight.

This is wrong on any number of levels. First of all, you don’t just plop yourself down in front of someone and start shooting as if they aren’t there. He compounded this — his actions and the way he said things made it clear to me that until he realized I was also a photographer that this was okay. It was only once he realized I had a camera that he worried about impacting my sight lines. It doesn’t matter if I have a camera or if I’m just there for, say, a gorgeous sunset with the geese, you don’t have the right to decide to just set up camp in front of me.  I was mildly annoyed when he did it. I was majorly annoyed when I realized he thought it was okay until he realized I was another photographer, because that implies that he does this to others as well, because, evidently, his camera gives him right of priority view or something. And that he did it without acknowledging my presence until I hauled out a lens about as big as his.

I didn’t make a deal with it with him directly, because nothing good ever happens when you do, but man, this is annoying, because it’s this kind of behavior that gives all photographers a bad rep. When someone with a lens wades in and just plays this kind of game, it makes us all look bad to non photographers. So, kids, when you have a lens out, remember that your actions and how you act leaves an impression on those around you, and that impression is not just about you (and what a doofus you are), but on photographers in general. If you don’t care what people think about you (and I clearly think this man is a doofus) worry about what people think about all of us other photographers. Because it’s actions like this that get all photographer’s access restricted, when enough doofuses do things that annoy non-photographers enough to start making rules.

But it gets better. Or worse, I guess.

The other thing my friend didn’t realize was that he was scaring off the geese.  He was standing out in the open moving around a lot, shifting his camera around. Every time he did, a few geese closest to him took off and flew off or flew deeper into the pack. I figured it was only a matter of time before he spooked a goose that spooked the flock and caused them all to leave.

Okay, a quick digression. Refuges allow access to restricted parts of the refuge. Many parts are out of bounds so that the birds can go places where they don’t have to deal with the stress of interacting with humans. that’s why humans shouldn’t be going into out of bounds places. At refuges like Merced, access is via a gravel road set up as an auto tour. One of the rules they encourage you to follow is to stay in the car, and use it as a blind. There’s a reason for that: the shape of a human scares the wildlife, and they move away from you, or they leave. If you’re carrying a big camera with a long lens, it looks an awful lot to geese like that other long, pointy thing that got pointed at uncle bob before he fell out of the sky and was never seen again. When you’re that close, the geese are going to notice you and react to you, especially if you’re moving around a lot.

What ultimately happened, though, was that another photographer arrived, parked back up the road a bit, and walked out from behind the screening trees to where the rest of us were (three or four cars, the photographer wandering around. fairly big crowd, actually). He was wearing a red sweatshirt, and got two steps out from behind the screening brush. The flock jumped, and suddenly we had 10-12,000 geese in the air in total chaos. Within a minute, they’d organized and flown off, and we were all sitting there staring at an empty pond.

That is why the rangers tell you to stay in the car, and use it as a blind. Because these folks didn’t, the rest of us lost access to the birds, too. Show over. So much for trying to get a picture of the flock in golden hour light.

If the first photographer had been more aware of how is movements were putting the geese on alert, the second photographer appearing might not have spooked them. Or maybe he would have. Or maybe nothing would have happened (but in the previous times i’ve been in this situation, there’s a fairly decent change they’ll find a reason to get spooked, whether it’s person, noise, or raptor. But one can hope). The point is, I guess, is that if people had been following the recommended rules, the chances we’d have had a longer time watching the birds would have gone up significantly. By being that close to the flock and unaware of what their actions were doing to the birds, they messed it up for all of us.

If you’re going to shoot wildlife, you should strive to understand their behaviors and know how to minimize your impact on them. Failing that, at least know what the rules of the refuge are and follow them, because they’re designed to help you do that. It’s sad and frustrating when I see people who seem oblivious to the stress they’re putting on the animals; this isn’t Disneyland, and these aren’t audio-anamatronic robots.

I’m still wondering what that morning couple’s plan was if those coyotes decided to come out and say hi. They were, after all, only 100-150 yards out from their position. Fortunately, a coyote is generally uninterested in taking on a person, but there were at least three in a group together. That’s not a situation I particularly want to be in, out in the open with a coyote between me and my car where I might be safe. What I did was watch from the “do not pass this point” sign for a couple of minutes, just to make sure there was no sign of the coyotes moving, then I wished them luck on whatever they were doing and moved on. I wonder if they even realized the coyotes were there? (they were sure noisy enough…)

And my friend the doofus? I guess I see that kind of behavior often enough now that it’s merely annoying. If he hadn’t moved, I’d have eventually escalated the situation, but I figured if I gave it time, it’d solve itself without creating a fight, and it did. Once they scared off the flock, there was no reason to stay, so I fired up the car and headed back to the front of the refuge, because if there’s no active flock involved, that’s a better place to photograph the evening fly-in (except when it’s not), where I ran into a nice couple who was there for the first time, and I spent some time trying to help them with what to expect. It was, unfortunately, a fairly weak fly-in, with the cranes mostly missing until very late when they all flew in at once, and the geese — well, they’d already flown off to the evening roost for some reason, so activity was low.

But still, even a lousy sunset on the refuge is better than most things…. And I’ll give this one a C+.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Close but no cigar….

Behold the Say’s Phoebe.

One of my test images using the 70-200+2x combo. This could well have been a really nice photo, with one minor problem. That being the stupid bird is flying away from me. But even so, I kinda like it. This is actually heavily cropped; I like the sharpness and the wing detail. Even shooting at 800ISO with the 7D, the noise cleaned up nicely. I was madly trying to get the camera/lens to AF using spot focus as the bird hovered and flew around looking for a bug to eat, and this is an image where it locked in well. The 70-200 color rendition seems different than the 100-400 in subtle ways, but I like it. It’s going to take a bit of getting used to and experimentation to understand how to process images well, but I’m starting to get a feel for it.

 

Now, if only the stupid bird would TURN AROUND.

(in reality, none of my shots from Coyote Valley were keepers, but some were interesting in various ways anyway, and useful for figuring out the lens, which was the real point anyway…)

 

Blackbird IDs…

One of the birds that has been hanging around Coyote Valley this winter is the tri-colored blackbird, a species that is seen almost exclusively in California, and has been in decline in recent years, so it’s one that birders and Audubon is tracking and working to help conserve.

It’s nice that a flock of a couple hundred decided to stick with the blackbirds in the south county because otherwise, adding them to the year list means a trip into the central valley and a bit of luck. I ran into them where you normally run into blackbirds — around the cows.

At first approximation, the way you tell the tricolor from the red-winged blackbird in the field is the epaulet. In the adult male, the red-winged shows, well, red here in California (in other regions, it’s a red/yellow combo, but in California, the yellow is mostly hidden when the bird isn’t flying or displaying). The tricolor shows a white stripe where the red is mostly or completely hidden.

As I was going through my photos, however, I ran into these birds. One is white. One is — well, more of a cream color. Which led me down the path of taking much closer looks at the birds in terms of the ID.

If I’ve got the ID’s right (always an open question around my life), the one on the right is a tricolor. It also has the black and much thicker bill, a slimmer body shape. The bird in the middle is the red-winged. I’m thinking this is a younger bird starting to move into adult plumage, which is why the epaulet is a creamy yellowish rather than bright screaming yellow honker yellow and red; I think the red is hidden here, and the yellow in the epaulet is in process of arriving. But if you look you can see a much thinner bill, the feathering in general has a different shine, and the bird looks chunkier to me.

A nice reminder not to over-rely on any single field mark, because female and juvenile birds will mess you up badly if you do…

(the bird on the left? it’s a brown-headed cowbird. The blackbird flock, which was extended all over the pastures when I was there, is a few thousand birds, including these two species, plus Brewer’s, plus a good number of cowbirds, and of course, our dear friends the European Starling. Better birders than I estimated the tricolor numbers at a couple hundred or so…).

 

looking back, looking forward, looking at birds…

Like much of life in 2011, what I thought I’d accomplish with my birding in 2011 and what I actually did were some significantly different. I have no complaints, though; birding is one of those things I do  to get away from all of the other stuff, so any time birding is a good time, even if I kinda forget to bird once I get there. Or to put it another way,

Sometimes birds are the reason. Sometimes, they are the excuse

My final year list for 2011 was 183 species; that’s significantly better than i expected it to be, since I was able to add 15 species in Q4, and eight in december. It’s short of what I did the previous two years where I made it to about 200 species, but looking at my ebird lists, there’s about a two and a half month slice of time where I effectively didn’t bird at all, and that included much of spring migration. Such is life.

I added six species to my life list: Palm Warbler, Evening Grosbeak, Phainopepla, Baird’s Sandpiper, Marbled Murrelet and Yellow-Billed Loon. That’s not a bad set of additions. I successfully missed boobies two years in a a row — last year there was a blue-footed booby at Dana Point harbor, which I chased on a trip and looked for it without success (it turns out it was two days after it was last seen); this year, the Dana Point Booby was a masked booby, so as we left SoCal after the christmas visit, we gave it a try, but it was evidently out fishing; none of the four groups looking for it had seen it, but it’s been seen since, so it just saw me coming and hid.. Maybe next year..

For non-birders, I should note that a birding list is effectively logarithmic. The first ten birds are trivially easy, and it’s fairly common for birders here in the Bay area to start a year list and hit 80-100 species on January 1. But each ten birds are that much harder, because there’s only so much diversity; 250 species is a pretty good year for most birders, 300 is many times impossible without travel, and 400 is amazing. John Vanderpoel has been doing a “big year”, effectively birding full time, everywhere in the US for an entire year — and he has 742 species. Read his blog if you want to see what effort is required for something like that (not me! not any time remotely soon).

All I can say about birding in 2012 is that about the time this gets posted to my blog, if things go well, I’ll be out chasing birds to start out my list for 2012 (and to see how well my new Vortex 8x42s work). Beyond that? We’ll see. 200 species seems to be a nice goal, so we’ll try it again. If things go well and I hit it, we’ll reset the bar higher.

A few years ago I did a year where I tried to build a photographic year list, seeing how many species I could get a usable photo of. I’m thinking that is worth trying again, to give me something to reach for that ties both the birds and the cameras together. So perhaps we’ll see that appear on the web site soon..

But mostly, birding for me is a relaxation, and I think it’s important that when you’re off relaxing, you, well, relax. Don’t throw too many goals and requirements, don’t stress about whether you’re doing it right (or at all). Take the things you like doing and turn it into another job? No thanks. So remember to keep some things in your life loose, so you don’t lose the joy of doing them…

Happy 2012!

 

The Relative Size of Birds

While out in Coyote Valley yesterday, we had a short time where three Red-Tailed Hawks were joined by a juvenile Golden Eagle and soared above us for a bit before catching a thermal and heading up and south. I snapped a few quick shots, none of which are very good, but this one does a great job of showing the relative size of the birds.

Estimating bird size at distance is one of those things that is more difficult than it seems and when you see an eagle at rest or in flight, it doesn’t seem that much larger than a red-tailed hawk to me. But once in a while, you get a comparative look that makes it clear just how much bigger the eagles are. Both of the flanking birds are red-tails (and notice the size difference between them), and they are some of the largest hawks you’ll see — but both look like they might fit under the outstretched wing of the eagle.

I was out in the Anderson Valley one day and happened across an adult Bald Eagle that was chowing down on some roadkill. I flushed it before I saw it, and it took off and flew away from me up the two lane road I was driving — and it seemed like the wing tips would touch the white lines on both sides of the road. Truly majestic birds.

 

 

 

 

 

Day 1 birding…

So Laurie and I did a little birding today just to get the lists started, including a bit o’ feederwatch and then laurie and I headed down to coyote valley and visited east and west Laguna and Richmond.

Highlights were seeing about half of santa clara valley audubon hanging out on Laguna working on their year lists. Even more fun was stepping out of the car, saying “with any luck, we’ll see the golden eagle that’s been hanging out here”, looking up, and seeing an immature golden eagle (checking the guide, it was a juvenile) about 70′ straight up. it soared with three red tails for a while, the they all went high and south out of view. (my comment: “I should have suggested California Condor. that was too easy”).

The blackbird flock was intermixed brewers with a few red-winged and some of the continuing tri-colored. I was able to catch 6 of the tri-color individuals, mostly around the cow corral in the middle of west Laguna. Found the Ferruginous Hawk (Light morph) on Richmond, flying. it got a bit annoyed at a turkey vulture that wandered into the area (the turkey vulture’s response seemed mostly to be something like “dude! chill!” and it moved on). Three western bluebirds (2 male and a female) were on Richmond; I’ve seen them there before. A wild turkey called every so often from the distance well N of W Laguna, but never showed. A few magpies were seen at the end of W Laguna, with more heard. The single long-billed curlew was continuing, and I found a couple of killdeer near the house on W Laguna, but no burrowing owl (I’ve decided I’ve pissed off the burrowing owl union, and they’re on orders to hide when they see me coming).

Driving in, there was a flotilla of white pelicans flying up 101 headed N, right at Bailey.

Eurasian collared doves easy to find, both at the ranch house on W. Laguna and at the hay store on Richmond.

(Santa was nice to me, and I got a set of Vortex 8x42s, which compared to my old 8×30′s, my initial response is “WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN ALL MY LIFE?” and the new Nat Geo and Stokes field guides, both of which after some casual rummaging through seem to be really good in very different ways. the Nat Geo is drawing based, and the Stokes is photo based, and they complement each other well. Neither is one I’ll actually haul into the field any more (I use iPhone-based guides now, plus keep the Sibley west in the car) but both look to be helpful in trying to get my head around plumage subtleties…

Happy New year! 39 down, lots to go…

 

 

—– Home, Santa Clara, US-CA Jan 1, 2012 12:00 PM – 1:00 PM Protocol: Stationary Comments: feeder/yardwatch 12 species

Turkey Vulture (Cathartes aura) 1 Red-tailed Hawk (Buteo jamaicensis) 1 Ring-billed Gull (Larus delawarensis) X Mourning Dove (Zenaida macroura) X Anna’s Hummingbird (Calypte anna) 1 Black Phoebe (Sayornis nigricans) 1 American Crow (Corvus brachyrhynchos) X Chestnut-backed Chickadee (Poecile rufescens) 3 Oak Titmouse (Baeolophus inornatus) 1 House Finch (Carpodacus mexicanus) X Lesser Goldfinch (Spinus psaltria) X House Sparrow (Passer domesticus) X

This report was generated automatically by eBird v3 (http://ebird.org) Coyote Valley, Santa Clara, US-CA Jan 1, 2012 1:30 PM – 3:00 PM Protocol: Traveling 5.0 mile(s) Comments: laguna east and west, richmond. 33 species

Wild Turkey (Meleagris gallopavo) 1 heard only, N of laguna west. American White Pelican (Pelecanus erythrorhynchos) 7 flying up 101N @ bailey in formation. Great Blue Heron (Ardea herodias) 1 Great Egret (Ardea alba) 8 Snowy Egret (Egretta thula) 1 Turkey Vulture (Cathartes aura) 6 White-tailed Kite (Elanus leucurus) 1 Northern Harrier (Circus cyaneus) 1 Red-tailed Hawk (Buteo jamaicensis) 4 Ferruginous Hawk (Buteo regalis) 1 Golden Eagle (Aquila chrysaetos) 1 2nd year seen in flight, soared off S. American Kestrel (Falco sparverius) 5 Killdeer (Charadrius vociferus) 2 Long-billed Curlew (Numenius americanus) 1 Rock Pigeon (Columba livia) X Eurasian Collared-Dove (Streptopelia decaocto) 6 Mourning Dove (Zenaida macroura) X Black Phoebe (Sayornis nigricans) 3 Say’s Phoebe (Sayornis saya) 2 Loggerhead Shrike (Lanius ludovicianus) 2 Yellow-billed Magpie (Pica nuttalli) 4 American Crow (Corvus brachyrhynchos) X Common Raven (Corvus corax) 3 Western Bluebird (Sialia mexicana) 3 on richmond European Starling (Sturnus vulgaris) X Savannah Sparrow (Passerculus sandwichensis) X White-crowned Sparrow (Zonotrichia leucophrys) X Red-winged Blackbird (Agelaius phoeniceus) X Tricolored Blackbird (Agelaius tricolor) 7 Western Meadowlark (Sturnella neglecta) 3 Brewer’s Blackbird (Euphagus cyanocephalus) X Brown-headed Cowbird (Molothrus ater) X House Finch (Carpodacus mexicanus) X

This report was generated automatically by eBird v3 (http://ebird.org)