Category Archives: Woodpeckers

Birding Costa Rica—Beginning at the Airport

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Some of our most popular posts have focused on exotic travel destinations, and today we kick off our latest series on one of North American birders’ most popular choices: Costa Rica. Braden and I just returned from an exhilarating, intense, nine-day birding adventure to the land of Pura Vida, and over the next couple of months I’ll be posting blogs on our most memorable birding experiences interspersed with our usual entertaining “paella” of reviews, domestic birding, and other fascinating topics. Again, we do not receive compensation for our blogging efforts, so if you wish to support our work, please purchase a few new copies of Birding for Boomers, Warblers & Woodpeckers, First-Time Japan, or any of Sneed’s other books. If you already have copies, why not pick up some for your friends? With that, let’s dive into Costa Rica at—where else—the airport!

Braden and I arrived at Juan Santamaría International Airport at 10 p.m.—just time enough to get to the rental car office before it closed. After collecting our vehicle, we drove to a nearby Airbnb so we could get a fresh start in the morning. Having spent a lot of time in Costa Rica the past couple of years, Braden had organized our entire birding itinerary and even picked this first place to stay—not only because it was convenient to the airport, but because it happened to have a terrific, little-known birding spot just down the street.

Braden and I from the porch of our Airbnb in Alejuela—practically under the flight path for San Jose’s international airport, and loaded with birds!

Braden and I are big fans of birding near airports, and have often found hidden avian treasures where you’d least expect them. Just last spring, on my final morning in Texas, I had a remarkable birding session in the vacant lot behind my hotel next to the airport in San Antonio, Texas. And during his spring Costa Rica trip last year, Braden had discovered a special little place only two blocks from our Airbnb. This year, as soon as dawn crept over Alejuela (where San Jose’s airport is actually located), he and I grabbed our binoculars and cameras and headed out.

Our destination was a large city park with the even larger name of Caminito Magico de la Tranquilidad. Being unfamiliar with the rather poor-looking neighborhood, I admit that I felt a bit nervous about our safety, but my concerns quickly vanished. At the park, people were jogging, biking, doing exercises, visiting over coffee, and walking around as in any park anywhere. The park covered several hectares, mostly devoted to playing fields, but a lot of trees threaded the fields and lined the park’s perimeter, and Braden led the way in guiding us on a full circuit.

Even at dawn, Caminito Magico de la Tranquilidad park was bustling with people—and birds! Note the giant mall rising in the background—a good place to escape the heat and grab a bite, though a much better little soda (cafe) sits only a block from the park entrance.

I had spent two months in Costa Rica in 1994, but tragically, that was before I took an interest in birds. Since Braden and I started birding a dozen years ago, I had been fortunate to bird in Latin America several times—most recently in Colombia con mi amigo, Roger—but it was fair to say that I was a novice at Costa Rican birds. I had been studying, however, and to my delight Caminito Magico park presented a perfect warm up for the week ahead.

Entering the park, a Squirrel Cuckoo immediately flew across a soccer field in front of us. Braden identified Orange-chinned and Crimson-fronted Parakeets loudly squawking overhead, and I was thrilled to see my first ever Hoffman’s Woodpecker land in a nearby tree.

My very first Hoffman’s Woodpecker put me in an ebullient mood as we kicked off our first Costa Rican birding session!

The park was filled with many of the more common birds any visiting birder will quickly get acquainted with. These included five kinds of pigeons and doves, Tropical Kingbirds, Great Kiskadees, Great-tailed Grackles, and Costa Rica’s national bird, Clay-colored Thrushes. Blue-gray Tanagers flew between trees while Blue-and-White Swallows darted for insects overhead.

Baltimore Orioles are common throughout Costa Rica—and never fail to raise a smile for a visiting Norteamericano birder!

As we reached the far perimeter, I was delighted to find that a creek skirted about half of the park’s boundary. Trees grew thickly here, and following the pleasant path, the birds got even more interesting. Braden began pointing out Chestnut-capped, Northern Yellow, and Tennessee Warblers while I focused in on a stunning male Baltimore Oriole in a flowering tree. Braden also detected several kinds of wrens: Southern House Wren, Rufous-and-White Wren, Cabanis’s Wren, and the beautiful bruisers of the bunch, Rufous-backed Wrens.

This would be the only location on our trip where we would see the “giant” Rufous-backed Wren—another reason to bird the San Jose area before heading into Costa Rica’s hinterland.

This being in the heart of Costa Rica’s largest city, I gotta tell you that I had no expectations for the creek itself, especially because it was strewn with an assortment of trash. The birds apparently didn’t care and almost immediately, Braden pointed out one of the birds I had most wanted to see on the trip—Bare-throated Tiger-Heron! I was thrilled, but hardly had time to appreciate it as we spotted a quail-sized coot-like bird skulking the banks—a Gray-cowled Wood-Rail!

For me, seeing a Bare-throated Tiger-Heron and Gray-cowled Wood-Rail (above) were stunning surprises in the heart of Costa Rica’s largest city!

Soon after, Braden pointed out a Northern Waterthrush while I spotted a Green Heron along the opposite bank. This, of course, is one of the magical things about birding the neotropics: how in the midst of all of these amazing new tropical birds, we find many species that are totally familiar to us in North America. It begs the definition of just what a neotropical bird is since in reality, many species we Norteamericanos consider “our birds” are just visiting us for a short time, and can more rightly be considered tropical species. Maybe that’s how this park got the name “Magico”?

Seeing “North American” warblers such as this Northern Waterthrush in the tropics makes you rethink what we consider “our” birds.

Our delightful discoveries were far from over. At the far corner of the park, we met an amateur naturalist who visited this spot almost daily to monitor wildlife, and he generously shared that only minutes before, he had seen one of the San Jose Valley’s most intriguing endemics. We hurried down the trail and only fifty meters later saw them: Cabanis’s Ground-Sparrows.

Cabanis’s Ground-Sparrows are related to White-faced Ground-Sparrows, but live only in the San Jose area—an intriguing case of endemism that would make a great PhD research topic!

These are birds that Braden especially wanted to show me—but didn’t think he could. These handsome little guys live only in central Costa Rica, specifically in the valley occupied by San Jose. While not rare, they often tend to be pretty shy, making them challenging to see. They prefer scrubby, disturbed places like forest edges, coffee plantations, and apparently, city parks with lots of places to hide. Braden and I both began clicking off photos, but mostly we enjoyed watching them, one of dozens of unexpected surprises we would encounter over the next nine days.

As we were winding down our visit with the Cabanis’s Ground-Sparrows, I saw a larger bird swoop past us and land on a nearby branch. “Braden,” I hissed. “Look!” It was a final gift from this amazing city park: a Lesson’s Motmot! Not only that, it struck an incredible, leisurely pose. Motmots, of course, are some of Latin America’s most distinctive tropical birds and always high on a visitor’s to-see list. I was no exception, and felt enormously grateful to see one in our very first hour or two of Costa Rica birding.

Seeing a Lesson’s Motmot in our first birding session left no doubt that we were birding somewhere far different from Montana!

We finished our list with 47 species—almost as many birds as I’d seen in Montana in the first seven weeks of 2026! It was an awesome kick-start to our expedition, and we celebrated by grabbing our first Tico breakfast of rice, beans, eggs, and fruit at a little family diner only a few meters from the park entrance. We couldn’t predict how many highs and lows the next nine days would hold for us, but we were grateful and happy for such a promising start!

Caminito Magico de la Tranquilidad checklist: https://ebird.org/checklist/S302412338

Braden has a passionate fondness for Costa Rican food, and after our first birding session we wasted no time in getting him a traditional Tico breakfast just a block from the park entrance!

The Birds in the Oaks (Book Review by Scott Callow)

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Braden and I head to Costa Rica next week, but before we go I am delighted—yes, delighted—to share the following guest book review by my buddy, Scott Callow. I predict you’ll enjoy his passionate, humorous review as much as the book itself! We challenge you to read it before our next post. And now, heeeeeeeeere’s SCOTT!

Sneed asked me to write a review of The Birds in the Oaks: Secret Voices of the Western Woods by Jack Gedney (HeyDey Press, 2024) before I completed reading it. Consequently, It was impossible for me to finish the last chapter without constant rereading because I became anxious and distracted, wondering how to share all the great things about it. For those of you who only read headlines or first paragraphs of news stories, let me present a few crafted comments that summarize my experiences, being careful not to exaggerate.

Order Jack Gedney’s The Birds in the Oaks by clicking here or on the above image.

* If you live near oak woodlands, you have no claim to being “interested in birds” if you do not read this book.  

* The Birds in the Oaks is overflowing with interesting ecological details that will keep me rereading chapters, and I expect I will mark the pages with notes like a seeker underlining sections of the Bible on the journey to become a better person.  

* The Birds in the Oaks is a superb example of well-crafted nature writing that mixes extensive and accurate observations with poetic prose, and mixes personal experiences with quotes from historical bird authors.  

Last fall, I was fortunate enough to accompany Scott to one of his favorite “oaky birdy” locations, Sugarloaf Ridge State Park in Sonoma County, where we saw a great variety of classic oak woodland species including Oak Titmouse, Golden-crowned Sparrow, and Nuttall’s Woodpecker. (See post World Series Birds in the Golden State.)

This book, admittedly, is personal for me. I live within walking distance of California oak woodlands. I volunteer at Sugarloaf Ridge State Park which is dominated by oak woodlands and mentioned in the book. The author’s former Wild Birds Unlimited store lies only 24 miles from me. Most importantly, I know these birds. I have learned so much about each of them from Gedney’s book that they have become even more familiar (emphasis in “family”). I will admit only here, amongst birders, that I sometimes say “Hey, buddy!” when I see my first Oak Titmouse of the day, and “Hey-hey-hey” when I see a White-breasted Nuthatch.  

Scott apparently has been known to converse with White-breasted Nuthatches. I can’t blame him as I talk to these guys myself!

Each curiously titled chapter is organized around a species. Each begins with key characteristics. Many chapters start with song and call, which I appreciate since I’m late in life to learning bird sounds. (Thank you Merlin.)  Example:

“I still hear the bird, steadily whit-whiting away as if mocking my inability to follow.” (A Bird at Our Level – Bewick’s Wren) (“whit-whit bew-wick” – record to memory)

As someone who seeks to be entertained by bird behavior and science, I enjoyed how Gedney explains bird ecology.  

“… to learn all the secrets of the woods, one must know … the birds beneath the oaks.” (Discontented Shadows – Spotted Towhee) (Cool we’re on a treasure hunt, I tell myself.)

The ecological details too elaborate to be found in a guide have already enriched my birding.  Even if you don’t regularly see Acorn Woodpeckers, every birder should learn about their unique extended family groups and their cooperative food hoarding strategies. I also believe every birder should wonder how the Bushtit, weighing as light as a nickel, can engineer such an elaborate sock-shaped nest, insulate it, camouflage it, and then use it for such a short nesting cycle, all on a diet of insects too tiny to see, even with the help of binoculars.

The ultimate oak woodland bird, the Acorn Woodpecker, deservedly attracts abundant attention from birders, both for its stunning good looks and fascinating behavior that features cooperative breeding and storage of thousands of acorns. Isn’t that, ahem, nuts?

But this book is not written by or for the scientist. Gedney is not afraid to add his own appreciation of a bird or personal experiences or poetic descriptions. This at first raised my anthropomorphic alarms since I was trained to reject human sentimentality by my vertebrate bio prof, surprisingly an ornithologist who once said “birds are stupid; their behaviors are mostly determined by genetics; they have small brains.” (These prejudices were spoken decades before contradictory scientific information was shared in The Genius of Birds and several other books on bird intelligence.)  

The Birds in the Oaks is very accessible, humanly so. It is so well written that you just might re-imagine your own feelings about birds and get all warm-like inside. You just might be heard saying “Wow” when learning something new about one of the birds. You might just slow down and spend “an inordinate amount of time” observing a bird in one location. Maybe, maybe not. But I will risk one bold prediction: If you get this book, several times you will imagine walking through the woods with the author himself.  

No oak trees were harmed in the writing and publishing of this review.

The Social Lives of Birds (Book Review)

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With single-digit temperatures in Montana this week, it is still very much book reading season, a time when all birders can—and should—beef up our birding resumés by tapping into the vast wealth of research and experience of the global birding and scientific communities. This past week, I delved into a topic that intrigues most birders by picking up Joan E. Strassmann’s The Social Lives of Birds: Flocks, Communes, and Families (Tarcher, 2025).

Joan Strassmann’s The Social Lives of Birds is packed with delightful revelations for beginning and experienced birders alike. (Click on the cover for ordering info.)

A well-regarded professor and scientist, Strassmann has created a comprehensive resource that introduces readers to almost every aspect of bird society. She begins by answering the simple question “Are Birds Social?” (You can probably guess the answer to that!) Then, chapter by chapter, she explores topics that fascinate beginning birders as much as they do veteran scientists. These include flocking behavior, mixed-species flocks, the predilection of many birds to roost and/or nest in colonies, the pros and cons of nesting and/or roosting together, lekking behavior, and more.

The author devotes an entire chapter to the fascinating and intriguing world of seabird colonies, such as those of one of the world’s most popular birds, the Blue-footed Booby.

I learned something fascinating with each chapter. For instance, I was first drawn to the book because the cover showed a line of six Long-tailed Tits packed tightly together on a branch. I had had the pleasure of observing these birds in the Netherlands (see our post Layover Birding in Amsterdam), Japan (see our post Birding Japan: Kyoto), and Spain (see our post Birding Barcelona, Part 1: The Urban Core), but had no idea that they lived and foraged in stable flocks that are often built around a main breeding pair and its offspring. In her book, Strassmann recounts a study that showed that on chilly nights, the tits nestle tightly together to stay warm, and that often it is the lowest birds on the “tit totem pole” that have to endure the chillier end positions. This is no trivial matter since the birds lose about 9 percent of their total body mass in a single, chilly night.

After observing Long-tailed Tits in Europe and Asia, I was fascinated to learn more details of their highly social behavior in The Social Lives of Birds.

Similar revelations emerge with every chapter, examining birds from a wide variety of terrestrial and aquatic habitats. My favorite chapter was the last, “Supersocial Groups: Birds That Are Always Together.” That’s probably because it featured one of my favorite birds, the Acorn Woodpecker (see our post College Search Birding in California), and three other species I was fascinated to learn more about: White-winged Choughs, Sociable Weavers, and a bird Braden and I are always delighted to see, Pinyon Jays. Regarding the latter, Braden and I have seen Pinyon Jays only a handful of times here in Montana, and I had wondered why they aren’t more common. Strassmann explains that the birds need extremely large territories to guarantee a dependable food supply. Unfortunately, their main food source, the pinyon pine, has suffered extreme losses from clearing for agriculture and other reasons. Warmer temperatures driven by climate change have also impacted the production of pinyon pine seeds, leading to large-scale die-offs of these beautiful, dynamic, gregarious birds.

Strassmann devotes much of the final chapter on one of Braden’s and my favorite birds, Pinyon Jays, shown here in a cemetery in Helena, Montana.

The Social Lives of Birds struggles a bit over whether it wants to be a comprehensive resource or an engaging narrative in the vein of the recently reviewed The Great Auk or A World on the Wing. The author mentions her personal connections to many of the topics, but I found these more distracting than engaging. Still, that will not prevent readers from enjoying the book and harvesting a wealth of information—knowledge that will help you look at birds with greater understanding and appreciation each time you head out to bird.

Review copy provided by the publisher.

A Beautifully Burned Forest (Book Review)

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Richard L. Hutto’s new book A Beautifully Burned Forest: Learning to Celebrate Severe Forest Fire (Springer, 2025—click here to order) offers both timely insights into the roles of wildfire in our modern, over-heating world and an engaging memoir of a scientist’s journey. Before I met Hutto—Dick to his friends and colleagues—I had no idea of the vital ecological processes and multitude of species that depend on severe forest fires in the West. Although I had met Dick casually several times through a mutual acquaintance, it wasn’t until I needed someone to teach me about woodpeckers for a proposed children’s book that I reached out to him directly. I asked if he could take me out to show me some woodpeckers and explain a bit about them, and he graciously agreed.

Richard L. Hutto’s A Beautifully Burned Forest is not only a must-read for anyone interested in the health and future of our forests, it makes an, ahem, red-hot Christmas gift idea. Click on the above image to order.

Dick took me to the Blue Mountain burn area just south of Missoula and he did indeed start showing me woodpeckers and telling me about them. What he was really teaching me, I began to realize, is the beauty of a burned forest and how many plants and animals depend on it. I would still eventually write a children’s book about woodpeckers, but first I decided to write Fire Birds: Valuing Natural Wildfires and Burned Forests.

Both of our books focus on Hutto’s groundbreaking research into the many organisms—especially birds—that depend on standing, severely burned forests. The Black-backed Woodpecker is the poster child for burned forests. This bird is highly adapted to blend in with charred tree trunks and excavate wood-boring beetle larvae from the rock-hard wood. In the West, in fact, this bird is found almost exclusively in severely burned forests that have a high density of larger diameter standing trees.

In the West, the Black-backed Woodpecker relies on severely burned forests perhaps more than any other bird species. By excavating holes, these birds and other woodpeckers, also open up the forest for a host of other birds, mammals, and other vertebrates.

Once they move into a fresh burn the Black-backed—along with American Three-toed and Hairy Woodpeckers—open up the forest to many other cavity-nesting birds, mammals, reptiles, and amphibians. They do this by excavating holes in the trees, often many more than they will ever use themselves.

The problem, Hutto points out, is that our society has been conditioned to view all forest fires as bad. As soon as a severe fire roars through an area, the clarion call rings out to somehow “save” the burn by “salvage” logging it. Which trees do loggers take? The best and the biggest—the exact trees that Black-backed Woodpeckers need to hunt and nest in. Hutto also points out that as soon as these large trees are removed, their cones can no longer reseed the forest naturally, necessitating hiring battalions of workers to replant the forest by hand—at taxpayer expense.

Dick Hutto (left) leads a local birding group through a newly burned forest near Seeley Lake, Montana, explaining the vital ecological role the burned forest plays.

In A Beautifully Burned Forest, Hutto dives deeply into our society’s entire approach to managing forests and fires, tracing the beginnings of fire suppression to the widely spread notion that our forests are somehow “out of whack” and need to be overly managed with thinning and prescribed burns.

Climate change, of course, is a wildcard in the future of forests and wildfires, but Hutto makes a strong plea to focus on solving the underlying problem of reducing greenhouse gas emissions instead of making our forests ecologically less viable through extensive, often poorly planned micromanagement.

Mountain Bluebirds are just one of dozens of bird species that prefer nesting in burned forests to other habitats. Here they find plenty to eat along with safety from small predators, whose populations are reduced by forest fires.

Anyone with an interest in our forests and wildfires—in other words, every single person living in the American West—should read A Beautifully Burned Forest. It’s a fairly quick read that will change the way you view and understand our spectacularly diverse region. Especially in this day where misinformation rules, Hutto’s book is a valuable step in creating an educated public that insists on smarter management of the lands that sustain us.

Note: If you are interested in Sneed’s children’s book, Fire Birds, supplies are down to a couple of dozen in the warehouse so order soon by clicking here or calling your local indy bookstore. Both Fire Birds and Woodpeckers: Drilling Holes and Bagging Bugs make ideal Christmas presents for grades 3-8 readers.

World Series Birds in the Golden State

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A happy by-product of our second child going to school in California is that Amy and I have the perfect excuse to go visit the Golden State. Not that I would ever do any birding during a family trip, but you know, it’s hard not to see some great birds when you just happen to stop at a wildlife refuge or stumble into a local park that happens to be a bright red eBird hotspot!

I was especially excited to head to California a couple of weeks ago because, as previously reported, I was perilously close to breaking my all-time single year species record of 527 birds. In fact, when Amy and I landed in Sacramento and headed up to Chico, I needed only one bird to hit 528 species for the year. What would my “go ahead bird” be? (And yes, that is an homage to the upcoming World Series, which happens to feature a team named after birds!)

Visiting our youngest in California has given me a great opportunity to see friends and get in some bonus birding!

When we arrived, I quickly finagled a couple of birding opportunities, but saw only species I had seen on our last trip to California in August: California Scrub-Jays, Acorn Woodpeckers, Yellow-rumped Warblers and the like. My biggest discovery was a White-winged Dove at the Panera’s near the hotel! It was a rare bird so far north in California’s Central Valley, but not unheard of. Still, I felt proud to have spotted the distinct white stripe across each wing as it flew—undoubtedly hoping to score one of Panera’s kitchen sink cookies!

The next morning, I headed out to the home of a close childhood friend who just happens to live outside of Chico in an agricultural area. I had almost reached her place, when I noticed birds feeding on a coyote carcass on the side of the road. I saw Turkey Vultures and ravens. Then, I saw something that got my heart racing: magpies!

My All-Time Best Year Record Breaker: Yellow-Billed Magpie! Whoo-Hoo! (Photo from earlier trip.)

Not just any magpies. I knew that the Black-billed Magpies we had back home in Montana were unlikely in this part of California. No, these were Yellow-billed Magpies—a bird I had failed to see on our last trip in August! Ka-ching! My record shattered like falling glass! And with a California endemic species no less! Personally, I couldn’t have been happier. YBMAs are some of my favorite birds, and hold an interesting history, too:

“This species was named by John James Audubon in 1837 (as Corvus nutallii, corrected the following year to nuttalli) in honor of the ornithologist Thomas Nuttall, who collected the first specimen near Santa Barbara, California. Nuttall was a prodigious botanical collector and ornithologist who authored a Manual of the Ornithology of the United States and of Canada.” —Birds of the World database by Cornell Lab of Ornithology (accessed Oct. 19, 2025)

Later that day, I picked up an “insurance bird” at the Llano Seco refuge just southwest of Chico, where Amy and I delighted in Sandhill Cranes, Black-necked Stilts, and my 529th bird of the year, Greater White-fronted Goose.

Greater White-fronted Goose was a great “insurance bird” for my record-breaking year—just in case the Birding Powers That Be decided to lump a couple of species together or I found a mistake in my earlier checklists!

But my fall California birding adventures had just begun!

After a few wonderful days with our child, Amy flew home from Sacramento, and my high school buddy Scott (see Scott’s Guest Post about the Morro Bay Bird Festival), picked me up for an additional four days of exploration. As I’ve mentioned, my emphasis lately has not been so much chasing target species, but exploring places I’ve never before birded, and Scott indulged me to the hilt. After he collected me in Sacramento we explored the Sacramento River delta, hitting Cosumnes River Preserve, where we got a little shorebird action—and a LOT more Sandhill Cranes and Greater White-fronted Geese. On the following days, we hit a huge variety of habitats as we hiked through oak woodlands, explored the large abandoned—and very birdy—grounds of the Sonoma Developmental Center, and scoured rocky shores and intertidal areas in American Canyon, Golden Gate National Recreational Area, Bolinas, and Bodega Bay. I loved every location and, not surprisingly, my “insurance bird” list grew.

Scott and I enjoyed a wet hike through Sugarloaf Ridge State Park in Sonoma County and fortunately, the rain did not dissuade the birds as we sighted a host of classic oak woodland species including Oak Titmouse, Golden-crowned Sparrow, and Nuttall’s Woodpecker.

I picked up Mute Swan in American Canyon as Scott and I gleefully observed thousands of shorebirds including Western and Least Sandpipers, Long-billed Dowitchers, Marbled Godwits, and Black-bellied Plovers. That afternoon, we saw my FOY (First Of Year) White-tailed Kites at a place called Buchli Station Road.

Our adventures gave us plenty of time to learn more about peeps as we picked out the subtle details of Least and these Western Sandpipers. Note the rufous shoulder patch (not always present), black legs, and longer, curving bill that distinguishes these Westerns from Least’s.

Our favorite—and most productive—day happened October 15th. With a visit to Rodeo Lagoon, we found one of my favorite California birds, Wrentits, along with Western Gulls, which I had somehow managed not to see the entire year! At the nearby Bolinas Lagoon, we also observed hundreds of Elegant Terns and my trip MVB (Most Valuable Bird), a Whimbrel.

This Whimbrel at Bolinas Lagoon nabbed Bird of the Trip honors as it was the first WHIM I’d seen in more than six years.

Another bird I had somehow failed to see all year was Red-shouldered Hawk, but as we made our way north toward Point Reyes, Scott suddenly shouted, “Red-shouldered!” We pulled over to look at this handsome creature perched on a power line and even got to see it nab some kind of morsel from roadside weeds. The funny part? We saw four more Red-shouldered Hawks on our drive back to Scott’s house in Glen Ellen! I call that a Grand Slam!

I don’t know that I’ve ever appreciated Red-shouldered Hawks more than I did this one—especially when it launched after some prey!

One thing that made the trip so fun was eating lots of great food and kicking back to watch the MLB playoffs with Scott each evening. I hadn’t seriously watched baseball since Amy and I were still childless more than twenty years before, and it was wonderful to lean back, relax, and watch grown adults try to hit balls with sticks. Goooo Ohtani!

For our final day of birding, Scott drove me to Bodega Bay, one of my favorite places in California. While studying at Cal I had taken an ichthyology course here one summer, and now that I was a birder, the place held even more charm. On the rocks below Bodega Head, Scott and I were astonished to see a group of sixteen Surfbirds—far more than I had ever seen in one place! We also got great looks at both Brandt’s and Pelagic Cormorants, and spotted a Pigeon Guillemot in the far distance.

Since Braden and I saw our first Surfbird from a distance during our first pelagic cruise in Monterey in 2016, these birds have held a special place in our hearts. Never, though, have I seen so many in one place! (Can you also find the lone Black Turnstone in this photo?)

After a lunch of fish tacos, we headed up to the beaches north of Bodega Bay and were treated to a second Whimbrel sighting and more than 120 Surf Scoters casually ducking the breakers offshore. It was a wonderful way to wrap up the trip, and I am grateful to Scott both for being such a great host and for his patience when I was experiencing a blood sugar meltdown at Bodega Head. Of course, you may be wondering where my year list stands now, and I’m happy to report that I am now at 537 species. Will there be any more? I don’t know, but 550 seems awfully tempting, so stay tuned!

Update: Just before posting this, I picked up bird #538 for the year, Lapland Longspur, in some fields northwest of Billings!

Can one ever get tired of Surf Scoters? I don’t THINK so!

Just for fun, can you name the birds and places above? Answers in the nest—I mean next—post!