Tag Archives: birding

Going For Gulls (Part 1)

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Just returned from a fun speaking road trip, where I got to share Braden’s and my birding adventures with fellow birders at Coeur d’Alene Audubon, the Puget Sound Bird Fest, Edmonds Bookshop, and Eagle Harbor Book Co. Thank you for the great turnouts, everyone! I, of course, also hoped to get in some good birding on the trip, but weather—or perhaps bad birding karma—conspired against me. The one bright spot? Gulls!

**This Mew Gull at The Nature Conservancy’s Foulweather Bluff Preserve was a real surprise—and the first Mew Gull Braden or I had seen on the ground.**

I don’t know about you, but I find gulls vexing. I do not even try to ID immature gulls, but the adults also offer enough variation to render me apoplectic. My first birding stop was Potholes State Park, about thirty miles south of Moses Lake, Washington. I arrived at a crummy time of day, but enjoyed seeing dozens of migrating Yellow-rumped Warblers and few White-crowned Sparrows. Looking out at the reservoir, however, I noticed a black-headed gull in the distance. I tramped toward it, figuring it had to be a Bonaparte’s or Franklin’s Gull. I mean this far inland what else could it be? The problem was the bird’s weird bill, which should have been either red or black. Instead, this bill was black with a yellow tip. “Geez,” I thought. “Maybe it’s turning red.” I called Braden to ask his opinion, but he was stuck in class back in Missoula, so I snapped a few photos and moved on.

What the . . . ? A gull with a black head and half-yellow bill was about the last thing I expected to see in the interior of Washington State. I guessed it was a weird Bonaparte’s Gull—and I was wrong. Read below for the shocking conclusion!

The next day in Seattle, my friends Steve and Carol and I took the ferry to Kingston and drove to Point No Point lighthouse, which had shown a lot of great water bird activity in the past few days. Alas, except for a few Rhinocerous Auklets, very little moved on the beach or offshore so I again turned my attention to gulls. I saw what looked like a Glaucous-winged Gull except that its tail was too dark, so I decided it must be a Herring Gull, as its wings were too light for a Western. Later, however, I ran into a couple of different birders who told me that Puget Sound was awash in hybrid gulls, mostly Glaucous-winged x Herring Gull or Glaucous-winged x Western. I had heard of hybrid gulls before, but didn’t realize they were so abundant and decided the one I had looked at must be a Glaucous-winged x Herring.

“Well-behaved” gulls that follow ID rules are difficult enough to identify. Unfortunately, many gulls make birders’ lives more difficult by hybridizing! Is this a Glaucous-winged x Herring Gull hybrid or a Glaucous-winged x Western Gull hybrid? The lighter wings and tail push me toward the former, but if you disagree, please weigh in!

A couple of mornings later, at the Puget Sound Birding Fest in Edmonds, my dismal birding luck continued—except for the gulls! Along the waterfront, I found 400 Heermann’s Gulls—probably Braden’s and my favorite gulls. I also found my first definite California Gull of the trip and settled in to give the hybrids more study. In a later post, I will try to explain the mental flow-chart I use for gulls, but suffice to say, it was a most enjoyable morning spent sharpening my gull skills and knowledge.

**Heermann’s Gulls are not only some of the most beautiful gulls, they are among the easiest to identify. Can you tell why Braden and I love them so much?**

The best discovery awaited me when I returned to Montana, however, and was showing Braden my gull photos. We found that I had taken a photo of a Mew Gull (which I had assumed was a juvenile of another species). Then, I showed him my “mystery” black-headed gull from Potholes State Park. “You saw that?” he exclaimed. “Well, yeah. Do you know what it is?” “Yeah,” he answered, and pulled up photos of a gull that had never even been on my radar—a Sabine’s Gull! This gull breeds in the Arctic tundra and migrates offshore of the Pacific coast. According to Sibley, “migrants rarely appear on inland ponds, lakes or rivers,” and yet here I’d seen one 200 miles from the coast!

Lesson Number 1: Once again, that birds don’t read the guide books. Lesson #2: That I still have a LOT to learn about gulls—but am making progress!

Hawai’i: The International Jungle

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During Spring Break this year the Hellgate High School Band travelled to Oahu, Hawai’i for the Pacific Basin Music Festival. Almost every day my friends and I worked with music professors, performed, and enjoyed music in many different forms. The festival provided us with experiences we’d never forget. However, we did not spend every second playing—we actually had quite a bit of free time. During this time, we hiked, surfed, snorkeled and shopped around Honolulu, giving me time to take in the island and its birdlife.

White Terns lay their eggs precariously on bare branches, without nests. In Oahu, the White Terns did not discriminate between native and nonnative trees.

Only about 6 of the birds I spotted on the trip were actually native to the island chain (Brown Booby, Hawai’ian Coot, White Tern, Pacific Golden-Plover, Oahu Amakihi and Wandering Tattler), which opened my eyes to the exotics of the tropics. The city of Honolulu itself was an international jungle, full of plants and birds from all over the globe. A few native Hawai’ian birds had taken to the civilized landscape; wintering Pacific Golden-Plovers lounged on lawns, suited in their dappled patterns, and ghostly White Terns floated between skyscrapers. The majority of the birds, though, hailed from other continents. Familiar birds included Rock Pigeons and House Sparrows (Europe), and House Finches and Northern Cardinals (North America). Lawns yielded a high diversity of species, including Common Mynas, Red-vented Bulbuls, Chestnut Muñias, Zebra and Spotted Doves, and Java Sparrows (Asia) and Cattle Egrets, Common Waxbills, African Silverbills and Yellow-fronted Canaries (Africa). Red-crested Cardinals (South America), which are brilliant gray birds topped with crimson crests, sang from palm trees.

Red-crested Cardinals swarmed the streets of Honolulu. They were almost as common as pigeons!

One morning, when hiking through densely rain-forested canyons, I encountered a plethora of different species. I did manage to hear one native, the Oahu Amakihi, but the forest echoed with mostly non-natives’ songs, like in the city. White-rumped Shamas (Asia) belted out complex, froglike songs, and Red-billed Leiothrixes, Japanese White-eyes and Red-whiskered Bulbuls (Asia) lurked high in the damp canopies. Red Junglefowl (Asia), the ancestors of domesticated chickens, as well as actual domesticated chickens, ruled the streets. By the end of the trip I had reached my goal of 30 species, even if one of them was an unidentifiable white booby (I’m guessing a Red-footed) dodging the waves off of North Shore.

The White-rumped Shama is a subtly beautiful Asian songbird that now makes its home on the forest-covered slopes of Oahu’s extinct volcanoes.

We ran into large numbers of Rose-ringed Parakeets (Asia and Africa) on several occasions, and I glimpsed a pair of Red-masked Parakeets (South America) shooting past the scrubby slopes of Diamond Head volcano in southeastern Honolulu.

Rose-ringed Parakeets (or known by pet-lovers as Indian Ringnecks) aren’t just introduced to Hawaii. Parrots escaped from a damaged aviary in Bakersfield, California a while ago, and now also can be found there with a little effort.

This raised controversial questions. Most of these species definitely did not belong here, that much was true. But now, thanks to human involvement, they had established and thrived, and many of them caused no obvious harm to the native birds. So, what should we do with them? Should we eradicate them, killing innocent birds because of a crime humanity committed? Or should we allow them to stay, letting these foreign species form their own niches in Hawai’i and other places?

In the case of many of the birds, it is too late. For better or for worse, they will be here forever, and I think that if they are not harming indigenous birds, we should let them be, and let nature decide what to do with them. Introduced predators such as cats, rats, and mongooses, however, are another matter and take a terrible toll on all of the islands’ birdlife. More resources should definitely be allocated to eliminating these destructive invasive pests.

Big Day Mentality

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This is the Big Day Mentality: Every species, no matter how rare, is worth one tally. During a 24-hour period, a team of birders try to collect as many tallies as possible; the end total is the sum of every single bird species seen or heard during the day by at least two members of the team. At the San Diego Birding Festival, my dad and I were invited to be “first lieutenants” on two Big Day field trips.

We co-led our first outing under the expert leadership of veteran birder Phil Pryde, a local San Diegoan who had an ambitious schedule planned out for the day, in order to maximize the amount of species we saw. From dawn to dusk we scoured San Diego county, which is larger than Delaware and Rhode Island combined; a bird only counted if one of the leaders and one of the participants identified it. By the end of the day we had arrived at a total of 113 species, and my dad and I at just over a hundred individually. The number wasn’t bad, and the day had given us a rough idea of how many birds to expect for the next Big Day. Overall, though, the day hadn’t been very “birdy”—we had missed quite a few common species.

At Lindo Lake we spotted several pairs of the most photogenic Wood Ducks we had ever encountered!

On our next Big Day, under the guidance of our good-natured chief, Eitan Altman, we were determined to break this record. Unfortunately, the conditions didn’t look good—a low, wet mist had rolled over the area. Thanks to the rain, we didn’t have to rush inland to get early-morning songbirds (they were probably huddled in their warm, dry nests with no intent on warbling at the weather), so we birded along the coast at a relaxed pace. While doing this, we saw an unexpectedly high number of species, including Common Loon, Surf Scoter and Brant, which had not been a guarantee, a huge flock of Black Skimmers, and rarities such as Glaucous-winged Gull and the well-known Reddish Egret which hung out in the San Diego River Estuary. The eccentric bird’s gait reminded me of Kramer from the TV show Seinfeld.

This Greater White-fronted Goose is a regular at Lindo Lake.

Finally, around nine in the morning, we headed inland to Lindo Lake, the place which had yielded the highest number of species to us on the previous Big Day. We tallied high numbers of waterfowl, woodpeckers and more, including some more rarities: the resident Greater White-fronted Goose hanging out with a flock of domestic geese, not one but two Yellow-bellied Sapsuckers, and a Bonaparte’s Gull that had somehow wound its way inland.

We continued hitting different habitats to nab species, and by three in the afternoon our total sat at 120 species, the most recent being an altitudinally-challenged Band-tailed Pigeon, a calling Canyon Wren and the ever-rare American Robin. As soon as I confirmed our total, Eitan began thinking of other species we could pick up, now determined to beat his personal record of 128. On our way back to the coast we stopped at places to grab specific birds, including White-tailed Kite and Greater Roadrunner. The tide was out now, and at the San Diego River Estuary we grabbed another six species, though unfortunately none of the rarities being reported there (Tricolored Heron, Mew Gull, Eurasian Wigeon) except the spunky Reddish Egret and a beautiful double rainbow.

We spotted a wintering flock of blackbirds at Lindo Lake, including many Tricolored Blackbirds, a California endemic.

As the day grew closer to our deadline of five o’clock, we opted to try and get a few last birds at a place called Fiesta Island, arguing over possible birds:

“Was that a Northern Harrier?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Are you sure?.”

And finally, right at the entrance to the island we hit 130 with a Spotted Sanspiper bobbing along the rocks of the coastline. A pair of American Kestrels on the actual island sealed the deal.

We finished the trip, said our goodbyes, then responded appropriately to our biggest day ever by collapsing into bed.

Montana Christmas Bird Count #2: Deer Lodge Discoveries

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Unless a Northern Hawk-Owl or flock of Pine Grosbeaks lands in our backyard, this will most likely be our last post of the year. We thought we’d wish you a Happy Holidays and New Year by recounting, what else, our second Christmas Bird Count of the year! See you in 2019!

Only five days after participating in the Missoula Christmas Bird Count, Braden and I awoke at 5:45 a.m. on December 20 for our second bird count of the season: the Deer Lodge Valley count, near Butte. After making the 90-minute drive, we were delighted to see the parking lot full at our rendezvous point, Grant-Kohrs Ranch National Historic Site. Veteran birder and biologist Gary Swant headed up today’s count. Gary is well-known in Montana for doing bird monitoring related to the superfund cleanup of the Butte-Anaconda mining complex, but this was our first chance to meet Gary in person!

Braden and I were fortunate to be able to bird with Laura Swant and Shane Sater—even if we lost several digits to frostbite during our fruitless search of the Deer Lodge Golf Course!

Me and Braden, who was playing hooky from school, had two target species for the day: Snow Bunting and Gyrfalcon, both of which have foiled us throughout our four-year birding careers. Gary, though, paired us with his wife, Laura, and Carroll College Environmental Studies major Shane Sater to survey the area closest to where the Gyrfalcon had last been sighted, two weeks before.

We began our survey near Deer Lodge State Prison, slowly crawling along an icy road that bordered prison property and led toward spectacular forested mountains a few miles away. On the way, we stopped to observe Bald Eagles, Rough-legged Hawks, and frequent ravens and magpies. After turning around, however, a flock of smaller birds flew right at us. Laura identified Horned Larks, and Shane called out Snow Buntings—but neither Braden nor I got good enough looks to count them. Those sneaky, soul-scarring Snow Buntings!

Raptors proved the stars of our Deer Lodge CBC—including this Rough-legged Hawk contemplating the wisdom of going after a cow next to Deer Lodge State Prison.

Only a few minutes later, however, I spotted a group of nine Gray Partridges in a narrow draw—the second week in a row we’d seen these handsome, elusive critters. Not too long after that, an entirely humorless guard from the State Prison pulled over to inform us that we were not allowed to watch birds within site of the prison. And Merry Christmas to you, too, buddy!

We ventured a short walk around the Deer Valley Golf Course, but the stiff wind quickly drove us back to our cars with only a few more pigeons and ravens to show for our suffering. As we kept exploring our sector, we happened upon a flock of about a thousand mallards. We saw more Bald Eagles and Roughies. Then, I spotted a raven on a telephone pole up ahead. I rolled down my window to take a picture.

“That’s not a raven,” Shane exclaimed. “That’s a raptor.”

“What?” I asked, not believing him.

Though foiled in our quest to find a Gyrfalcon, our first look at a Harlan’s morph Red-tailed Hawk made up for it. Love these stunning black-and-white birds!

Sitting on the pole was Braden’s and my first ever Harlan’s hawk—an unusual black and white morph of the common Red-tailed. It was a stunning bird, and I got out to take a (poor) photo of it as it stared back at me with suspicious eyes.

After the count, we were treated to a scrumptious lunch of broccoli-cheddar soup and chicken salad crossant sandwiches provided by the Timber Eatery in Deer Lodge (do check them out—yummy!). As we polished off the last of the cookies, Gary did a quick check of the room to find that our combined species total reached 43 for the day. That wasn’t nearly as high as other parts of the state—Missoula had logged 86 species the week before—but the interesting terrain and great company more than compensated. After saying our farewells, Braden and I spent another hour searching for the Gyrfalcon and Snow Buntings, but the birds continued to scorn us. Maybe next year. Until then, Happy Holidays Everyone!

Though not as species-rich as other parts of the state, the Deer Lodge Valley offers stunning scenery and raptors galore!

Montana Christmas Bird Count #1: Owlservations

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At 9 a.m. on December 15^th, my dad and I sat in his truck in the parking lot of DeSmet School. It was the morning of our first Christmas Bird Count of the year, and we were wondering if we had the place and time right. My dad pointed to a blue Prius driving towards us.

“Those look like birders.”

“Yeah, right.” I said as they turned and drove past us.

How many birders can fit into a Subaru? Turns out, the answer is six!

A minute later, though, the Prius reappeared and pulled into our parking lot—I guess they were birders! In a few minutes, four more cars pulled up, and we all got out and introduced ourselves. The leader of the count, Debbie Leick, whose name my dad and I recognized from eBird, was a cheerful and optimistic woman. We quickly divided into two groups—the harder but possibly more rewarding forest group, and the slightly easier lower Butler and LaValle Creek group. My dad and I joined the latter, along with Debbie and three excited women from Northwestern Montana: Madeline, Laura, and Heidi. Only Madeline was an experienced birder, but they all showed true birding spirit!

We took a quick check for birds around the school, then drove to the bottom of the canyon and parked our cars at a barn, where we picked up magpies, ravens, Red-tailed Hawk, Bald Eagle, pigeons and a Song Sparrow. We then shuttled up to the top of our route and hopped two fences and a creek, before slowly making our way back down the canyon.

The Christmas Bird Count just seems to bring out the birder in everyone! (Photo by Madeline Finley).

The walk, though cold, was fun. It took about two hours to get to the bottom, and birds were sparse. We were in great company, though, and everyone was enthusiastic—maybe too enthusiastic. One woman forgot we were birding a few times and just randomly burst into song or started yelling with unprompted glee. My dad designated himself as our owl-finder—we had done this area four years ago on our very first CBC, and been lucky enough to spot a Western Screech-Owl wintering in an old woodpecker hole in the cottonwood draw. Unfortunately, during our whole walk today we did not see a single owl.

We did see some great birds, however. I spotted a large flock of winter-plumaged American Goldfinches that seemed to follow us, and we added Black-capped Chickadees, Townsend’s Solitaires, and a White-breasted Nuthatch to the tally. We also picked up House Finch and Red-breasted Nuthatch at feeders near the end of the route. Once we got back to the barn, my dad called out a group of eight Gray Partridges flying by!

We said goodbye to the other women, then took one last short drive with Debbie up Butler Creek Road. On the way up we tallied a few Wild Turkeys, hawks, magpies and flickers, but nothing to write home about. On the way down, though, I glimpsed a round shape perched high in a deciduous tree next to a house.

No matter how much you *want* to see them, owls are always an unexpected delight. This guy was only Braden’s and my third NOPO ever!

“Stop!” I said. The bird looked like a fat Northern Shrike, which would be a great addition to our list.

When I raised my binoculars, though, I was greeted with black false eye-spots.

“Northern Pygmy-Owl!” I yelled.

“What!?” was the reaction from the front of the car.

Suddenly, the bird flew—into a convenient tree right next to our car!

Just like the last time we’d birded here, we ended our CBC with a great, tiny owl!