Tag Archives: fall migration

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!

Fall Surprises

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Fall birding can be tough—at least in Montana.

I just completed a five-day return trip from Missoula to Billings, mainly to promote my new book Warblers & Woodpeckers, and I have only question: Where were the birds? Sure, I found some, but with much lower abundance and diversity than I expected. Even at places I’d seen a lot of fall species before, my best lists barely cracked a dozen. I would have notched more if I’d been better at identifying LBBs—Little Brown Birds. For instance, I took photos of a sparrow at Shiloh Conservation Area in Billings and glimpsed another intriguing group at Two Moons Park, but couldn’t ID any of them.

Lousy, no-good rotten sparrows.

Our first-ever Montana Surf Scoter—to be followed by a second one (a female) a few days later.

I shouldn’t really complain since Braden and I have seen some wonderful birds the past few weeks. About two weeks ago, we saw our very first Montana Surf Scoter at one of our favorite birding spots, the gravel quarry. The bird was a stunning black male and just what such an ocean-loving bird was doing in Montana is a matter for debate. Since we started birding five years ago, however, scoters seem to be rare but reliable visitors.

A few days later, I was giving Braden a driving lesson in the parking lot of the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation. After practicing parking thirty or forty times, I said, “C’mon. Let’s grab our gear and go see if any birds are around.” Not five minutes later, Braden spotted not one, but two White-throated Sparrows. Normally Eastern birds, these are real finds for Missoula and can only be spotted with diligent effort—and a lot of luck—during fall migration.

This was only our second location seeing White-throated Sparrows in Montana. A delightful surprise!

Alas, we’ve seen fewer warblers and other fall migrants than last fall, and that was reinforced on my trip across the state. I saw a smattering of good ducks (Redheads, Barrow’s Goldeneyes, and Ruddy Ducks) at Warm Springs, Three Forks ponds, and Lake Elmo State Park. I also spotted a Common Loon at Three Forks, and a nice variety of Western, Horned, Eared, and Pied-billed Grebes in most places I looked. But songbirds? They seemed to totally shun me on the trip.

When I returned home, I shared my photos with Braden. As we flipped through them, he nodded and politely murmured, “Nice. Uh-huh. Good one.”

Until I came to that mystery sparrow from Shiloh.

“Whoa. Wait a minute!” he exclaimed, opening Sibley’s. “Now I’m excited.”

“Why? What do you think it is?” I asked.

There are only about fifty records of Swamp Sparrows in Montana. Lucky me, this one decided to say hello!

“What do you think it is?” he countered.

“I couldn’t decide,” I said. “It looks kind of like a Song Sparrow, but doesn’t have the stripes. I thought maybe Lincoln’s, but it doesn’t have the orange colorings.”

Braden handed me Sibley’s. “I’m pretty sure it’s a Swamp Sparrow. They’re like, Code 4 for Montana.”

Now, my adrenaline was pumping too. “Really?”

We pored through the descriptions and compared it with my photos. Not only did the bird look identical to its description and illustration, I had found it in just the kind of habitat that Swamp Sparrows love.

Maybe fall birding in Montana isn’t so bad after all!

The Land of 10,000 Birds—and Deep-fried Snickers Bars

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This year my daughter Tessa and I decided that for our daddy-daughter trip we should take Amtrak to the Land of 10,000 lakes. You got it. Minnesota! Our primary purpose was to visit my brother, his wife, and their two-year-old son, but we also timed our visit for an event I’d always wanted to see: the Minnesota State Fair.

For us Westerners, Red-bellied Woodpeckers are always a treat and I was glad to see a few during my week in Minnesota. (Photo by Sneed B. Collard III)

I must be clear: this was not a birding trip, but as always, birding opportunities presented themselves and I came prepared. Especially since it was fall migration, I arrived in Minneapolis hoping to see a slew of warblers and other songbirds not easily found in Montana. My first morning there, while Tessa slept in, I stole my brother’s car and headed to a promising eBird hotspot, Westwood Hills Nature Center. I arrived optimistically, a feeling that blossomed when I encountered a group of birders who reported that they’d just seen more than half a dozen warbler species including Chestnut-sided, Black-and-White, Bay-breasted and American Redstart. Unfortunately, as soon as I arrived, the warblers vanished. Argh! I did find a Northern Waterthrush skulking in an overgrown pond and managed a Lifer, Philadelphia Vireo, but departed asking myself what could have been.

Sharks, not birds, were the highlight of the Minnesota State Fair!

Still, we had the fair to look forward to, and despite an incredible thunderstorm, made the most of it. We devoured the most delicious cheese curds ever, along with an entire bucket of cookies. My daughter also won a giant four-ton stuffed shark that we would have to drag back home on the train. And that deep-fried Snickers? Well, I wish I hadn’t done that.

My birding adventures weren’t over, however. My brother and his family happened to live only two blocks from the Mississippi River and on a whim I headed over there early the next morning. There, I ran into yet another terrific group of birders. Again, all the best birds deserted as soon as I arrived. “What the heck is going on?” I grumbled.

This was only my third time seeing diminutive, but spectacular, Black-and-White Warblers, and they alone satisfied my bird cravings for the trip. (Photo by Sneed B. Collard III)

Undeterred, I returned to the same spot the next morning, and this time my birding stars aligned. Right away, I found a flock of chickadees and settled in to watch them. Soon, I made a thrilling discovery: a Black-and-White Warbler gleaning insects in an oak tree! Downy and Red-bellied Woodpeckers arrived along with Ruby-throated Hummingbirds, and Red-eyed and Yellow-throated Vireos. Even better, I saw three more warbler species: American Redstart, Nashville, and Wilson’s. As I was leaving, I also happened to take a photo of a weird-looking sparrow, but didn’t think much of it. That night, I boarded the train, happy both with our daddy-daughter experiences and my birding observations.

And guess what? When I got home, I showed Braden that weird-looking sparrow.

“Daddy,” he said. “That’s an Indigo Bunting!”

Uff-da! Minnesota, we’ll be back!

This surprise, drab Indigo Bunting provided an exclamation mark to my Minnesota birding outings. (Photo by Sneed B. Collard III)