FatherSonBirding’s millions of loyal fans will have no doubt noticed a paucity of posts the past few months, and we sincerely apologize, noting the severe nationwide downturn in consumer confidence and the real estate market that this has obviously precipitated. Fortunately, our silence has been a result of good things happening to Braden and me. Braden has been having some exceptional academic experiences during his fall semester at UMaine while I have been kept busy both birding and working on several exciting book projects that have come my way. That said, we’d like to take a couple of posts to wrap up the last few months and, indeed, our entire year of birding. Since Braden is studying for finals, I’ll go first.
Some of you followed my “Accidental Big Year” last year in which I set a new personal best of 352 ABA species during 2021. Believe it or not, I’ve blundered into another accidental Big Year in 2022. How the heck did that happen? I mean, I have definitely underperformed in my home state of Montana this year, notching my lowest total in several years. Fortunately, our trips to New York City and Arizona put me within striking distance. By early October, my count sat at a tantalizing 335 species, only 17 birds short of tying last year’s record, but where would the additional species come from? Some good writing news led to the answer.
This summer, I landed a contract to write about conservation on military bases, with a special focus on Eglin Air Force Base in the Florida panhandle. I chose this base because I spent all of my summers growing up with my father in Pensacola—adjacent to Eglin. Call it nostalgia or a desire to learn more about the area’s species, but I arranged to interview biologists down there to find out what they were doing. First, though, I decided to stop to see my brother in Atlanta, Georgia.
On my recent trip, I didn’t get photos of my best Atlanta birds, but Tufted Titmice are always a blast to see.
Honestly, I didn’t know how many new birds I’d see in Atlanta. Migration season was waning, and it was possible warblers and other songbirds had already moved through. In general, they had, but thanks to some intensive studying and tutelage by Braden, I was able to score a number of great birds including a trio of wonderful warblers: Blackpoll, Tennessee, and most exciting, Cape May—a Lifer pour moi.
Leaving Georgia to take up a week-long residence with my stepmother Suzanne and her partner Jim in Milton, Florida, I wondered if I was close enough to top 352 for the year? Unfortunately, I arrived in Florida suffering from my first cold in three years—one I am just now getting over six weeks later. Not how I wanted to begin three consecutive long days of work at Eglin! Nonetheless, I persevered and got a bunch of great information from the base biologists. Oh, and I kept adding up Year Birds! In fact, I couldn’t have asked for a better bird to break my record. As biologist Kelly Jones drove me around teaching me about endangered salamanders, we ran into a group of Red-cockaded Woodpeckers, one of America’s coolest and most unusual birds. These birds became endangered due to the catastrophic loss of longleaf pine ecosystems across the Southeast, but many people have been working to restore both the pines and the woodpeckers. Last I heard, Eglin is home to the nation’s fourth-largest population, but this was the only group I ran into while there.
Red-cockaded Woodpeckers are the only North American woodpeckers that carve holes in living trees. Apparently, the sap running down the tree trunk helps deter snakes and other potential predators.
Not wanting to wear out my welcome with Suzanne and Jim, I used the weekend to take a jaunt over to Tallahassee to visit St. Marks National Wildlife Refuge. My dad, a professor at the University of West Florida, led many field trips to St. Marks and always raved about it. More recently, Braden and Nick Ramsey, visited the refuge, seeing among other things a lone flamingo that has lived at the refuge for the past four years. I hoped also to see this bird—dubbed “Pinky”—but kept my expectations low.
I know they’re common, but I love Red-shouldered Hawks, and this is by far the best photo I’ve ever taken of one.
Upon arriving, I discovered that St. Marks truly is a magical place—a remnant of “Old Florida” with towering oaks and pristine marshes—and my visit got off to a good start with great views of a Red-shouldered Hawk and Yellow-bellied Sapsucker at the visitor’s center. I asked the local naturalist if anyone had seen Pinky the flamingo lately and she said yes, but didn’t know where, so I decided to head down to Lighthouse Pool and work my way back. As I reached the pond, I happened to glance right. There, in the middle of the pond, stood a large orange blob.
“No way!” I exclaimed, braking to the side of the road as I reached for my binoculars. Sure enough, there stood Pinky—America’s most famous flamingo. Full disclosure: Pinky was not the most exciting bird on the planet, content to just stand there and preen when s/he felt like it. Taking a walk along the southern edge of the pond, however, I picked up lots of other nice Year Birds including Reddish Egret, Tricolored Heron, Short-billed Dowitcher, Semipalmated Plover, and more.
I’m not sure where Pinky got his name, but to me he looked obviously orange. Still, an official Lifer for me, though I did see American Flamingos thirty years ago in Bonaire.
My visit to St. Marks was far from finished. As I drove back up the road, I thought I spotted a rail at the East River Pool location. I didn’t—and this was not the first time I’d mistaken a Common Gallinule for a rail! Training my eyes out on the pond, though, my heart picked up. Why? Because way out there among a large group of wading birds, I spotted another Lifer: Wood Stork! Along with Roseate Spoonbills, another Year Bird. My Lifer-palooza hadn’t ended, either. Following Braden’s directions I drove to another part of the refuge to hear my Lifer Clapper Rails.
This is at least the second time I’ve mistaken a Common Gallinule for a Clapper Rail. I do believe they’re closely related, though, so I hope that you, my dear readers, cut me some slack!
I returned to Montana with a total of 372 Year Birds and have since picked up a few more, thanks to a fortuitous discovery of Montana’s first Long-tailed Duck of the winter, along with the first Bonaparte’s Gulls I’ve ever seen in Missoula County. These and a Horned Grebe now have me sitting at 375, well in excess of my previous ABA Big Year record. My guess is that I’ll pick up one or two more when Braden gets home in a couple of weeks—though what they might be I have no idea. And you know, it really doesn’t matter. While it’s fun to count birds, it’s even more fun to get out and see them and, hopefully, make some new friends along the way. At St. Marks I met several delightful birders to share my adventures with. I hope that as 2022 draws to a close, you all have your own memorable birding adventures combined with heavy doses of peace and friendship.
Perhaps my biggest score of the year was seeing the first Long-tailed Duck recorded this winter in Montana—and my first male ever. If this isn’t a glorious animal, I don’t know what is!
We’re sharing our most recent birding adventure in reverse order. The day before chasing the wily White-Tailed Ptarmigan, Braden and I had an incredible outing at Benton Lake National Wildlife Refuge (see also The Best Prairie Day Ever). Normally a go-to place for grassland birds and waterfowl, Benton didn’t seem likely for the birds we most wanted to see—shorebirds. Were we in for a surprise!Here’s Braden’s report.
Visiting the Pacific Ocean this summer and having several great days of birding there did nothing but increase my drive to find shorebirds. Between Monterey, the Bay Area and Point Reyes, I had seen species like Red Knot (my lifer), Black and Ruddy Turnstones, Red and Red-necked Phalaropes, Short-billed Dowitchers and more. Now, I was ready to see these and other species during my short stay in Montana before heading back to college in Maine. However, seeing shorebirds along the ocean, where there were miles and miles of great habitat for thousands of birds to choose from, was one thing. In Montana, shorebirds were often hard to find, even during their peak migration in August and September. Two autumns ago, my dad and I had birded hard, visiting the Ninepipe Valley half a dozen times as well as Helena and Three Forks in a quest to find shorebirds. While we had found most of our target species eventually (including finding Baird’s and Pectoral Sandpipers a handful of times and Western Sandpiper once), we found very low numbers across the whole season and missed our main target species, American Golden-Plover. This was fairly normal for Western Montana.
This year, on our way to Glacier National Park for an entirely different bird (see In Search of the Wily White-tailed Ptarmigan), my dad and I decided to seek shorebirds at refuges along the Rocky Mountain Front. I’d seen several reports of large numbers of Stilt Sandpipers at Freezeout Lake in past Augusts, and so we thought maybe we could find some of them there. And so, two days after I arrived home from California, we woke up at four in the morning and headed for Great Falls.
Unfortunately, we didn’t find that much at Freezeout. A few yellowlegs and Solitary Sandpipers picked the mud along the shoreline of the ponds, and we ran into a small flock of Baird’s Sandpipers right at the end of the driving loop. Overall, the refuge—famous for its spring Snow Geese—had been disappointing. However, that didn’t really matter given that we had gone to Benton Lake National Wildlife Refuge first.
As soon as we arrived at Benton Lake, flocks of Baird’s and (probably Greater) yellowlegs greeted us.
Benton Lake normally did not seem to have good shorebird habitat. Every May, when we would come here to get our Upland Sandpipers and Chestnut-collared Longspurs for the year, we would drive by cattail marshes and open grasslands—not mudflats. The drought in the West this year had been changing everything, though. Bowdoin, one of the best refuges in Montana, had such low water levels that ducks were hard to come by. At Ninepipe National Wildlife Refuge, the ponds on Duck Road had disappeared by May. The upside? Some lakes that previously had been terrible for shorebirds suddenly had extensive mudflats filled with millions of tasty invertebrates for these arctic migrants to feed on. Which is what happened at Benton Lake.
With high numbers and some close approaches, Baird’s Sandpipers proved to be the highlight of our Benton Lake shorebird extravaganza. Baird’s are larger than peeps (though some people group them together), and are identified by their black legs, robust breast markings, medium bill, and wings that extend out over the tail.
In fact, as soon as we arrived at the first pond, a large flock of small shorebirds lifted off from some distant mud, speeding over another flock feeding in the shrinking lake. My dad set up the spotting scope and we quickly determined that both of these flocks were primarily composed of one of Montana’s most common fall shorebirds, Baird’s Sandpipers. As we scanned these favorite sandpipers, we marveled at how much individual variation there was within each group. Though every bird was of the same species, each differed slightly in color, size, shape or bill length, allowing us to learn about what features confirmed a bird as a Baird’s. Soon, I noticed several more Baird’s on the shoreline next to us less than ten feet away, allowing us to get even better views and great photos. However, Baird’s were not the only species out on the mudflats. During my scan of one of the more distant flocks, I spotted a taller sandpiper, with a longer, more curved bill and thick supercilium.
“Stilt Sandpiper!” I yelled, and my dad was able to glimpse the species before the whole flock took off again. That same flock held a few peeps that I struggled to identify, debating whether the bills were long enough for Westerns or if the colors were right for Least or Semipalmated. Despite having some practice with peeps, they always manage to confuse me.
We moved on to the next pond, where more shorebirds waited. More Baird’s flew circles around us, and we spotted a huge group of dowitchers lifting off in the distance, complete with both species of yellowlegs. Solitary Sandpipers foraged on the shore, alongside Killdeer and a few Leasts. Near the end of the final lake, I spotted two Pectoral Sandpipers, another one of our targets, picking invertebrates off the rocks right next to the car alongside our only Wilson’s Snipe of the day! We’d never had better looks or photos of any of these species, and never in these high numbers! At least the drought was creating some good.
Right along the road, we got our best looks ever at several species including this cooperative Pectoral Sandpiper, distinguished from Baird’s by its yellow legs, larger size, and more extensive and abrupt cutoff of markings on its breast.
Our most astounding discovery happened as we were picking through another flock of Baird’s Sandpipers, searching for something unusual. As I looked up, I spotted three striking black and white birds flying towards us, and my heart rate jumped. They landed a short distance away, and I stared at them through my binoculars: three Black-bellied Plovers, still completely in breeding plumage! While we’d seen these birds in Montana in previous years, we’d never had such an experience with their breeding colors! They hadn’t been on my radar at all, either, though perhaps they should have been.
Black-bellied Plovers weren’t even on our radar, so imagine our delight seeing three fly in—and in full breeding plumage!(Note the Baird’s Sandpipers next to them.)
My dad and I had finally done it. This was the shorebird experience we’d been hoping to have in Montana for years, and Benton Lake, not any other famous shorebird hotspot, had been the place to provide it for us. The next day we’d leave the prairie behind and head for the mountains of Glacier, though hopefully our year of shorebirds wasn’t quite through!
As usual, peeps were hard to pick out, but we did get a great experience with a Least Sandpiper near the end of the driving loop.
Happy Labor Day Weekend, Everyone! We hope you are not laboring too much and, instead, getting out for some birding. We’ve been “blog quiet” for a few weeks, and that’s no accident. I have been once again driving for Missoula Fire Cache once or twice a week (see Birding by 5-Ton Truck), Braden came home from California & then jetted back to school in Maine, and the birds? Well, they’ve been pretty quiet. During his time at home, though, Braden and I decided on a last-minute two-day intense trip of birding, first to look for shorebirds and then to find a bird I had wanted to see for years. Here is Part 2 of our adventure, Part 1 to come soon. Enjoy!
They were the first birds of the day—a pair of roosting Osprey silhouetted against the indigo dawn sky at the Saint Mary’s entrance to Glacier National Park. We had arrived on schedule after rising at 4:00 a.m. and driving from our Super 8 motel in Cut Bank—the only affordable lodging within a 100-mile radius of Glacier. We had had to get here early, too, as the park’s new visitor policy required a reservation for anyone arriving between 6 a.m. and 4 p.m. Chances are we would have risen early anyway since we faced a long hike and, for me, a lifelong ambition: to see a White-tailed Ptarmigan.
First birds of the day: Osprey at the St. Mary’s entrance. I’m pretty sure that Glacier NP pays these birds to sit here and keep visitors entertained while they endure the long lines into the park!
If this goal sounds familiar it’s because just a year ago, Braden had accompanied a storied group of other birders with the same mission and in the very same location (see Ptarmigan Party in Glacier National Park). Unfortunately, I had been forced to skip that outing because of work obligations—and now was my time to make amends. Entering the park with a handful of other early-rising vehicles, we quickly encountered our only charismatic megafauna of the day—a handsome black bear angling across the road. As the dim light gradually revealed the spectacular peaks around us, we drove for twenty more minutes until we reached the tiny parking area for the Piegan Pass trailhead. After getting ourselves sorted, we set out through forest, savoring our solitude, the crisp morning air, and more than anything, the enchanting smells of Glacier National Park.
Our hike would take us five miles and more than 2,000 feet up to Piegan Pass, a climb I’d always wanted to make but never had, despite spending an entire summer working as a cook in Glacier in 1979. In addition to our primary goal, we had several other targets, some more likely than others: Boreal Chickadees, Spruce Grouse, Black Swifts, Three-toed Woodpeckers, White-winged Crossbills, and any kind of rosy-finch. As we climbed one mile, then another, however, Braden remarked, “It’s quieter than it was last summer.” Still, I didn’t complain. It just felt wonderful to once again be doing a “real hike” with my son in one of my favorite places on the planet. And slowly, a few birds started showing themselves: Mountain Chickadees, Golden-crowned Kinglets, Chipping Sparrows, and to our delight, a pair of Boreal Chickadees (see Are You Ready for the QUACH?).
A Boreal Chickadee from Braden’s “Ptarmigan Hike” in 2021.
“Well, we got at least one target bird,” I said, and Braden nodded. As we climbed higher and higher, however, I felt anything but confident that the ptarmigan would be waiting for us. The thing about the White-tailed Ptarmigan, though, is that I was pretty sure I’d seen one before. In 1979, while hiking to Grinnell Glacier, I’d encountered a bird with a chick or two sitting right in the middle of the trail. At the time I felt certain it was a ptarmigan, but I hadn’t been a birder, and forty years on, I had reasoned, “Well, it could have been another kind of grouse.” Bottom line: I had never listed it and felt I still had to earn it for my Life List.
After about four miles, we left the last of the trees and could see the trail cutting across more than a mile of rocky slope up to the pass. My body had started to feel the effort and elevation by now, but that last mile passed remarkably quickly—perhaps because we were trying to keep ahead of this older Belgian woman who threatened to put us to shame. Where do these vigorous geriatric European hikers come from anyway??? In any case, we finally reached the pass and before beginning our ptarmigan search, sat on some rocks to enjoy lunch while staring out at one of the world’s most superlative views down the far canyon to the Many Glacier Valley.
While eating our lunch, we were treated to a glorious gibbous moon “setting” over the rugged cliffs above us.
After we stowed our daypacks behind some rocks, Braden showed me where they had found the ptarmigan the year before. “They like to hang out right at the base of snow banks with some cover nearby,” he explained. Despite our ultra-hot summer, some snow persisted at the pass and we began making our way along the bottom of the longest, most promising field. After ten minutes, we had discovered a couple of burly marmots and an adorable pika, but no ptarmigan and I began thinking, I guess we’re not going to see them today. I felt disappointed, but kept my positive attitude, focusing on the near-perfect, glorious day and the unparalleled views of Jackson Glacier several miles away. And, of course, I kept looking.
Even as my hopes for finding a ptarmigan faded, I felt more than consoled by spectacular views of Jackson Glacier several miles away.(Our parking area is visible below.)
Braden had taken a higher route than I and disappeared around a bend. I walked more slowly, scouring every suspicious rock, and wondered if I’d even see a ptarmigan if my eyes happened to land on it. I scrambled down some rough scree to a lower level and started back toward the pass, hopping over rivulets of meltwater trickling over the rocks. I was standing at the edge of a little grotto when I heard a really strange noise coming down from the mountainside above. It was unlike anything I’d heard and I can’t even describe it here, but I wondered, “Could that possibly be a ptarmigan?” I didn’t think so, but hadn’t a clue what else it might be.
While searching, I heard a bizarre noise from the rocky cliffs above me. “Could it be a ptarmigan?” I wondered.
Just then, I saw Braden reappear above me and about fifty meters away. “Did you hear that noise?” I called.
“What?” he answered, too far away to hear me.
“Never mind,” I said—just as I happened to glance at the grotto behind me.
And for a split second, I wondered about the powers of wishful thinking. Why? Because not fifteen feet away, two birds walked slowly across the wet gravel. TwoWhite-tailed Ptarmigans!
And they were real.
How many ptarmigans are in this photo? I’ll forgive you if you at first see only one. I always do! It shows just how wonderfully adapted these birds are to their environment.
I stared at them for a moment and then whirled to holler, “Braden!”
“Do you have something?” he called back.
I excitedly held up two fingers and pointed behind me. A minute later, we were standing together admiring some of the coolest birds in Montana. The birds—an adult and a juvenile—seemed totally unalarmed by our presence. They gave us the once-over occasionally, but as long as we stayed ten or fifteen feet away, they seemed to have no problem with us. They just walked slowly, picking at the ground for various plant material and invertebrates as we took dozens of photographs and gave each other several hugs. Soon, we spotted a second adult doing its own thing ten yards away. It was a dream fulfilled for me, and perhaps even for Braden since we got to see them together. As we hiked back down the mountain, I felt real satisfaction at having experienced these amazing birds and a sense of peace knowing that they are still up there, high in the mountains doing their thing. I hope that you all get to see one for yourselves one day, but if not, please enjoy this video. It’s the next best thing.
As the gals from Pitch Perfect might say, our day in Glacier proved “Ptarmi-Pterrific!”
After almost two months in the Sierras, Braden and his co-worker San Darmstadt headed to the coast for a much-anticipated chance to go on a pelagic birding cruise out of Half Moon Bay—familiar territory for his dad (yours truly) during his college years at Cal. While Braden had suffered from seasickness on previous pelagic cruises, he hoped that today would be different—especially because he was within three species of reaching the coveted 1,000 mark for his Life List. Would he make it? Would he lose his lunch—and breakfast? Read on to find out—and, as always, please feel free to share this post.
Photography note: as you will read below, Braden was not able to take photos of this trip, so I (Sneed) have taken the liberty of including photos from our first pelagic trip, out of Monterey with Debi Shearwater, during our Big Year of 2016. Photos of the actual Half Moon Bay cruise graciously provided by Sam Darmstadt! (Photo captions by Sneed.)
As far as I could count, I had taken not one, not two, but at least five precautions to counteract seasickness. As our boat, the Captain Pete, pulled out of Pillar Point Harbor, I stood on the ship’s port side, staring at the foggy seaside communities of Half Moon Bay, confident that this would be the time I finally avoided turning green out on the ocean. I could not have been more horribly wrong.
The leader of the Institute for Bird Populations Spotted Owl crew, Ramiro Aragon, had told us about this Half Moon Bay pelagic trip back in early June, and Sam Darmstadt and I had quickly signed up. That had given us close to two months of growing anticipation for the trip, and both of us were thrilled as we stepped aboard the boat at seven in the morning, backpacks loaded with saltines and minds filled with possible lifers we could see. I had taken a “Less Drowsy” Dramamine tablet half an hour earlier, and wore two acupressure bands on my wrists that supposedly helped to prevent motion sickness. The night before, I’d gone to bed early rather than socializing so that I would feel well-rested for the ten-hour pelagic the next morning. I even left my camera in the cabin, swearing to only use my binoculars if absolutely necessary as I grasped the railing with one hand and tucked the other in my pocket for warmth.
The birds began rolling in as soon as the boat cleared the harbor. Thousands of pelicans and cormorants roosted on the breakers, waiting for the heavy fog to lift. Alvaro Jamarillo, one of the United States’ best birders and a leading expert on all water-related birds (especially gulls), called out a Wandering Tattler feeding just above the water line on some of the rocks, providing everyone onboard with stellar looks at this species that I’ve only seen twice before. Behind Debi Shearwater’s famous pelagic boat tours that ended a few years prior, Alvaro’s Adventures were the most famous West Coast pelagic tours, in part thanks to Alvaro’s skill and experience, along with the rarities he’d encountered over the years. In 2014, this exact trip out of Half Moon Bay had run into the first ABA record of Salvin’s Albatross!
Hearts flutter with anticipation whenever a pelagic birding cruise leaves the harbor. Unfortunately, for those prone to seasickness, it will soon be a different part of the anatomy that flutters . . . and lurches and heaves!
Besides taking measures against seasickness, I’d compiled a slideshow to identify many of the species that were possible on this trip, and spent a good few hours staring at jaeger plumages, identification of winter alcids, and tubenose flight styles. I had a good idea of which birds were likely or possible on this trip, and had several targets in mind. Two of those were the birds I’d missed on the trip my dad and I had taken out of Monterey Bay six years earlier, Buller’s Shearwater and Ashy Storm-petrel. I’d been in the cabin, trying not to throw up, as these birds had flown by the boat. I intended for a different story this time.
Leaving the harbor, Alvaro called out a lifer almost immediately: Marbled Murrelet. I quickly saw smaller, browner alcids sitting in pairs between the groups of Common Murres, and allowed myself a few looks in my binoculars at these birds with such interesting ecology. Marbled Murrelet is a bird that has been on my dad’s and my minds for some time now, in part because, despite being seabirds, they breed dozens of miles inland in old growth forests. I learned later that in this area, while land was still in view, we had the highest count of this species ever recorded on any of Alvaro’s pelagic trips!
Even though they are some of the most common birds on pelagic trips, Common Murres are also some of the most remarkable. Before the chicks can even fly, the male parents goad them into leaping off of their cliff-face birthplaces into the sea, and raise them on the ocean surface. I’m thinking I should have tried that with Braden!
We began to move north and away from shore, and the water began to grow choppy. As I waited for birds to begin appearing, I talked with a friendly British birder standing next to me, and learned about all of the rare birds he’d been seeing in Britain in the last few years, including an American Robin that thousands of birders had gone to look for. The fog did not show any signs of disappearing, but we soon began to see birds streaking by in the distance: our first Sooty Shearwaters of the trip. Soon, we were amongst them, and by the end of the trip we had tallied thousands of the species. Pink-footed Shearwaters began to join them in low numbers, and I glimpsed a Northern Fulmar sitting in the water, a bird that I’d never seen in the United States.
Braden and Sam were delighted to see thousands of Sooty Shearwaters streak through the fog and alight on the ocean. (Photo courtesy of Sam Darmstadt)
Alas, the seas were not cooperating with my stomach. I later spoke to a birder who had been on upwards of twenty pelagic trips out of California who told me that he had never been on seas this rough. The wave heights reached seven or more feet at some points, and I stood there with my eyes on the horizon, refusing to glance at any birds that flew by. Please, I prayed, No seasickness today. It’s dampened enough of my pelagics already.
It was wishful thinking. After about an hour and a half of holding out, I made my way to the back of the boat and released my breakfast. This began a day of the most physical pain I have ever been in while birding. I had to visit the back of the boat eight times, in-between lying flat on my back on a seat in the cabin. I felt frustrated. I’d tried so hard, and done everything right, yet still, I was almost the only person on the boat stricken with seasickness and by far the worst case. And what’s more, I missed birds because of it.
As I lay in the cabin, trying to ignore the dizziness in my head, I heard one of the spotters out on the deck call out “Buller’s Shearwater!” I jumped up and rushed outside, but couldn’t spot the bird as it flew away from us. I could barely stand up, and had no intention of standing out there if the bird wasn’t there. There will be others, I thought, but there weren’t. It was the only Buller’s spotted on the whole trip, and as I learned later, the rarest bird seen that day. Sigh. I had really wanted to see that bird, a tubenose with such a detailed, beautiful wing pattern, yet something beyond my control had taken it from me for a second time. Adding to my frustration, I had no idea when I would be able to take another pelagic out of coastal California, but it would surely be years.
But as I lay in bed, I had to remind myself that a birding trip is not just defined by what birds you miss. Circumstance, not skill, had been the reason I’d missed the bird, and I’d see another one someday. And the birds (and other wildlife) I had seen had made the trip very worth it.
I missed one other lifer due to seasickness, one that was considerably less impressive than Buller’s Shearwater: Cassin’s Auklet, what I still believe to be not only the most lackluster alcid but one of the more boring birds in the United States. When several were called out, I sat up from my bench in the cabin and looked through the window in vain, straining to see a shape, but with no luck. However, when Ashy Storm-Petrel was announced over the intercom, I did the same thing, with success. I briefly spotted several dark, swallow-like birds flapping over the open ocean before collapsing back onto my seat. I lay there thinking, well, the looks weren’t great, but at least I saw the bird. And then it hit me. Marbled Murrelet had been my life bird #998. Ashy Storm-Petrel was #999. I’d just missed the Buller’s, but could not miss the next lifer that was called out, no matter how much physical pain it caused me.
The next bird called out was not a lifer, but it was a bird I hadn’t seen in six years and one I had been looking forward to seeing again. “Black-footed Albatross at nine o clock, flying towards the boat!”. I lifted myself up to stare out the window, and sure enough, there it was. A huge, dark seabird with a light-colored face cruised by at close range, causing me to smile as I fell back into my seat.
Black-footed Albatrosses are a special treat for any birder, and often give great looks, as Braden and I found on our 2016 Monterey pelagic cruise.
And then it happened. “There’s a flock of Sabine’s Gulls at nine o clock, and a Long-tailed Jaeger’s chasing them!” I again leapt out of my seat, stomach doing flips, and grabbed my binoculars from the table before stumbling out onto the deck. “Where is the jaeger?” I said, half-asleep (the “Less Drowsy” Dramamine had not been what it claimed to be). “There, behind the gulls!”
I stared out at a large flock of Sooty Shearwaters floating in the water. There were no gulls here. And then, the water dipped, revealing twenty-or-so Sabine’s Gulls in full breeding plumage, something I’d never seen before. I spent very little time admiring them, however—I was about to throw up again and I needed to get on this lifer. Then I saw it: a cream-colored bird with a dark cap and brown wings sitting in the water, its two long tail streamers waving in the wind. The whole flock suddenly flushed, scattering everywhere. The shearwaters went away from the boat, while the gulls flew off towards the front. The jaeger, however, decided to fly right over us. I stared up in astonishment as this beautifully-patterned, rare seabird floated right overhead, giving me the best views I’d ever had of any of the three jaeger species. It even had its tail feathers completely intact, making the identification much easier than anything I’d prepared for! Then, in celebration of my 1000th world life bird, I emptied the contents of my stomach over the back of the boat.
Braden could not have asked for a better 1,000th Life Bird than this cooperative Long-tailed Jaeger! (Photo courtesy Sam Darmstadt)
I forced myself to get up and peer through the cabin window for one more animal: Killer Whales. When they were called out, I ignored the thoughts in my head about how I’d seen them before in Iceland and should try to sleep instead, again peering out the foggy window. Sure enough, a young male Orca surfaced right next to the boat, showing off its white eye-spot and gray, saddle-like patch located behind its fin. That was all I could do before laying back down. The cetaceans then proceeded to put on a show for the rest of the boat, and turned out to be significantly rarer than anything else we saw that day, having only been seen on trips like this a handful of times. Other mammals that I got glimpses of were Humpback Whale, California Sea Lion and Harbor Seal.
Pelagic birding cruises might just as well be called pelagic cetacean cruises as, more often than not, various whales and dolphins put in an appearance—to wit, these Risso’s Dolphins from our 2016 trip.
Once we were about an hour from shore, on our way back, I got up and walked back out on the deck, feeling significantly better after sleeping for a few hours. Both the sky and the ocean had cleared up, and I stared at the Sooty Shearwaters that flew by, hoping another Buller’s would make an appearance. Besides those two lifers, I’d missed two other species: a Tufted Puffin that had flown by while I was in the bathroom, and several Pomarine Jaegers. As we drew closer to shore, however, I noticed a strange-looking gull flying in front of the boat. I raised my binoculars, and shouted out an identification before my brain could even decide if that identification was right or not. “Pomarine Jaeger!”
The Loch Ness Seabird??? No, a Tufted Puffin peaking over a wave!
Sure enough, all of the experts agreed—it was a clean-looking light morph jaeger with a dark breast band and a barrel-chested look. Despite the fact that the spotters had been calling out jaegers all day, I’d never spotted and identified one by myself, and a feeling of pride washed over me as everyone else got on the bird. This bird also helped me knock down my list of missed species to only three.
I basically kissed the ground once we got back to shore. Me and Sam’s birding for the day was not yet done, but that will have to make another blog. Despite the fact that my entire body was sore, and I was frustrated about missing one of the birds I’d most wanted to see, I had also had a great time. Getting great looks at Pomarine and Long-tailed Jaeger alone had made the trip worth it, besides all of the year birds and other lifers I’d seen. I’d gotten to one thousand species—roughly one-tenth of all of the bird species on the planet, and well on my way to seeing the other nine thousand. I was also firmly hooked on seabirds. One of the first things I said to my dad when he called me the next morning was this, “If I had to go through everything I went through all over again today, it would be worth it. I would get back on that boat.”
As Braden’s sensational Sierran summer begins to wind down, he has continued to have remarkable experiences, both avian and mammalian. In Episode 7, he recounts his hardest hike ever in an attempt to locate some of Yosemite’s most interesting and elusive mammals.
Despite being the nearest gas station, restaurant and convenience store to the eastern entrance of Yosemite National Park, the Mobil station was fairly empty when our red Nissan pulled into the parking lot at seven in the morning. We gathered around a table, breakfast burritos in hand, as we waited for the Bighorn Sheep biologists to arrive from their various lodgings. As we would learn later, sheep biologists sleep in because the sheep sleep in, which differs quite a bit from us bird biologists. At 7:30, we noticed a crowd gathering outside, and donned our identical Institute for Bird Populations baseball caps, heading out to meet them.
Among the scientists we met outside were Dr. Lacey Greene and Dr. John Wehausen, the latter of whom had worked with sheep his entire life and had apparently drafted most of the recovery plan for the Sierra Nevada Bighorn Sheep. As Wehausen joined the group, he struck up a conversation with Greene.
“537 had a lamb yesterday when we went out. 522, didn’t though. I’ve only seen a few lambs so far this year.”
Apparently, every single Bighorn Sheep in Yosemite National Park has a number assigned to it, and as I would learn, a radio collar frequency. The reason these surveys were being conducted in the first place was because the Sierra Nevada subspecies of Bighorn Sheep was not doing well. Due to threats that included diseases spread by domestic sheep, the entire population of Bighorn Sheep in the Sierra had declined to around 100 individuals in the 1990s, spurring the federal government to list them under the Endangered Species Act. Thanks in part to Wehausen’s recovery plan, as well as the hard work of dozens of other sheep scientists, the herd had now increased to roughly 600 sheep, both inside and outside of the park.
Dr. Greene introduced all of the biologists that would be hiking various parts of eastern Yosemite to look for sheep, and we approached her, asking which biologist we should go with for a medium-level route since we had work tomorrow and did not want to exert ourselves too much. We also requested a route that maximized our chances of seeing White-tailed Ptarmigan, a bird Sam needed for his life list. Interestingly, ptarmigan are not native to the Sierras and were introduced to the area in the 1970s, although we still hoped to run into some in the alpine zone we would be hiking. Dr. Greene pointed towards Seth, a graduate student from the University of Wyoming studying the carrying capacity of the Sierras for sheep, who would be doing a route called “Mt. Gibbs”.
“Should be a medium route with good chances of ptarmigan,” Dr. Greene said, and we took her word for it. Perhaps we shouldn’t have.
Our “medium route” began pleasantly enough—but we had no idea what awaited us.
After introducing ourselves to Seth, we all piled into the Nissan (which has adopted the name “the company car”) and joined the caravan of biologists and volunteers headed towards Tioga Pass. I quickly learned from Miles that we likely wouldn’t see many of the National Park’s main attractions, including Yosemite Valley and Half Dome, but soon realized that this did not mean we would be short on scenery. The road soon led us out of the sagebrush and juniper dominating the hills of the eastern Sierra and into subalpine forest. Carved peaks and ridges topped with snow rose around us, and in the distance I marveled at views rivaling Glacier National Park. After entering the park, we soon arrived at the Mono Pass Trailhead and set off through Lodgepole Pine forest with two dozen bighorn sheep biologists.
Several months ago, I’d had no idea what part of California held Yosemite, and now here I was, crossing another one of the United States’ most beautiful places off of my bucket list. The trail crossed wet meadows and creeks, filled with the songs of Lincoln’s and White-crowned Sparrows, and as we gained elevation, Miles pointed out the peaks around us.
My co-worker, Miles Carlile, tromping through the some of the world’s most spectacular scenery.
“To our left is Mt. Dana, the second-tallest peak in the park at 13,000 feet,” he said excitedly, “And at some point we should be able to see the tallest, Mt. Lyell, to the right along with the Lyell Glacier below it.”
I’d had no idea that any glaciers existed in California, and later learned that the Lyell Glacier was one of only two left in the park. And despite the wilderness-feeling that Yosemite produced as we hiked through it, glaciers weren’t the only thing missing from this once-intact ecosystem. Every time my dad and I visited Glacier, we would try to see the Big Four, what we considered to be the largest (and most obvious) wildlife in the park. Bighorn Sheep were the only one of those species that existed here. Moose and Mountain Goats had never lived in the Sierras, and Grizzly Bears had been extirpated a century ago. So while Yosemite may have rivaled Glacier in terms of scenic vistas, it did not deliver in terms of wildlife.
After about a mile, the rest of the group bid us farewell as Seth led us off the trail…directly uphill. We hiked straight up a ridge, through the Lodgepole, for about five minutes before realizing that a sheep biologist’s definition of a “medium hike” differed quite a bit from our own. In fact, it was the hardest hiking I’ve ever done. Following Seth, we left the treeline behind as we realized what we were up against: Mt. Gibbs was only three hundred feet shorter than neighboring Mt. Dana, at 12,700 feet. That was something Yosemite could hold over Glacier—the mountains were taller. Granite Peak, Montana’s tallest, rose only to 12,800 feet. Thankfully, Seth allowed us to take as many breaks as we needed as we scrambled over boulders and scree, heading straight for the summit.
The life in the alpine zone is certainly some of the most magical on earth—and some of the most imperiled by climate change.
We did not see any ptarmigan. Nor did we spot any of the alpine raptors, like Prairie Falcon or Golden Eagle, that I’d hoped to glimpse. That isn’t to say that the alpine zone of Mt. Gibbs was devoid of life. Tufts of small grass, brilliant purple and white flowers, and splashes of lime green and blood orange lichen led us all the way to the summit. Insects, too, seemed to live here in abundance, and I spotted species of grasshoppers, spiders, ants and butterflies I’d never seen before. One bird seemed to thrive up here: Gray-crowned Rosy-finches, one of the most extreme bird species on the planet. Rosy-finches flitted past us over the scree, and one particularly cooperative flock picked seeds off of a lingering snowpack near the top of the mountain. These birds breed only in these alpine areas, beyond the reach of almost any other bird species and the trees themselves.
Not only did we see one of my favorite birds, Gray-crowned Rosy-Finches, atop Mt. Gibbs, they were some of the most approachable birds I’ve ever encountered.
On our ascent, we stopped about every five hundred meters so that Seth could remove a strange device from his backpack. On one end was a sort of radio which displayed primitive numbers and figures, and on the other was an H-shaped receiver. This revealed how the biologists expected to locate the sheep on these seemingly-endless ridges: radio telemetry. The third time we stopped, Seth let me try out the system, and explained to me how it worked. Apparently, every single collared sheep in the Sierras has their own frequency, like the frequency of a radio station. Thus, if you want to locate an individual, you punch its frequency into the radio. Turning a knob increases the volume, and then the H-shaped part of the device comes into play. I held the “H” above me, facing the sky, and slowly rotated it, searching for a signal. Once I began to hear a faint beep, I turned the “H” towards it, trying to locate exactly which direction that beep was coming from. The louder the beep, the more accurate the direction. And in this case, the beep corresponded to a single ram hiding just beyond a ridge in front of us.
A Bearded Big Horn Sheep? No, that’s me sporting my new “field biologist look” while using telemetry for the first time! Note Mono Lake a couple of inches to the left of my head!
Eventually we struggled to the top of Mt. Gibbs, having climbed more than three thousand vertical feet in less than two hours, with no trace of a trail to follow. At the top, we huddled in a small rock shelter someone had constructed, and I signed my name in the “Mountain Registry”, a small notebook housed in a worn, metal box. While I’d like to say that we spent the next hour scanning for sheep, the four of us IBP employees just lounged on the rocks, recovering while Seth did most of the work. Apparently, this was an “easy” day for him—sheep biologists spend most of the summer on five- to ten-day backpacking trips trying to find herds. After recovering a bit and having some snacks, I spent a good amount of time photographing the rosy-finches feeding on the snow around us.
Then it was time to descend. This proved just as difficult as the ascent, as we slowly slid down a scree field for almost an hour before hitting the first trees again. Although we still hadn’t spotted any sheep, we opted to return to the cars. We had work tomorrow and still needed to drive the two and a half hours back to Mi-wuk Village. eBird claimed we had logged nine and a half miles, which meant we had probably hiked closer to twelve, much of that up and down incredibly steep terrain. The survey as a whole, however, was quite productive. The other biologists found at least 32 sheep, including plenty of rams.
While our crew failed to see any Bighorn Sheep, the other biologists located 32 of these dynamic wild “woolies”.Photo disclosure: these are sheep in Glacier National Park (I think).
Once we got back to the parking lot, legs aching, we thanked Seth for everything and hopped back in the company car. I said goodbye to Yosemite, unsure of when I would return, and after a quick stop at the Mobil station for tacos, we headed home.
