Tag Archives: Raptors

Gray Flycatcher Science

One of our goals at FatherSonBirding is to encourage support of scientists and nonprofits working to protect our planet’s many imperiled bird species. We hope that you will consider sending a donation to Montana Bird Advocacy, whose work is featured in today’s blog. You can do this by clicking here. It will be money well spent!

Late July often ushers in the birding doldrums. Having finished courtship and breeding, most birds get super quiet. They often disperse from their breeding territories, too, making them more difficult—or at least unpredictable—to find. But this year I was in luck: I had a writing assignment that would guarantee I see at least a few very cool birds.

**My best look yet at a stunning Ferruginous Hawk proved a delightful bonus to my day near Bannack.**

You may recall my unsuccessful June trip down to Beaverhead County (see post In Search of the Green-tailed Towhee) to visit with biologist Jeff Marks, founder of the nonprofit scientific research group Montana Bird Advocacy. There, Jeff and colleague Paul Hendricks are performing a long-term study on one of Montana’s little-known birds, the Gray Flycatcher. When I visited, Paul wasn’t there, but I also got to meet biologist and research assistant Nate Kohler, who has been playing a pivotal role in the study.

**The word “gulch” conjured up a much more verdant image to my mind, but as you can see it takes some pretty special adaptations to survive in this rugged country.**

Although my June trip allowed me to see many wonderful birds and interview Jeff and Nate, my intention to see the Gray Flycatchers got squashed by a freak winter storm. Worse, the storm wiped out a whole crop of nestling Gray Flycatchers. The good news? The adults had laid second clutches of eggs, and the babies were getting ready to fledge as I again headed down there the last week of July. This time, the weather would be ideal for seeing them.

Jeff and I headed out at 8:00 a.m. and made our way up Bannack Bench Road, which borders the study area. This was the third season of the study, and its purpose is to figure out some of the basic biology of a bird that scientists know very little about. To do that, Jeff, Paul, and Nate have been banding adult flycatchers with color bands that allow field identification and observation of individual birds. The birds have been a challenge to catch, but the biologists have managed to band about a dozen each year—and with fascinating results. I won’t reveal too much about those results here since I’m also writing an article for Montana Outdoors magazine that will be out next year. However, I will tell you that seeing where these birds nest and what they are doing was a thrill.

**Biologist Jeff Marks takes notes on a Gray Flycatcher nest in his Beaverhead County study area.**

When Jeff first told me they were working in a place called Sheep Corral Gulch, I imagined sagebrush plants bordering some kind of verdant riparian zone, perhaps lined with aspens or junipers. Imagine my surprise to see nothing but sagebrush in every direction! Gray Flycatchers breed throughout the Great Basin, but one of the fascinating things about them is that they choose different habitats in different places. In other states, they nest in juniper, pinyon pine, and even ponderosa pine, but in this part of Montana the birds breed almost exclusively in sagebrush plants along dry washes. One thing that these places share in common is that they have open ground for foraging.

**Color-banded adults allow Jeff and the Montana Bird Advocacy team to make detailed observations about mating and behavior of these little-known birds.**

In Beaverhead County, though, not just any sagebrush will do. The birds nest only in taller plants four to eight feet high—plants that can mainly be found growing in the (usually) dry main stream channels of gulches. This year, Jeff and his colleagues located about a dozen nests, one to two hundred meters apart, and as Jeff and I began hiking, it wasn’t long before we spotted an adult bird up ahead. Using GPS coordinates, it took only minutes for Jeff to locate the bird’s nest—a nest with babies!

“They will fledge any day now,” Jeff told me, “and it looks like both parents are feeding them.” Having two involved parents gives the nestlings a huge survival advantage, and as we watched, we saw a parent deliver a juicy grasshopper to its ravenous chicks.

**Most of the Gray Flycatcher nests were bursting with babies itching to head out on their own—after a few more meals from Mom and Dad!**

For the next three hours, I followed Jeff as we visited one nest after another, and most were jam-packed with two or three babies champing at the bit to head out on their own. We, of course, made sure to stay well back so as not to spook them out of the nests before they were ready.

**An unbanded adult Gray Flycatcher keeps watch on us as we move through its territory: “Move on. Nothing to see here, folks.”**

I thought we would see a lot of other birds as we hiked, but especially this time of year, the birds stayed out of sight. We saw a couple of Brewer’s and Vesper sparrows, and a single Sage Thrasher and Northern Harrier. What a contrast from a month earlier when I spotted Sage Thrashers and Brewer’s Sparrows almost everywhere I looked! Nonetheless, I couldn’t have been more thrilled to get these up-close-and-personal looks at one of Montana’s most uncommon species.

**Sage Thrashers were noticeably more elusive than only a month earlier, but this one did pose nicely on a fencepost along Bannack Bench Road.**

You may be wondering just where Gray Flycatchers can be found in Montana. That itself is a fascinating story, because they apparently arrived in our state only recently. The first official record occurred in 1999, and Jeff believes that the birds may only have reached the Treasure State as part of an expansion northward from the Great Basin that occurred in the 1970s. Their Montana strongholds are in Beaverhead and Carbon counties (see post Bear Canyon—Montana’s “Tropical Birding” Paradise), but it takes careful observation and listening to distinguish the birds from almost identical-looking Dusky Flycatchers. The fact that the birds are so restricted here in Montana, though, points out how important it is that we protect our fragile sagebrush communities. It also underscores the great value of the work that Montana Bird Advocacy is conducting, because only by understanding the biology of the Gray Flycatcher and other sagebrush species can we know how to protect them.

Please consider supporting the ongoing work of MBA by clicking here and making a donation. The flycatchers will thank you—as will generations of future birders!

While getting ready for the next day at the study site, MBA’s rental cabin offered an idyllic view of pastureland, complete with deer, coyotes, and gobs of Common Nighthawks. Donate to Montana Bird Advocacy by clicking on this picture.

In Search of the Green-tailed Towhee

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Please support our efforts at FatherSonBirding by buying a *New* copy of Birding for Boomers or one of Sneed’s other books shown to the right—and by donating to Montana Bird Advocacy, a wonderful grassroots scientific organization doing novel and unique research on Montana birds.

Confession: Despite the title of this blog, the the main purpose of last weekend was not to find Green-tailed Towhees; it was to learn about a wonderful study of Gray Flycatchers with biologists Jeff Marks and Nate Kohler. However, as I set out Saturday morning, defiant of the grim weather forecast for the next day, I did have a secondary mission in mind—to find and visit with some of the birds in the arid southwest corner of the state. Over the years, these sagebrush areas, from Bear Canyon (see Bear Canyon—Montana’s “Tropical Birding” Paradise) all the way west to Beaverhead County, had become some of my favorite parts of Montana. I credit that partly to my own childhood living in the dry chaparral country of southern California, but I also just love the ecosystems and birds in this part of Montana. I’d have trouble calling myself a real birder if I didn’t get down there at least once each year.

Since you’re pressing me on the issue, I also had a third objective for this trip—to move closer to breaking my all-time one-year species record. The record belonged to 2017, when our family traveled to Ecuador and Peru and I recorded a total of 527 species for the year. This year, thanks to last-minute invitations to Colombia (see THIS POST) and Texas (see THAT POST) I unexpectedly found myself at 498 species—perilously close to setting a new record. That task loomed more difficult than it might appear since once spring migration has passed and breeding season gets underway, it becomes much more difficult to find new species. Still, a trip to the southwest part of Montana promised to nudge me closer to this new goal, and my first target was one of the state’s coolest birds: Green-tailed Towhee.

**On Braden’s advice, my first real birding stops of the trip were along the Jefferson River before Lewis & Clark Caverns.**

Green-tailed Towhees winter in the American Southwest and Mexico, but generally breed in the the Great Basin region of the West, including southern Montana. Though the birds are not strictly rare, I could count the number of times I had ever seen one, and I felt eager for another GTTO encounter. To find this bizarre, poorly understood beauty, I hit I-90 at dawn and steered toward Lewis and Clark Caverns, two-and-a-half hours to the east. To entertain me along the way, I had checked out an audio version of Eat, Pray, Love, a book that invites all kinds of snarky comments but, I found, actually proved moderately amusing. On Braden’s advice, I pulled over alongside the road leading to the caverns and was rewarded with a wonderful assortment of river and cliff birds including Rock Wren, Lazuli Buntings, and White-throated Swifts. Once inside Lewis and Clark Caverns State Park itself, I focused on finding Green-tailed Towhees.

While Lewis & Clark Caverns did not give up its Green-tailed Towhees, I did get nice looks at a Rock Wren and Lark Sparrow.

I struck out. I spent a good hour and a half checking along the road, up around the main parking area, and in the campground. Merlin’s Sound ID picked up a putative GTTO song at one point, but I neither heard nor saw a trace of the bird.

I have to admit that this made me feel like a total failure. I mean, here was my first target bird of the trip, and one that shouldn’t be that hard to find, and I totally “whiffed” on it, as Braden might say. I didn’t plunge into despair exactly, but it definitely put a damper on my mood as I began questioning just what I thought I was doing out here pretending to be a birder! Well, I thought, maybe I’ll have better luck at my next destination.

Which happened to be Birch Creek Road north of Dillon in Beaverhead County. Several years before, Braden and I had found our lifer Thick-billed (formerly McCown’s) Longspur on this road, and once again, the road delivered. I’d driven only a mile before I saw a suspicious dark shape on a fence. I actually didn’t think it was a Thick-billed, but my binoculars revealed otherwise. “Yay!” I exclaimed, feeling the weight of my earlier “whiff” lifting slightly. A few minutes later, I was examining another TBLO when I noticed a large shape sitting in a field about one hundred yards away. “Clearly a hawk,” I thought, “but what kind?” The answer: the best kind, at least for my goals for the trip—a ferruginous hawk. This was another bird I needed for the year and one that isn’t always easy to find in the state.

A desperate flight photo of the Ferruginous Hawk as it flew away.

Digging out the peanut butter sandwich I’d made earlier, I tooled down I-15 for my next destination, Clark Canyon Reservoir. Braden and I had only ever birded here once before, and as near as I recall, we hadn’t found much, so I kept my expectations low. I stopped at one overlook and was surprised to see a Common Loon on the water below, along with a Double-crested Cormorant and a couple of Ring-billed Gulls. Violet-green swallows swirled around me and, as always, they brought a smile.

Snaking around the reservoir, I approached a sign for Horse Prairie Campground and spontaneously swerved left onto a dirt access road. The reason? Tall, healthy-looking sagebrush! Hm, this just might have one of my other target birds for the day. Almost immediately, I saw a really cool bird that had not been on my target list—a Common Nighthawk peacefully chillin’ on the split-rail fence. The bird barely blinked as I fired away with my camera through the car window from only thirty feet away.

**The first of three Common Nighthawks I spotted chilling on the wooden fence leading down to Horse Prairie Campground.**

Creeping slowly forward, I heard a song I didn’t recognize—which was no great surprise in itself, but I did have a guess of what it was. Sound ID confirmed it: Brewer’s Sparrow! This bird loves healthy sagebrush and makes up for the world’s dullest plumage with a vigorous song that bewitches any birdwatcher who hears it. A few moments later, one even sat still long enough for a decent photo. Check. Another target bird—but not the one I expected to find here!

**One of Montana’s drabbest birds, the Brewer’s Sparrow has an enchanting song.**

I kept driving slowly toward the campground and spotted a medium-sized, slender bird up ahead. Wishfully, I thought it might be a Say’s Phoebe—another bird I happened to need for my year list—but it flew off before I got close. As I pulled into the campground, though, two brownish birds were chasing each other around. I assumed they were robins, but when one landed on a “Day Use Only” sign, I realized with a start that it was exactly the bird I had hoped to find here—a Sage Thrasher!

**Sage Thrashers are so flighty that seeing one on a sign was about the last thing I expected!**

Braden and I have never met a thrasher we didn’t like, but Sage Thrashers hold a special place in our birding hearts. For one, they’re the world’s smallest thrashers—which is why I mistook them for robins or phoebes. For another, they are charismatic songsters and often are the most common bird you see in sage country. As I sat in the car, in fact, I counted three more Sage Thrashers around me. Whoo-Hoo!

**One of our favorite Montana birds, Sage Thrashers seemed to be everywhere I looked this afternoon.**

Later, on the road where I was to meet up with Jeff Marks and Nate Kohler, I encountered seven more Sage Thrashers! It was a veritable thrasher party—by far the best experience I had ever had with these good-looking birds.

Unfortunately, the next morning, heavy rain and spitting snow kept me from seeing Gray Flycatchers with Jeff and Nate. More on that in another post. Almost as bad, I began the drive home without a Green-tailed Towhee under my belt and no expectations of seeing one. But bless Nate Kohler’s heart. He told me about a canyon I should check out on the way home. It was still raining when I got there, but I drove slowly and stopped frequently, listening and watching. Lazuli Buntings chattered everywhere and I saw a good variety of birds—but no towhee. Finally, I put on my raincoat, got out of the car and played a Green-tailed Towhee song. Almost immediately, a small shape darted up out of the sagebrush—the bird I was looking for! Not only that, it held still long enough for a photo—but the story hadn’t quite finished.

**I worked hard for this Green-tailed Towhee—only to find that it wasn’t a year bird after all!**

Once I got home and posted all of my checklists for the trip, I was surprised that eBird hadn’t added GTTO to my year list. What’s going on? I thought, and did a quick search to see if I had somehow seen one down in Texas and forgotten about it. Nope. What I did forget was the rare vagrant GTTO I had seen in Victoria, BC during Amy’s and my January trip (see Birding Victoria, BC)! So this one was not a year bird after all, but still a lot of fun to see. Meanwhile, my year list swelled to 503 species thanks to the Thick-billed Longspur, Ferruginous Hawk, Brewer’s Sparrow, Sage Thrasher, and a Prairie Falcon I had spotted the afternoon before. Not exactly the trip I expected, but one I already cherished.

My Big Silly January

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Setting and surpassing goals plays a big role for many of us birders. Big Years, Big Months, Big Days, State Big Years, Bicycle Big Days, Global Big Days—the list of ways we challenge ourselves are endless. And while I’m no longer a big fan of Big Years that require burning up a ton of fossil fuels, Braden and I still partake in local challenges, or those that unfold seemingly on their own. Such was the situation I found myself in late January.

Thanks mainly to a vigorous day of birding with Braden on January 2^nd, in which I found 47 species here in western Montana, and the surprise trip to Victoria that Amy planned for my 65^th birthday (38 more species), by January 20th I found that I had seen 88 bird species for the month. They were awesome birds, too, ranging from Short-eared Owls and Golden Eagles here in Montana to Pacific Loons, Harlequin Ducks, and a Marbled Murrelet in Canada (click here). Interestingly, I realized that with ten days to go, I needed to see only four more species to make this my best January of birding ever! Even so, I had a lot of writing to catch up on and I wasn’t sure that I wanted to intentionally make the effort. A couple of things convinced me to go for it.

**Lola played an instrumental role in advancing my Big January goals!**

The first was that while walking our dog Lola in the neighborhood, I found my first Northern Pygmy-Owl of the year—a delightful little guy soaking up the last rays of sun high in a Ponderosa Pine. The next day—also while walking Lola, through Greenough Park—I espied my first American Dippers of the year. Three days after that, the year’s first White-breasted Nuthatch visited our backyard feeder, the first I’d seen there in a couple of years. Suddenly, just like that, I was one bird away from breaking my record. What, oh what, to do? Too much sittin’ on my butt and a forecast for a beautiful winter day answered the question. I called our friend Susan, who has been getting into birding more and more the past couple of years. I told her, “You know, there’s a Rusty Blackbird over near Deer Lodge, and we may be able to find some Snow Buntings. Do you want to go see if we can find them?” She also needed a birding break, so the next morning, we headed east.

**Though we didn’t find Snow Buntings or the Rusty Blackbird, Susan was especially excited to get to know Rough-legged Hawks better.**

We spent a delightful morning driving the roads between Deer Lodge and Anaconda. We may have seen a Snow Bunting, but it flew away before we could make a definite ID. We also saw the Rusty Blackbird—right as a couple of other birders scared it away. Since we couldn’t ID it ourselves, we didn’t put it on the list, either. Fortunately, in the parking lot that led to the Rusty Blackbird, we found four Horned Larks! Yay! I had it! A new January record!

**Susan and I failed to get an ID-able look at a rare Rusty Blackbird. But note the famous Anaconda smelter stack in the distance!**

But here’s the problem. Once you break one record, and realize that you are perilously close to another landmark—in this case, 100 birds for the month—it’s virtually impossible not to go for it. By now, I had revealed my January ambitions to Susan, and not only did she get as excited as I did about them, she was all in on getting me to 100 species for the month. As we pulled away from the Horned Larks, I said, “Are you up for driving by Discovery Ski Area on the way home?” “Let’s do it.”

**Employees at Discovery kindly put out bird feeders that keep Pine Grosbeaks, Mountain Chickadees, and other higher-altitude birds nurtured during cold winter days.**

Loyal readers of FatherSonBirding will recognize that in years past, Discovery Ski Area has been a go-to place for Braden and me to pick up several challenging species, and as Susan and I approached the parking area, we saw our first of these: Canada Jay. After parking, we visited the bird feeders and had a fun time picking up two others: Mountain Chickadee and Pine Grosbeak. Clark’s Nutcracker was the only bird that didn’t cooperate with my 100-species plans, but still, I left the ski area with 96 species. Could I really get four more species before the month ran out? Did I want to? No, I decided. I didn’t need to drive around burning up gas just trying to break a silly record. However, the Universe seemed to have other plans.

**Portrait of a Canada Jay. See them while you can. Canada has announced that it will no longer allow these birds to be in the US if President Trump does indeed impose tariffs on our northern neighbor.**

The afternoon of January 29^th, I was again walking Lola in the neighborhood when I saw two more birds I needed for the month and year: Hairy Woodpecker and Cedar Waxwing, both of which I thought I’d already seen! Then, a Greater White-fronted Goose was sighted out beyond the Missoula Airport. I had never seen one of these birds in Montana, and it was a rare opportunity to do so, so on January 31^st, I loaded my spotting scope and camera into the car and headed out to the site. My January and Year lists now stood at 98 species.

Long-story short: I did not find the Greater White-fronted Goose among the Canada Geese that were out there. As I was watching other CAGOs fly in, however, I was stunned to see a white goose flying with them! Stupidly, I did not try to gauge the size of this surprising arrival. If it were a bit larger it would be a Snow Goose; a bit smaller, Ross’s Goose. Either one would get me to 99 species—but not if I couldn’t identify it! Sighing and simply putting down “white goose” on my list, I resigned myself to not breaking that magical 100 number.

Since I was out there, however, I decided to swing by Council Grove State Park for a look around. The number of birds out there in the dead of winter surprised me. I was delighted to hear a Belted Kingfisher and spot Green-winged Teals and a Great Blue Heron. Then, two Killdeer flew by. As I was following a trail back around to the parking lot, however, I espied a small, soft lump on a branch out of the corner of my eye. “No way,” I muttered, and trained my new binoculars on it. It was another Northern Pygmy-Owl—the first I’d ever found all on my own. Even though it wouldn’t help with my goal of 100 birds, I was totally psyched by this find and spent ten minutes watching it before it winged away at hyper-speed.

**Even though it didn’t help me with my 100-bird goal, seeing this Northern Pygmy-Owl was an awesome way to finish out an awesome January of birding.**

So, no 100 birds. No century mark.

Or so I thought.

That evening, when I happened to glance at my bird list for the month, I was surprised to see that it stood not at 98 species as I expected, but at 99! The Killdeer I saw at Council Grove, it turned out, were also a new species for me for 2025! And then, several other birders confirmed that the white goose that I saw was indeed a Snow Goose! Ka-ching!

I’ll admit that getting to 100 wasn’t pretty, but like I said, the Universe seemed to want me to get there and, well, I’ll take it. It just shows you that a lot of great things can happen in birding—even setting silly records!

Partial FSB Reveal: We won’t be posting near the end of February and early March, but if all goes as planned, we should have some truly stunning posts for you then. Stay tuned!

Morro Bay Bird Festival report (Guest Post by Scott Callow)

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This week we are delighted to present our first guest post from Scott Callow. Scott and I (Sneed) met in the fourth grade, endured Boy Scouts together, and have spent hundreds of hours in the outdoors together. Scott majored in environmental studies and is one of the first people ever to take me birding, at Coal Oil Point in Santa Barbara. We have refreshed our friendship many times, including with several memorable recent birding adventures (see our posts “Chasing Migrants, Part I: Swifts, Peeps, and Plovers” and “Abbotts Lagoon, Point Reyes National Seashore”). We are also fortunate to have photos by Scott and his buddy Steve Rosso (the bird photos) to share. If you are enjoying FatherSonBirding, why not subscribe by filling out the “Subscribe Now” box down in the right-hand column?

(All photos copyright Steve Rosso or Scott Callow.)

My former work colleague, Steve, and I spent 2 hours deciding which walks and talks we would do at our first winter Morro Bay Bird Festival. It was just over a week since the registration opened. Everything we chose turned out to be full, even with over 263 events, 191 of them field trips. Lesson learned. (We later learned that the Pelagic Boat Trip filled within an hour.) We were able to sign up for two outings, a Big Day at the inland Santa Margarita Lake and a “Back of the Bay” walk in Los Osos. Steve also made the wise demand to stop at the Pinnacles National Monument on our way down, and convinced me to spend the extra money ($55) on a boating tour of Morro Bay itself. (Readers are encouraged to open up a map of the region.)

**On our trip down, we got good looks at a well-known California endemic, Yellow-billed Magpie (see post “College Search Birding in California”).**

Our first stop was along the lonely Highway 25 between Hollister and Pinnacles’ east entrance. We badly wanted one soaring raptor to be a California Condor but it turned out to be a Golden Eagle. Later (2-3pm), at the observation overlook a mile up the Condor Gulch Trail, more than 15 dark soaring birds suddenly appeared as a group from behind the eroded sandstone Hain’s Peak. I confidently identified four as Condors, one as a Golden Eagle (clearly seeing the difference between each’s white markings on the undersides), and many Turkey Vultures. Steve’s new camera clicked away. At the trailhead, a ranger told us that, years ago, the population was below 10 individuals when reintroduction began and now the local population had swelled to “three digits.”

**Pinnacles National Park. And yes, at least some of those black specks are California Condors!**

The next morning we embarked on our first festival field trip: a Big Day at Santa Margarita Lake. It was led by Mark Holmgren, retired curator of the natural history museum and collection at UC Santa Barbara (my alma mater and where Sneed got his master’s degree). Highlights included comparing Eared, Horned, Western, Clark’s and Pied-billed Grebes, listening to Fox’s Sparrows, California Thrashers, and Wrentits, and observing raptor behavior. Speaking of, we saw Ospreys and Bald Eagles fishing (one birder theorized the adult eagles were teaching the juvenile), two Peregrine falcons mobbing a raven, and two Peregrines (perhaps the same) apparently fighting over food in mid-air or in courtship display. I got good looks at the yellow lores of a White-throated Sparrow.

Winter is a nice time to compare Clark’s (shown here) and Western Grebes, which can sometimes be difficult to tell apart. Clark’s Grebes have more orangish bills versus greenish-yellowish on Westerns. The black also rises above the eye on Clark’s, though that’s not as clear-cut on this individual.

Tired from our long day, we drove to the Morro Bay Community Center downtown and attended one of the two receptions. Included in the cost of registration were free local wines (multiple pours allowed), and extensive noshing trays of cheese, meats, veggies, crackers, and artisan chocolates. The adjacent bazaar impressed with booths for 3-4 high-end binocular/gear manufacturers, book shops, authors, nature art and nature organizations. The bazaar was well attended and the noise generated rivaled that of a Spring morning chorus.

**The bird fest’s exhibit area had a nice variety of vendors and non-profits to occupy us between birding trips, talks, and meals.**

Our dinner at Morro Bay’s affordable, healthy and creative Asian fusion cafe, Chowa Bowl is recommended, as is the lunch combo Big Deal of sushi roll and ramen noodles at Baywood-Los Osos’ funky hangout, Kuma. This is important info to a birder even though food and beverages are barely mentioned in The Avian Survival Kit chapter of Birding for Boomers. Good food and libations can elevate a birding trip. (Editor’s Note: We at FSB take exception to this criticism, as we have frequently mentioned fine dining establishments such as McDonald’s, Wendy’s, and Starbucks.)

Next day’s Back of the Bay trip was not only highlighted by lunch, but by Audubon’s Sweet Springs Nature Preserve. It’s a small preserve with a spring-fed creek and excellent views from its wooden observation decks of the bay’s mudflats and its shorebirds, ducks, gulls, and terns—tons of them (which is saying a lot since birds are so light.) With Morro Rock and Morro Dunes in the background, we saw Lesser and Western Sandpipers, too many Brants to count, 30+ Green-winged Teals, 4 Blue-winged Teals, American Wigeon, Northern Shoveler, Bufflehead, Long-billed Curlew, Killdeer, Black-bellied Plover, Great Egret, and Greater Yellowlegs. We learned the Greater has three notes in its call compared to the two notes of the Lesser. Ring-billed Gulls, Belted Kingfishers, and Forster’s Terns were seen flying above the bay.

These are the ducks that inspired The Guess Who’s 1970 Number One single “American Wigeon”. Fun Fact: Sneed saw The Guess Who’s lead singer, Burton Cummings, perform this song live in Rapid City, South Dakota in 1977. **Sneed was favorably impressed by this performance—until ZZ Top took the stage and basically burned the place down.**

In the narrow woodland area between street and bay we saw both Hairy and Nuttall’s Woodpeckers, and Chestnut-backed Chickadee. Then, local guide Dean led our car caravan down the road apiece to his friend’s house which sported about six bird feeders that earned a hot spot ranking on eBird. More chickadees, the ubiquitous House Finch, the most common local warblers—Yellow-rumped, Orange-crowned, Townsend’s—and Lincoln’s, Golden-crowned and White-crowned Sparrows. We also saw our Oak Titmouse, formerly lumped with Plain Titmouse, at the bird feeders. Its range is mostly endemic to California (stretching into parts of Oregon and Mexico) and the bird shares its place with the Acorn Woodpecker as a signature species in California’s oak woodlands.

Dean also shared his mnemonic for our (Pacific Group) White-crowned Sparrow – “Awf man!, I dough-ont wanna see”. It’s a bit of a stretch but “I don’t want to see” sums up many people’s self-engineered denials of science nowadays, so I decided to add it to my mnemonic checklist.

The rarity highlight of the trip was the sole Blue-winged/Cinnamon Teal hybrid. I “put good eyes on it” but Steve left his camera in the car because he logically thought he’d get better shorebird and bay bird shots on the following day’s boating trip.

Female, juvenile, and nonbreeding Red-breasted Mergansers (above) can be difficult to distinguish from Common Mergansers, especially in winter, when they can be swimming side by side. We think this is a Red-breasted because of its a) slightly thinner, upturned bill b) indistinct transition between the brown and gray on its neck and c) its crazier “hair-do”.

Our inside-the-bay boat trip the next day also included a fellow (and local) birder, Mike, who led bird trips. Steve and I learned a lot from him. The trip was created as a photography outing and the leader focused on pointing out good shots. The captain, also a birder, put the boat in good lighting and locations for the photographers. We were inspired to overtip him. The trip started in a downtown marina and we made a loop up to Morro Rock, along the rock jetties past the bay’s opening to the ocean, and then back into the bay to the mudflats of the Morro Bay Estuary. As we returned back to the docks, we passed the Morro Bay State Park Boardwalk, the Museum of Natural History, the Morro Bay Water Access, and Heron Rookery Natural Preserve—all excellent spots to bird from the shore, and perfect for photographers from the water due to the sun’s location.

We saw Peregrine Falcons above The Rock, Black Oystercatchers and Black Turnstones on the rocks, Black-crowned Night Herons in the trees, Ospreys on the masts, Common and Red-breasted Mergansers, several Eared Grebes and a Horned for comparison, and a nice collection of Brandt’s, Pelagic, and Double-crested Cormorants floating on a wooden raft. The Brandt’s Cormorants were especially striking with their iridescent coats and bright blue throat pouches. We were surprised to see some of the adults sporting very early breeding plumage marked by brilliant white “whisker” feathers around the ears and shoulders.

Cormorants put on a show under the gaze of their Western Gull overlord. Note the brilliant blue gular pouches on the Brandt’s Cormorants, along with their wispy white breeding feathers on the necks. A Double-crested with yellow markings skulks in the background.

Further inside the bay near the mudflats we saw large numbers, reaching into the hundreds, of Double-crested Cormorants, Marbled Godwits, and other shorebirds too far away to ID, plus good showings of White Pelicans, Ospreys, Ring-billed and Western Gulls, Northern Pintails, Buffleheads and Long-billed Curlews, Willets, and Greater Yellowlegs, as well as other common shorebirds not listed. Mike told us that the Pelagic Boat Trip ($160) was fantastic. If interested, check the bird list from the trip on the festival’s website.

**Our “Inside of the Bay” boat trip featured a great variety of seabirds and shorebirds. Here, American White Pelicans earn extra style points.**

The last night’s keynote speaker was Kenn Kaufman, author of Kingbird Highway, multiple nature guides, and his new The Birds that Audubon Missed: Discovery and Desire in the American Wilderness. He extolled birders to persist in their nature explorations, even beyond birds, and to pause the inclination to aggressively list in order to truly observe. He described the Morro Bay region as a “globally important ecological area” and the all-volunteer festival as top-notch and well organized, ranking it among the highest of the many he has attended.

232 species were identified collectively during the 5-day festival in mid-January. Events included typical bird walks, birding by boat, bicycle and kayak, birding for youth, beginners and advanced birders, birding with wine and olive oil tastings. Sites extended beyond the Morro Bay area including the Kern National Wildlife Refuge, the Carrizo Plains Ecological Reserve, various ranches, Atascadero, San Luis Obispo, and Pismo Beach. Check out the Long Report of the Festival Events Including Details on the website. More details than you will need to convince you to make next year’s festival are found at morrobaybirdfestival.org.

**Scott (right) and Steve (left) while birding with Sneed in Marin County last fall. (I don’t know why Scott’s head looks a bit squished. I blame climate change, not my photographic skills.)**

Plenty of Partridges: Braden & I Kick Off Another Year of Birding!

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Braden and I kicked off our 2025 at one of our favorite western Montana birding spots: Ninepipe National Wildlife Refuge. While mainly envisioned as a duck factory, the surrounding farms and grasslands provide plenty of grassland bird habitat and raptor hunting grounds, so in winter that’s what we mainly search for. We began the day by looking for Short-eared Owls at a “vole-opolis” our neighbor Tim, a game bird hunter, told us about last year (see our post “Lost in Owls”). Sure enough, we got distant looks at three of these mesmerizing, long-winged raptors as they cruised low over a tapestry of grass and cattails. They were joined by a trio of Northern Harriers, birds that are so similar to Short-eared Owls in appearance and habits that they offer an almost perfect lesson in convergent evolution—the incidence of two unrelated species being shaped in similar ways by natural selection.

Braden celebrating seeing Short-eared Owls in 2025!

After our time with the owls and harriers, we set out on a leisurely cruise northward on dirt roads with the spectacular snow-capped Mission Mountains majestically gazing down on us. The raptors continued to please, with great close-up looks at our first Golden Eagle of the year, three or four Rough-legged Hawks, a couple of American Kestrels, two Merlins, plenty of Red-tailed Hawks, and no fewer than a dozen Bald Eagles.

**This Northern Harrier is seriously eye-balling a group of Gray Partridges below, but decided not to go for it.**

I’ve been worried about a dearth of small song birds all year, and that continued today. Usually, we at least see some waxwings or American Tree Sparrows at Ninepipe, but not today. I’m hoping the warmer winter somehow explains it, but I am especially concerned about the pervasive use of neonicotinoid pesticides and their deadly effects on birds. A future blog post, perhaps.

While songbirds were few and far between, we encountered a veritable population explosion of a bird we usually see only once or thrice a year: Gray Partridges! In the space of an hour or two, we saw these birds at least half a dozen times in groups ranging from four to more than a dozen. “I think I’ve seen more Gray Partridges today than in the rest of my life,” I told Braden, and it might have been true, as we totaled almost seventy of these birds. As with the rest of the day, I managed only lousy photos, but we delighted in watching these introduced, but charming, orange-faced critters.

Another fuzzy shot, but entertaining just the same—a Gray Partridge zooming toward us. These birds are unusually difficult to photograph, and I doubt I’ve ever gotten a good shot of them.

We finished the day scouring the southern shore of Flathead Lake near Polson. We had to look pretty hard, but finally found good numbers of waterfowl and gulls at Ducharme fishing access. Here we were rewarded by more than five hundred Common Mergansers, and much smaller numbers of wigeons, Mallards, Buffleheads, Green-winged Teal, Northern Pintails—and a lone Redhead. Braden also picked out several Tundra Swans from the more numerous Trumpeters.

Tundra Swans on Flathead Lake. These birds can be hard to distinguish from Trumpeter Swans, but they have small yellow patches forward of their eyes, and often have overall whiter heads and necks than Trumpeters.

Perhaps my favorite part of this last big session was focusing in on a group of seventy or eighty gulls out on a frozen edge of the lake. Part of my enthusiasm was having just received a review copy of Amar Ayyash’s epic new book, The Gull Guide: North America. I plan to write a full review of this remarkable book soon, but my first perusals have gotten me super excited to learn more about gulls. Even better, as Braden and I studied the group in front of us through our scope, we picked out both Ring-billed and Herring Gulls. Then, I paused on a gull that looked unlike any others. It had pink legs, medium gray wings, dark eyes, light head streaking, and a single red spot on the bill. It also was noticeably smaller than the Herring Gull next to it. Braden suggested a Thayer’s Iceland Gull and I have to say that I agree with him. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get decent photos and gulls are notoriously hard to ID, so we didn’t record it. Still, I’m thinking Thayer’s is what we saw.

**Ring-billed and Herring Gulls on Flathead Lake. It’s easy to pick out the Herring Gulls by their large sizes. Maybe I’ll even find some other species after studying The Gull Guide in depth!**

And so it begins . . . a great new year of birding! I hope you’ve all been able to get out and enjoy the remarkable avian wildlife our planet is blessed with. In fact, if you haven’t already done so, I urge you to support one or more of the terrific conservation groups working to make sure birds are always with us. For more info, see our post “Saving Birds. It’s Time.” Thanks for reading and I hope to see some of you out there birding soon!