How can a person live in California for 16 years before they ever make a trip to Yosemite? I dunno, but it happened to me. Stoopid!! Fortunately, I've worked hard at making up for lost time ever since. A few weeks ago, I got away for a much needed long weekend to take the "Yosemite Hawks and Owls" class offered by the Yosemite Association.
Great Grey Owl (Strix nebulosa), Westfall Meadow, Yosemite
Steller’s and juncos and Golden-crowned Sparrows,
Brown streaky shorebirds with beaks long and narrow,
Peregrine falcons with black tapered wings,
These are a few of my favorite things....
Steller's Jay, my long-time friends at our cabin
Indulge me, please. It’s my birthday. I have a nice, thoughtful diary all written about the birds of Yosemite (ps – thanks to dcoronata for covering with a great diary last Saturday!), but it’s getting bumped until next week. Instead, this about the things that bring me pure joy.
If the world of birds and birding was like the human world, I'd be like a society section reporter, scrutinizing everyone's attire (to see how well they're doing) and checking on who's aging well and who's not. Fortunately, in the world of birds, there's actually some justification for doing so. I can just say I'm a molt geek, and let it go at that.
Nice outfit on this Cooper's Hawk, but she has a few loose ends there, doesn't she? Teenagers... sheesh.
(I'm at our cabin, with some computer problems and some dialup issues, so pictures will be trickling in over the next little bit of time. Lots more pix from the workshop that inspired this in last week's Dawn Chorus.)
Since many of us will be enjoying the long weekend, this is a sort of vacation edition of Dawn Chorus. I just got back from a week of studying molt patterns in passerines and other smaller birds. Most of the other participants were biologists; a few were volunteer passerine banders. I felt a bit like a bio-groupie, wanting to learn a bit more about some birds who I haven't spent much time with.
You don't need to be a bird geek to appreciate parrots. They're bright, colorful, curious and intelligent, they can be quite friendly... and they can talk. On the other hand, I think you need to be a fairly committed bird geek to understand parrots (or at least try to). For 20 years now, we've shared our home with birds; for 18-1/2 years, we've had parrots and we're looking forward to many, many more years. To make the most of a very long-term relationship with our macaw, I made a few visits to her ancestral home to see macaws in the wild. It gave me some insights into her behavior, and also taught me a lot about the challenges faced by wild macaws and other parrots.
Blue and Yellow Macaws (Ara ararauna) in flight over Tambopata, Peru
I wasn't a birder when I lived in Michigan, so I never really had the experience of the proper winter-into-spring birder's re-awakening. In California, it's more like a shift change from wintering birds to breeding birds; in a lot of spots the numbers decrease as winter wanes. We do still have an obvious change of season, and I just celebrated one of my rites of spring.
Mines Road.
My friend and I made our annual pilgrimage Mines Road (south of Livermore, CA). Since she first introduced me to the spot 15 years ago or so, I visit every year - often twice, if I can make it. It's a nice loop of a day trip, and there are three or four species to see here that are hard to find in the rest of the bay area. It's also a really nice wildflower location, which just makes it that much more of a treat. Join me over the jump for a daytrip, and maybe share some of your own favorites.
Even by birders' standards, I'm a really early riser. When this goes up around 6am (SF time), I've usually been awake for an hour or two. The hours before sunrise are a wonderful time of day; the world is silent, calm and cool. At 4 am, you pretty much have the place to yourself. But in mid-late spring, you start noticing that you have company around 4:30. By sunrise, you're surrounded by others, all with plenty to say.
And not a human in the bunch. This is the hour of the Dawn Chorus.
I just had a conversation with the mailman at my office. He's keen on politics, and we've had a lot of interesting conversations over the years. We both wanted Gore to run, and held out hope that he would until after the Nobel Prize came and went without an announcement.
After that, we both drifted toward Edwards, and liked Dodd after his FISA stand (would just love to have him for Senate Majority Leader). Even though we'd pretty much settled on Edwards, we were listening to all the candidates. When Edwards dropped out a week before our primary in California, we voted for our second choice.
(Apologies for the short diary, but there didn't seem to be any point to adding padding.)
Golden Gate Audubon is looking for volunteers over the next few days to help enter data re: the Cosco Busan accident last November. Since I know that my fellow Bay Area Kossacks are a) concerned about the enviroment, b) wanting to bring the guilty parties to justice in the aftermath of this event, and c) computer literate and fast on the keyboards, it just seemed natural to post this here.
Wouldn't it be a good way to celebrate Earth Day? Make a difference!
The Salton Sea, seen from Obsidian Butte (click here for full-size version; note: 1 mb file)
Last week, I wrote about going to Anza Borrego for the Swainson's Hawk spring migration (as well as the plenty of other cool birds and wildflowers, too). We took one day of our trip to visit the Salton Sea, which is about 30 miles east of Anza Borrego (and over 200 feet below sea level). This "accidental" body of water is extremely important to birds for breeding, migration and wintering. Unfortunately, the Sea is drying up, and the increased salinity is killing the food sources for the birds. Various plans for saving the sea have been proposed but (as far as I know) no work has been done yet.
Desert wildflowers, Swainson's hawks and soaring mountains... can't beat it. I was desperately in need of recharging, and a long-planned trip to Anza-Borrego and Salton Sea (in southern California, inland from San Diego) was just the right way to do it.
Wildflowers, mountains, and (if you squint) probably some birds. click here for larger
Few creatures have fascinated humans like owls. We envy birds for their ability to fly; owls have the added mystique of mastering the night. Their adaptations include a remarkable sense of hearing, feathers that allow them to fly silently, and keen eyesight.
In the US, owls range in size from the tiny elf owl of the southwest deserts (roughly the size of a fox sparrow) to the great grey owl, who is almost three feet from beak to tail. Though other owls may be larger, none are quite so fearsome as the great horned owl.
Great Horned Owl (Bubo virginianus) at twilight
Fear not, fans of other owls - there will be more owl diaries in the future.
If anyone says you're spending too much time here at the Great Orange Satan, here's a simple defense: At least you're not watching nest cams.
Spring is in the air, and you are in your office. How can you focus on the work at hand when you know that the flowers are blooming and, more importantly, the birds are chirping? I can't. Fortunately, technology steps in to the rescue with nest cams. All around the world, people are sneaking cameras into nest boxes or training video cameras on office building aeries - and anyone with a computer can watch things that used to be the province of field biologists. You see it as it happens - courtship, egglaying, hatching, chicks being fed and growing from balls of fluff to birds ready to go out and see the world. It is a reality show that is 100% real. And right now, cams everywhere are going live for the season.
Anyone up for a day trip? Let's take a quick spin through the Panoche Valley. If you live in the Bay Area, Monterey, or Central Valley, you may already know about it. If you haven't heard of it, or if you're from elsewhere in the country and want to think about places to visit in California this is really a great spot for winter birding.
The area is mostly ranchland, with a few small canyons mixed in. It has a very "old California" feel. In the mountains that border the valley, there was some mining - mostly mercury, if I'm not mistaken.
View from BLM Road near Mercey Hot Springs, Little Panoche Road
You may notice that this week's diary is a bit earlier than usual. That's because our annual trip to Panoche got moved up a week at the last moment; in a few minutes, I'll be carpooling south...
It was just about a year ago that I left lurkerdom and joined in the fun here, adopting the handle of "lineatus". Today, I'd like to introduce you to my namesake, Buteo lineatus - aka Red-shouldered Hawk.
Adult Red-shouldered Hawk, Buteo lineatus
I like red shoulders for a number of reasons. Here in the city of San Francisco, they may be the most abundant local hawk. They nest in parklands throughout the city, having adapted very well to (introduced) eucalyptus trees. As many as 8 pairs may nest in Golden Gate Park in any given year, an incredible breeding density. I love the fact that they're much more vocal than most hawks, which helps when you're trying to find them. I have had them hanging out in my backyard regularly, and they spend a lot of time in the trees across the street. Most of all, though, I like them because they're just so darn good looking. (Our western subspecies is Buteo lineatus elegans.)
Usually the first thing you think of when you think of birds is that they can fly - and most of them do. And that's a pretty damn cool thing to be able to do... sure wish I could.
But that doesn't really distinguish them from others in the animal kingdom. Mosquitos can fly, and so can the bats that eat them. Some fish and squirrels claim to fly, but... well, they might be prone to exaggeration. And some birds can't fly. (and I don't just mean that in the "as God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly" sense.)
But there's one thing that all birds have, and only birds have... feathers.
Buteo lineatus
Even by birders' standards, I'm a really early riser. When this goes up around 6am (SF time), I've usually been awake for an hour or two. The hours before sunrise are a wonderful time of day; the world is silent, calm and cool. At 4 am, you pretty much have the place to yourself. But in mid-late spring, you start noticing that you have company around 4:30. By sunrise, you're surrounded by others, all with plenty to say.
