A Brit abroad

Return to Davis

Following reports of 115F temperatures and cows dropping dead in the fields, it was with some trepidation that I arrived in Davis. In fact, I had quite the opposite problem, and after the sultry Memphis evenings I found myself shivering in the delta breeze-cooled nights! I rather foolishly decided that one week would be enough time to catch up with all my old friends (avian and human) - I just about achieved this goal, but at the cost of less than 5 hours' sleep on any given evening!

The birding started early on Saturday morning, when Joan and I headed out to the Yolo Wildlife Area in the hope of chancing upon last week's hot bird, a Little Blue Heron. We didn't find this, although there were still plenty of egrets to scan through.

The biggest surprise that morning was a juvenile male Grasshopper Sparrow, which sang sporadically from the top of sunflower stands - a plumage tick for both Joan and I, and an unusual sighting for this time of year. I managed a couple of backlit shots of the bird before a Marsh Wren displaced it.

Our next stop was the City of Davis Wetlands, which was teeming with shorebirds, the best of which were a single Marbled Godwit and 2 Willets, which gave good views as they roosted with Long-billed Curlews on the levee of the Wastewater Treatment Ponds.

After a brief hiatus for the Fort Bragg pelagic and non-birding commitments, I didn't get out again until Tuesday morning, when I was joined by Sami, Roger and Joan. This morning's prize was a Semipalmated Sandpiper feeding at close range with Least and Western Sandpipers.

This bird looked distinctly greyer than the nearby Least Sandpipers.

For comparison, here's a juvenile Western Sandpiper - note the longer bill and extensive rufous on the scapulars.

Next morning, Joan and Roger indulged my crazy plan to add Band-tailed Pigeon to my county list at Monticello Dam at dawn - no pigeons, just a very cold wind and an obliging Canyon Wren! Birding our way down the canyon we had great views of Violet-Green Swallows and White-throated Swifts, Turkeys and a lone Common Merganser at Lake Solano, and 18 Red-necked Phalaropes at the Winters Sewer Ponds before the obligatory macaroon stop at the bakery.

At my old haunt of the Pedrick Road 'birdbath', we picked up Karen and Sami, Ash-throated Flycatcher, a Hermit Warbler and Western Wood-Pewee. News of a Rose-breasted Grosbeak sent us hurrying over to Babel Slough - that had long gone but we had magnificent views of some old favourites of mine - Nashville, Townsend's, Black-throated Gray and Hermit Warblers, plus a bonus visit with Johns Luther and Sterling, and Sac-based photographer Chris. After a pit-stop at Betty Berteaux's, an afternoon check of the City of Davis Wetlands provided a good excuse to catch up with Chris Conard and Kimya Lambert. The most unusual birds we saw were a summering Bufflehead and White-fronted Goose.

15 or so birders joined me for a farewell birding tour around the City of Davis Wetlands. Perhaps the highlight of the morning was the spectacle of a dense crowd of Snowy and Great Egrets scrambling for crayfish in the rapidly drying ditch. A fly-by Bittern and a calling Sora were nice surprises here too.

We located a (the?) Semipalmated Sandpiper and saw at least 8 Marbled Godwits. Wastewater Lagoon held 3 Forster's Terns and more unusual summering ducks (Green-winged Teal, Pintail, Ring-necked Duck). Some members of the party were lucky enough to watch a Peregrine take out a Cinnamon Teal. I was content to enjoy the flocks of White-faced Ibis and White Pelicans.

Breaking news of a Red Knot (very good Yolo County record) sent us hurtling over to the Yolo Wildlife Area. The bird had flown, so we had to content ourselves swapping bird stories over a Mexican lunch. From left to right around the table: Mary, Cliff, Ed, Bill, Mary, John, Sid, Kevin, Denise, Laura

... and latecomers Joan, Allan and Alison.

In the hottest part of the day we took over Roger and Grete's house for ice-cream, chat and bird photos. Joan looked thrilled to finally get a Snowy Owl in Yolo County - albeit of the stuffed variety!

Potluckers at work: Jo Ellen, Mary (hitting the cooking sherry), Sami, Laura and Joan.

We rounded off the day with a personal tour by Mary Schiedt to see the amazing sunset flyout of Mexican Free-tailed Bats in the Wildlife Area.

In two weeks in the US I managed to pick up 243 species (about 20 more species than I've seen in the whole of France this year). Among these were 30 species of shorebird and 19 species of wood warbler! My ABA area list climbed to 577, and 2 new state birds took my California list up to 413. I'd like to thank the bunch of birders and non-birders that offered me food, lodgings, car rides and company over the last week - in particular Joan, my acting PA for the week, Marcel for a couple of fun road trips, Mary for the private bat tour, and Roger and Grete who left me their house, and cellphone, to use for the week. It was sad to leave, but I'm sure you haven't seen the last of me!

Great Gray Grouse (but no owl)

Marcel and I made the long day trip out to Yosemite in search of Great Gray Owl for our state lists (and frankly, one can never see enough of these fantastic beasts). By the time we reached Yosemite it was early afternoon, and we decided to start our birding at Glacier Point (picking up a fly-by Williamson's Sapsucker en route). Our reasoning was that even if there weren't any birds, the temperature would be pleasant and the scenery outstanding.

We were rewarded with amazing close views of Sooty (formerly Blue) Grouse of all ages as they fed or loafed close to the visitor centre, seemingly oblivious to the hordes of daytrippers. I took many, many shots of these cooperative birds, the best of which are below. I particularly liked this one of a female in her natural habitat:

A couple of head shots of the female.

A smart male.

As you can see, the scope wasn't necessary!

Both the females (upper) and immatures (lower) showed a pale grey tip to the tail - aside from range, this is one of the few characters separating this species from the Interior Dusky Grouse.

Also at the Point we bumped into this bright Chipmunk sp....

and a family of MacGillivray's Warblers, including this bold baby.

We decided to drive straight down to Wawona Meadow, where Great Gray Owls had been recently reported. Since there were still a couple of hours until dusk, we walked the perimeter trail around the meadow, which turned out to be surprisingly birdy. First off, we had a flyover flock of about 20 Evening Grosbeaks and soon after, this young Western Wood-Pewee.

We flushed a covey of California Quail, including an egg-sized baby and this smart male.

The woodpeckers here included Hairy and Red-breasted Sapsucker. An Olive-sided Flycatcher showed well, if briefly, while a Cassin's Vireo sang but stayed hidden. Black-headed Grosbeak and bright Western Tanagers were a joy to see again, and showed much better than flighty Cassin's Finches and a single Chipping Sparrow. A number of warblers were feeding around the clearing, though it was unclear which were resident and which migrants. We spotted Orange-crowned, Nashville, Yellow, Yellow-rumped, Hermit, MacGillivray's and Wilson's.

As dusk approached, Vaux's Swifts and Violet-Green Swallows hawked over the meadow, to be eventually replaced by Common Nighthawk. We joined up with a couple of birders from Chico, one of whom recognized me from my blog - fame at last! We chatted for a while, but the great gray ghost failed to materialise, and we had to content ourselves with scope views of Jupiter's moons and the best stars I've seen in ages on the long road back to Davis.

Dream boat

Not long after returning to Davis, I jumped into Marcel's snazzy new Audi and we headed toward Mendocino and a Shearwater Journeys Fort Bragg pelagic. On the way up we stopped at the Mendocino headlands in search of the reported Horned Puffin - no sign of that, but plenty of Common Murres and a few Pigeon Guillemots thrown in for good measure.

There was a good selection of rocky shorebirds here: a pair of Black Oystercatchers, several Black Turnstones, a beach-feeding Red-necked Phalarope and this Wandering Tattler.

This rock had a decent colony of Brandt's Cormorants, Common Murres and Western Gulls - look closely and you'll see a baby Common Murre in their midst...

On the way back to our lodgings in Ukiah, we dipped Gray Jay yet again in Van Damme State Park, but I was happy enough to get reacquainted with Steller's Jays, Coast Redwoods and other specialities we don't get in France.

I had a good feeling about this pelagic before we even left the harbour - it seemed I knew about half of the people on the boat, so I was going to have fun catching up with old friends even if we didn't see any birds. I commented to Debi that I was hoping for a booby species in the light of recent west coast sightings, but she had much higher hopes for this trip! A beautiful summer-plumaged Pacific Loon from the dockside, and a fly-by Marbled Murrelet just offshore got things off to a good start. Not long after we ran into a stream of Sooty Shearwaters, with smaller numbers of Pink-footed Shearwaters amongst them.

A small flock of Buller's Shearwaters sitting on the water provided a rare opportunity to study these attractive birds close-up.

Calling Red Phalaropes, a few Northern Fulmars of both colour morphs, and the first of many Black-footed Albatrosses appeared.

Then all hell broke loose. I was standing next to my birding buddy Lisa Hug when she started stammering 'It's a... it's a... it's a...' and before she could finish Ryan Terrill yelled 'DARK-RUMPED PETREL!!!' I was able to quickly get on this bird and admired its crisp black and white plumage and distinctive flight style. Our talented captain was able to keep up with it for 17 minutes, allowing everyone on the boat crippling views of this stunning mega-rarity. My digibinning skills were not honed enough to manage a shot of it, but I was happy to drink in the views of this bird, only my second Pterodroma. The petrel watchers in action:

Everyone experienced post-petrel euphoria, but finder Lisa had the biggest grin of all!

Debi leads the applause for the sterling job of our captain in keeping up with the petrel.

We decided to put out some cod-liver oil and wait and see if the petrel returned. It didn't, but I was more than happy spending time with the flock of Black-footed Albatross which had gathered off the back of the boat. That's my finger in the foreground, to give you an idea of just how close these birds were.

The birds were squabbling over popcorn much like Mallards at a duckpond!

Gulp!

At one point I counted 17 of the beasts sitting together on the water.

Albatross digibinned.

Unlike many previous pelagics I'd been on, the bird activity stayed high for the rest of the day, with highlights including a Tufted Puffin that circled the boat, great views of all three Jaegers (including a Pom with spoons and a fully-tailed Long-tailed), South Polar Skua, delightful views of Sabine's Gulls in the wake, and small numbers of Ashy Storm-Petrel, Rhino and Cassin's Auklets. A highlight for me was two Xantus' Murrelets spotted by Marcel, which proceeded to sit just off the front of the boat, and were even heard whistling to each other. Two more events drew applause that day: a young Long-tailed Jaeger chasing a Brown-headed Cowbird overhead ('get 'im!') and a Laysan Albatross which took off and arced gracefully just in front of the boat.

The pelagic was well-attended by the group known as the 'young birders', who seem to be finding all the good birds in CA these days. I had my first lesson in chumming from Oscar Johnson (who just found the first CA Piping Plover since 1980) - apparently the trick is to throw just one tidbit at a time, enough to keep the birds interested, but not so much that they fall behind scoffing themselves on the leftovers.

To round off an exceptional day's seabirding, most of the boat party headed a few miles north, where we successfully twitched a Bar-tailed Godwit on Virgin Creek beach - a new US bird for me.

Not often that you see these two species in the same shot!

We were also able to get incredibly close to an obliging Baird's Sandpiper (I only just missed Ryan Terrill's head out of these shots!)...

... and some skulking Snowy Plovers.

Some moulting Harlequins on the rocks, and a Common Poorwill flushed on the drive back through the Coast Range, finished up an excellent day. I can't believe how lucky I was that my 2 weeks here coincided with this amazingly birdy (and birder-filled) trip. Some photos of the many species we saw today that I didn't get pics of can be seen on the Shearwater Journeys website.

Birding in Memphis

I just got back from an exhausting 2 week trip to the US, starting off in Memphis, TN for the annual meeting of the Ecological Society of America. I had a view towards the great Mississippi River from my hotel room, and soon after arrival the trip list kicked off with Purple Martin, Chimney Swift and at dusk, several Common Nighthawks.

At dawn the next morning, I joined the official ESA field trip to the Meeman-Shelby Forest State Park, an extensive area of bottomland hardwood forest. The shady forest trails were incredibly quiet at first, but as soon as the first rays of sunlight hit the canopy, a flurry of activity ensued. Among the warbler feeding frenzy I caught sight of my lifer Cerulean Warbler (a female) and first US Worm-eating Warbler, and a Louisana Waterthrush showed briefly at head height - marvellous! At nearby Eagle Lake Wildlife Refuge we were entertained by many Mississippi Kites feeding on dragonflies much like our European Hobbies. Our next stop was a visit to an impressive tract of Cypress swamp, which was somewhat reminiscent of Yoda's home world from the Star Wars movies.

Here we had fantastic views of my lifer Prothonotary Warblers...

...which left me rather less enthused by my first view of an Acadian Flycatcher! The rest of our time here we spent watching this Water Snake struggling with its lunch of frogs' legs!

The forest trails were full of interesting insects, including these attractive Velvet Ants...

Eastern Tiger Swallowtails (female pictured here)...

... and Hackberry Emperors, who were drawn to the copious amounts of sweat produced by those of us unaccustomed to the high humidity here!

Among the less welcome insect visitors were several alarmingly-sized horseflies.

One last stop on the banks of the Mississippi produced good views of the interior race of Least Tern. There were several giant female Garden Spiders on show...

... often accompanied by a teeny male.

I was fortunate enough to return to the state forest twice more with local birder Dick Preston, who helped me find my lifer Kentucky Warbler at point blank range. We also had amazing views of Worm-eating and Blue-winged Warblers, and encountered four vireo species (Red-eyed, White-eyed, Yellow-throated and Warbling). The forest shade made digiscoping difficult, but I did manage 'record shots' of Yellow-billed Cuckoo (amazingly common and vocal here)

Indigo Bunting...

... a quizbird-worthy shot of a shy female Summer Tanager...

... and a young Little Blue Heron.

Of non-bird interest we saw a Five-lined Skink,...

... a late-to-bed Opossum (the first I've seen during the day)

... and many loud cicadas.

I also had the pleasure of meeting the 'Ol' Coot' Jeff Wilson, finder of many first state records including Tennessee's only Ivory Gull! After scanning some distant shorebirds and Black Terns at Mud Island, we went to see a family of hybrid Western Kingbird x Scissor-tailed Flycatchers. I was able to get a couple of pictures of a confused-looking youngster. In size, structure amd belly colour it much resembled a Western Kingbird, but note the pale head, deeply notched tail and prominent pale edging to the wing feathers typical of Scissor-tailed Flycatcher.

We also spent a couple of hours shorebirding at 'the pits', in the extreme SW corner of the state. We had wonderful views of many shorebird species, including Stilt, Semipalmated and Solitary Sandpipers. Among the many Least Sandpipers was this bright juvenile.

There were good numbers of Pectoral Sandpipers too, many looking like overgrown Dunlins with their beaks caked in black mud.

I was pleasantly surprised at how much birding I was able to squeeze in around the conference, although was pretty tired by the end of the week after several 530am birding starts, a day of talks, and evening drinks!

Elvis and his long-lost son?

Birding buddy Marcel Holyoak 'celebrated' turning 40 by getting a tasteful Elvis tattoo!

Same old, same old

A week of sweltering heat followed by impressive thunderstorms and rain... not exactly conducive to birding! Here's an approaching thunderstorm as viewed from my flat.

Also viewed from my flat, this Red Squirrel was the first I'd seen in a while.

Last weekend I walked to the Chateau de Madeleine and Chevreuse. Clouded Yellow butterflies and Hummingbird Hawkmoths were abundant.

This slow-moving stream in Chevreuse was good for dragonflies...

..including Small Red-eyed Damselflies, a relatively recent colonist of the UK. Most of the features separating this species from the similar Red-eyed Damselfly are apparent: slimmer build, duller red eyes, and much more blue on segments 2 and 7 of the abdomen.

Bird-wise, the highlight was seeing a silent Black Woodpecker (Pic noir) in the wood at the end of my street. This wood really doesn't seem big enough to hold this species - perhaps this is post-breeding dispersal? The three commoner woodpecker species were also seen that day (for some reason, Lesser Spotted seems to be calling again). Also encouraging, I confirmed breeding of Spotted Flycatcher (Gobemouche gris) at this site, with at least 3 begging juvs seen. The fields close to my house continue to hold Grasshopper Warbler (Locustelle tachetee), Tree Sparrow (Moineau friquet) and Grey Partridge (Perdrix grise).

This will be my last blog post for a couple of weeks, as I'm returning to the US for a conference in Memphis (fingers crossed for Prothonotary Warbler) followed by a return visit to Davis, CA - let's hope the birding is better across the pond!