The Occidental Bird Log

Wydahoming

2008-05-16T17:12:00.000-07:00

May 8
I am a sleeping machine. I stayed asleep in the tent until 10:30 or so, a possible record for this trip. After the late start, I felt bad that we’d missed the best part of the day at our birding stop, Deer Flat. Luckily (or unluckily, it’s hard to say) there weren’t really any birds on the lake there. Being short on time, we decided we didn’t much care for the long auto loop around the lake, devoid of birds from what we could see. So we got the heck out of there. Our afternoon stop (well, our second afternoon stop) was far more interesting, even though it doesn’t technically count as birding. We visited the World Center for Birds of Prey. They had a number of tropical raptors there, including an Ornate Hawk-Eagle and a Harpy Eagle, the very same type of bird that attacked our poor friend Avery in Panama. It has absolutely massive talons, even in proportion to its large body. Also present were the Aplomado Falcons we’d missed seeing in Texas (reintroduced there by the same Peregrine Fund that operates this center) and a California Condor (again, a part of the reintroduction program).
As luck would have it, we even saw a non-captive life-raptor during our drive toward Eastern Idaho, the Rough-legged Hawk. Having seen this guy in captivity at the Rehab center in Corvallis made this sighting all the more meaningful. I guess one benefit to the late spring is that some of the wintering raptors are still around.
We stopped at an Albertson’s grocery store en route to our campsite as well. Since they had a Preferred Savings type card there, I had to shamelessly harry the unwilling cashier into giving me the discount before I’d registered for the card. Then, to Abby’s dismay, I walked right out the door instead of pretending to go over the Customer Service counter where we’d been directed. I figured we probably won’t be back to that store anytime soon. Having bought the smallest available jar of mayonnaise for our sandwiches, we slathered our bread with generous gobs of it, enough to cover the taste of all the other ingredients in the sandwich. Not having had mayo in a while, we found this surprisingly good.

May 9
We got up at a much more reasonable hour this morning and headed for the Hagerman Wildlife Refuge. At a rest stop adjacent to the park, we found a pair of Great Horned Owls standing guard near an oversized chick—half-down, half-feathers, and looking very strange perched on a small branch just above the river. We thought maybe it had left the nest prematurely and couldn’t fly back up (it was still in the exact same place when we checked back a few hours later). The parents kept quite close, and we wondered whether there was someone to whom we should report this potentially bad situation, the owlet being quite close to the picnic tables and trail.

Further down the road, we went for a walk around the lakes, dodging fishermen and their obnoxious children. Lots of pelicans (always weird to see them so far inland with their strange breeding tusks) and osprey and ducks and the like. The end of our walk took us past the Fish Hatchery, where we tried to figure out which fish was which and decided we should stick to birds (there were big fish and little fish!).
During the afternoon’s drive, we stopped at a hardware store to replace windshield wipers (which were more like windshield streakers at this point) and camp-stove gas (mushy half-cooked pasta was getting a little old). We checked the internet and found that there had been Grouse sightings, both Sharp-tailed and Sage, on our route to Wyoming, so we switched our camping plans and headed for the town of “Lava Hot Springs,” which was nice but not nearly as bad-ass as it sounds. Also, what hot springs there were cost at least six bucks to use, so we opted out of that one. Instead we went for a drive to scout out some sage steppe habitat for the early morning grouse patrol tomorrow, and ended up driving into a snowstorm. Back at the campsite, it was snowing less, though the overnight accumulation was plenty for our three-season tent.

May 10
In the town of Bancroft, we searched every roadside piece of sage we could find, to no avail. That said, it was an amazing sunrise over the freshly snow-covered mountains. Idaho ain’t all potatoes, and this was some spectacular scenery. We returned to the campsite and since it was still early, Abby decided she couldn’t stand the sight of all my greasy hair another minute. So on went the large trash bag, small hole ripped for my head to go through, arms pinned to my sides. And off went my hair. I read a silly fantasy novel (The Dark Lord of Derkholm, if you must know) to take my mind off the potential havoc being wreaked atop my head. But it didn’t turn out so bad. Some “minor adjustments” had to be made later in the day when certain asymmetries were observed, but I must say Abby is pretty darn good. I still have both my ears, so that’s something, right?
In the afternoon, we explored what lower-elevation sections of the Caribou National Forest were open. The highlight of our riparian walk was a pair of Yellow-Breasted Chat, a bird we’d been really hoping for. We got to watch for a good long while as the male chased his lady-friend around the brush, uttering some of the most bizarre snippets of song you can imagine. He seemed to take a leaf from the Mockingbird’s book, borrowing liberally across a wide range of other songbirds’ musical territory. He was also extremely yellow, and sported a ridiculous puffed-out neck during his chatty pursuit of the missus.
We drove to the Tetons, over a snowy mountain pass and through the adventure tourist mecca of Jackson, and camped in the frosty Gros Ventre campground. We expected a silly Americanized pronunciation and were going around telling people we were in Gross Ventry, but it turns out they actually say “Groh-vahn” or some such. In the night, there were numerous owl calls, Great Horned variety, and a strange noise Abby eventually identified as (Wilson’s) Snipe…confirmed by our trusty song recordings.

May 11
If it’s a little cold, sometimes you don’t want to get out of your sleeping bag. This morning, it was cold enough that once I was even marginally awake, I was too cold not to get up and get moving. We decamped quickly and got on the road, where we ran across a herd of Rocky Mountain Elk milling about. What strange beasts they are. Most striking to me was the reddish, furry-looking neck that juts out from the breast. In their midst was a coyote. But the elk seemed to take not the slightest heed of it, large and safe in numbers I suppose. We arrived at the visitor center just after opening at eight, and immediately ran into a suspiciously birder-esque crowd near the info desk. A park ranger was launching into a spiel that sounded a lot like the typical bird-walk preamble. I then noticed a posting on the wall for International Migratory Bird Day. Turned out to by synonymous with May 11, and thus we stumbled our way into an all-day bird walk.
The walk was more of a drive, given that all the trails were still snowed over. But there was an interesting census element to the event. We took down numbers at each stop, and the note-taker was able to compare this year’s numbers with previous years’. The numbers were quite low, we learned, because spring is somewhere between two weeks to a month late. Which is annoying for us, waiting for certain birds to arrive. But it’s also nice to hear that it hasn’t been our fault, being consistently ahead of the season. Our timing for this whole trip would have been great in a normal year, it looks like.
Today’s birding wasn’t bad anyway, for us. The highlight for me was the Barrow’s Goldeneye, which here is much more common than Common Goldeneye. Of course, almost everywhere else, the reverse is true, and the Barrow’s is quite rare on the whole. Tetons residents are pretty lucky in this regard. It is a striking bird, tastefully adorned with black and white, differing from the Common in its tear-drop facial marking, the black spur on its side, and a flatter head. Other new species today included the Mountain Bluebird, looking especially electric blue among its lower-elevation relatives, and the Dusky/Blue Grouse (we’re not sure where the taxonomy currently stands on this bird, recently “split” from its close relative on the Pacific Coast). This bird can be quite hard to find, apparently. We were lucky, in a way, to find it defending its territory against a car in front of us on a major road running through the park. It seemed to respond with particular vigor to red and yellow colors (which are featured on its head during breeding displays), and attacked a lot of shoes while we gawked. It was a bittersweet sight, though, because I don’t know how long a confused bird like that is going to survive, defending a piece of highway against interloping tourists in red SUVs.

May 12
After doing a little grocery shopping and using the internet in the morning, we met up with Eric Cole, a biologist at the Elk Refuge headquarters. We got in contact with him through Will Wetzel, a friend from Williams, who has worked at the Refuge too. It was pretty cool to get a sense of how these places work and the kind of data collection and science that goes on. In this case, we accompanied Eric to the top of Miller’s Butte (off-limits to your average Joe Tourist, so we felt like kind of a big deal). The main purpose was to observe pairs of Trumpeter Swans, to figure out how their nesting proceeds on a refuge whose main focus is hosting thousands of elk. The top of the butte is a good place to get a sense of how the water flows, in a series of oxbows, and it was possible to spot the large birds from far away. Again, the late spring meant the real nesting hadn’t started, but we did identify 3 pairs and one lone swan. We also helped survey the waterfowl numbers at a given site (for an avian influenza protection project) and wrote down numbers for a vegetation survey in elk foraging grounds. This is all the fun side of field work, of course. At least we didn’t have to go back and crunch the numbers.
The afternoon was spent figuring out our plans for the rest of the trip. It’s really hitting home that we’re in the final stretch now, but it’s still tough to pin ourselves down to certain places at the expense of others. And we’re still trying to find that elusive Bar Harbor housing option. We got so wrapped up in these logistics that we almost missed the activity I’d been looking forward to the past few days—our first big-screen movie of the trip. In this case, Iron Man. I didn’t want to have to think, and it didn’t make me. It was, in a word, perfect. And also, I may or may not have a man-crush on Robert Downey, Jr. The good weather, still out to prove the forecasts wrong, held for the night, although if anything the night was colder than ever, something in the low twenties.

May 13
I don’t mind getting up at five as much as you would think, given how late I sleep in sometimes. It’s almost easier to get up this early than it is to get up at seven, for some odd reason. Regardless, we did manage to get up and stationed by the lek well before sunrise this time to see the Sage Grouse display. The unfortunate aspect of this lek is that since it’s in a National Park, it’s heavily regulated. Not the birds, of course. They strut and parade against one another and puff up their two breastal air sacs with a thunking noise, just the same. But there are signs posted far away that say the area is closed to the public. Which means that you can’t really get up close enough to see that well, even with binocs. During this time of observation, a horde of grad school students managed to sneak up on us and set up their scopes nearby. Just when you think you’re the only weirdo in town…turns out there’s an institution full of them. On the way out I approached some (non-grad school) gents who had their tripod and cameras trained on something, and when I asked them excitedly what they were so intent on, they replied tersely, “Barn.” “Oh, hm...cool,” was about all I could muster. To each his own I guess? But tell me that’s not even weirder than birds.
In the afternoon, we proceeded southwest through Afton, WY (Home of the World’s Largest Elk Horn Arch…what?), skirted the town of Preston, ID (filming location of Napoleon Dynamite), passed the cerulean-hued Bear Lake, and ended up in the Salt Lake City area.
At the very end of day’s drive, we accidentally went the wrong way down highway 15, away from our intended campsite. However, we stumbled onto a different campground, Willard Bay State Park, which couldn’t have been nicer. Lakeside and well-kept, it had good showers and even better birds. The popular colors were yellow and orange: Western Tanager, Yellow Warbler, Bullock’s Oriole, Western Kingbird, and Black-headed Grosbeak. Abby made another cookie-mix mash-up and we retreated into our tent.

May 14
In the morning, we walked around the park, observing orioles ducking into their hanging-bag nests and kingbirds chasing each other all over the place. We encountered one of the friendliest groups of birders I’ve ever met. They loaded us down with maps, checklists, and good advice about the Salt Lake area.
In the afternoon, we hit the Bear River National Wildlife Refuge. On our way to the driving loop (most of the refuge was only visible from a twelve mile dike that encircled the wetlands), we were accosted by a local who saw our CT license plate and decided we need a history lesson about the founding of the refuge by Teddy Roosevelt and how the area also had such-and-such connection to the Golden Spike and railroad history. Perhaps he didn’t understand my policy on history—if it happened before I was born, I don’t care! Just kidding…kind of. The birding was decent but the large numbers of shorebirds were not to be found. A day full of Avocets and Stilts is nothing to complain about, however. I wonder how much I’ll miss those birds when we’re back in Maine.

That evening, we headed to Antelope Island State Park, which involves a long causeway drive out to the camping area. There, we encountered a very forward group of California Gulls (who were most intent on acquiring our food), along with clouds of intolerable bugs. We spent most of the remaining daylight trying to eat in the car and read in the sealed-off tent. Having probably inhaled too much “Green Ban” bug lotion, I got a nasty headache and crashed. Abby came back to the tent from the shore, and described an owl she’d just seen that sounded suspiciously like a Short-eared Owl. Consulting Sibley, we found that was exactly what it’d been. I blame the bugs for having missed that one.

May 15
The bugs were mercifully absent in the morning, thanks to the stiff wind. We drove to a ranch on the South side of the island, to see if the island’s sole stand of trees harbored any migrant birds. Unfortunately, the reported oasis was not in effect. The most interesting sightings were some antelope (we figured there had to be some on the island, given the name) and bison (one obligingly rolled around in the dust while Abby was taking pictures).

During the afternoon, we began to make preparations for the return journey, getting the car serviced and checked out, and doing some internet planning and apartment searching. Something will turn up eventually, right? We did get one offer to live with someone’s 78-year-old mother at an exorbitant cost, and we almost considered it, too. Almost.

The Top Left Corner

2008-05-09T13:17:00.000-07:00

And now a quick run-through of the past week or so, performed by Abby.

April 25
Morning birding at Sauvie Island with Lindsey. We probably bored her, but if so, she was admirably patient. It was a bit quiet out there bird-wise, though pleasant in other regards. The two most exciting birds of the day were both of iffy authenticity: that is, (1) improbable in terms of range/abundance and (2) seen from the fast-moving car. So we decided that we could claim to have seen EITHER a Gyrfalcon or a Snowy Owl.
Eventually we parted ways from Lindsey, and drove off toward Washington. Before crossing the border, though, we stopped to fill up on gas. Horror of horrors, there were not enough attendants at the station to fill our gas for us! The woman at the counter was very concerned…could Don do it? Did he know how? Somehow he managed. Then we crossed into Washington, back to the normal land of self-serve gas. It was still a bit of a drive to our campsite in Gray’s Harbor State Park. We got there in the dark, and decided to go tentless for ease of getting going the next morning.

April 26
Up dark and early! And on to Westport, to embark on a pelagic birding trip. It appeared that I was the only female passenger among the thirty or so intrepid birders. Later we discovered an elderly woman disguised under an ambiguously shaped bundle of outdoorwear.
We motored out to Gray’s Canyon, normally a seabird hotspot. Unfortunately, there was little out there today, so all we could do was turn back toward the harbor after one or two “chumming” attempts garnered only a lukewarm response. The chum (oil, bits of fish, etc.) did attract a dozen or so Black-footed Albatross from downwind. These improbable creatures appeared one at a time on the horizon, reaching our boat within moments. Once in the vicinity they settled down on the water to float around and tuck in on the fishy goodness. To fly short distances they opened their wings but didn’t bother to take off completely, instead paddling their big black feet across the surface of the ocean, up and over the waves. Other new birds included Glaucous/Glaucous-winged hybrid gulls, Mew gulls, Rhinocerous auklets, and tons of Pacific and Red-throated Loons. We also had a couple gray whale sightings, and a whole 14-whale pod of orcas.
Pelagic trips make me unbelievably sleepy (a good alternative to seasickness, I suppose). We managed to drive the few miles to Twin Harbors campground before crashing. While making dinner I discovered that NOT ONLY are the local corvids Northwestern Crows instead of American Crows, but that this new species is particularly fond of pasta.

April 27
Morning trip to Gray’s Harbor National Wildlife Refuge, alongside a small airport. It was rainy AND I had to use the bathroom, so instead of birding we ate at Lana’s Hangar Café (puzzlingly adorned with both aviation-related and “Betty Boop” themed decor). We went birding after that, don’t worry. Then we moved on to some other sites in the area.
At the Ocean Shores Interpretive Center we were practically attacked by over-helpful volunteers. We did manage to get some relevant info out of them, and went for a beach walk on Damon Point…but the pouring rain deterred both birds and us. There were only a few shorebirds, along with one drenched Merlin who sat on a snag and commiserated with us.
Finally we abandoned the rainy coast and went east to Olympia, to the home of the Don’s aunt and uncle, the Petersens. They treated us to a sumptuous seafood dinner at Anthony’s Restaurant.

April 28
Not uncharacteristically, we delayed till noon and missed the only sunny part of the day. And when we finally started off northward to Olympic National Park, we only drove 20 miles down the wrong highway before realizing the mistake. All in all, a pretty typical start. We made various stops for birds, including one at John Wayne Marina (what?) and a few sites around Dungeness. It was raining hard by this time, so we took refuge under the awning of the deserted Olympic National Park Visitor Center, in order to cook dinner. Then we camped a but further down the road, at the (likewise deserted) “Heart O’ the Hills” campground.

April 29
This morning we had a fruitful trip to Ediz Hook, a sandy spit just past a big industrial paper factory area. There we saw Harlequin ducks, a new bird for us, despite the fact that they’re found in Maine as well (since we haven’t seen any there yet). We made our way back south down the Olympic peninsula amidst sporadic rain. Back at the Petersen abode, we had supper from a funny French grill thingy called “raclette” or something. It was fun. The rest of the night was a little less fun, since I was just getting the horrible cold that Don was just getting over. Also, we were still covered with poison oak. It’s nice to look back on these afflictions a week later with the satisfaction of being done with them.

April 30
It was another late departure from the Petersens’ (excuse: there’s always so much last-minute preparation, planning, internet stuff, and so forth to take care of before we go…it’s really not our fault). We went east over the Cascades, through a gauntlet of rain and snow, and found paradise on the other side…aka sunny sagebrush desert. The change in weather and atmosphere was surprisingly welcome. We camped in Yakima, the one town with a campground that worked out for tomorrow’s itinerary, and coincidentally the one town we’d been warned by Don’s aunt to avoid. We didn’t meet any unsavory characters, fortunately. But we did make the acquaintance of the Black-billed Magpie, a new bird that was soon to become a common bird (though its ridiculous silhouette still provokes a reaction of mirth from Don a week later).

May 1
After some difficulty and a consultation with two semi-clueless employees at a Ranger Station, we got on track to explore the “Wenas Valley” near the town of Naches. Oddly, I found two dead wolves (one of them HUGE) lying in a ditch, probably shot and hidden by a disgruntled farmer? We also encountered some more cheerful sights, including our first Red-naped Sapsucker, and the return of the cute little Brewer’s sparrows (seen last in Arizona).
A warning in case you are ever planning to camp in Cheney, WA: the “Peaceful Pines” RV Park is fifty yards from a double set of train tracks, and peak train time is at 3 am. Don didn’t seem to notice, but you might.

(Don is taking over to write about the next three days)
May 2
We deconstructed camp in good time. It was looking to be, for once, an expeditious departure. But then a couple things (one usual, one most unusual) got in the way. The usual thing was trying in vain to find an apartment in Bar Harbor for the summer season. The unusual obstacle was encountered on the camp premises while I tried to find a pay phone. It took the form of a portly man with a long gray ponytail walking his dog. He engaged me in conversation, and I took the bait. It was a pretty cute dog, after all. And how long could it really detain me? A little human interaction to start off a civilized day? Well, there went the next half hour. The rather one-sided discussion ranged from pow-wow’s (he’s a Native American product vendor and a dancer on the side) to personal health (his recent stroke was invoked to explain his current state of obesity).
After this late start, we headed to the Turnbull National Wildlife Refuge. Highlights there included a Trumpeter Swan and a bizarre-looking juvenile Hooded Merganser (its crest gave it a kind of fluffy mohawked appearance).
We spent just long enough at the Refuge to rack up a good number of waterfowl species and track down a singing enigma, which turned out to be our old friend, the Say’s Phoebe. Then we got on the highway and headed for the border. No, not the Mexican border. That was “the border” for quite a while. But this was a mere passage from Washington state into Idaho. I am sad to report that I saw no more potato fields on one side of the border than the other. In fact, we later learned that our friends in Moscow buy potatoes that come from eastern WA. Go figure.
We arrived at the University of Idaho family apartment complex, where Elissa (Abby’s cousin) and her husband Clay graciously hosted us for the next few nights. We quickly became acquainted with the household cast, which included Margaret (human, 6 months of age), Peshewa (hard to spell wild-cat), and Arlo (talkative Starling). Clay promptly broke out the wine and cheese. If you know us at all by now, you know which one we gorged ourselves on. In fact, we had to eat a lot of cheese just to keep up with the myriad varieties that came our way. One looked like a cantaloupe. I was impressed. We watched “The Russians Are Coming,” which was actually pretty good, as far as McBride family classics go.

May 3
A hearty French toast breakfast saw us out the door and packed into a compact car. Traveling with a baby adds a whole new layer of adventure. We were especially impressed at the array of baby-carrying hardware it took to get her around (high-tech car seat, baby back-pack, mega-off-road stroller, etc). We drove to the Heyburn State Park, on the south side of Coeur D’Aline, where it turned out there wasn’t too much going on bird-wise after all. The marshy boardwalks were pretty neat though, with a persistent Osprey trying to come up with a fish. And we saw a Ruffed Grouse in the woods up close.
Dinner was an excellent parmesan chicken thing (with cheese on top, of course). Then Abby decided to contribute in pretty much the only way she knows how. She made a sumptuous plate of brownies. Except, this time it was made in a real kitchen. And so they were back to being sinfully delightful, instead of just sinful. This desert accompanied another McBride family classic film, which I hesitate to admit I also did not mind, “Animal Crackers” by the Marx Bros.

May 4
My early morning on the downstairs couch was dominated by a Starling Serenade. Arlo’s favorite quotes are “Hai-yah!” (a sneeze imitation corrupted into Karate Kid), “Here’s your breakfast,” “Arlo is a pretty, pretty bird,” and a spirited if strangely tuned version of “I’m a little teapot.” This is all much more impressive when one isn’t in the process of waking up. That being said, I’m glad I wasn’t upstairs—I’d take vociferous starling over crying baby any day.
Some of us went to church, but one of us did not. He stayed behind in an effort to get some planning done. While that did not happen, he did get other businessy things done. And in a fit of guilt, he did all the dishes before others got home.
After lunch, we all went to Moscow Mountain for some more hiking, this time in some impressive Ponderosa Pine habitat. Birds were hard to locate in the tall canopy, but we did get some looks at Chestnut-backed Chickadees, a Red-naped Sapsucker, and a fly-by Rufous Hummingbird too. Margaret was a trooper and didn’t cry much at all today.
The evening was spent on a well-contested game of Spades, which was great fun until Abby decided to cheat her way to victory. This, you understand, is the only explanation for my defeat.

(Handing it back to Abby for the final stretch).
May 5
A huge thanks to the Dodson family for hosting us all weekend! After leaving Moscow we set off southward down the panhandle on highway 95 (not to be confused with a slightly larger road on the east coast). This road took us through a landscape of huge, beautiful hills, coated in all shades of green. We weathered a bizarre Bug Blizzard that left our windshield indelibly spattered. I saw one suspected Swainson’s Hawk.
At the Neat Retreat RV Park in Fruitland, ID, we made full use of the wireless services and could have borrowed a dvd (how neat is that?) but decided against it.

May 6
Westward back into Oregon and full-serve gas (the attendant took pity on us and wiped our bugspattered window). In the town of Burns we reserved a campsite, an unprecedented attempt at foresight and responsibility, then continued south 30 miles to Malheur Refuge HQ. On the way there we stopped at a pond to marvel at the dozens of black terns dipping and circling. Turns out headquarters has quite the array of yardbirds: Yellow-headed Blackbirds, Western Tanagers, Yellow Warblers, Bullock’s Orioles, Black-headed Grosbeaks, Lazuli Buntings, Rufous and Black-chinned Hummingbirds…all in numbers.
At HQ we also found out that the remaining birding sites were all 20-40 more miles south (apparently the annual water influx hasn’t worked its way very far north yet). Furthermore, one of them required being there at 6 am. So we decide to waste the $17 we’d already paid on a campsite 30 miles north of headquarters, and camp at the only other campground in the general region: down at the extreme south end of the refuge.

May 7
We woke up at 5:00 and left Page Springs Campground early, but not quite early enough. By the time we got to the sage grouse lek it was around 6:00, and we found seven male Greater Sage Grouse crouched motionless among the sagebrush. They didn’t budge throughout the next hour. It was still kind of neat that they were there to begin with, even if they weren’t still puffing up their weird yellow sacs and strutting and whatnot.
The rest of the day we spent retracing our route from the day before, and stopping at a lot of sites along the way. We saw a Sandhill Crane with a Red-winged Blackbird riding its back. Don spotted a Sage Thrasher. We scrutinized the finer differences between Franklin’s and Bonaparte’s gulls. And we saw a gazillion White-faced Ibis feeding in fields everywhere. We made another stop at headquarters, where I drew Yellow-headed Blackbirds for a while and Don fraternized with other visitors. We also visited the one-room museum full of tons of stuffed birds…it’s weird how stuffed specimens look like they’re a different size (usually smaller) than you’d expect from seeing live ones in the wild.
After stopping in Burns to fill up on gas, we started back east into Idaho, and changed time zones permanently (we’d already done so temporarily a couple days before). At Caldwell Campground we had soup for supper and conked out.

Adventure and Misadventure

2008-04-25T19:01:00.000-07:00

April 17
I took a morning shower with my blanket, which had somehow acquired a slight lantern-oil smell. A sparrow singing in the bushes planted its jazzy song (kind of Pink-Pather-esque) in our brains, and we dorkily sang it all day, finger-snapping along. How much further can we sink? I just don’t know. We visited Patrick’s Point State Park to look for rocky shorebirds one more time. It was beautiful there, with the rather-large waves lapping the rocks, but our target birds were not to be found. We stopped in Brookings for supplies and proceeded on to the campground. I don’t have much else to report about this day, except that if I didn’t wait a week to write about things, I suppose I had would have more to say. Go figure.

April 18
We woke up at “Jessie B. Honeyman State Park Campground” and headed over to the Safeway to use the internet in preparation for our big pelagic trip the following day! Whoopee! Oh wait, sorry, it’s canceled. Dangerous off-shore winds. Well, I guess there was nothing we could have done about this, but this was kind of devastating, given that we’d planned so much around this one day, speeding up our California segment and replanning our house-visits to accommodate a day with the Albatrosses of Newport, OR. Not to be. We tried to readjust some plans and cheer ourselves up. It didn’t work too well.
So we walked along a sandy beach and talked out the rest of the trip, in vague terms. Cape Perpetua, a later stop in the rain, was pretty cool and lifted spirits a little. Eventually we arrived in Newport itself and found a campground (not hard: there’s an embarrassment of state parks on the Oregon coast) where Abby whipped up a sinful one-pot dessert. The remains of this chocolate dessert she somehow secretly sculpted into a turd, which she planted in front of the tent, where I later discovered it. She couldn’t have planned it better had she tried, because I found a group of raccoons and thought they had left it (when in reality they’d been attracted by it). Then there was a bunch of hail, and we went to bed…hoping tomorrow would bring better news, better weather, or maybe even both.

April 19
We stayed in camp, still getting hailed on, until about 1PM. This was our first completely indulgent sleep-in of the trip, I’d have to say. And it was fun. We read and wrote and took our darn time. The weather being so bad gave us a nifty excuse, and we ran with it. We did decide to go see some birds, if there were birds, but there really weren’t many. At Boiler Bay, one of the many high-way pullouts along the Oregon coast, we pulled in right behind a cop who inexplicably pulled a gun on a guy standing next to a pick-up truck. We stayed in the car, confused, nervous, and a little curious. We never got an explanation. Instead, we got a bunch of Glaucous-winged Gulls and another hailstorm.
We headed over to Corvallis in the afternoon, where we were welcomed by Abby’s Uncle Greg and his wife Kristin. We had some excellent carrot soup for dinner and took a short walk with the neighbor’s dog before heading to bed.

April 20
Breakfast was a carnival of heathen delights. We made banana waffles, a huge pepper and mushroom omelette, bacon, and apple sausages. The whole affair lasted a solid two hours, never mind the ongoing digestive marathon. Greg’s associate, Howard, joined us for a bird walk at Finley wildlife refuge, where we didn’t see very many waterfowl, as expected, but we did see a good number of songbirds, especially swallows of all kinds. A few pairs of Wood Duck were also a very cool surprise. The weather was still a little funky, but we made the most of it.
In the afternoon, we met up with Kristin, who showed us the raptors at the wildlife rehab center where she works. The assortment of hawks and owls included a female Rough-legged Hawk. Technically, a birder can’t “count” a captive species, but this thing was just amazing, list or no list. Its irreparably broken wing meant that prospects were not good. It would never fly again, but it caught my imagination in a big way, as I stood there in the rain not wanting to leave it like that but having no choice.
We went out to dinner (which again was a decadent affair), this time with a great view of the river running through town. Kristin told stories of being a rafting guide in the Grand Canyon, which made us want to float as far as the water would take us. Or at least that’s the way I felt.

April 21
It was a very uneventful day bird-wise. We got a late start, trying to cram in as much stupid planning online as we could before we left. The drive from Corvallis down to Medford was tiresome. We got to the farm in decent time though, and we got a grand tour of the estate from our college friend, Avery Briggs. The tour included a brush with poison oak, only now beginning to show its full extent (days later). We also got a close look at a Red-tailed Hawk, making a Xena Warrior Princess-esque noise in response to our proximity to its nest. The strange thing about the Dunbar farm property is that it is situated within Medford’s city limits, an agricultural plot sandwiched between suburban housing developments. Pretty cool, though odd. We had a lovely tostada dinner and had fun meeting the other young farmers, all with interesting stories to tell. We tried to remember embarrassing stories from Avery’s past to pass on. The farmhand housing is on the raised land adjacent to an irrigation canal. Our tent fit right in, and it began to rain as soon as we got in our tents. Good timing on our part, for once.

April 22
After a delightful breakfast at Chez Avery, we headed out for the Klamath Lakes, which involved the navigation of a snowy pass through the Cascades. We like snow, but we had a lot of it this winter. It would be okay if it didn’t snow on us for a while. The gloomy weather (snow turned to hail to rain and back again, through many intergrade forms as well) seemed to indicate another lackluster birding day ahead. But it was not to be so! In fact, we saw thousands upon thousands of waterfowl. The largest numbers were Greater White-fronted Geese and Ross’s Geese, but there were Canada, Cackling, and Snow Geese too. And there were Teal, Mallards, Shovelers, Coots, Avocets, Stilts, and Sandpipers galore. We even saw Wilson’s Phalarope, a new one for us, in their rusty breeding plumage. The habitat there was just great for wintering fowl, I suppose. Lakes, reeds, and wetlands all around. Even a non-birder would have been astounded at the sheer numbers. The sky tried to get a little sunny on the way back but never fully broke out and shined. Ah well.
Abby added some drama to the evening by accidentally putting the corner of Avery’s car door into her eyeball. This was pretty scary. However, it could have been a lot worse, as the damage turned out to be superficial. Now, she merely has a strange mascara-esque bruise. And we can all laugh and blame Avery for sicking his car on poor Abby.
Dinner was a hearty affair, with two different pizza types (one with feta and spinach, one with mushrooms and onions) and an intense green salad. The youthful company of Avery’s CSA co-farmers was much welcome. We finished off with a semi-local “mudslide” ice cream.

April 23
We left the Dunbar farm after watching some Snipe working the fields for a while. Avery gave us a wildly-gestured farewell and went back to pulling nails out of the house he’s recently torn down. So destructive! We drove to Crater Lake, as the snow drifted higher and higher around us (due to rising elevation, not current precipitation). We made it all the way to the Visitor Center, a mere three miles from the lake rim, only to find that the last leg was closed for plowing. We were told to wait an hour and it would probably be open again. But wouldn’t you know—the plow itself broke down. No more Lake for us...and we were so close!
Somewhere during the drive down, our righthand rear wheel ran across something tougher than it could handle. I didn’t realize it at the time, but the tire must have been slowly letting out air the whole way down. Probably better that I didn’t know, since I would’ve been pretty darn stressed if I’d discovered it then. As it turned out, no damage was done to the wheel and by the time it got weird enough to notice, we were only three miles from a repair center. Another potentially time and money-consuming incident passed with a ridiculously fair $10. I hear a lot about tourists getting gouged by mechanics. But that has been the opposite of my experience so far. Good thing, too. The newly-patched wheel brought us the final hour or so to Deschutes National Forest for the night. We set up camp in the snow, but it wasn’t as cold as I had been dreading.

April 24
We woke up to a surprisingly dry tent. A short walk through the Ponderosa Pines turned up a couple neat-o new birds. The Mountain Chickadee is stripy-headed, and sings a bratty imitation of the Black-capped song. The Varied Thrush (cover bird of the Western Sibley guide) turned out to be a loose variation of the other thrushes, with its bright orange stripes. The morning was pretty nice, but the temperamental precipitation just won’t quit. We drove up to Portland, where we stayed with Abby’s aunt Lindsey for the night. She took us out to a Mexican restaurant she knows pretty well, because she’s their PR person. I had a margarita with ginger and pomegranate in it, and it was clear from the color in my face that I have not been drinking lately. Afterward, we took “Chartley” (an elderly golden retriever named after a neighborhood in Norton, MA) for a walk…during which she marked just about every lawn in this section of town. Good for her.

And the rest of California

2008-04-17T16:18:00.000-07:00

(In a scandalous departure from tradition, the following four entries are written by Abby.)

April 8
A morning trip to Butterbredt Springs, in the middle of a Joshua Tree desert, didn’t yield much at first. But things started picking up after we decided to postpone birding in favor of breakfast (featured events: spilled milk, late-rising birds). An endless and barely-driveable dirt road finally spit us out into semi-civilization, aka the Kern Valley Preserve, where we saw a Tricolored Blackbird mixed in with the redwings. Then we had a longish highway drive, broken up by a Route 99 rest stop with wifi, and later by a life-saving In-N-Out Burger in Fresno. We spent the evening driving back and forth in search of the elusive Millerton Lake campground. After covering the same stretch of road three or four times we finally blundered our way there.

April 9
Our departure from Millerton Lake was hasty, and didn’t involve breakfast, a fact that we later rued. We didn’t end up eating till Yosemite, and at that point cereal wasn’t enough…so we demolished a whole bag of Sunchips as well (though it wasn’t yet 10 am).
After a brief stop in Yosemite Village for information, we drove on to the “Camp 4” walk-in campground, which means we you park in the lot and carry your stuff a few hundred yards to the campsite. Don conked out for a few hours of unplanned nap, but he eventually tore himself from his sleeping bag, and we took a free shuttle to the Happy Isles. The shuttle ride was an experience in itself, a scene of mild pandemonium. This was due to the high volume of passengers and the fact that most of them seemed to have no idea which stop was theirs (for all that, it was surprisingly good-natured).
We had no trouble getting off at our own stop, oddly enough, and proceeded to the horse-trail recommended to us earlier by a red-bearded ranger. As we made our way along the river, I inspected every tributary for American Dippers. Nothing. We did get one nice mixed flock of Golden-crowned Kinglets, Brown Creepers, and our first Chestnut-backed Chickadees (a novel take on the standard black-and-white color scheme).
After that, we took the normal people-trail onto the famed Happy Isles themselves, three islets situated euphorically in the middle of the river. And then, mostly by accident, I saw one! A dipper! If you’ve never seen one, I highly recommend doing so. It’s probably the coolest bird ever. Picture a small but incredibly rotund songbird perching on a rock in the middle of a violently rushing stream…then hurtling headfirst into the river, swallowed up in the blink of an eye. A few moments later it emerges somewhere else with a worm or other such prize. We watched it for as long as it stuck around, which was quite some time. After all this excitement, it was back to camp and bear-proofing measures (in the hopes that our car wouldn’t host one of the three weekly grizzly break-ins).

April 10
We were happy to observe an absence of bear damage when we woke up. We got on the road fairly quickly, but stayed on it for much longer than planned…the ten-minute drive became a forty-minute one because of construction. Finally we got to “Foresta” and hiked around, seeing a new (native!) pigeon along the way, the Band-tailed Pigeon. Then we endured another equally long wait for the same construction project, and finally exited the park. Our last stop in the area was “Savage’s Trading Post,” not only a fascinating historical site (I’m sure) but also the landmark for the nearby trail we took. This trail ran along a steep riparian hillside that was veritably blazing with wildflowers. Another inside tip from the red-bearded ranger.
As we neared Monterey, we stopped at strategically placed tourist office…not strategically timed, as it turned out. It closed at 5, while we arrived at 5:02. We had a particular dearth of info (and especially mappage) on this leg, but muddled through and managed to find our target, the Veteran’s Memorial Park campground next to the Presidio.
We ate a Subway meal and walked along the Monterey waterfront at dusk. A row of seals (remarkable in their ability to look both cute and sluglike at the same time) lay on the shore below, with Black Turnstones running around in between them. We’d never seen this species before, but they looked just like the Ruddy Turnstone, except darker all around. A bit further on, despite the dimming light, Don spotted a couple of Black Oystercatchers, an all-black version of our American Oystercatcher. I managed to manually test the temperature of the water without getting my shoes soaked from incoming waves (a feat if there ever was one).
We drove back inland and uphill to the campground, lulled to sleep not by owls or nightjars, but by yalping sea lions. The fact that their noise carries that far is pretty impressive. At 10 p.m. we were treated to a possibly live (though improbably well-performed) rendition of Taps.

April 11
Morning in Veteran’s Memorial Park: fortunately, woke up before Reveille. A brief visit to Fisherman’s Wharf comprised the sum total of our Monterey cultural experience. After a perfectly revolting breakfast of whatever we happened to have in the car, we drove north up the coast to Elkhorn Slough – an estuarine preserve that requires you to both wipe and disinfect the bottom of your shoes before entering, so you won’t introduce some lethal oak disease or something. I don’t remember what. It’s been a long time since my Williams-Mystic maritime studies field seminar to California. Our next stop: Moss Landing State Beach, home to an impressive array of marine mammals (seals, sea otters, sea lions, and sea-crazed surfing fanatics). Also plenty of Brandt’s cormorants, all three types of scoters, and gulls. It was lateish in the afternoon before we finally got on the road toward San Francisco, and as we’d feared, we ran into some horrible traffic. Don, for one, was saved psychologically by a Taco Bell burrito along the way. I drove the last part into the city, and faced the formidable task of finding a parking place near our destination. We ended up playing musical parking spots with a local guy who somehow was driving two cars at the same time. He pulled up in one, got out, offered to switch places with us (saying he had a bigger spot and a smaller car), pulled a DIFFERENT car into the spot we vacated, and got back into the previous car and drove away. After this excitement we were welcomed into the apartment of Maggie Carr, Don’s former housemate at Williams. We enjoyed the novelty of conversing with people who were not (1) us, or (2) an elderly birding couple.

(Back to Don.)
April 12
Recent feedback suggests that long, relatively unedited journal-style posts are intimidating to read. Also, I’m very short on time. So we hope you enjoy a sparser text for our most recent adventures.
We slept in later than usual (i.e. past daybreak) and headed to Maggie’s lab to help (i.e. watch) with the changing over of a rat brain from one vial to another. Or at least that’s what I think happened. My housemate is a PhD student…weird.
She showed us through the Botanical Gardens in Golden Gate Park. They have strange sections (like Cloud Forest, Succulents, and Redwoods) that mimic natural settings from around the world. Unfortunately, the corresponding birds aren’t part of the package. This is a state that already has stands of Australian eucalyptus naturalized and thriving up and down the coast. I guess they just get bored with their own trees here? Well, they haven’t been boring to us. Redwoods aren’t great for birds – you can’t see the canopy, for one – but they sure are impressive otherwise. We stumbled across a herd of bison grazing in the park (and winning the award for least creative Latin name ever: Bison bison). Soon after that, we came to a large Dutch windmill. And of course we encountered multitudes of the strange, strange people who make San Francisco famous. The beach was full of them. It was the hottest day they’d had in quite a while, which lined up nicely with the weekend. Perhaps for that reason, the birds were nowhere to be found in the beachy areas. It’s particularly frustrating when you see placards indicating a protected area for a given endangered breeding bird, in this case the Snowy Plover, but you can’t find any sign of its existence there (aside from the…uh…signs).
The coast is beautiful. The public transportation was not on top of its game however, and we ended up waiting a solid half hour for a street-train that, due to the delays, had about three times its passenger capacity crammed into it. We made it back to Maggie’s neighborhood in time for a great Ethiopian meal at a nearby establishment. We met up with Maggie’s boyfriend Paul’s cousin, who in turn brought two friends, so we had a stout party of seven for the proceedings. Instead of utensils, you eat communally, using a spongey bread to pick up assorted foods from a platter. We ate until we were past full, an evaluation that we modified ten minutes later when the prospect of ice cream arose. A rousing though inexpertly-played game of darts capped off the evening.

April 13
Okay, this one will actually be short, I promise. We had amazing mixed berry pancakes in the morning, expertly prepared by Paul. The Golden Gate Bridge was surprisingly uncrowded as we made our way across to the Marin Headlands for some hiking near Rodeo Lagoon. We ended up at a lighthouse with an amazing view of the bay, which contained a ginormous concentration of Grebes in the bay…and some seals, with new pups in the mix, making things slippery and awkward for their mothers.
In the afternoon, what was left of it, we shopped for dinner, which resulted in a wonderful mushroom and leek quiche, the likes of which I fear we will not see again on this trip anytime soon (back to Mac and Cheese for us now…). It was followed by Abby’s famous brownie soup. Katie Belshe, a friend from Williams, joined us, adding to the already substantial merriment.
Instead of going to bed at a decent hour, I stayed up playing with Maggie’s TiVo and watched too much of a favorite childhood movie of mine, “Hook.” Dustin Hoffman with a twirly mustachio? I couldn’t resist.

April 14
We slowly piled our junk into the car and said our goodbyes (thanks Maggie & co. for hosting us so graciously!). We headed up to the Point Reyes area, where we discovered a lot of wind and a consequent dearth of bird activity. The coastal scenery, however, only got more amazing as we progressed northward. And we managed to see a couple new birds along the way: Greater Scaup, Glaucous-winged gull, and Red-shouldered Hawk (the terra-cotta colored California race). We camped in a stand of redwoods, which at least kept us out of the wind, although it still felt pretty darn cold. Tonight’s big accomplishment: eating the canned chickpeas that we’ve had since December.
(See, THAT one was short)

April 15
The morning was a little less windy, which meant for the first time in a while we actually saw some things, at least during the first half of the day. The Wrentit put in his first appearance for us, finally, at the Point Reyes Bird Observatory banding station (which was unfortunately not operating while we visited). Part of the trail there was so enclosed and damp it felt like a rainforest. Winter Wrens greeted us with their long, babbling songs, and we felt that familiar feeling on this trip, that we’d crossed into a different world overnight. We headed out to the lighthouse point in the afternoon, and were again greeted with closed signs, meaning we couldn’t get all the way down to the rocky cliffs. Exasperatingly, we could see a colony of Common Murres down there, as well as Pigeon Guillemots in the water. So two of our new species for the day were too far to really get a good look at. Ah well, we’ll catch up with them later hopefully.

We headed up to Bodega Bay in the evening, driving directly into the sun of course, and camped for the evening at the lovely Willow Creek Campground, which we had all to ourselves. Next stop: Eureka! I hope we shall there find inspiration.

So Cal

2008-04-08T15:12:00.000-07:00

April 5
We left Gilbert Ray Campground early and headed over to the Saguaro National Park for a 7 AM bird walk. We had already visited this area the previous day, but only during the afternoon lull, so we planned to tag along and see if the guide was any good or if the birds were active. As it turned out, the guide was fine, but he was also not a healthy man. In fact, about 20 minutes into the tour he rushed off to his car, mumbling something about his heart condition. When he came back, he explained that his irregular heart beat was being medicated and that sometimes he just felt worn out and couldn’t go on. As he left, he told the group the same joke he’d told me earlier, that since Abby and I had been here before we should lead this section instead of him. Except this time, it didn’t sound like a joke. So I don’t know if the other birders took this seriously or not, but after a few minutes of awkward standing around, I somehow ended up filling the guide role. As much as a way to fill the silence as anything. And suddenly it was almost like we were back in Bar Harbor again, leading elderly vacationers down Ocean Drive. Only, instead of chickadees, there were cactus wrens. And instead of Balsam Fir, there was saguaro cactus. Not to mention we’d been in the area all of 12 hours.
The other critical difference is that this group was bird-oriented, and that puts more pressure on your identification skills. In Maine, with the cruise ship crowd, we could say, “Oh, there goes a Rose-throated Becard,” and they might not know the difference. Well, this walk was a good indication that we were quite up the challenge. I really do feel like I’ve come a long way, as far as being able to quickly sort out all the standard birdlife of a new place. It does help that there are often hold-overs from one place to the next. For instance, the same migrating vireos may show up in both Arizona and Southern California, even though many of the Arizona residents may no longer be a possibility. Anyway, although the walk was a little bizarre, it was a confidence boost for sure, and we did see some birds. The highlight was a Scott’s Oriole, glaring yellow with a black hood and bib, sticking his sharp beak in between the spines of the saguaro on which he was perched.
The remainder of the day was spent driving to the Salton Sea. En route, we made our habitual McDonald’s stop to use the internet. It was filthy hot outside, so I was compelled to treat myself to an iced coffee. After working in a coffee shop during the winter, it is strange indeed not to be having coffee regularly anymore. At least I know I’m not addicted I guess. We spent so long there planning our next trip segments, updating the blog, responding to emails, and trying to get all our business done in one go, that as we were leaving Abby remarked fondly that it kind of felt like home. Well, that was one chicken coop I was glad to have flown.
Night fell before we arrived at our campsite, which was a large gravel parking lot with a few scattered fire rings in the middle of a multi-use duck refuge. Multi-use means that there are both non-consumptive activities (bird-watching for instance) and consumptive activities going on. Like duck-hunting. So as we heard what sounded like machine gun fire in the distance and then saw flares shooting up, we weren’t sure whether it was a holiday fireworks display (we’ve been oblivious to the passing of holidays already on this trip) or we were in the middle of duck-hunting season and hadn’t known it. After passing a fretful night, spent in the company of a small army of mosquitoes, we learned the following day that there is an “aerial artillery range” in the Chocolate Mountains nearby. Not that we know what that means exactly, either, but it was somewhat comforting to know that the bird-watchers weren’t about to go down with the birds.

April 6
I don’t know what time we woke up because 1) my watch had gone a little strange and now claimed it was New Year’s Day and 2) we didn’t know if California was on Daylight Savings Time or not. Since Arizona is proudly against D.S.T. we eventually found out that we had crossed in to Pacific Standard Time without changing times at all. I resolve not to look at my watch anymore. Thank you, New Year’s Day.
The birding at Salton Sea was really neat. Shorebirds, terns, gulls, and herons all rejoined us, and we picked up right where we’d left in Texas, except we had to remind ourselves we weren’t actually on the coast anymore. It’s just an enormous man-made salty lake, occupying an ancient sea-bed. But all day, I couldn’t shake the Gulf Coast comparisons. There were plenty of songbirds around in the bushes, too. Our first Black-Headed Grosbeaks popped out first thing, along with the greatest diversity of warblers that we’d seen yet. We drove down Davis Road parallel to the shore, and took a number of small access roads over to the lake, where there were thousands of Northern Shovelers, American Coots, Long-billed Dowitchers, American Avocets, and Black-necked Stilts. What a show. In the middle of one large gathering of waterfowl, Abby spotted a Roseate Spoonbill threshing the water with his prehistoric bill. A Brant also stood out from the ducks, looking almost but not quite like a cross between a coot and a Canada Goose. Gull-billed Terns (in the U.S. confined to this one location) were a real treat, as were the Burrowing Owls we found perched on telephone wires above the roadside agricultural fields. At least there’s one owl out in the daytime so you can see it pretty easily. At one point, we had all three peeps, the smallest sandpipers, lined up for us to compare…a stroke of luck, as these are a notoriously difficult group to separate in the field. Marbled Godwits also put in an appearance, mixed in with the Dowitchers on the mudflats. But it wasn’t even the new species that was most exciting. It was the numerical spectacle of so many birds concentrated in one area. That’s one of the greatest joys of watching birds that depend on water—when there isn’t much water around, the birds can be found in these oases in unimaginable numbers.
Eventually, we had to uproot ourselves and drive on up to Joshua Tree, where we spent a much more restful night. First, though, we had a long-put-off planning session that should carry us to the end of the month! In particular, we’ve had to plan around an April 19th pelagic birding trip to see Albatrosses on the Oregon coast (just signed up a few days ago…very exciting). The more immediate plan is to bird at Big Morongo today, and then head up to the Kern River Valley, where we’ll spend a night and morning birding before continuing on to Yosemite.

April 7
We finally figured out what time it was this morning and marched off to the Big Morongo Preserve to do some birding. Odd that the best site in the area is not in the National Park at all, but there you have it. We walked the trails through a remarkably varied set of habitats, from a boardwalk through the marsh to a desert scrubland up to a ridge-line absolutely covered in wildflowers. I’d heard of the desert bloom, but this was something else. Abby and I independently thought of Switzerland. I guess when you combine snowy peaks in the background and rolling wildflower meadows in the foreground, that’s what you get. Then when you add yucca and desert plants, I don’t know what you get. Big Morongo, I suppose. Most of the birds, however, were hanging out down below. So that’s where we spent most of our time. We were shown a Hooded Oriole’s nest, a tubular structure attached I-don’t-know-how to the underside of a palm frond, forty feet up off the ground. In the last two days, we have run into three new species with “California” in the name: the California Gull, Towhee, and Thrasher. I guess at least we know where we are, even if we can’t tell what time it is.
We spent a decent amount of time at the feeders by the entrance looking for Costa’s Hummingbird, a somewhat scarce but year-round resident. Only the females, which are far more difficult to differentiate, showed up, but we did figure them out in the end. Lawrence’s Goldfinches were another new species, and though Abby got a look at a distinctive male earlier on, I was left to sort out the plumage details on the females at the feeder. Also present were two birding brothers who would split up and communicate via walkie-talkie, which we found very amusing. “Good look on the Vermilion Flycatcher here, come over to the cottonwoods and find me.”
We had a decent drive to accomplish today, so we left in the early afternoon (though not as early as we should have) and made our way up toward the Kern River Valley. On the way we stopped at a pizzeria and ate hamburgers, which tasted a little like meatball. Abby exercised the “Italian” option on hers, meaning it came on garlic bread. Eventually, we arrived at Red Rock State Park. It’s quite windy and a lot colder up here (now that we’re no longer 200-plus feet below sea level, as at the Salton Sea). Go figure. I fear that on the rest of the trip we’re going to have to be more conscious of the elevation changes, since there’s still snow in a lot of the high places where we’re headed, in Northern California and the Pacific Northwest. We’ve gotten spoiled in the past three weeks or so, not even bothering to set up our tent half the time. During that whole stretch we’ve had a total of two cloudy days, and no rain at all.

Stoked

2008-04-05T15:56:00.000-07:00

April 3

We got into the Molino Basin campground late the previous night, and had another of those strange experiences where we wake up and say, “Oh, so this is what our campsite looks like, I guess.” And it was a nice one. The best birding of the day turned out to be right there in the desert scrub, as I tried to avoid packing the car by hearing interesting things and chasing them down. This haphazard process produced the only new species of the day, a Dusky-capped Flycatcher. I never did get a good look, but the calls were distinctive enough. We took a short hike in search of the Crissal Thrasher. This species is becoming what you might call a “nemesis bird” for us, in that we have looked specifically for it a number of times and come up empty-handed. It is known for being secretive, so I guess we won’t be too hard on ourselves about the whole thing.

We drove up higher into the Santa Catalina Mountains, to Bear Canyon, where we took a short hike that got us up high pretty fast. Unfortunately, the birds did not want to come with us. And the peace was kind of disrupted by a lot of mowing and maintenance being done on the nearby campground. “How about that serenity,” I felt like saying (that probably means little if you haven’t seen the Australian movie “The Castle” —in which case you probably need to see it!).
The rest of the day was spent on errands, groceries, internet, and planning. As exciting as all of that sounds, I will spare you the gory details. Suffice it to say, we were uncharacteristically productive, and yet somehow still have lots of things left to tackle another day. We spent the night at nearby Catalina State Park, with an Elf Owl yapping nearby.

P.S. Driving in Tucson has now been removed from my list of things I would recommend that anyone ever do if it could be avoided.

April 4

Catalina State Park has a trail called “Birding Trail.” On the basis that this was not just a convenient name, we spent the early morning wandering this cross-section of mesquite, desert scrub, and riparian habitats. We were stumped by a bizarre noise coming out of the denser Bosque on the way back, and every time we tried to sneak up for a look, we would suddenly hear the call from much farther away. We finally by chance met up with the singing culprit on the way out, a Gambel’s Quail, which apparently has at least two bizarre calls, only one of which we’d previously encountered. Another fun new noise that was easier to identify was the Rufous-winged Sparrow’s song, which sounds like a ball dropping and then bouncing up and down until it finally comes to rest.

We headed back into Tucson to finish one last errand. At the Tucson Audubon nature Store, Abby got a spiffy new pair of binoculars! Technically, as we recently read, we should call it a binocular (singular). But, what can I say, we’re rebels at heart. Also, if you've read this far, you deserve to finally learn what the heck the title of this post means. Abby and I now both are wearing Stokes binoculars. Hence, we are "Stoked." She now looks as goofy as I do with her binocular harness on. It’s nice to have some help carrying this particular torch. (Edit: It is impossible to look as goofy as Don with his binocular harness, Australian cattleman hat, long underwear, cheese juggling shirt, and chaco sandals combination. –A.M.)

Later, we visited the Western section of the Saguaro National Park, where we’d been two years ago during a Williams Outing Club trip to the Grand Canyon. This is a place that definitely can stand a second look, bizarre cactus totems springing up everywhere you turn. But it’s amazing how different it feels now that our focus has changed. All these birds were probably flying in front of our car then too, but I was oblivious to their presence, much less aware of what kind they were. We’re staying at the very same Gilbert Ray Campground, where we’ll spend our final night in this region before heading out tomorrow to California and the Salton Sea. Arizona, it’s been real.

Last days in southeast AZ

2008-04-03T13:20:00.000-07:00

April 1

No birds today.

(April Fool’s)

Well, I don’t know if I got anyone there. Sigh. We did see birds today—I admit it. And they were good ones too. The morning started off splendidly when we joined up with a birder who lives in the area and leads tours. He was doing recon for a group he was taking out the next day…and they wanted Black-capped Gnatcatchers, which have been known to nest near Patagonia Lake. The Birding Trail on the upstream side of the lake is so well-traversed by birders that the different low areas (known as “washes”) are numbered, for ease of reference. So we can say, for instance, that we tracked a pair of Black-capped Gnatcatchers near the saddle between washes 2 and 3. And people would know what we meant. Now, whether we’d want to share that secret…that might be another matter. The fact is, these birds acted completely unaware of our presence, as we followed along watching them forage in the mesquite for about 20 minutes. Just out walking the gnatcatchers, as our co-birder put it. If the two birds got separated, they would make a kitten-like buzz to locate each other (that’s how we originally knew we were in the right area). This bird is pretty similar to the Blue-Gray Gnatcatcher we see in New England, but after really looking at it for a while, you can tell that it’s very much its own thing. And these guys are about as rare as they come for regular breeding birds in the United States (down in Mexico, where most of their range lies, would be another story).
We wandered further up the creek today and saw mostly the same species as the day before.

After packing up and taking a refreshing dip in the freezing-cold lake, we headed out. Our camping destination was in Madera Canyon, but on the way we stopped at Kino Springs, a collection of wetlands and ponds on the property of a golf resort (stranger places have been birded). A highlight there was seeing our second new gnatcatcher of the day, the Black-tailed. This guy was easier to tell apart based on the black underside of his tail, and he’s not so rare. But we had somehow missed him up to that point, and it was really cool to see the two species on the same day. Also on the pond were a trio of Long-billed Dowitchers punching up the mud for invertebrate morsels and a lone male Cinnamon Teal, gleaming in the afternoon sun. In the top of a tall cottonwood, we saw a couple of huge stick nests fifteen feet apart. Suddenly, a Great Blue Heron flew in and landed on the left-hand nest, to share food with his mate who had been hiding from us inside. Later, we discovered a Great Horned Owl head sticking up from the other nest! Making use of the available real estate (last year’s heron home?). What a bizarre combination of bird species, nesting high above the golfers on identically formed nests.

April 2
Our campsite at Madera Canyon was adjacent to that of a strange man who kind of creeped us out, such that we left early, in a hurry, to eat breakfast and change clothes elsewhere. That is the story of how I ended up wearing pajama bottoms, sandals, and a puffy down jacket as my birding attire for the first part of the morning. We dawdled waiting for the sun to come up a little more over the canyon walls and made our way to the Santa Rita Lodge, famous for its hummingbird feeders. There we spent a little time observing the 10-20 Wild Turkeys cleaning up around the seed-feeders.

A few hummingbirds were starting to feed, but we decided to move on to the Madera Kubo, where a Flame-colored Tanager had been reported back early for the breeding season (in the past few years he has attempted to breed in the vicinity of this cottage feeder site, sometimes with a female Western Tanager rather than his own species). Our good luck continued, and we saw in quick succession a Scott’s Oriole, a Hooded Oriole, and then the Tanager, clear as day across the road. We followed him for a while, listening to his hoarse calls and pointing him out to the crowd of birders that began to form. This would be a life bird for most visitors, and there was a cool buzz about the place.

After some really nice looks at the Tanager, we headed for the trails. There was surprisingly little activity up there, probably due to the first overcast day we’d experienced in weeks. But we made do with a nice walk up and found a number of new treats on the way down. We tagged along with a guided walk on the way down, which helped with identifying three new flycatchers: the Greater Peewee, Western Wood-Peewee, and Cordilleran Flycatcher. The latter is distinguishable from its closest relative only by voice, so the help was appreciated. We also saw a beautiful Townsend’s Warbler, relative to the Black-Throated Green from home and the Golden-cheeked we saw in Texas. And in the parking lot at the end of the hike, I was doodling around after lunch and decided to put my binoculars on a Hutton’s Vireo singing his brains out, when a distinctive male Hepatic Tanager came and chased him off. That’s one way to “find” a new bird, I guess. I wish they all could be that easy.
We check for interesting things at the feeder sites and the famous Florida Wash (a glorified gravel trench) on the way out. But the afternoon lull seemed to have kicked in. So we headed into Tucson, discovering some icky traffic en route, and drove to our campsite in the Catalinas. And when I say “drove to,” the reader should understand that, as per usual, I mean “drove well past and eventually back to.” In this case, it turned out that the campgrounds up high (elevations in the 7,000-8,000 ft. range) were closed until the middle of the month, so we had to drive all the way back down the winding road to the basin to find a piece of turf to lie down on. Too tired to cook, we had cold canned ravioli and cold cocoa. As bad as that sounds, I was very happy with the experience.
Now we’re trying to figure out where we’re going after we leave Arizona. The next couple days we’ll be in the Tucson area, but after that…well, we have some general ideas, let’s put it that way.

Don

P.S. Our new policy (as of several posts ago) is for me to write the posts and Abby to edit and/or supplement, time permitting. So you can assume that’s the deal unless noted otherwise, since I’m probably going to stop signing each entry.

Patagonia: brand of outdoorwear, region in South America, or Arizona lake?

2008-04-03T13:09:00.000-07:00

March 30
That shower quickly went from too hot to way too cold, which helped me wake up a little quicker than usual. We headed to Fort Huachuca, a military site that just so happens to contain some of the best habitat for the Mexican Spotted Owl in the country. They gave us a day permit after checking the vehicle registration, insurance, and my driver’s license. We got almost all the way to the trailhead, only to find a big yellow gate barring the way. Signs on either side of it said that the road was closed due to Fire Danger. The signs were taped over mostly, and the gate wasn’t locked—it was just kind of sitting there shut. But we figured that if there was any place not to take chances, this was it. So we drove back, down a road flanked by firing ranges and training facilities with labels such as “grenade assault course” (an apparent obstacle course, complete with half-sized plastic soldier figures). You better believe we stayed within the speed limit religiously. When we finally got all the way back to the main entrance, we decided to ask what was the deal with the closure, since we had after all told them where we were going, and they hadn’t informed us of any fire danger or impaired access. One guy made a call and said no one knew anything about a closed gate there. Maybe it had blown closed, he suggested. Ugh. We drove all the way back, only this time the gate was open, whaddyaknow! So we finally did get to hike into Scheelite Canyon, and though we didn’t get to see any day-roosting owls, we did get to see a grand display from the Painted Redstarts and the hike itself was really neat. This was more of a true small canyon than some of the ones we’d been in lately. And on the way down we ran into an Empid flycatcher, one of the notorious small birds in the genus “Empidonax” that are often impossible to identify. But we actually managed to get a good ID on it: Hammond’s Flycatcher. Which, incidentally, preserved the life-bird streak one more day.
Back in Sierra Vista, we used the internet and filled the gas tank. Then we did something truly bizarre. We got a carwash. And I mean a heavy-duty automated carwash. Tricolored foam, presoaks 1 and 2, undercarriage, spotless dry—the works. What a strange experience. Let’s hope it wasn’t too late to get some of the remaining Maine road-salt off the rustable parts. We drove our shiny vehicle to Patagonia, where we arrived in time not to pay the entry fee and then woke up in time to decamp before anyone was the wiser.

March 31
With the car all packed up (we slept out to avoid setting up and deconstructing the tent in such a short time) we drove all over the place trying to find where the bird-walk would depart. It said “Birding Trail trailhead” but I guess you’re just supposed to know which trail is the birding trail, since they all have other names on the map. Finally we did find the extra-large group of people, the average age of whom was more than our ages put together. What else is new. This was a ranger-led walk though, so at least we had a good guide. Today was a return to the good old days of adding double-digit new birds to the list. The songbirds were out in full force, proclaiming their territories, and there was also good wetland habitat along the pond and creek. Besides the new migratory stuff, vireos and warblers, we got to fill in some shaky life-birds from Texas. We actually saw the Northern Beardless Tyrannulet as well as hearing its song. And we saw a Zone-tailed Hawk in its classic adult form overhead. We also got helpful side-by-side comparisons of the Double-Crested and Neotropic Cormorants. But perhaps the nicest thing on the walk was the sheer abundance of colorful, noisy birds shooting this way and that in the trees. In particular, the Yellow warblers and the Vermillion Flycatchers seemed to be everywhere, visually and aurally.
After the morning’s walk, we got a special permit to visit the limited-access State Natural Area up the road. This was on the recommendation of Bill the ranger who led the morning’s walk, and he had given us a good idea of where to look for the Common Black-Hawk I really wanted to see. We had already seen Gray and Zone-tailed, both today and earlier on the trip. This would be the third of three specialty hawks today to complete the hat-trick, and this one is the rarest of them. Good but unexpected things began to crop up as soon as we got the first look-out. A Phainopepla, a glossy crested blackbird we’d missed so far, appeared right near us during our tomato-and-avocado picnic. An Elegant Trogon, one of the bigger Arizona prizes but very rare at this time of year, showed up in the riparian zone near the Sonoita Creek. I had a sort of Zen moment where I knew there was something extraordinary nearby before I saw the thing. All I had seen was a flash far back in the branches, but somehow I had an impression of green. And maybe red. A cardinal popped out, and I was almost tempted to write the red off, but I still couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something else there. Sure enough, a long boxy-tailed silhouette came into view as I moved closer. What a lucky find. Now, if we never found the Black-Hawk, I would have been completely satisfied. As it turned out, what we saw in this area was a whole lot more of the Gray Hawk, which was really a treat itself. I also found two new Empid flycatchers that I could identify on the spot. That felt really good. One had a characteristic tail-bobbing motion, the Gray. And another I could tell from its slight differences to the one from yesterday, so that I could reasonably call it a Dusky Flycatcher.
No sign of the Trogon on the way back. We decided it was worth one more stop at the Scenic Overlook on the way up (a little off our intended route) to see if a hawk wouldn’t grace us with its presence. More Gray Hawks, this time a pair doing aerial acrobatics. Again, I was satisfied. But then the Black-Hawk flew right in for us. It had a big white tail band and incredibly broad wings. It’s nice when a bird just couldn’t be anything else. We watched it soar for a few minutes. Abby noted that as it turned, the outer/upper wing would bend convexly, while the inner/lower wing bent concavely, forming a unique S-shape. We’ve been seeing so many birds that it’s now possible to access a new layer of detail, and I felt really proud to be a part of that today.
By now, we were frickin hot. And all these good birds had extended the hike so that we were now almost out of water. We hustled back to the car, drank like fish, and then went swimming down at the lake. Also like fish. Or Coots, since those were the birds sharing the swimming area with us (the only other thing crazy enough to be in that freezing water). Feeling clean and refreshed, bird mojo running high, we headed to the Paton’s House, a renowned humming-bird site, to see the Violet-crowned Hummer, which immediately showed up when we did. Karma still very high. Added bonuses at this site were a beautiful Scott’s Oriole (a much better look than my first one in the Chiricahuas) and a Lazuli Bunting that I thought at first must have been some bizarre kind of Bluebird.
Dinner was an attempt at pizza that was really nothing worthy of the name. The problem was that bargain-brand canned tomato sauce is sweet and terrible, and our cheese tasted like no Monterey Jack I’ve ever had. Our crust was a crumbly tortilla that fell apart when you wanted to pick it up and held together when you needed to cut it. And the green spices we added made it taste oddly like tea, Abby astutely observed.

Tomorrow, we’re going to bird around here tomorrow. We met a local guy who’s going to look for where the Black-capped Gnatcatchers are nesting this year, and we hope to meet up with him in the early morning. Who knows what else might turn up. Then, it’ll be off to Madera Canyon, where there’s been a reported Flame-colored Tanager showing off for large crowds of birders the past few days. It will be kind of strange if I manage to see that rare Mexican bird before having seen the standard Western Tanager, which has not arrived yet this year. But I’ll take it as it comes, thank you very much.

Don

The Huachucas...gesundheit.

2008-03-30T16:04:00.000-07:00

(This will be a quick one because the battery on the computer is running oooouuuttt…)

March 27
We drove today from the Chiricahua Mountain range to the base of the Huachucas, in the San Pedro Valley. The weather here in southeastern Arizona is a treat. Some wind to temper the heat and no humidity at all. Because of the lack of water in general (and especially this year), water sources are very important here…and not just for the human population. We visited a wildlife pond called Whitewater Draw, and though the levels were apparently low against the norm, it was great birding. Avocets and smaller shorebirds roamed the banks while a range of duck species dabbled and dove. A lone goose, identified by others as a Snow Goose, had lagged behind the rest of the long-gone wintering flock. Later, we realized it was actually a Ross’s Goose, more of a rarity, especially here. Either way, possibly an injured bird to be here by itself like this. Vermillion Flycatchers buzzed around the trees and a pair of Great Horned Owls roosted under a metal roof put up nearby over the picnic area. You could sit at a table and look right up at them (or draw/photograph them as the case may be).

In the afternoon, we had the car looked at by the prince of auto mechanics, who only charged us ten dollars to put the car on the lift, explain everything that could be causing the noise (which had subsided mostly anyway by now), replenish the fluids, and check the tires. From there, in Bisbee, we made our way to the San Pedro House for some pond and river birding in the evening. We had intended to camp here, but we got locked out at sunset and had a rather hard time finding alternatives. Eventually, we ended up in Miller Canyon, beyond the next town of Sierra Vista.

March 28
In the morning, we birded a little more down by the river but there wasn’t too much going on there, so we came back to Miller Canyon and enjoyed an impressive array of hummingbirds at the Beatty’s Orchard. We hiked up the canyon sluggishly in the afternoon and didn’t see much, so we returned to our campsite, where we were visited by a Forest Service ranger who was doing spot surveys for cavity-nesting owls. One of the sites happened to be right next to our tent. He was playing different owl calls and seeing what responded: only a Whiskered Screech at our site, but it was fun to hear about their project. They were worried about the effects of thinning deadwood on the birds that use those trees for their nests.

March 29
We took a “Nature Walk” in Ramsey Canyon, a famous Nature Conservancy preserve nearby. The walk was more enjoyable for its plant info and bad jokes than for birding, and it was more a crawl than a walk. We saw more hummingbirds and the always-enjoyable Painted Redstarts, as well as a few Empid Flycatchers which kept us puzzled for some time after (I think Pacific-Slope is the species I was seeing, but I’m not one hundred percent on it).
In the afternoon, we did some errands in town and then high-tailed it back to the canyons, this time to a bed and breakfast famous for its hummingbird feeders. We had heard reports of a Lucifer Hummingbird just arrived there, and sure enough we found it along with the six species present at Ramsey and Miller. So in sum, we saw Broad-billed, Broad-tailed, Black-chinned, Magnificent, Rufous, Anna’s, and Lucifer Hummingbirds. And numbers of all but the Lucifer, one of the true rarities here in the Southwest.
For the night, we returned to the Beatty’s Ranch where the enticement of a hot shower (which was more like warm and awfully short) won out over our tendency to avoid pay-sites. We got to wash dishes and cook in a real kitchen since one of their fancy cabins was empty, though, which more than made up for the shower temperature. We had a three-course meal (mac and cheese, popcorn, hot cocoa) which we enjoyed on the front porch, overlooking the distant desert and sky islands through the window of Miller Canyon.

Next, we’re headed to the Patagonia Lake area, where we’ll be camping and looking for Elegant Trogons. On the way, we may make a quick stop to look for some Mexican Spotted Owls at Scheelite Canyon, time permitting.

Don

Cheery Cow (a helpful homophone)

2008-03-29T13:42:00.000-07:00

March 23 continued
After crossing the New Mexico border into Arizona and passing by the turnoff to Portal twice (our standard procedure is to pass by at least once before making a turn) we finally turned off onto a dirt road that saw us through to the base of the Chiricahua Mountains. Portal, true to its name, opens up into Cave Creek Canyon, our passage into the “sky islands” of the Sierra Madre. This term refers to the geographical isolation of the elevated ranges from the surrounding desert. And they really do appear that way from a distance, hazy, blue mountains rising up out of the flat desert scrub.
The light goes down behind the canyon walls quickly, but we managed to find a campsite soon after our arrival. Our greeters were two new bird species, our first Arizona birds: first the Painted Redstart and second the Bridled Titmouse. I had been hoping the Redstarts would have arrived by now, since we were now a bit ahead of our schedule. Well, they were not only here but the most abundant warblers in the canyons by far. In the evening, we went for a walk, and when we returned, we found a group right outside our site playing owl recordings to lure the territorial creatures in for a look. So we got to see a Whiskered Screech Owl on our very first night in its small corner of North American habitat. It felt good to be sleeping in a tent not in the desert but in the woods, now comprised of junipers and oaks and evergreens, too.

March 24
We woke up early and enjoyed the amazing slabs of rock across the river gradually lighting up with the rising sun. We hustled off to the South Fork trail, thinking this would be the best time for birding this famous section of Cave Creek. What we had counted on was that the birds didn’t like the cold any more than we did, and that canyon wasn’t going to warm up for another couple hours, not until the sun got over the steep walls. So we kept a brisk pace and tried to warm up, spotting the occasional Painted Redstart, Acorn Woodpecker, or Kinglet. We gave up and decided to have breakfast where it was warmer. And sure enough, the birds were much easier to find there in the parking lot. We found a new warbler, early for the season, a Black-Throated Gray. And talking to some other birders we realized that probably some of the strange-looking Kinglets we’d been seeing were actually Hutton’s Vireos.
We checked out a new campground called Sunny Flats -- because as nice as the shaded forest was in principle, the reality was that a little more sun in the morning wouldn’t have killed us. We also ran across a number of birdfeeders, over-run with Pine Siskins, and some sugar feeders for the hummingbirds as well. Today was our first experience with the larger hummingbirds, the Magnificent and Blue-Throated varieties, as well as the staple Southwest hummer, the Broad-tailed, with its distinctive flight trill produced by the wingtips.
In the afternoon, we explored the Southwest Research station, where we had perhaps our best find yet. A Buff-Breasted Flycatcher. These guys are mostly found just in the Huachuca Mountains, but there is a small, more recently established breeding colony here in the Chiricahuas as well. The catch is, it’s not usually spotted at the breeding grounds until more than a month from now. We then went on a walk to a natural spring feeding in high above the creek on the mountainside. About a mile from the end of the loop, we second-guessed ourselves and decided it might not be a loop, so we turned around and went all the way back before encountering a sign informing us of our folly. I arrived back at the campsite and remembered I still hadn’t called Mom on her birthday, so I drove back to the research station and covertly used their phone while Abby started boiling water for a classy ramen-noodle dinner back at the new campsite.

March 25
We started out birding in “downtown” Portal, where we gleaned some area knowledge from a local birder. Birding is all about insider advice, who’s seen what where, and that means schmoozing. Except that you’re trying to schmooze a group of people who are not known, not in the least, for their social skills. So it can get interesting. But what birders may lack in talking grace, they make up for in hospitality. Our next stop was a good example. A nature guide named Dave Jasper lives near Portal. He lets any birder who wants come onto his property, in the middle of the Big Thicket where certain difficult-to-see desert species can be found, and sets them up with feeders galore and lawn furniture to park in. There, we saw a huge mass of Gambel’s Quail, who communicate with what we thought sounded like alien water-droplet noises. We sheepishly put a bunch of coins in the “seed fund” box (because we only had 20’s) and headed back to Portal. At this point we were hungry. Also, the Portal café had a bathroom for customers only, so we decided, to hell with the expense, we’d have some Mexican food. This is how logic works in the backcountry. The enchiladas were not undercheesed, and I was delighted.
Next, we headed for another site listed in our bird-finding guide. One lesson about these kinds of guides—even the most up-to-date of them are often not updated enough. So that if you are directed to a desert pond, a sort of bird’s oasis paradise where waterfowl are all but compelled to stop on their long journeys through the arid parts of the country, it may be bone-dry when you get there. The Willow Tank was one such dried up well.
But luckily we did have other business out this way, in Rodeo, just across the border into NM. Namely, getting fuel for the car since there was none in Portal. And getting a shower (remember when Abby said we hadn’t showered in six days, then figure that statement was made two days ago…okay, don’t think too hard about it). The shower consumed our supply of quarters about as fast as I’ve been known on this trip to consume a bag of sour gummi-worms. That is, stunningly fast. But it felt heavenly nonetheless. My hair looked like someone else’s, finally having been washed. And I even managed to shave two week’s worth of “beard” (a.k.a. chinstrap). Though this involved running between a faucet in one room and a mirror in another, and I missed more than one large patch on the initial try.
The next big event was finding out that we’d been operating on the wrong time zone for the past several days. Apparently Arizona doesn’t do daylight savings. This helped explain more than one mildly confusing incident or conversation recently. We headed off to Paradise, a subsection of Portal, and watched the feeders at another house opened up to the public through the good graces of the owners. There we were amazed by a pair of Rufous Hummingbirds, their metallic gorget feathers just starting to come in, and a black-hooded Scott’s Oriole. The “unimproved” road surface that took us to Paradise did not get any more improved on the way over Onion Saddle to the far side of the mountain range, where we planned to spend the next day. We spent the night in Pinery Canyon, and there Abby made a delightfully goopy dessert that combined all the dessert-like things we had in the car, including brownie mix, knock-off oreos, peanut-butter and chocolate chips, and cocoa powder. The only thing left to do was sleep on a meal like that (I think we had some soup prior to this as well, but that’s not the stuff one remembers, is it?).

March 26
In the morning, we drove the final leg to the Monument, which is not an obelisk or statue but a National Park area with a different label. The difference, we learned from one of the ubiquitous placards, is that a Nat. Park is an act of congress, whereas as all the other things (Monuments, Historical Landmarks, etc.) are just created because the president wakes up one morning and says so. Well, it was a smart president who set this one aside. We took a “hiker’s shuttle” up to the very top, which meant that we could hike down through all the different elevations rather than hiking up through only the first few. The driver of the van may have been old enough to drive, but she sure didn’t look it. At least the roads are paved. The federal government is good for something, I guess.
The hike down took us through fields of bizarre rock formations. These structures are created by erosion and form drip-sand-castle columns and improbably balanced boulders on narrow pedestals. You can even climb a ways inside certain “grotto” areas on the way down. The birds were better once we got out of the wind on the very peak, but up there we contented ourselves with the geological. And the placards of course. One memorable one described a legend of the leader of the Cochise tribe, whose face appears in profile on the adjacent mountainside, in a rock formation called Cochise Head: a loose conformation of chin, nose, and oversized forehead. The sign noted that he even has an eyebrow, formed by a 100-foot Douglas Fir tree. It also went on to say that he was one of the few Native tribal leaders who was friendly to the settlers, up until one of them tried to arrest him, which began “an unfortunate 11-year war.” Woops!
The trees here are very visibly a mixture of Rocky Mountain types (Douglas Fir, Ponderosa Pine), Sierra Madre types (Pinyon Pine, Alligator Juniper), and desert lowliers beneath (Agave, Yuccas, Lechuguilla). We were particularly pleased to find in the middle elevations a couple of Mexican Chickadees, pretty similar to the Black-capped variety from home but only to be found in these mountains with the United States. On the way down, we also ran into a few migrant species which we had to fix in our brains until we got back down to the field guide. We knew they were vireos, but there are a number of vireos we wouldn’t know yet. This one turned out to be a Plumbeous Vireo. The computer spellcheck suggests that perhaps I mean, “Slumberous,” but I assure you, dear reader, that is not what I mean. One of the great joys of bird identification is the silly names. I will cling to this one, though I’m no more sure than my computer that it actually means something.
We decided to camp nearby in another “dispersed” camping site, which means that you don’t have to pay to sleep on the ground. This makes intuitive sense to me. The unfortunate part of this afternoon’s junket was that the car started making an awful knocking noise as we took the tight turn onto the makeshift campsite road. It continued to make this noise as we maneuvered into position near our chosen piece of flat ground. At least we were a little closer to civilization (it’s all relative of course), so we planned to get it looked at in Bisbee, a town I’m only familiar with from the movie “3:10 to Yuma,” where it appears as a mining town full of wranglers and ne’er-do-wells. You can see why this was such a natural choice for honest automobile service.
We used the remaining part of the day to take another little hike, where I attempted to take a decent photo of Abby drawing. This is not some meta-artistic nonsense, don’t worry. Abby just needs an artist photo for an upcoming workshop she’s giving at the Acadia Birding Festival back in Maine this coming June. Anyway, posed pictures are neither of our thing. We did hear a Northern Saw-Whet Owl calling on our way back down, which is a rare treat in this area, pretty removed from its usual haunts. I had heard them before responding to a tape recorder in Hopkins Forest in Williamstown at the banding station but had never heard one out of the blue like this. It must have been a good night for owls, because later in our tents I was reading “Once and Future King” (which contains a famous screech owl named Archimedes) and heard a Northern Pygmy Owl, a regional cavity-nesting owl down here. Owling, a subset of birding, requires a little more imagination than song-birding, if I may coin a new term. It’s actually not the norm to see the bird in question. So you fall asleep reconstructing its image in your mind from the pictures you’ve seen in field guides and magazines and maybe, if you’re lucky, on a day-time roost. But mostly you just enjoy the haunting, other-worldly noise and feel good to be near something that can make such a sound.

Don

Guadalupe AZ and New Mexico

2008-03-23T10:35:00.000-07:00

March 21
During the night, we heard a “goatsucker” calling...specifically a Common Poorwill. Goatsucker is the amusingly inaccurate name often applied to a group of nocturnal birds that give distinctively strange calls in the night. I had never really given this group of birds (also sometimes called Nightjars) much notice. But in Southern Texas, the call of the Common Pauraque, largest bird in the group, was so pervasive that I’ve had to stand up and take notice. The way you identify a bird you can only hear is by using recordings. We only have a car stereo, so this kind of identification only happens when we hit the road. So listening to all the goatsuckers and confirming what we’d heard was our morning’s business. We left Big Bend and headed north for the Guadalupe Mountains National Park, after doing our now-standard set of chores on the way out (wash dishes, replenish water supply, ditch garbage, fill gas because who knows when the next station will be). West Texas has a lot of desert and not a lot of towns. We managed to grab some groceries and use the internet (who knew we would stop at so many McDonald’s on this trip?) and not waste quite as much time as usual. I also discovered that, for the first time in days, the cell phone was getting reception. So I called the campground at Guadalupe, excited that I could get through. I was not so excited to hear that they were full. Spring Break. Curses. We went for a two-or-so mile hike and drove across the border into New Mexico and enjoyed our first night of “dispersed” camping, which essentially means that you drive down a marginal dirt road on Bureau of Land Management land and camp wherever you feel like it. Which in this case meant wherever there was space away from the cow herds. I don’t know how a person would have known about this “primitive camping opportunity” unless they had first been turned away from the “developed” sites. The price was right—I’ll say that much.

March 22
We got a bit of a late start because one of us was having trouble waking up. The other of us busied herself with her artistic endeavors. I won’t say who was who, of course. In the morning (shortly before noon that is) we went for a longer hike through the McKittrick Canyon. Bird activity was minimal. This was probably partly due to the late start. But we are finding also that there is something of a dead space between when the wintering species leave and the nesting species arrive. For instance, one site we’d been considering in New Mexico is known for its ducks and cranes. But both of these groups have already cleared out. On the flip-side, we haven’t been seeing very many warblers coming through yet. I’ve heard other birders saying it could be starting up any time now. The problem is that I’ve been hearing that since we arrived in Texas. We did see one magnificent bird today, a Golden Eagle. First a distant look; later a closer one. We even saw it tuck its wings back and do a little dive. One of the neat aspects to this canyon hike was the incredibly clear water in the middle of it, a rare thing in this northern section of the Chihuahuan desert. At one point, we had a vantage over the shallow water and could see a group of five or so rainbow trout hunting bugs. There were also more trees, probably as a result of the water but also due to being further north than, say, Big Bend. So there were junipers, chinquapin oaks, and big-toothed maples throughout. There was a cabin along the way, built by an oil tycoon in the 1930’s and hooked up to a strange, stunted set of power lines heading all the way through the canyon. The Park Service operates it as a historical site now. One persistently annoying employee of the park gave us an unwanted dissertation on the place. We extricated ourselves from the place as quickly as possible (not as quickly as we would have liked, that is) and continued on to the farthest point of our day, called, “The Grotto.” It was a sort of mini-cavern, full of stalactites and stalagmites, underneath the boulder on which the ongoing trail was situated. You could see open space within much farther than you could actually move about, and we wondered what strange Chihuahuan wildlife made its home there.
In the afternoon we had another planning and campground-phoning session in the parking lot, during which we realized that tomorrow is Easter (we had no idea what day of the week it was, much less that Easter was approaching). After figuring out a vague plan for the next few days, we set off with the intention of going to the nearby Carlsbad Caverns, mostly because it is so close and pretty well-known. But then we realized on the way there that it would have closed already. As if switching into the Mountain Time Zone here wasn’t tough enough, it turns out that New Mexico doesn’t do Daylight Savings (although Texas does). It seems like I just got used to Central Time. Instead of the caverns, we went to Rattlesnake Springs, near the BML dispersed camping where we would be returning for the night. At the Springs, we found a number of fun songbirds like Say’s Phoebe, Vermillion Flycatcher, Black Phoebe, and in the waning daylight, a large feathered figure, strangely protruding from a tree limb, the Great Horned Owl. It’s always great to see an owl in good light, and this was no exception. I struggled to get a focused digital picture using my binoculars, while Abby did some sketches. The body of the owl was facing directly away from us, but that didn’t stop its haunting eyes from looking right at us.

--Don

March 23
We saw the Easter bunny this morning on our way out of the dispersed camping area…he was huddled under a creosote bush looking wet and cold, not the optimal condition for a desert cottontail. Yup, the weather today is a bit iffy. But fortunately we didn’t get the forecasted storm overnight while camping, or the predicted 60-mph winds. Just a bit damp and somewhat windy. Right now we’re on our way toward the Chiricahua Mountains and Portal, Arizona (via El Paso TX and Las Cruces NM), and we should get there by late afternoon. We’re pretty excited for the famous southeastern Arizona birding. We’re also excited to find a campground with showers somewhere…it’s been six days and counting.

--Abby

Big Bend

2008-03-21T11:03:00.000-07:00

March 19.
Awoke to the giggling of a bunch of giddy pre-teen girls in the next tent. We left Cottonwoods in late morning, and drove to Chisos Basin campground to do some hiking on the nearby trails. After driving around the parking lot five times we finally got a spot when it was vacated by two motorcycle dudes. Saw a few new species, including Say’s phoebe, acorn woodpecker, and the jay formerly known as Mexican (our Sibley guide doesn’t have the new name – I think it’s gray-chested or something). Didn’t make it all the way up to Emory Peak, but still got great views the whole way, of the Chisos Mountains and the surrounding Chihuahuan Desert. Back at the bottom, we went to the little convenience store next to the visitor center and bought a little fold-up stove for $10, to keep us going till we find a replacement tank for the Coleman. On the way to our new campsite, we made a detour to the Hot Springs. Cliff swallow nests and ancient wall paintings adorned the cliffs along the river, while black phoebes and yellow-rumped warblers (of the western Audubon's variety) darted in and out of bug swarms high up on the cliffside. We spent a while sitting in the shallow hot springs with a whole motley crew of other park visitor, hopping over the stone barrier into the Rio Grande to cool off and swim a bit. Finally, we arrived at our new home, Gravel Pit 4. That’s the name of our charming backcountry campsite, whose claim to fame is that it’s the only one in the area with a tree.

March 20.
Got an early start and drove to the Rio Grande Village campground, to walk on the nearby nature trail. Then on to Boquillas Canyon for a short hike. Though the parking lot began to fill up soon afterward, we were the only ones there when we arrived. As we crested the top of the first hill, we started to hear a distant voice singing in Spanish and echoing all up and down the canyon. We could see the guy in our binoculars, sitting on a rock on the Mexican side and taking advantage of the acoustics. He was holding sheet music, we discovered as we approached…then we came upon his donation jar, sitting on the ground next to a home-made sign informing us that “just listening ain’t going to cut it.” There were also piles of decorated walking sticks and things for sale, and on the way back we saw a different fellow on horseback crossing over the river to replenish the walking stick supply. Lots of infuriatingly tricky-to-identify swallows, as well as our first look at distinctive white-throated swifts. Back to Rio Grande Village to do dishes, get rid of trash, fill up water, and make a phone call attempt at the payphone. And by early afternoon we were back at the campsite, now glad of the shade provided by our tree. We read, lazed around for once, and gave the car a much-needed reorganization. Early dinner of mac and cheese with extra flavoring: weird brownish particles that came out of the pasta box (possible larvae), and questionable tomato sauce. Did some writing and painted a watercolor of the opposite riverbank in the fading light. More singing from over the border, noncommercial this time as far as I could tell.

Abby

Lost and Found

2008-03-21T11:01:00.000-07:00

March 14
We left Tex and Lee’s for the last time this morning, which came even sooner than it usually does, after we’d stayed up late planning the next segment of our trip. We had one last stop in the McAllen area: Bentsen Rio-Grande State Park, a rather famous birding locale. We had been there for an owl prowl two nights prior, which made certain sections of the park seem oddly familiar, now that the sun was out. And today, the sun was very much out. The high was 104 degrees, we later learned. But we were well prepared with copious water supply and sunblock on our backs this time around. We made a beeline for the Hawkwatch tower, since that’s where the visitor’s log suggested the action had been the past few days. As it turned out, there were about as many people on the tower as hawks sighted all morning. We saw a few interesting new species (including Swainson’s Hawk) and moved on to the walking trails. There we found Verdin, a Southwest relative of the chickadee. When we stopped in back at the tower on our way out, there was a very experienced birder who knew a number of us were looking for a Northern Beardless Tyrannulet (which is a rare and prized bird to get here at Bentsen). He got everyone excited a few times mistaking a Verdin song for the Tyrannulet’s call note. Eventually, we gave up listening and headed back toward the car…but on our way, we got lucky and did hear the Tyrannulet. Best of all, a Verdin was calling on the other side of us for comparison. It’s always nice to find the birds you won’t have another shot at. The icing on the cake was a Hooded Oriole, an early arrival for the breeding season, which we saw at the feeders near the entrance.
Late as usual, we drove to Falcon Dam State Park, where we were happy to learn the camping only cost four dollars. I think I drank about a gallon of water before settling in for some well-deserved rest.

March 15
We spent the morning walking around the desert trails at Falcon State Park. Crested Caracaras, a bizarre combination of large falcon and vulture, were everywhere. We saw at least 30 sitting on one hillside, though we didn’t see any food source that would have drawn them there. We found one desert shrub that had a Pyrrhuloxia and a Green Jay in it, Texas analogues to the Northern Cardinal and Blue Jay, respectively. That has been the experience so far—most things, especially if you’re looking, are not quite the same.
In the late morning, we headed over to Salineno, where a US Fisheries and Wildlife tract of land has a great feeding station. Turns out the woman hosting the feeders used to live down the street from Abby in Massachusetts. We were rewarded with our third new oriole, this one yellow with a black head—Audubon’s Oriole.
We had been spoiled by short drives lately, so the four or so hours up to Lost Maples in the afternoon seemed pretty onerous. We didn’t even go looking for the White-collared Seadeaters in Zapata (the only place you can see them in the States, practically). On the basis that we needed to leave some life-birds for next time, of course. Instead, we had the largest chocolate shake in existence at McDonald’s and made liberal use of their free internet. Which meant that we got to Lost Maples at around 10:30 at night and then had to register and walk a mile in to our campsite in the dark. On the way there Abby decided to see if there was water in the streambed, by walking blindly into it. It turned out that there was.

March 16
There are two specialty birds at Lost Maples that are found only in Texas and only really in the so-called “Hill Country”. These are the Golden-cheeked Warbler and the Black-capped Vireo, both endangered species with limited range. The vireos we didn’t think had arrived yet, so the warblers were our target species. Their song is similar to the Black-Throated Green’s, probably the most common warbler song in Acadia National Park where we had been spending our time until quite recently. And as luck would have it, I heard that song from the outhouse, first thing in the morning. Now I am not a particularly advanced pisher (pishing, for the non-birders, is the hissing noise birders make to try to draw in songbirds nearby). So I was pleasantly surprised when my pishing brought in a small flock of Ruby-Crowned Kinglets and Black-crested Titmice, the Mexican sister species to our Tufted variety. But I was downright shocked when the Golden-cheeked Warbler we’d been hearing landed in a branch not five feet from our heads. It was too close for binoculars even! What a striking little bird. We saw four of them in our walk, which despite some ominous weather and wind patterns brewing, was gorgeous in its own right. The landscape was like a mix of Northern juniper-oak forests and Southwestern canyonlands. It was especially neat coming from the flat, dry border zone. And it served as a kind of transition to the Big Bend area where we were headed next.
First, however, we decided to somehow misplace every object in our possession. You would think it would be fairly simple to keep track of one car-load of things. Sadly, this is not the case, and we redefined “losing streak” during our stay at this particular park. We did manage to rediscover all of the important things, such that only a few cheap (albeit useful) utensils are still missing. “Lost and Found” Maples, Abby suggested for its new name.
When we returned to our campsite for the night, our tent was inside out…as was everyone’s, from the look of it. The wind was fierce that night, but we moved our tent to a better spot and oriented it better toward the direction of the force. It was still a restless night, and we woke early the next morning, which was probably a good thing as we had a longish drive ahead.

March 17
A pretty boring day of driving…noteworthy for its lack of new bird species. This was the first and, as I write, the only day in which I did not get a life bird. Having averaged over ten new species per day my first week, this was a shock to the system. I suppose the life bird trend will inevitably end, but it sure has been fun while it’s lasted. We were delayed on the drive by grocery shopping and a trip to the hardware store to try to repair our funky Coleman stove. I also unintentionally drove about 20 miles out of the way at one point as we neared our destination, which didn’t help. And to make matters worse, as we approached, we found signs proclaiming full campgrounds, all of them, at Big Bend. We tried them anyway (the difference between a full and an open campground being one tent, after all) but they were completely packed. Spring Break finally got the better of us. We thought we were in the clear after we got away from Padre Island and the beaches, but apparently the National Park System sees a substantial increase in traffic at this time too. The “campsite” we ended up with was just outside the park in a town called Study Butte, behind a Motor Inn on a patch of grass with an annoying beeping piece of machinery. We didn’t bother setting up the tent, as we could see the wind hadn’t abated at all since the previous night, and the tents around us were all buckling anyway. This was a good decision for most of the night. Let’s just say that we didn’t set an alarm clock, but we woke up in a wet hurry first thing the next morning.

March 18
We somehow managed to visit all three major campgrounds at the National Park (and they’re each about an hour apart) before settling into a spot. It’s kind of a wild ride, because one day’s worth of campers are clearing out while a new day’s worth are clamoring for their spots. We got a backcountry permit, but it didn’t start until the following day, so we needed somewhere to camp and didn’t fancy going back to Study Butte again. The first campground by the Rio Grande had one empty spot, but we passed it up hoping for a better site. The most central of the campgrounds, Chisos Basin, was elevated enough to be in a cloud…while we were up there, the light rain actually started flaking up. That’s when I decided we’d try one more place. But halfway to the Cottonwoods campground I realized we were cutting it a little too close for desert-comfort on the gasoline front. So we ended up going back to Study Butte for gas, though thankfully not to stay the night. But when we finally got to the Cottonwoods, we did manage to get the one last open spot. Hoorah. By that time, we were too tired to do much else.
At the campsite, there was a friendly neighborhood wild turkey waddling around, along with an assortment of friendly neighborhood birder types (not all of whom were waddling). And Vermillion Flycatchers galore. Another bird I feel richer for knowing and glad not to have missed, in equal measures. We took a short hike in the evening in Santa Elena canyon, which was really neat. We got our first Western Screech-Owl on the way back, and ever since we’ve been working on imitating its call, so that we can draw out and/or terrorize resident songbirds with it in our future travels (it’s already worked on a Spotted Towhee).

Don

Rio Grande Valley

2008-03-15T14:23:00.000-07:00

March 10.
We woke up on an empty, windblown beach at Boca Chica State Park, and went for a morning swim in the Gulf. Saw lots of shorebirds (as well as a falcon hat-trick: kestrel, merlin, and peregrine) before heading back toward Brownsville. We encountered a customs checkpoint on the way back, but oddly enough the immigration officer didn’t question our alleged U.S. citizenship. Our only stop in Brownsville today was the dump, which did not in fact contain any Tamaulipas crow (or many birds at all). Apparently it’s dried up, crow-wise, in recent years. However, the employee at the entrance only had to take one look at our binoculars before giving us a map of the dump and telling us where the birding section was.
Our main destination was Laguna Atascosa National Wildlife Refuge, a short drive north. We didn’t see any aplomado falcons as hoped, but on the highway near the refuge I glimpsed a scissortail flycatcher, an early one coming back north for the summer. It definitely felt like summer: the first actually hot day we’ve had. Saw our first altamira oriole near the visitor center, along with lots of other birds and a huge black snake. One of the trails we walked was called the Paisano Trail (paisano means “countryman,” and is also the Spanish name for the roadrunner). The first fellow-traveler we encountered was a roadrunner up ahead, striding purposefully down the path in the same direction as we were. A sudden rainstorm hastened our departure...we got back in the car and headed further north to Adolphe Thomae County Park. There we battled the wind in order to cook some mac and cheese (on the Coleman stove) and put up the tent.

March 11.
On the way to Weslaco this morning, we stopped at Hugh Ramsey Park, a nice little river-side place, improbably situated right near the Harlingen airport. Saw a buff-bellied hummingbird and talked with a strange local birder, dressed all in white, who tried to help us find some green kingfishers (no luck). Then continued on to Frontera Audubon Sanctuary in Weslaco. Highlights included a ringed kingfisher, a beautiful gray hawk calling from the top of a tall palm, and a kiskadee hunting and swallowing a frog.
This evening we drove to McAllen to meet Lee and Tex Ray, our gracious hosts for the next few days (my Grandpa had put me in contact with Lee, his second cousin, when he heard we’d be in the area). We ate fantastic Mexican food at a location that shall not be named for purposes of local privacy, and talked enthusiastically about the Civil War, parrot invasions, Top Chef, and other subjects.

March 12.
Started our day with an 8:30 bird walk at Estero Llano Grande State Park. As usual, the other birders (middle-aged at the youngest) treated us like beginners until a few minutes into the walk, when we pointed out that the so-called American goldfinches identified by the leader were actually lesser goldfinches. Tons of new birds today, including black-necked stilt, stilt sandpiper, green kingfisher, sora, cinnamon teal, and sparrows (lark sparrow, clay-colored, and Lincoln’s).

Following a suggestion from the Rays, we decided to cross the International Bridge in Progreso. The debate over whether to count birds seen in Mexico became moot, when we only saw grackles and blackbirds crossing the river beside us. Don did see a bronzed cowbird (via its red eye) on the American side. It’s strange: the Mexican landscape looks a lot like the Texas one whenever you see it across the river, but that city certainly felt like Mexico when we crossed into it. Though we were only there half an hour or so, it was an interesting interlude.
We stopped in another park, Anzalduas, before going on to Bentsen-Rio Grande State Park for a night walk. There had been only one free spot, but we both ended up being able to go when some other people didn’t show up. It was a quiet night for birding…heard a great horned owl, lots of pauraques, and a few eastern screech owls (of the Rio Grande Valley variety, soon to be a new species, maybe…or so we hear). My major coup of the night was when I heard the very first elf owl of the season, IDed by the guide after I pointed it out to him. Lots of javelina and armadillos prowling around too.

March 13.
Santa Ana National Wildlife Refuge all day today. Though we showed up a little late to the bird walk this morning, we had no trouble catching up…this was the slowest bird walk ever (a very large group of middle-aged to elderly couples). The birding was a bit slow as well, because it was cool and overcast in the morning. Then, of course, the rest of the day was scalding as soon as the sun came out, and we ended up a bit short on water and sunblock. We did see a bobcat, along with both lesser and greater yellowlegs, a scissortail flycatcher, and various ducks, herons, and shorebirds. But we broke off early and forged ahead on our own. In fact, we ended up having two very exciting hawk encounters later on: a dark ferruginous showing an all-white tail overhead, and a juvenile zone-tailed on the ground right next to the trail (so close that we got a good picture by diginoculing through Don’s binoculars). The IDs were confirmed by the resident hawk guy, who was quite excited.
Back in McAllen I swam in the Rays’ pool with Emily the spaniel, who performed incredible leaps into the pool in pursuit of her ring toy. We had a delicious and prep-intensive dinner courtesy of Lee (and Tex, who cooked the steak).

--Abby

Texas!

2008-03-09T16:36:00.000-07:00

March 4 continued...

Crossed the Sabine River into Orange, Texas at 4:20 PM. and started birding within minutes at the Blue Elbow Swamp/ Visitor Center. Our first bird was a Pileated Woodpecker careening over the highway. Drove to Fort Anahuac State Park, in search of a campsite that may not have existed in the first place (at least we sure couldn't find it). In our fruitless search, we ran across a Great Horned Owl. This bird decided later to hoot insistently above our makeshift camp, which didn't make for a great night's sleep, but may have been some sort of omen?

March 5

We got up before sunrise and headed down to the fishing pier, where we encountered our first pelicans (both Brown and White), Little Blue Herons, Tricolored Herons, Roseate Spoonbills, Clapper Rails, and too many others to mention. In the afternoon we headed to Anahuac National Wildlife Refuge, seeing lots of ducks and herons (and alligators) before moving along to the Bolivar Flats Sanctuary. There were so many shorebirds there, we knew we couldn’t identify them all before it got dark. The highlight was a flock of at least a few thousand American Avocets, some with their breeding plumage starting to come in. We took the ferry across the bay and camped for the night at Galveston Island State Park.

March 6
Our first bird of the day was an American Bittern posing in the grass outside our tent, while it was still dark out. We divided time that morning between the beach and the salt marshes across the road, where our path was blocked a couple times by large groups of ibises and cormorants on the footbridge. We watched Northern Harriers and Loggerhead Shrikes patrolling in the vicinity. When we started out for Rockport, the sky was getting dark. On the way, a thunderstorm engulfed us, and we decided camping might not be the best idea, so we pulled off at Fulton and spent the night in a motel.

March 7

In the morning, we took a Whooping Crane Boat Tour, which took us from the harbor to Aransas National Wildlife Refuge waters. There we got great close-up views of the cranes eating blue crabs and dwarfing all the other birds nearby. Other highlights included Long-billed Curlews, American Oystercatchers, and a Reddish Egret. We spent the afternoon on the land portion of the Refuge, where we found earlier migrants like the White-eyed Vireo lurking in the woods. A preview of the tropics, we saw a few Couch’s Kingbirds near the visitor center. We got pretty close to an alligator before realizing. The night was spent in Goose Island State Park, on the southern end of the peninsula where the cranes make their winter home.

March 8

Morning birdwalk on Goose Island with a crew of Winter Texans (mostly from Ontario and Minnesota). One of them offered to show us an Inca Dove nest near his campsite. While we were there, I put my binoculars on something neither he, Abby, or I could even make a stab at. It had a parrot bill, fed like a parrot, but was drably colored and didn’t make an appearance in any guide we could find. Abby made a sketch soon after, and hopefully we’ll be able to figure out the mystery bird (which will almost certainly be something exotic). In the afternoon, we drove down to Brownsville, where we camped in an RV park where a Pauraque was hanging out most of the evening, its bright eyes lit up by our headlamps near the tent.

March 9

This morning, we went to Sabal Palm Sanctuary where we got a whirlwind introduction to the birds of the Lower Rio Grande Valley, such as Green Jay, Plain Chachalaca, and Great Kiskadee. This sanctuary encloses one of the last tracts of un-farmed land down here, and it really felt like a jungle in there. We are beginning to see more warblers beginning the spring migration (Nashville, Black and White, Northern Parula, Orange-Crowned, Yellow-Rumped so far). Tonight we’ll be camping at Boca Chica State Park.

Hoping the wind lets up so our tent doesn’t try to blow away again,

Don

P.S. Sorry for the scatter-shot nature of our posts so far. Internet access has been tougher to find than anticipated (I’m posting this entry in a McDonald’s of all places). We have more pictures to upload too.

Spring-ish

2008-03-04T11:14:00.000-08:00

Driving south at this rate is like fast-forwarding the rest of winter away. New birds (at least for the year) are already showing up in numbers. Though it’s hard to make reliable identifications from the major highways we’ve been on, the sheer number of options is making me antsy to get out of the car. The red-winged blackbirds are flocking and making that wonderfully mechanical noise I associate with springtime at Eph’s Pond in Williamstown MA, and if they’re ready, I think I am too. Meanwhile, in the grass world, green is definitely the new brown. As we drove through eastern Mississippi, red maples went from bare to budding to leafy. Puffy jackets have been replaced by t-shirts, and I’m looking forward to putting on shorts for the first time later today. Today, we’ll be proceeding through the bayous of southwestern Lousiana en route to the Texas Gulf Coast. We’ve only seen one roadside egret thusfar, but we’ll be on the lookout.
--Don

Go South

2008-03-04T11:06:00.000-08:00

March 1.

2:13 PM. Off like a herd of turtles, as Grandpa would say. Our departure was delayed mostly (or at least ostensibly) by the snowy conditions that cropped up overnight. There was also a small matter of Don having neglecting most of his packing until the last minute. We made it from Connecticut to New York to Pennsylvania, encountering a friendly vole at a rest stop along the way. Stopped at a motel in Carlisle, PA for the night.

March 2.

Comparatively early start at 8:30…traveled through Pennsylvania, Maryland, West Virginia, Virginia, Tennessee, and North Carolina. Warm and sunny conditions made for great roadside raptoring today, including American kestrel, Cooper’s hawk, sharp-shinned hawk, turkey vulture, and red-tailed hawk. AND…I saw a golden eagle soaring at low altitude just above the side of the highway in Virginia. At first I thought it was a big turkey vulture, but then it tilted and showed two unmistakeable white strips on its wings.

At 6:30 PM we arrived in Weaverville, North Carolina, and were welcomed into the palatial home of Marti Touchstone, a college friend of Don’s Mom. Marti introduced us to her Airedale trio - Pixi, Bubba, and Peach - and took us out to dinner (the local specialties include BBQ-somethinged pork, trout, and collard greens).

March 3.

Morning hike on the Blue Ridge Parkway with Marti and the three doggies. In the winter many sections of the parkway are closed unpredictably, which is inconvenient for driving, but we were able to walk along one of the closed sections to the head of a trail loop. We also got a better look at the impossibly quaint southern Appalachian community of Weaverville.

Despite our lateish start, we managed to drive all the way through North Carolina, Tennessee, Georgia, and Alabama to Laurel, Mississippi by 9:40 PM (or was it 8:40? The time had changed at some earlier point, unbeknownst to us). As we sat in our fourth-floor motel room, a wicked thunderstorm passed over us and off to the northeast…but the tornado warnings in the region never materialized.

March 4.

Headed on our last leg south from Mississippi to Louisiana, turning west toward Texas.
P.S. Thanks so much to those of you who have written (I’ll get back to you ASAP…limited internet time for now).

--Abby

Leap Day

2008-02-29T17:56:00.000-08:00

The future contents of our car are currently spread all over the Mitchells' living room floor in Connecticut. We hope to leave at 9:00 tomorrow morning, but may be thwarted (or at least delayed) by the blizzard that just started dumping great wads of snow onto the ground. We'll see.

--Abby