Soaking Up the California Sunshine

After heading north from San Diego it was nearly time to head back home where snow would await us, but first we had just enough time for a pit stop in sunny Laguna Beach, where we got married almost two years ago. The weather couldn't have been more perfect and with winter storm warnings forecast for our drive home, we had extra incentive to soak up our last couple days of California warmth. Even for California, it was amazing to me how many flowers were in full bloom in February!

 

I of course have extra special memories from here, but I think it would be one of my favorite places in California anyway. It's a smaller, funkier beach town with much more dynamic landscapes; I just love it there.

There wasn't as much variety of bird life on the beaches as in Mexico, but we still got some nice birding in.

Heermann's gull - a species we won't be seeing at home until late June

As we enjoyed our last sunset in Laguna Beach, we just had the feeling that would be the end of our warm weather, as indeed it was. The next morning there was a new chill in the air even in southern California.

For a few moments the golden light just looked magical on the waves!

The next day we stopped at a neat little preserve called Madrona Marsh in Torrance. The harsh lighting made birding a bit difficult, but we did get a quick look at what would be my last life bird for the trip - an ash-throated flycatcher.

We spent the night in Santa Maria and then made a stop at the butterfly grove in Pismo Beach early the next morning. The birding was great, as we added another handful of year birds in the hour we were there.

Nuttall's woodpecker - the only place I had ever seen one of these before was....also at the butterfly grove in Pismo Beach!

California scrub-jay

It was still too early in the day/cold for the monarch butterflies to be flying around, but after some careful searching of the trees we did find a cluster of them huddled together looking like a branch of dead leaves.

On our continued drive north we stopped at a little city park in Sacramento where a worm-eating warbler has been seen. (It was funny: as we passed by a couple of Frisbee golf players and they saw our cameras they knew we were probably looking for "that little bird".) We didn't have any luck finding it, but did get our best look of the trip at a red-shouldered hawk.

And just like Batiquitos Lagoon, I can't pass Sacramento National Wildlife Refuge without making a stop. It's 6-mile auto tour loop always provides some great birding and was not a disappointment!

Greater white-fronted geese

White-faced ibis

Western meadowlark

American coot

And I don't think I have ever seen so many black-necked stilt in one place! A conservative estimate was 250 of them. I'm not sure what was going on in the second photo - attempted mating?

We saw nearly 40 bird species in just over an hour there - pretty impressive! Oh, and one mammal species:

California ground squirrel

For our last two days of the drive up we hit the snow and it felt like our vacation was over! Thankfully we managed to dodge the worst of the weather and the biggest snow didn't hit home until the day after we got back. That actually made for a cozy return and some nice photo opportunities! The last birding of the road trip, however, occurred at the Anacortes ferry landing where the most impressive sight was the more than 30 great blue herons roosting on the old dock pilings:

It was a great trip that provided both the birding and some of the warm weather we had hoped for. In conclusion, here are a few statistics for our nearly two and a half week trip:

Miles traveled: More than 3800

Number of states traveled through: 7 (including Sonora, Mexico)

Number of bird species seen: 187

Number of photo year birds added: 120

Number of life birds for me: 19 

Number of life birds for Jason: 42

Number of mammal species seen: 15 - ranging from yellow-bellied marmot to bottlenose dolphin!

 

Madera Canyon: A Birder's Paradise

My parents have always spoken fondly of Madera Canyon, a region in southeast Arizona known as one of the best bird-watching locations in the country and where they made several trips back in the 1970s. Ever since I became a bird watcher, I've been dreaming of making a visit there; more than 250 species have been documented there, and thanks to its proximity to Mexico, for many of them it's one of the only places they can be seen in the United States. When we were talking about where to go when we decided to road trip south this winter, Madera Canyon became a focal point of the trip. Specifically, the Santa Rita Lodge, which for decades has been home to rustic cabins and a host of bird feeders drawing in a whole host of birds for great photo opportunities.

When we arrived, I couldn't even make it from the car to the door of the office to check in before seeing my first life bird: a Mexican jay.

I made it another two steps before noticing the coati roaming the property; I had been tracking recent sightings at the lodge and had read coati were making a daily appearance, and was really hoping to see these bizarre mammals that primarily live in South American but also just cross the border into the United States here.

Also known as coatimundi, or specifically white-nosed coatimundi, it turns out they would be a constant presence during our visit. The owner of the property, who suspects they're coming in during daylight hours because of a lack of food elsewhere, is in the middle of a constant battle trying to outwit these tenacious animals from their attempts to reach the feeders. Like raccoons, to whom they are related, they are wily and don't give up easily!

But they are so darn cute and fun to watch!

After finally succeeding with check in, and already realizing that two nights would not be long enough, we spent the last hour of daylight at the feeders, and I amassed an incredible seven life birds in that time. I haven't experienced birding like this since my early days when I was still seeing common species for the first time: it felt like every other bird I looked at it was completely new to me! Later that night we would go out owling and I would hear my eighth: the whiskered screech-owl. If these species names sound unusual, again, it's because many of them don't occur elsewhere in the United States!

Yellow-eyed junco

Bridled titmouse

We had one full day in the canyon, and it was hard to leave the lodge. We did explore a few other short trails, and while the few birds we did see were also "good" ones, it was hard to beat the constant activity at the lodge feeders.

The hanging bird feeders were suspended from free-standing poles and numbered from 1 to 12 so observers can more easily describe to each other where to look, as in, "An Arizona woodpecker just flew in to #3!"

Arizona woodpecker, one of my most hoped-for species to see in Madera Canyon

Female hepatic tanager

The coati weren't the only innovative feeder visitors - I never thought I would see a wild turkey at a tray feeder, let alone one about 8 feet off the ground!

I was determined on this trip to play closer attention to sparrows. One of the notoriously difficult bird groups to identify, we actually have a pretty low and comparatively easy diversity of sparrows back home. Here, without the extra attention to detail, I easily could have missed another lifer, the rufous-winged sparrow, which is incredibly similar to the chipping sparrow.

Chipping sparrow

Rufous-winged sparrow

Madera Canyon can record up to an astounding 15 different hummingbird species a year; by comparison, we are only likely to see two species on San Juan Island. We were a bit early for hummingbird migration so there weren't many around yet, but they had a couple birds over-winter. Luckily for us, these included two more life birds for me: the Rivoli's (formerly magnificent) and broad-billed hummingbird.

Rivoli's hummingbird: small bird, large hummingbird!

I could have easily spent a few more days at Santa Rita Lodge and Madera Canyon, but all too soon it was time to pack up and head onwards. Before leaving, we made one more hike along another short trail where a rare elegant trogon had been regularly seen. We came across two other birders looking for it, and while they also hadn't found it, they tipped us off to where they had just seen what to me was an equally exciting species: the montezuma quail. If they hadn't told us where to look we never would have spotted these slow-moving, well-camouflaged ground birds among the grass. My dad, who can be credited with getting me into birding, has MANY more specices on his North American life list than I do, but not this one - it's always pretty special to get one he hasn't seen! (Sorry dad!)

Montezuma quail!

All in all I added 11 lifers in our ~36 hours in Madera Canyon which blew my expectations out of the water. I will definitely have to go back, hopefully at a slightly different time of year, and hopefully for a longer visit! While this was the first place I was truly sad to leave, our trip was far from over. Instead, we were heading further south into Mexico to see what other birds we could find!

2017 Photo Year List Summary

Since 2010 I've been keeping track of how many bird species I see in a calendar year, this year adding the twist to see how many I could also get identifiable photographs of. It's a fun project that makes the common species "new" again each year, gets me outside a lot (especially in the winter when it's harder to be motivated to get out in the cold), and helps me explore new places. My goal for this year was to get 200 species on my "traditional" year list. I wasn't sure how many I would be able to photograph, so I decided to aim for photographing 75% of my year list total, or 150 species.

First of all, let's look at how 2017 ended. With the holidays came a trip down to Oregon, and we started out bright and early in order to be able to bird Skagit Flats at sunrise.

Sunrise over the Cascade mountains on December 23

While we didn't get the owl activity we had hoped for, we did see the out-of-range blue jay that has been hanging out at some feeders, where the property owners have generously been allowing birders to visit:

While it took about 20 minutes of waiting in the sub-freezing temperatures for the jay to show up, there was a lot of other activity to watch at the feeders and in the yard, including a few usually-shy varied thrushes in the apple trees.

We also took a short detour to Fir Island to see the huge winter flocks of snow geese and trumpeter swans, quite a sight in front of the snow-capped Mt. Baker on a crisp but sunny winter morning.

We tried in several locations to see some common redpolls, a finch more common to the north and east but a species having a regional irruption year. We didn't have any luck, but at one of these locations did manage to photograph a Cooper's hawk, a species I had seen several times but not photographed yet in 2017.

We struck out with the redpolls at another location in Seattle, too, but did get a nice close up look at a gadwall, and I just love all the intricacies of the feather patterning.

We picked the right day to travel with clear skies and dry roads, because the next day at my parents' house in Oregon the snow and freezing rain hit. I snapped this photo of a junco and his metal friend on my parents' deck from the cozy warm dining room; we didn't venture outside for about two days!

By the day after Christmas the weather had cleared a bit, so we visited one of my favorite local birding spots near St. Helens. I thought I was taking a picture of another Cooper's hawk, but it wasn't until we got home and looked at our photos that my dad pointed out it was actually a red-shouldered hawk! Another new addition.

At the same marsh I also got a photo of an American bittern, a species I had just missed with the camera in January.

The next day we also checked out a local acorn woodpecker colony, though we failed to see the rare visiting yellow-bellied sapsucker that had also been seen regularly nearby.

Acorn woodpecker in Hillsboro, Oregon

 

So how did these last minute additions (nine more photo year birds in December!) help me stack up? I finished the year with 205 species on my year list. I clicked away at well over 75% all year long, surpassing 150 birds photographed early on, so had a stretch goal of also trying to photograph 200 species this year. Despite a good push at the end of December, I fell *just* short with 199 species photographed, meaning I photographed an astounding 98% of the birds I identified this year. How close was I to 200? This blurry Virginia rail photographed December 26th would have been the one to push me to the 200 mark had it been in focus!

So close....better luck next year

I made several more attempts in the final days of 2017 to get that last elusive photo year bird, but with no luck. Seeing transient killer whales twice was a more than fair consolation prize, however.

The T75Bs and T75Cs in San Juan Channel on December 30th

The T18s in Haro Strait on December 31st

 The weather was awesome on the last day of 2017 for photographing the other wildlife, too.

Popeye the Friday Harbor harbor seal soaks up the winter sunshine

One of the resident bald eagles at Cattle Point had a lot to say this afternoon

  

Because I love data and playing with numbers, here are some other facts and figures about my 2017 year list...

Who were the six species I heard or saw and didn't get a picture of? Heard only: western screech-owl, Virginia rail, sora, common nighthawk, and western wood-pewee. Saw but didn't photograph: Vaux's swift.

Big miss for the year? Hutton's vireo. I'm also amazed a poor iPhone photo of a barred owl in September was my only sighting of that species this year.

Biggest surprise? Getting a whopping ten owl species in total (9 photographed plus 1 heard). Our February trip with a birding expert where I photographed six owl species in one day was certainly the main reason, but I never would have expected even with that trip that I would photograph all these owl species in a single year: barred owl, barn owl, short-eared owl, long-eared owl, great horned owl, northern pygmy-owl, northern saw-whet owl, snowy owl, and great gray owl.

I stayed more local this year, as all my birding was in Washington, Oregon, and British Columbia (where previous years have often included at least California and Mexico as well) and thus I was surprised to get seven life birds this year as well: glaucous gull, northern pygmy-owl, great gray owl, gray-crowned rosy-finch, Pacific golden-plover, Hammond's flycatcher, and Baird's sandpiper.

I'm not the only one that plays the year list game, and for years I've been comparing to both my dad and Dave in England. My dad traveled a lot more this year so is the winner with 236 species, and Dave finished with 190. It's amazing how close Dave and I always tend to be, despite being half a world apart! In 2013 we even tied. Here's how we've stacked up over the years:

Most of my birding is of course in San Juan County each year, so here's the number of species I've seen in the county each year:

Finally, while it's skewed a bit by when and where I travel each year and how much effort I spend birding, it's kind of interesting to see how many species I add to my year list each month. I had posted this as a table in years past, but here it is in graphical form:

And part of what makes it fun is that tomorrow - January 1, 2018 - it all begins afresh! So what are my goals for 2018? With a few more travels in the plans, I'm aiming for 220 for my year list (a mark I've only hit twice), and I'll target 95% of the birds photographed, which comes out to 209 species! At the moment that sounds really daunting, but we'll see how I do! I'll of course be posted updates on the blog throughout the year. Happy 2018 to you all, and thanks for reading!