Day Three: More Gray Whales and Fantastic Mangrove Birding

As became my morning tradition, first thing on March 19th I spent time at the point watching the birds and bottlenose dolphins. A large mixed flock of short-billed dowitchers, willets, and marbled godwits would roost on the rocks each night:

Willet and marbled godwit

Short-billed dowitchers

Close pass by a bottlenose dolphin

While watching these animals, a reddish egret (129) flew by. I also saw a single spotted sandpiper (130) and one eared grebe (131).

We were incredibly lucky to have friendly gray whales on every one of our whale watches. Here's one of the other pangas in our group getting a nice interaction with a mama on our morning whale watch:

It's so cool to get to see these large mammals close up - here's a nice look at the knuckles along the dorsal ridge of a gray whale. These guys are one of the only whales that don't have dorsal fins.

After our first whale watch of the day, we hung around the point waiting to go out on another excursion to the mangroves across the lagoon. While waiting I had a chance to photograph some of the local lizards. I believe this is a common side-blotched lizard, Uta stansburiana.

As much as I love the whales, I was eager to get over to bird in the mangroves, where I had added numerous life birds last year. In 2014 I was incredibly lucky to add all my target birds, but I was hopeful to see them all again....and I did!

We started out with some willets near the edge of the mangroves:

The heron species are the most impressive. We saw several more little blue herons - this one is a juvenile:

We got fantastic looks at a couple reddish egrets:

We also saw a couple tri-colored herons (132), a green heron (133), lots of great and snowy egrets, and a couple great blue herons for good measure. Finally, a juvenile yellow-crowned night-heron (134) flew overhead, too. 

We had seen lots of double-crested and brandt's cormorants in the lagoon, but I was surprised to see this immature sitting in the mangroves:

Immature double-crested cormorant

One of the most coveted birds of the Mexican mangroves is the mangrove warbler. I felt incredibly fortunate to hear and briefly see one last year when our pangero called one out of the bushes. This year, later in the season, we could hear them everywhere. Even though they're officially just considered a different color morph of the yellow warbler (135) which is a species we get on San Juan Island, I was still keen to see and try to photograph one. Yet again, our pangero impressed me with his ability to find them. We probably saw about five of them, one of which was obliging enough to sit out in the open for a while to be photographed!

A male mangrove warbler

Finally, on our way out of the mangrove, we heard what is now known as a Ridgway's rail (136) - last year it was considered a clapper rail, but the species has split.

Time seems to both stretch out and pass too quickly while at la laguna. All too soon we were enjoying our final sunset from Punta Piedra, complete with a colorful thundercloud to the east over camp:

The next morning, we were back on our way up the Baja Peninsula to the United States:

But my trip wasn't over just yet!

San Elijo Lagoon and La Jolla Cove

We got outta Dodge just in time, as much of the Pacific Northwest is covered in a fair amount of snow right now. There was just a dusting on the ground as we lifted off from Seattle and headed south for warmer climes - it was 69 (more than 40 degrees warmer!) and sunny upon landing in San Diego.

Today was our first full day in California and you can bet I was chomping at the bit to get adding to the year list. My goal was to reach 100 species (I was at 86) before heading to Mexico on Monday; little did I know it would take just an hour at San Elijo Lagoon to pass that mark!

First up was a black phoebe (87) as we pulled up the park, followed quickly by a white-crowned sparrow (88) and a pair of Anna's hummingbirds (89) right after stepping out of the car. Yellow-rumped warblers (90) flew everywhere among the scrub brush. There wasn't a lot of water in the lagoon, but enough to have a nice variety of waterfowl, including my first canvasback (91) of the year. The mud flats made good habitat for snowy egrets (92), willets (93), great egrets (94), and dunlin (95). 

Silhouetted black phoebe at San Elijo Lagoon

The lagoon wasn't really much to look at, but just over an hour of birding turned up over 30 species. Other year birds included a ring-billed gull (96), brown pelicans (97), orange-crowned warblers (98), an osprey (99), marbled godwits (100) a couple California towhees (101), and a common yellowthroat (102).

San Elijo Lagoon - right off I5, but great for birds!

In addition to all the birds, there were lizards everywhere too!

In fact, pretty much everywhere I looked, everything was totally different from home - not to mention the fact it's February and I was birding in a T-shirt!

Next, after getting some final provisions for the next leg of the trip, we headed to La Jolla Cove. It was a popular spot on this sunny Saturday, but that didn't keep the birds and marine mammals away. Again, right after stepping out of the car, I saw western gulls (103) and Heermann's gulls (104) - the latter species we won't see in the San Juans until July!

I also saw a small tern being harassed by some gulls, but wasn't able to get a good enough look to ID it. On the rocks, though, I found a single whimbrel (105) and wandering tattler (106), finishing off the year birds for the day with 20 new species, and easily making my goal of 100 before Mexico.

Brown pelicans at La Jolla Cove - love the "hairdo" of the one on the right

It's pretty cool that there are several places you can walk right out practically among the harbor seals and California sea lions. They don't seem to mind a bit.

People above, harbor seals below

I don't know why, but the harbor seals here looked so much bigger than the ones in Washington! Maybe it's just because I got so much closer to them.

It was cool to see so many California sea lions, too, the less common of our two sea lion species up north. There were only a few males, but lots of females and juveniles. I call this a sea lion "cuddle puddle":

The close observer could also find on terrestrial mammal underfoot - these ground squirrels on the cliffs:

This is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of wildlife sightings for this trip - I'll be out of internet contact for a bit, but I'm hoping there will be some pretty amazing stuff to share when I get back!

Taking in the Smaller Things: Birds and Reptiles

It's been a while since I've blogged about some of the smaller local wildlife, but that doesn't mean I haven't been paying attention. Just the other day after work I hiked the nearest public trail to our new house, one that I didn't used to frequent very often. In an open field I came across over 60 American pipits (169), the most I've ever seen at one time and a year bird to boot.

Speaking of the new house, I of course have started a new yard list - in fact, I added the first 12 species to the list during our home inspection! First, let me summarize the "yard" list I'm leaving behind at the houseboat and the marina....

In the eight summers and five full years of birding there, I tallied a remarkable 64 species. The first two species on the list, glaucous-winged gull and belted kingfisher, are probably also among the most commonly sighted being regular year-round visitors. Some other memorable and unexpected highlights include a brown creeper foraging on the siding of the marina building and barred owl sitting on the roof of the houseboat! The most recent addition to the list, a Caspian tern, was added just six week before we moved.

There are a lot of marine species there that more likely than not won't be added to the new yard list. Among the 64 species were at least 20 I would classify as "water birds". Without living there, I probably never would have had such a close up look at diving mergansers, grebes, and cormorants.

That said, the new yard list, spanning the six weeks we've lived here plus the one mid-summer visit for the home inspection, already tallies 25 species. I've never yet had again the variety I did during that first June afternoon here, where among the dozen species seen and heard were singing black-headed grosbeaks, house wrens, and Townsend's warblers. We have had a barred owl visit twice so far, and the woodpeckers are also abundant compared to in town. It will be a lot easier to add pileated woodpecker to the year list next year, as we see our hear them almost daily! The most recent addition was just added this morning when I heard a varied thrush, which I take as yet another sign that fall is coming.

Finally, we had another unexpected addition the yard list just last week - a northern alligator lizard!

This is the only confirmed lizard species in the San Juan Islands, and as I had never seen one in all my years here I had almost given them up as being mythical. That said, now I find out several friends see them at their houses regularly! But this was quite a surprise for me, and a welcome one. This guy was quite a bit larger than the western fence lizards that are the reptilian species I've most often encountered along the west coast. They can obviously thrive in colder, damper climates than some other lizard species, and apparently they eat the likes of snails and spiders. I hope he becomes a regular visitor!