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!

 

Ridgefield NWR

Rain, rain, and more rain! That's what we've had here in the Portland area for the last week. While the temperatures have been fairly mild (mostly around a warmish 50 degrees), the damp weather has limited the birding excursions a little bit as its nicer to bird from the car than hike too far in the wet. This weekend, the perfect place to go birding was thus Ridgefield National Wildlife Refuge. It's in southwest Washington about 15 miles north of the Oregon border, and includes a spectacular auto tour route that is one of my all-time favorite places to bird.

Over the course of a couple hours my dad and I spotted a respectable 46 species in the refuge and while driving the surrounding country roads. Six of those species were new for the year list: herring gull, rough-legged hawk, sandhill crane, western meadowlark, northern harrier, and white-crowned sparrow. The rough-legged hawk was probably the coolest of the bunch, being a fairly rare sighting for this birder. Altogether the year list now stands at 69.

Using the car as a blind often results in some great photographic opportunities, and is also a great way to keep the camera dry in the rain! Below are some photographic highlights of the day, starting with this western scrub-jay that met us at the entrance to the refuge:

We saw quite a few bald eagles, including a pair of adults and at least 3-4 different immatures. This sub-adult had caught a bird of some sort and was seen in a tree plucking feathers out and dropping them. If you look closely here it has torn a piece off of its prey (which is clutched in its talons), which it swallowed in one gulp right after this picture was taken:

Golden-crowned sparrows are among the most common winter sparrows we see in Oregon, often seen in large flocks. The adults don't have as bold of a golden crown in the winter as they do during the breeding season, but I believe this is a first-winter bird since the beak is gray rather than bi-colored:

In addition to the bird, we also saw a couple of nutria out in the wetlands. While we didn't spot any beavers, we did see some of their handywork, like the chew on these large trees in a swampy area:

Check out this headless, one-legged great blue heron. Okay, not quite, but it was so hunkered down to try and get out of the rain that's what it looked like:

It couldn't be bothered with much, but everyone once and a while it would take a peek to see what's going on, before hiding its face again beneath its wing:

Northern pintail are another bird that occur in great abundance here this time of year. I often see flocks of hundreds of them, but so far they've always been too far away for photos. I finally got a decent shot of a pair of pintails. The male's chest isn't even fully above water because he was repeatedly dipping forward to dabble:

Another nice find was a group of three western meadowlarks. I was lucky I spotted them as they flew low across the road, because otherwise they can be very difficult to spot among the grasses. Look at how well their back camouflages them:

As soon as they turn around, however, there's no missing them with that bright yellow front and black bib. These guys are the Oregon state bird, though since their numbers have declined significantly they aren't seen nearly as often as they used to be.

We saw pretty much all of the expected waterfowl on the refuge, including 400++ tundra swans. While we saw a small group of cackling geese on the main lake, we found a huge flock of them on a field just outside the refuge as we were leaving:

It was an unexpectedly great day of birding given the weather!