September through December Bird Count

I definitely started off the year pretty gung-ho about birding and listing and what-not. As the year progressed, though, and particularly as I met a variety of different "bird people" in California, I began to tire of the listing idea. For one, I'm not a fan of actual BIG YEARs as I mentioned previously. The idea of jumping on a plane at the drop of a hat to check a species off a list is incredibly unappetizing: it does nothing to benefit the environment and there is no appreciation of the actual awesomeness that is that bird that you went to all the effort to go see in the first place. Midway through the year, I kind of wanted to distance myself from this kind of birding, so I got pretty lax about the listing.

During a hike through Point Reyes (on October 28), however, the very first bird I saw was a juvenile ferruginous hawk, sitting in a field. It was awesome! And I instinctively got out my notebook and wrote it down. Then I proceeded to follow this hawk for nearly a half-hour as it hunted in the fields surrounding the trail. And that was an experience I'll never forget.

Birds are more than just a list of species on a page to me. That list serves a purpose beyond keeping a tally. I can now look back at my list of birds from that hike and remember the awesome experience of following a Ferruginous Hawk, watching a Great Blue Heron intently hunting in the water, or stumbling onto 125 American Coots floating on the lagoon. The list is just some words on a page, but it is representative of something greater: an series of unforgettable experiences, a journal of my discoveries.

And the list serves an important scientific purpose too. In fact, half of my internship, hawk watching, was essentially standing on a hill and creating a list. That list serves to inform biologists about the population trends of nineteen significant species.

I will probably not keep a year list in 2014. I may keep track of raptors or warblers or some of my other favorite bird families. However, I will continue to keep track of my observations and make lists of what I see. Those will forever serve me as both scientific records as well as a record of personal and memorable experiences.

09/03/13
164. Western Tanager (L): Marin Headlands, CA: Hawk Hill
165. Lesser Goldfinch: Marin Headlands, CA: Hawk Hill

09/04/13
166. Vaux's Swift (L): Marin Headlands, CA: Hawk Hill
167. Broad-winged Hawk: Marin Headlands, CA: Hawk Hill
168. Sharp-shinned Hawk: Marin Headlands, CA: Hawk Hill (And then I proceeded to band ~20 over the course of the migration season).

169. Band-tailed Pigeon: Marin Headlands, CA: Hawk Hill

09/11/13
170. Bewick's Wren (L): Marin Headlands, CA: Hawk Hill

171. White-throated Swift: Marin Headlands, CA: Hawk Hill

09/18/13
172. Rock Wren (L): Marin Headlands, CA: Hawk Hill

09/30/13
173. Say's Phoebe (L): San Francisco, CA: San Bruno Mountain

10/01/13
174. Long-billed Curlew (L): Lagoon off of Highway 1, CA

175. American Avocet (L): Lagoon off of Highway 1, CA

10/13/13
176. American Wigeon: Los Gallenas Nature Preserve, CA
177. Eurasian Wigeon (L): Los Gallenas Nature Preserve, CA
178. Cinnamon Teal: Los Gallenas Nature Preserve, CA
179. Northern Pintail: Los Gallenas Nature Preserve, CA

10/18/13
180. Purple Martin: Marin Headlands, CA: Hawk Hill

10/19/13
181. Golden-crowned Sparrow (L): Marin Headlands, POAK Blind

10/23/13
182. Bonaparte's Gull (L): Marin Headlands, CA: the lagoon
183. Wilson's Snipe: Marin Headlands, CA: the lagoon

184. Semipalmated Plover (L): Marin Headlands, CA: the lagoon

10/28/13
185. Ferruginous Hawk (L): Point Reyes, CA: Trail to Abbott's Lagoon
186. Ruddy Duck: Point Reyes, CA: Abbott's Lagoon
187. Eared Grebe (L): Point Reyes, CA: Abbott's Lagoon

10/30/13
188. Orange-crowned Warbler (L): Marin Headlands, CA: Bottoms Drive Front Yard

11/04/13
189. Savannah Sparrow: Point Reyes, CA: Trail to Tomales Point
190. Snow Goose: Point Reyes, CA: Flying overhead on trail to Tomales Point

11/06/13
191. Rough-legged Hawk: Marin Headlands, CA: Hawk Hill
192. Western Meadowlark (L): Marin Headlands, CA: Hawk Hill

11/09/13
193. Horned Lark (L): Marin Headlands, CA: Hawk Hill
194. Varied Thrush: Marin Headlands, CA: Hawk Hill

11/12/13
195. Wrentit (L): Marin Headlands, CA: Hawk Hill

(photo: Anna Stunkel)

11/13/13
196. Bushtit (L): Marin Headlands, CA: Hawk Hill

11/18/13
197. Mute Swan: Los Gallenas Nature Preserve, CA

198. Blue-footed Booby (L): Pacific Ocean, Mile Marker 10.2 on Highway 1

12/21/13
199. Laughing Gull: Naples, FL: Barefoot Beach



12/22/13
Our first birding trip to Corkscrew Swamp outside of Naples, FL, provided me with a nice final boost to my year bird list:
200. Wood Stork
201. Red-bellied Woodpecker
202. White Ibis

(photo: Mike Pirtle)

203. Gray Catbird

(photo: Mike Pirtle)

204. Tree Swallow
205. Great-creasted Flycatcher (L)
206. Anhinga

(photo: Mike Pirtle)

207. Little Blue Heron
208. Yellow-crowned Night Heron (L)

(photo: Mike Pirtle)

209. Limpkin (L)
210. Black Vulture (L)
211. Tricolored Heron

12/27/13
And our second birding trip to Corkscrew (see previous blog entry) provided me with my final bird of the year!
212. Palm Warbler

Corkscrew Swamp: Family Birding

7:11AM: Departing Longshore Lake neighborhood, Dad spotted two rabbits on someone’s front lawn. He correctly identified them as rabbits, and was quite proud.

7:15AM: Grandpa makes a pun about bats.

7:19AM: Dad spots an anhinga on a pipe and attempts to pronounce the bird’s species.

7:22AM: Dad correctly identifies a pelican on a billboard.

7:30AM: We inquire about why our desitnation is called “Corkscrew Swamp.” Katy uses her smarty-phone to discover that it is because the swamp is a part of the “Corkscrew Watershed.” Very helpful.

7:43AM: Arrive at Corkscrew Swamp. Greeted by a large group of common grackles.

Ready to go see some birds (photo: Mike Pirtle)

8:01AM: After walking the Corkscrew Swamp boardwalk for nearly fifteen minutes without seeing a single bird, Katy spots a great egret. Dad still believes this bird is called a great “in grit.”

Great egret (photo: Mike Pirtle)

8:04AM: We spot a yellow-crowned night heron, sitting contentedly on a branch above the water.

8:11AM: Between the four of us, we finally figure out how to get Grandpa’s spotting scope assembled and pointed at the night heron. We are able to get a great look at this bird, funny-feathered crown, expressive red eye, and all. Katy perfects the art of digi-scoping in one try.

Yellow-crowned night heron (photo: Katy Pirtle)

8:17AM: Dad identifies another egret flying overhead. When asked what it was, he says it was “the white one.”

8:18AM: Apparently this perch is quite desirable, because a second yellow-crowned night heron flies in and after a brief scuffle, displaces the one we were watching.

8:25AM: Further down the boardwalk, we see a white ibis, contentedly grazing in the water, close enough that we could touch it.

White ibis (photo: Mike Pirtle)

8:27AM: Just beyond the ibis, we see three female anhingas perched above one another on a branch. There are also three males scattered throughout the trees in this area. The only think more awkward than watching these birds try to get up out of the water and onto a branch is listening to my dad try and pronounce the word “anhinga.”

Two female anhingas (photo: Mike Pirtle)

8:28AM: Katy swears she saw a water snake.

8:29AM: A red-shouldered hawk (the Florida subspecies of course!) bursts noisily through the vegetation with something long and skinny in its talons. Was it a snake or a stick?

8:30AM: Katy notices two vultures perched in a distant tree. One has a red head, clearly a turkey vulture, and the other has a dark head. I am unsure whether this second vulture is a black vulture or a juvenile turkey vulture. After a brief consultation with David Sibley about the shape of vulture heads, I decided that it is indeed a black vulture!

Turkey vulture and black vulture (photo: Katy Pirtle)

8:37AM: Katy identifies an alligator. Grandpa confirms that it is not actually an alligator, but a stump, or as identified by him, a “stumpigator.”

8:50AM: After nearly 25 minutes in the same spot, Dad reminds us that we should probably move on, since we have a flight to catch at 6.

8:52AM: Just past the anhingas, we see a little blue heron. It is intently staring into the water, carefully taking steps so as not to disturb whatever it is that it’s watching, much the same way we act when watching a bird. After a couple minutes, it strikes, pulling a small fish out of the water. Yum.

Little blue heron (photo: Mike Pirtle)

8:56AM: Katy notices a pretty flower.

9:05AM: Dad notices some leaves with a lot of white splotches on them. He wonders why the birds seem to be leaving droppings on these few particular leaves and we postulate that there is a nest above them. Shortly thereafter, we notice an anhinga perched over a similarly whitewashed leaf. Grandpa postulates that this anhinga has an upset stomach.

9:06AM: Our second little blue heron sighting, this one with a giant crayfish in its beak. We watch as it picks it up, puts it down, picks it up a different way, and tries to figure out how its going to consume its prize catch.

Little blue heron with a crayfish (photo: Mike Pirtle)

9:14AM: At Lettuce Lakes, we see a juvenile white ibis, beginning to molt into its adult plumage.

9:17AM: Dad notices another great egret (“ingrit”) in flight, calling as it flies over our heads. With each call, the bird extends its neck all the way out.

9:21AM: Our first mammal sighting! A raccoon balances along the handrail of the boardwalk, before jumping into the water in search of anything edible.

Raccoon (photo: Katy Pirtle)

9:22AM: Am I hearing sandhill cranes or am I going crazy?!

9:39AM: Another mysterious sound continues to elude me, a soft, whining. After much searching, I discover the culprit – a squirrel! I’ve never heard a squirrel sound anything like this – this is a weird place.

Squirrel (photo: Mike Pirtle)

9:45AM: Grandpa spots a stump that looks like a partridge. It is not in a pear tree.

9:52AM: Five white ibis, three adults and two juveniles, all grazing together!

9:54AM: We see another (or the same?) red-shouldered hawk perched in a tree, making loud screeching calls. We watch as it grabs a branch and proceeds to pull it right off the tree. Then it takes off and perches in a nest in a nearby tree. Why are red-shouldered hawks building (or maintaining?) a nest? Seems a little early.

The underside view of a FL subspecies red-shouldered hawk (photo: Mike Pirtle)

9:59AM: We notice a second red-shouldered hawk doing the same thing – it grabs a stick, flies to a nearby branch, and then just chills for awhile before dropping the stick, which falls all the way to the ground below. We imagine this hawk’s mate being quite disappointed as it comes home with no stick.

Red-shouldered hawk with a stick (photo: Mike Pirtle)

10:10AM: The number of tourists on the boardwalk are increasing steadily. Our choice to go birding as early as the swamp was opened was clearly a wise decision.

10:16AM: Dad notices a mysterious, small bird in a dead tree. I can tell it is a warbler and take careful note of its fieldmarks: yellow eye-stripe, subtle streaking on the chest, bright yellow undertail coverts, with black and white rectrices. A quick flip through Sibley yields no suitable results for me.

Lookin' at a warbler (photo: Mike Pirtle)

10:25AM: Back at the visitor center, I peek into a Peterson Warbler field guide at the gift shop and, thanks to the unique undertail coverts and rectrices, identify our mystery warbler as a palm warbler! Our last bird of the day and, quite possibly, the last new species I will add to my 2013 bird list.

11:04AM: Driving back into Longshore Lake neighborhood, we see some Muscovy ducks on the lake. Grandpa articulates what we’re all thinking: “they’re ugly as sin!”

Swifts at Sunset

There is a chimney in a brickyard in San Rafael, CA. For a few nights every year, thousands of migratory Vaux's swifts spend the night in this chimney. Tonight, I came out to watch the amazing spectacle of thousands of birds soaring into the top of this chimney. Pretty awesome.

Banding 9/19: Hatch Year Female Cooper's Hawk

Particularly prominent "eyebrow"

This is a picture of me being yelled at by a Cooper's hawk.

Hawkwatch 9/18: Sun

It was a bright, sunny day on Hawk Hill today!

Another sunny day on Hawk Hill with temperatures in the 70's and a light wind coming from the west. We saw a lot of accipiters today, 28 Sharp-shinned Hawks and 41 Cooper's Hawks. To the great delight of the many hawkwatchers on the hill today (184 visitors on a Wednesday...maybe had something to do with the America's Cup final...), we also got some good looks at a Golden Eagle (subadult), a Ferruginous Hawk (juvenile), and two more Broad-winged Hawks. As usual, there were Red-tailed Hawks and Turkey Vulutres apleanty, and towards the end of the day, a Raven carrying a peanut-butter and jelly sandwhich was sighted as well.

Total Sightings: 235
Hours Counted: 5.5
HPH: 42.73
Total Species: 10

Golden Eagle silhouette.

Species Counts:
Turkey Vulture: 55
Sharp-shinned Hawk: 28
Cooper's Hawk: 41
Red-shouldered Hawk: 3
Broad-winged Hawk: 2
Red-tailed Hawk: 91
Ferruginous Hawk: 1
Golden Eagle: 1
American Kestrel: 3
Merlin: 1

Unidentified...
Accipiter: 8
Falcon: 1

Hawkwatch 9/17: Booby Watch

Oh, get your brain out of the gutter, please.

Birders get excited about seeing rare species, especially those that are keeping lists of birds seen in a certain state. For example, a blue-footed booby would be a big deal for birders listing California birds - this bird is rarely seen in California. So, when the hawkwatchers heard that a booby had been spotted at Land's End (the tip of San Francisco, easily seen from Hawk Hill) at 10:00 AM this morning, they started to get excited at the prospect of it potentially flying right past us. Thus, the south quadrant was given the extra task of "booby watch" today. (I giggled when given that assignment. Apparently, I refuse to grow up). Sadly, we never saw the bird.

Here's the HW report for the day:

Today was slow at the start, slow at the finish, with a flurry of raptor activity in the middle. The day was sunny and the wind direction was "all," seeming to change every three minutes or so. We were hopeful to get a look at the vagrant Blue-footed Booby, spotted just across the bay at 10AM today (thank you, eBird!) However, the raptors certainly kept our attention today. We got a good look at a juvenile Red-shouldered Hawk, followed by an even better look at its adult counterpart, a great lesson in distinguishing the two. Towards the end of the day, a distant dot was identified as a Ferruginous Hawk of unknown age. As for our usual suspects, the Turkey Vulutures beat out the Red-tailed Hawks by one bird today, 94-95.

An adult red-shouldered hawk (above) being ambushed by a juvenile Cooper's hawk (below).

The quintessential GGRO raptor: a juvenile red-tailed hawk.

Total Sightings: 251
Hours Counted: 5.5
HPH: 45.64
Total Species: 9

Species Counts:
Turkey Vulture: 95
Osprey: 2
Sharp-shinned Hawk: 13
Cooper's Hawk: 26
Red-shouldered Hawk: 4
Red-tailed Hawk: 94
Ferruginous Hawk: 1
American Kestrel: 5
Peregrine Falcon: 2

Unidentified...
Accipiter: 6
Buteo: 1
Falcon: 1
Raptor: 1

Banding 9/13: Small Sharpie

I went raptor banding again today and ended up banding two accipiters: a male Cooper's hawk and a female sharp-shinned hawk. As the migration picks up, these will be the two most common species we'll be banding, both because of the mass numbers of them that migrate through the Marin Headlands as well as the ease with which we are able to catch these particular species.

The sharp-shinned hawk is one of the smallest of the diurnal raptors in North America. It is funny to be banding them as they attempt to act "fierce" - biting at your finger for example - when in actuality, they just look really, really cute. The sharp-shinned hawk we banded today was a hatch-year female, and on the small side. For every bird we band, we have an "expected values chart" that lays out the average and mean range of all the measurements we take for a given species and sex. In this case, our female sharpie was on the low end of the mean range for all measurements.

Trying to look fierce. Actually looking cute.

Our data sheets and the "expected values chart."

Banding 9/12: Backpack

My backpack got locked into a fellow intern's car today, so I had to improv before heading up to the blind. Luckily, I found another pack in the lost and found and I was able to gather up some "lunch" including some granola bars, half a bag of peanut-butter pretzels, and some left-over banana walnut bread (lunch of champions!) At the end of the day, as I got into Lynn's car, I noticed that the window on the other side was rolled down - I could have gotten my backpack all along.

We banded one raptor this morning (the other blinds were much more productive today, including the first merlins of the season, an adult red-tailed hawk, a red-shouldered hawk, and a red-tailed hawk that got outfitted with a GSM tracking device). Our red-tail came out of nowhere without any warning. It was a hatch-year male. Since my initial taloning encounter, I've become much more confident handling and banding these big, sharp birds.

The rest of the day was pretty slow with very few birds passing by. We did see quite a bit of diversity, though, including an osprey, white-tailed kite, Northern harrier, and mysterious black falcon. By 3:00, the wind was blowing fast and we found ourselves surrounded by fog shortly thereafter.

Banded hatch-year red-tailed hawk.

This should probably be a meme.

Flying away!

Hawkwatch 9/11: Tweety Birds

It was a relatively slow day today demonstrated by our brief celebration at 3:00 when the count reached 100 raptors. Overcast with a light breeze, we mostly saw the usual: Red-tailed Hawks and Turkey Vultures (no Cooper's Hawks counted today!). There was some nice movement of non-raptor migrants ("tweety birds" as some hawkwatchers call them) to keep us occupied as well, including flocks of 23 White-throated Swifts, 20 Band-tailed Pigeons, and 15 Cedar Waxwings.

Anna let me play around with her fancy-DSLRey camera during the (great amounts of) downtime today. I took some picture of the non-migrant tweety birds that often hang out with us during the hawkwatch.

White-crowned sparrow.

Western scrub jay.

Total Sightings: 115

Hours Counted: 5.33
HPH: 21.58
Total Species: 6

Species Counts:
Turkey Vulture: 41
Northern Harrier: 2
Sharp-shinned Hawk: 1
Red-tailed Hawk: 65
American Kestrel: 4
Peregrine Falcon: 1

Unidentified...
Buteo: 1

Banding 9/10: Slug

You know it isn't the greatest day of raptor banding when the highlight of the day is seeing a banana slug.