Pelagic birding from a cruise ship, part 2: Yachats, Oregon to Ocean Shores, Washington

On the second full day of this cruise (2 December 2015), we started about 40 miles off the coast near Yachats, Oregon.  (See Part 1 here.)  Today, the weather was much worse, which was better.  We had gotten into some rainy, stormy weather, which meant that the long swells had broken up into short rough waves.  Although the ocean looked much more turbulent, the ride was much smoother.  On top of that, the wind had shifted around behind us, so although it was blowing 20-40 knots, since we were moving over 20 knots it felt like the wind was rather calm.  The conditions were perfect for spotting seabirds!

I started my day by checking the boat for birds that might have landed on it at night.  In migration, it's not uncommon for birds to be attracted to the boat's lights, become disoriented, and rest on the ship.  Although we were well past the peak of migration, there was still a chance we could catch a late or wandering bird.  More intriguingly, a Brown Booby was checking out the boat at dusk the night before, so I thought it might have spent the night riding on our boat into Oregon waters.  However, a thorough check of all the railings, antennae, and decorative shrubs revealed no stowaways.

The ships lights sometimes attract confused birds at night, but I didn't find any birds on board as the sky lightened off the Oregon coast.

A persistent theme of our second day would be late-staying Buller's Shearwaters, and this distinctive shearwater was among our first birds of the day.  This is one of my favorite birds, subtle in tone but boldly patterned in all white below and grays and blacks on top.  Most of them have left U.S. waters to head back to New Zealand by December, but there were plenty still around on this trip, maybe due to the usually warm water temperature.  By the end of the day our tally was in the dozens.

Buller's Shearwater off the coast of Oregon.

It was neat to see the change in species between the two days, now that we were in more northern and cooler waters.  We noted increases in Herring Gulls, Black-legged Kittiwakes, Rhinoceros Auklets, and Fork-tailed Storm-Petrels.  Conversely, Red Phalaropes and Black-vented Shearwaters were absent or nearly so.  One rare species from the day before made a "return" appearance (certainly a different individual): we had another Flesh-footed Shearwater about 53 miles off the coast of Lincoln County, Oregon.  I was excited to see this species again, but unfortunately our views were no better than they were the day before, and I had to be satisfied with an identification based mostly on flight style and body shape rather than really enjoying all the fine details of the bird.

There was a brief change in scenery a little after 10:00 when several of us spotted a flock of "something different" deep in the fog on the starboard side and heading in our direction.  After a few seconds they resolved enough to see that they were a flock of Brant.  It felt odd to see geese fifty miles from land, but this species is relatively pelagic and they make long ocean crossings as part of their regular migration.

Some barely-identifiable Brant flying south through the fog about 50 miles from the Oregon coast.

One of the mammal highlights of the day, for me at least, was a pod of Dall's Porpoises that approached the boat.  These tiny black-and-white whales are active, boldly patterned, and leave a distinctive "rooster tail" when they breathe.  I had seen them before, but it was a treat to see them again.

Two Dall's Porpoises throw rooster tails as they head out of sight down the starboard side of the boat off the coast of Oregon.

Mottled Petrel was one of the main targets of the trip, and would be a lifer for many in the group.  This is a boldly-patterned species that flies in dramatic arcs in high winds and is found rarely but regularly in U.S. waters, usually only far off shore and in the winter.  I had seen a couple of days of impressive flights from shore on St. Paul Island, Alaska, so the bird would not be a lifer for me.  I wasn't as bummed as many would have been when I returned from lunch to hear I had missed one, but it still felt like I patched a little hole in my list when I was able to see the second one of the trip just after we crossed into Washington State waters at about 1:00 PM.  By the end of the day we would have an impressive total of seven, of which I saw five.

I missed the first Mottled Petrel while I was eating lunch, and the second one was too far for a decent photo, but this one performed well for us, cutting back and forth in front of the bow for a little while before darting off into the fog.

Around 2:00 I took a quick bathroom break, rushing back to the bow as soon as I could so I wouldn't miss any exciting birds.  Just as I came out of the door onto the side deck, I spotted two alcids flushing from close on the side of the boat.  One immediately struck me as being different so I snapped a few photos before I even tried to think about what the bird was.  It was a Common Murre (with a Rhinoceros Auklet), and would end up being the only one of the trip.  This is a common species, including near the coast, so I'm sure no one lamented missing this bird.

In the evening a lot of us, including myself, stayed on the bow much later than the night before because many of us had missed that late fly-by Brown Booby.  However, the waning light was uneventful, and when it was truly too dark to bird we headed back to our cabins with no last-minute reward.  It was a great day, and I celebrated with some of the other Arizona birders that were on the boat with a fancier dinner than the buffet I went to the first two nights.  We had a great evening chatting about our sightings and telling jokes.  In the morning, we would wake up already docked in Vancouver, British Columbia, with Surf Scoters and Northwestern(ish) Crows all around, ready to scatter to our various landlocked homes.

Several of us stayed on the bow as long as possible in hopes of not missing another rare last-minute sighting like the previous night's Brown Booby.

Celebrating a great cruise with a fancy dinner.  Birding field conditions at their best!

Here is a complete list of species and numbers that I saw during the day, including birds in Oregon and Washington.  (No single birder will ever see every bird on a pelagic trip, so the trip total including all observers would be higher for most species.)
Brant: 16
Pacific Loon: 2
Laysan Albatross: 2
Black-footed Albatross: 4
Northern Fulmar: 61
Mottled Petrel: 5
Pink-footed Shearwater: 7
Flesh-footed Shearwater: 1
Buller's Shearwater: 25
Sooty Shearwater: 36
Sooty/Short-tailed Shearwater: 9
Fork-tailed Storm-Petrel: 7
Pomarine Jaeger: 10
Common Murre: 1
Cassin's Auklet: 10
Rhinoceros Auklet: 29
Cassin's/Rhinoceros Auklet: 2
Black-legged Kittiwake: 32
California Gull: 35
Herring Gull: 23
Thayer's Gull: 5
Glaucous-winged Gull: 1
Unidentified gull (Larus sp.): 21

Pelagic birding from a cruise ship, part 1: Los Angeles to Fort Bragg, California

You may call it the Promenade, but I call it the Birding Deck.  (Photo of the Ruby Princess cruise ship by Chris Favero, Creative Commons via Flickr.)

Earlier this week I went on my first cruise, but my experience was very different from that of most people on the boat.  This was a "repositioning cruise," a discounted (often shorter) trip that cruise companies offer when they need to get a boat from one place to another and don't want to lose money doing it.  For less than $200, I had three nights of lodging and three days of meals, plus access to lots of entertainment options like a casino, live shows, movies from a hot tub, etc.  But I took advantage of none of those entertainment options: I was there for the birds.

Repositioning cruises have become increasingly popular among dedicated birders in recent years.  Unlike most traditional pelagic birding trips, cruises spend most of their time in the really deep waters at or beyond the continental shelf.  Out there is the realm of a whole different suite of birds, especially the Pterodroma petrels.  These dynamic, acrobatic flyers are famous for zipping around in almost unbelievable arcs as they forage comfortably in turbulent winds.

I had been invited to join the cruise a couple of months earlier by my friends David and Lauren, and separately by Jason.  There was an informal group of birders forming around this cruise, because it would traverse the Pacific coast of the contiguous U.S. in a time of year when it was very hard to get out on the ocean, and when little was known about the birds present, but rarities were almost certain.  On top of that, this was a strong El Niño year, which further increases the chances for a rare seabird to wander to our coast in search of food.

Paul Lehman gives an introduction to the birders on the boat while we were still in the harbor in Los Angeles.

My cruise on the Ruby Princess started from Los Angeles on 30 November 2015.  Paul Lehman was with us, and he has led many birding trips on cruises for Wings so he offered to give a little introduction to the group about where we would be, where the nearest facilities were, when and where to eat to get the most birding time, and lots of other helpful tips.  I was hoping to get a bit of pelagic birding in on the first night, but the sun sets so early this time of year.  We were able to bird through the harbor on the way out as the sun set, and it was still light enough to bird as we passed the breakwater and headed into the ocean.  Several large flocks of Pacific Loons passed overhead against the sunlight.  Finally, when it was almost too dark to see, I spotted my first tubenose of the trip, a Black-vented Shearwater (a very common species in these inshore habitats).  We retired for the night when we couldn't squeeze any more birds out of the daylight.

Jason scans for birds as the sun sets behind Santa Catalina Island.

Passing the breakwater and heading out for two full days and three nights on the open ocean.

These Pacific Loons were part of several large flocks flying south as the sky got dark.

The first night was pretty rough.  I had heard that motion sickness was not an issue on cruise ships, and that's probably true most of the time.  But this night, we had long-period swells that rocked the boat quite a bit.  My cabin was as far towards the bow as you can get, and almost as high as you can get, so it moved more than most.  There were a few times at night where I felt I like I was lifting up off the bed to crash back down with the impact between our bow and the water reverberating all the way up the boat to my back.  The hangers in my closet woke me up a few times as they banged against the closet wall.  It was not a great night of sleep, but I was so excited for the birding in the morning that I felt ready to go when the alarm went off well before sunrise (1 December 2015).  After a solid breakfast ("a full stomach will not betray you," they say), I went down to Deck 7, the Promenade, where one has the best views of the water.  Because of the high swell, the bow section (which is actually on Deck 8, but a continuation of the Promenade) was closed, so we birded from the side instead.

When the bow was closed due to the high swell, we were confined to bird from the side of the boat.  This position is just under the orange life boats in the top photo.  Note that although the ocean looks relatively smooth, the waves crashing out from under us belie the long-period swell that made the ride feel rather rough.

In the first hour of birding, I got my first lifer of the trip, a Laysan Albatross.  This is a very distinctive bird, with excessively long black wings on a white body, and was easy to identify even given its distance.  It was my most likely lifer of the trip, and we did end up seeing several more by the end of the day.  We also saw a small group of about four beaked whales from the genus Mesoplodon, a group which is described as the most poorly known mammals in the world.  Several species were only recently described, and some are known only from specimens.  Unfortunately, we'll probably never know which species we saw because they can only be identified from careful study of the teeth.

An unidentified beaked whale of the genus Mesoplodon.

A little after 8:00, we were able to move up to the bow of the boat, where the view is a little higher but your odds of spotting birds are better because you can see both sides.  The birding was a bit slow, but there was a nearly steady trickle of common species including Red Phalaropes, Northern Fulmars, Cassin's Auklets, and gulls, with an occasional Laysan Albatross, Pomarine Jaeger, or other bird of interest.  The ride was a bit rougher up on the bow, so after another hour or so I moved back down to the side again.  I was feeling a bit sick from all the motion - not enough to be at risk of puking, but enough to be uncomfortable.  Also, it was cold on the bow: a bit of a head wind combined with the boat's 22 miles per hour made for significant wind chill.  I didn't spend long on the side before I decided my time would best be spent with a quick nap and some more food, to warm up and to rest from the motion.

I was relieved to hear when I returned to the bow at about 1:30 that despite being gone for almost three hours, I hadn't missed any really exciting birds.  I got there just in time, though, because about 20 minutes later my favorite bird of the trip was spotted, a Flesh-footed Shearwater!  This was another of the more likely lifers on this trip, but it's an ABA Code 3 bird (rare at the continental level) and one I had been looking forward to for a long time.  It is a southern hemisphere bird but is spotted in U.S. waters every year in small numbers.

Not much later, we spotted a Peregrine Falcon, an uncommon sight this far from land (about 40 miles out).  It was being chased by a gull, which seemed uncharacteristically brazen, but then we noticed what the gull was after.  The falcon had apparently plucked a Red Phalarope from the water, and was feeding on it while it flew!

We had a continuing trickle of birds, mostly the same common species as before, although we were already noticing some subtle shifts in the abundances (more California Gulls and fewer Red Phalaropes, for example).  We nearly ran over a Laysan Albatross that was very attached to a fish carcass it had found.  We lost sight of the bird under us on the bow, but others reported that the bird was seen flying around the stern shortly afterwards.  One of the rarer sightings came next when a group of three Black-vented Shearwaters were seen.  They are rare this far north, but even more surprising was that they were roughly 40 miles off shore, given that this species is usually only found in the shallower waters near shore.

This Laysan Albatross really wanted to stick with its dead fish, while the gulls and fulmars were smart enough to fly out of the way of the cruise ship before it got too close.

Before 5:00, it started getting dark.  I knew that rare birds can come any time, so I waited about as long as I thought was reasonable before abandoning my post at the bow.  When it was almost too dark for birds, and when I was among the last 10 or so of up to 40 birders left, I packed up my tripod and went in to get ready for dinner.  Of course, at dinner I heard that I had left just before the only Brown Booby of the trip flew right past the bow!  I didn't mind too much, since I had seen Brown Boobies in California before and I got my two most wanted (reasonable) birds of the trip already.  Plus, I had a whole day of birding ahead of me tomorrow. . . . .

View from the Promenade, Deck 8.  The ground is usually stable enough to use spotting scopes on tripods, and the wall and roof protect you from the wind and rain.  Although it can still get chilly, it's pretty comfortable as far as birding spots go.

Here is a complete list of species and numbers that I saw during the first full day (not counting the evening trip out of the harbor the night before).  No single birder will ever see every bird on a pelagic trip, so the trip total including all observers would be higher for most species.
Pacific Loon: 1
Laysan Albatross: 5
Black-footed Albatross: 2
Northern Fulmar: 75
Pink-footed Shearwater: 1
Flesh-footed Shearwater: 1
Sooty Shearwater: 5
Sooty/Short-tailed Shearwater: 1
Black-vented Shearwater: 4
Red Phalarope: 381
Pomarine Jaeger: 17
Unidentified jaeger: 4
Cassin's Auklet: 19
Unidentified alcid: 17
Bonaparte's Gull: 2
Western Gull: 1
California Gull: 139
Herring Gull: 6
Unidentified gull: 60
Peregrine Falcon: 2

Birding Mt. Ord

Last week, my friend Jason and I went birding on Mt. Ord.  Mt. Ord is one of those places that is well known to locals, but probably rarely heard of by most birders outside of the greater Phoenix area.  It is a locally popular birding spot because it is the most accessible high-elevation site in Maricopa County, and so it is an easy place to find several bird species that can be tough to find anywhere else in the county. (Brown's Peak, part of the Four Peaks, is about 500 feet higher in elevation, but it takes hours of driving down a very rough road to reach the trailhead, with more hiking and climbing after that to reach the summit.  Mt. Ord is an easy drive in a passenger car all the way to within 0.75 miles of the summit.)

View of Mt. Ord from the highway on the way up as the sun starts to brighten the sky.

Jason and I started from his apartment well before sunrise so that we could be on the mountain when the birds were most active at first light.  It was about an hour drive to the top of the mountain.  The sun had risen before we started birding at 7:00, but it was still cold and dark because we were on the west side of the peak.  We started on Forest Road 1688, which is a convenient spot for county listers not just because it traverses chaparral and Ponderosa Pine habitats, but also because its entire length is in Maricopa County, so you don't have to worry about whether the rare bird you found was on the right side of the county line.

Almost as soon as we got out of the car,we came into a mixed flock of birds, including Ruby-crowned Kinglets, Bushtits, White-breasted Nuthatches, and a Bewick's Wren.  One of the first few birds I saw was an Olive Warbler!  This is an uncommon species in Maricopa County because there is not much of its high elevation conifer habitat within the county borders, but it is even more rare this late in the year, after most of them have migrated south to Mexico.

My lifer Olive Warbler was one of the first birds of the morning.

We continued along FR1688 and saw a lot of other specialty species of this mountain habitat.  It was a treat to compare Juniper Titmouse and Bridled Titmouse side-by-side, accompanied by a flock of Golden-crowned Kinglets.  An immature Golden Eagle soared by, showing the white patches in the wing as it glided overhead.  Brown Creepers called with their high-pitched notes from the conifers.  It was also fun to sort out the Dark-eyed Junco subspecies: we saw at least three types on this road (Oregon, Pink-sided, and Gray-headed).

This Juniper Titmouse was a bit out of place in a Ponderosa Pine, but we saw it in an Alligator Juniper, too.  This flock had a pair of titmice each of Juniper and Bridled flavors.

Although the sun was shining, it felt cold on the top of the mountain, especially with the wind blowing.  We were surprised to see not just one, but two tarantulas on the prowl.

FR1688 was fun and productive, but I also wanted to see the summit and bird the road a bit.  After a couple of hours, we headed up to the parking lot at the end of the road.  From there it was a 3/4 mile walk to the summit, with the first 1/4 mile mostly in Gila County and the last 1/2 mile in Maricopa County.  The birding was slow, but we did see our fourth Dark-eyed Junco subspecies of the day, a Red-backed Junco (a subspecies of Dark-eyed Junco that looks very similar to Gray-headed Junco and is rare in Maricopa County).  We also added Pine Siskin to the list for the day.  In total, I added 14 new species to my Maricopa County list, the biggest bump in my county list since my first month here.

This Red-backed subspecies Dark-eyed Junco is rare in Maricopa County.  It can be told from its look-alike relative, the Gray-headed Junco, by the whitish throat (contrasting more with the hood than the grayish throat of the Gray-headed Junco) and especially the dark upper mandible (pale pink on Gray-headed Junco).

The view from the top of Mt. Ord.  The Phoenix area is hard to see at this scale but is visible in the distance in the left part of this photo.

Painted Redstart at Gilbert Water Ranch

Since I moved to Arizona a few weeks ago, there is one spot I've birded more than any other: Gilbert Water Ranch.  This park, about the size of a large city block, became famous in the U.S. birding scene a few winters ago when a Baikal Teal was found there.  But in general it's just a very birdy spot--an oasis in the city for a variety of species, from shorebirds, to waterfowl, to warblers.  This time of year, in fall migration, a solid birding effort by an experienced birder can result in over 80 species in a few hours.

The Gilbert Water Ranch, in Gilbert (near Phoenix) Arizona, hosts dozens of migrating bird species each spring and fall in addition to its dozens of resident species.

Part of the reason I've birded this spot so much lately, in addition to its abundance of birds and proximity to my home, is that two of my new birding friends, Sean and Tyler, bird here a lot.  They've graciously included me in their birding activities, which has been a big help to me in getting to know the birds of the area.  While I don't struggle with identification issues very often any more, I still have a lot to learn here about status and distribution, and birding with them has taught me a lot about which birds are expected and when in this area.

Yesterday I visited the Gilbert Water Ranch on my own, after missing a great morning with Sean and Tyler the day before.  I took the chance, since I was by myself, to "calibrate" my estimates of species counts by counting every individual of every species as I went.  It's a tedious process, but it results in very accurate data for eBird, and I think it also forces one to improve their birding skill by critically identifying each bird, not just the groups that are likely to have something rare in them.  This practice paid off yesterday, in the form of a locally rare warbler.

I was scanning the back side of a pond for rarities among the Long-billed Dowitchers, and just as I wrapped up and turned around I noticed a warbler flitting about in a tree right behind me.  It was such a distinctive species that even with poor views I would have identified it instantly: it was a Painted Redstart!  This species is a specialty of mountain canyons and riparian zones of the southwest, and seeing it at a lowland location like this is pretty rare.  I got several nice photos of the bird, a memorable addition to my patch list and a nice way to get a new county bird!

The Painted Redstart is a rare species at low elevations like the Gilbert Water Ranch.  This was only the third record from this heavily-birded location, and the first in four years.

Distinctive, brightly patterned, and obliging - it doesn't get much better than that!

http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist?subID=S24960706

A Change of Scenery: Moving my Birding to Arizona

I stopped for one last picture at a locally well-known spot on my last drive out of Cache Valley.

My wife and I have been looking to relocate for a while now, and I'm pleased to announce that we have now officially and completely moved to Arizona!  The southwestern states have always been high on our list of target destinations, so we're both pretty pleased with our new home.  Stephanie moved down about a month ago, and I joined her earlier this week.  

The Grand Canyon State welcomed me!

It feels odd to put a period at the end of my Utah, and especially Cache County, birding.  I've always been interested in birds, but Utah was where my birding activity really took off.  I've left Utah now with 3343 eBird checklists, reporting on 344 species.  I really focussed my birding in Cache County, and 2958 of those checklists and 281 species were from within my home county.  I'm particularly proud of my yard list: my 805 checklists have created a very thorough overview of the seasonal occurrence of the 98 species I've seen or heard from my yard.

This is just a sample of the comprehensive eBird data I've collected from my Logan, Utah yard.

It's not just about the numbers, of course.  I'm going to really miss the birding community in Cache County.  As a college town, it seemed good birders were always coming and going, but I made a lot of close friends along the way.  Thankfully, since I moved to a birding hotspot, I'm sure it will be easy to convince them to come visit me!

Whenever a rare bird was spotted in Cache Valley, I knew I'd soon see a lot of friendly faces there!

When one door closes, another opens, and so this week I've started birding Arizona as a resident, rather than just a visitor.  I've visited here many times, either on vacation, doing field work for my PhD, or helping colleagues with their field work.  I already know many of the hotspots in the area, at least by reputation if not by first-hand experience.  I'm living in Tempe, which isn't quite as famous for birding as the Tucson area, but it's within striking distance, and there are plenty of exciting birds here, too.  I've got 19 species on the yard list so far, and of those, 9 are species I've never had on a yard list before.  Last night, I birded the Gilbert Water Ranch for the first time, a famous birding spot that is perhaps best known for hosting a Baikal Teal a couple of winters ago.  It was great to start to get familiar with the locally common species that still feel exotic to me, like White-winged Dove, Lucy's Warbler, and Verdin, for example.  A move to a new state is almost a fresh start in birding, and I'm excited for all that I have yet to learn!

This cool duck is an apparent hybrid between a Wood Duck and a domestic form of Mallard.  It has been at the Gilbert Water Ranch for a while now.  Although it's not a "countable" bird, it looked beautiful and interesting, and seemed like a good symbol of all the new species and places I will soon be exploring in central and southern Arizona.

Cache County Big Day, May 30th, 2015

We put a lot of effort into planning our Big Day route, and stuck very close to the plan.

Anyone who has done a Big Day knows that much of the work is done before the day itself, and ours was no different: Andy and I started weeks in advance, planning and re-planning our route, and especially scouting out rare birds.  Scouting was a HUGE part of our planning and a huge part of our success: by birding nearly daily for a couple weeks before our Big Day, we were able to quickly and efficiently find a lot of hard-to-find species.

The Big Day itself started at about 11:00 PM on Friday, May 29th, when I picked up Andy from his house and loaded his bike on the back of my car.  Big Days run 24 hours, from midnight to midnight, but we wanted to already be in location listening for birds when the timer started at 12:00 AM.  At midnight, we were already biking up Green Canyon a mile or two above the locked gate, and we heard our first bird of the day just minutes later when a Common Poorwill called (the first of over two dozen that night).

Our first stop of the day, starting at midnight, was owling Green Canyon by bike.  We used the bikes several times during the day, and they ended up being instrumental in allowing us to cover lots of ground efficiently and effectively.

Our first owl of the night was a Flammulated Owl, singing spontaneously at the end of the trail at 12:27 AM.  We also heard a couple of Ruffed Grouse displaying in the dark.  We then focussed on finding Northern Saw-whet Owl and Northern Pygmy-Owl as we biked down, broadcasting song every few hundred meters.  It took more work than expected, but we eventually got one Northern Pygmy-Owl to respond before our 2:00 AM deadline for leaving the canyon.

Our next target was an American Bittern at Bud Phelps WMA, a bird that Andy had found on a scouting trip a couple of weeks earlier.  This one was as easy as they come: we pulled into the parking lot a little before 3:00 AM, and heard it calling almost immediately.  We added a couple other nocturnal vocalizers to our list here, especially Virginia Rail, Sora, and Marsh Wren.  The whole stop was less than ten minutes, and we were off to a stakeout Great Horned Owl.  Our friend Shelly Hatch helped us out by telling us a couple of weeks ago about a pair that had been calling in her yard at night, so we parked quietly in front of her house and played a bit of Great Horned Owl song.  It took a little coaxing, but about five or ten minutes later one called back from a stand of trees near her house.

Next, we wanted to check on some nearby Wood Ducks I had scouted out, a small family group with chicks on a little pond near the Great Horned Owl.  It was too dark to see the ducks at night, but while driving to the pond with the windows down we heard some Barn Owls begging from a barn.  This was a lucky grab as it would later save us about half an hour of daylight birding, allowing us to cut out a scheduled trip to a roosting Barn Owl I had staked out.  With the quick Bittern, Great Horned Owl, and Barn Owl scores in the dark, we had a little time on our hands to look (listen) for Western Screech-Owl, the one lowland owl we hadn't been able to find in our scouting.  We tried a new spot, and again got lucky, with one responding rather quickly to broadcast near the Willow Park Zoo.  A bonus Gray Catbird was singing in the dark, too.  Then, we were off for our first daytime stop ahead of schedule!

Because we had missed Northern Saw-whet Owl in Green Canyon earlier in the night, we were happy to have some time to try for it before sunrise along the road to Tony Grove, where we wanted to be at first light.  We tried many stops along the seven mile road from the highway to the parking area, and finally got lucky just when we were starting to give up hope on that species, as a Northern Saw-whet Owl squealed in response to our broadcast less than a mile from the lake.  By 5:15 AM the sky was already starting to get a bit of color and the dawn chorus was in full swing, so we parked at Tony Grove and worked our way up the trail towards Naomi Peak in search of high-elevation birds.

We started the daylight portion of the day at Tony Grove, the most accessible spot for many of the high elevation specialties of Cache County.

Things started fast at Tony Grove, with singing White-crowned Sparrows, Lincoln's Sparrows, MacGillivray's Warblers, House Wrens, Mountain Chickadees, Dusky and Hammond's Flycatchers, American Robins, Chipping Sparrows, and Fox Sparrows, among others.  We worked our way over some deep snow patches (still frozen solid from the below-freezing nighttime temperatures) and up the trail to the area we call the "first bowl," a glacial cirque that sits just above Tony Grove Lake.  Then, things slowed down a bit.  We had a couple of singing Olive-sided Flycatchers, but were working hard for other high elevation specialties without much luck.  Eventually, some broadcast of White-breasted Nuthatch calls elicited a response, which was a great bird given how limited their distribution is in Cache County: they're found in only in our highest elevation forests, and are patchy and scarce even there.  We heard a Williamson's Sapsucker give its unique long stuttering drum, a great species to pick up given the relatively early date.  After nearly two hours around the area we were still hurting for a lot of common high mountain species, like Brown Creeper, Golden-crowned Kinglet, Steller's Jay, Clark's Nutcracker, Hairy Woodpecker, etc., but had to start heading back to the car.  Then, things started to fall our way.  A Brown Creeper called from a tree for both of us and showed itself to Andy.  A small flock of Clark's Nutcrackers flew down a ridgeline in the distance.  A pair of Hairy Woodpeckers responded to a broadcast call in an area we had both seen the species before.  Even back down at the parking lot as we were loading into the car, a Steller's Jay called in the distance.  I wonder what else we might have found with another half hour there, but a key part of a Big Day is to stay disciplined and stick to your schedule.

Williamson's Sapsucker is a beautiful and distinctive woodpecker of Cache County's highest elevations.  Although a recently-returning migrant, this one was already working a fresh row of sap wells.

White-breasted Nuthatches are very tough to find in Cache County, but the first bowl on the Naomi Peak trail has been a somewhat reliable place to find them in recent years.

By 8:40 AM we were heading down the mountain, with the windows down as always.  This paid off in the form of one more species, our first Orange-crowned Warbler of the day, singing along the road.  As we worked our way quickly down the canyon, we were able to pick up drive-by White-throated Swifts and a Swainson's Thrush.  A planned stop for Chukar and Black-throated Gray Warbler didn't pan out, although we'd pick up the warbler later.  Near the mouth of the canyon we did a short walk for hummingbirds at Stokes Nature Center, but before we even got to the feeders we had seen both of the regular species there, Black-chinned Hummingbird and Broad-tailed Hummingbird, so we took a quick detour for a staked-out American Dipper nest and headed back to the car.  Another quick stakeout stop added a singing Canyon Wren to the list, and then we were out of the canyon and into the lowlands for the rest of the day, starting at First Dam, where a Common Merganser that was present the day before had apparently just left.

American Dippers are common along the high-gradient rivers of Cache County, but having this nest staked out in advance saved us a lot of potential birding time we could have spent just hoping to run into one.

As we passed through downtown Logan on our way to the next stop, we were sure to call out all the common urban species that could be missed in the more wild habitats where we planned to spend the rest of the day: we easily picked up Rock Pigeon and House Sparrow, for example, and were able to hear a singing Lesser Goldfinch through the open car windows.  We started to feel pretty unlucky, missing our second stakeout rarity in a row, when we couldn't find the Great-tailed Grackles at the Logan Landfill.  But, we were disciplined about not sinking too much time into rarities, and quickly continued on to a field where Bobolinks had been displaying in the last couple of weeks.  They showed for us quickly, and we were off to the nearby pond where we hadn't been able to see the Wood Ducks in the dark.  In the daylight, they were easy, and we didn't even stop the car as we drove past in a rush for the next birds.

We had debated whether it was worth it to make our way down to Hyrum Reservoir, and in the end decided there were enough possibilities there to make it worth it.  We were going to get Barn Owl at the east end, but since we had one in the morning and were a bit behind schedule, we skipped the east end and birded only from the west end, where Andy was able to spot a continuing late Common Loon I had found a week or so before.  Within minutes, we were heading back north to Rendezvous Park.  Because this would be our only real lowland "urban" habitat stop, we had a few very familiar species we needed to find, and were actually a bit excited to pick up our Black-capped Chickadee here.  We needed Downy Woodpecker, too, but couldn't find any, even after broadcasting some calls.  

Common Nighthawks arrived just in time for our big day: the one we heard at Tony Grove in the morning was the first reported from Cache County this year.  Here, the second one flies over the Logan Sewage Lagoons in the early afternoon.

It was then around noon, so I asked Andy for a tally so far.  We were both a bit surprised to be at only 80 species, and a bit intimidated with reaching our goal of topping the record of 154 by the end of the day.  But, we hadn't really done much lowland birding yet, and had a lot of sparrows and other dry land birds as well as waterfowl to add to the list; our only ducks so far were Mallard and Wood Duck, for example.  With our next stop, the Logan Sewage Lagoons, the waterfowl numbers climbed quickly.  We got our only Blue-winged Teal of the day here, and focused on other ducks, especially late winter waterfowl like Ring-necked Duck and Bufflehead.  We got our only Belted Kingfisher of the day nearby as we drove to the Logan Polishing Ponds, an extension of the wastewater treatment plant located about a mile to the north.  Here, we picked up many of the expected breeding shorebirds, like American Avocet, Black-necked Stilt, and Willet, along with a great collection of waterfowl including some species that are quite rare this late in the season, especially American Wigeon, Canvasback, Common Goldeneye, and even a continuing Snow Goose I had found a couple weeks earlier that seems to be injured but still healthy.

I first spotted this Snow Goose at the Polishing Ponds a couple of weeks earlier and noted that it was holding its wings in an odd angle.  Although it looked healthy, I think the only reason it was still around is because it was a bit injured.

Canvasbacks have usually all left Cache County before the baby Canada Geese get this big, but this pair was lingering at the Polishing Ponds so that we could count them on our Big Day.

We took a quick detour to Benson Marina for our only Osprey of the day, sitting on a nest, and then drove to Hyde Park Lane.  We cancelled a side trip to look for a stakeout Say's Phoebe after considering that we were a bit behind schedule, the bird was pretty far out of the way, and it hadn't been very reliable in our scouting, only being found once out of three attempts to look for it.  Along Hyde Park Lane, we tried to pick a Glossy Ibis out of the many White-faceds, but with no luck.  We did pick up our first Sandhill Crane of the day here, and our only Wilson's Snipe of the day.

Wilson's Snipe are common in Cache County, but this one on Hyde Park Lane happened to be our only one of the day.

Next up was the Amalga Barrens, usually a great shorebird spot, but we were a bit late for shorebird migration.  Indeed, we didn't have any shorebirds all day that don't breed locally; we were completely too late for passing migrants.  About the best we could do here was to add a pair of Long-billed Curlews and get our first (but not only) Northern Harriers of the day. 

Andy and I worked hard for more shorebirds at the Amalga Barrens, but the best we could do is add a couple of Long-billed Curlews to our list.  We were apparently too late for all the passage migrants.

It was about 4:00 PM, so with a little less than five hours of daylight left and with all the expected shorebirds and waterfowl ticked off, I asked Andy to tally our list again.  We were at 112 species for the day.  When he said this, I did a little mental math and my heart sank.  All those waterfowl and shorebirds, and we only added 32 species?  Five hours left to get 42 species to tie the record?  I started to think about how that could be right.  Andy checked again: yup, 112 species.  When we started Newton Reservoir, I knew it would take a miracle if we were to reach our goal.  

As soon as we pulled up at Newton, we could hear a Yellow-breasted Chat singing, another pretty local species that is tough to find in the valley.  We couldn't find the Blue Grosbeak that had been here last week, but a Golden Eagle flew over (our only one of the day), and a Blue-gray Gnatcatcher called from beneath us in the wash a little while later.  Across the road in the campground area, a Least Flycatcher I had found a few days earlier was singing as we stepped out of the car, and a second one was nearby.  This was probably the rarest bird of the day, at least by some measures, since it was the only one on the review list of the Utah Bird Records Committee.  We broadcast for Downy Woodpecker some more; way too long, I thought, but then, we didn't really have a shot at our goal anyways so it didn't bother me.  We broadcast a bit for Lark Sparrow, and didn't get any responses from that species either.  We needed a miracle to reach our goal, and missing these two easy species wasn't helping.  I was feeling pretty bummed.

On the way to Steel Canyon, Andy added up the numbers again.  I knew we wouldn't be close, but it wasn't going to hurt to hear where we were at, and I was still hoping for my miracle.  And I got it!  Andy realized that he had somehow--twice!--forgotten to count the last page of our six-page checklist.  I don't know how this happened, but I still think he may have been messing with me.  Either that, or the lack of sleep and the 19+ hours of straight birding were hitting both of us pretty hard.  Regardless, heading into Steel Canyon we were actually at 144 species, well within striking range of our goal if things went right!  We picked up singing Vesper Sparrow, Grasshopper Sparrow, and Brewer's Sparrow all from the same spot along the road.  We heard Horned Lark singing a little further along.  We mounted our bikes just as the sky was darkening from a coming storm, and headed into Steel Canyon, some of the best dry juniper forest in the county.

On a Big Day, meals come in the little spaces between birds.  We quickly mounted up and biked the rough road into Steel Canyon as a storm approached.

Steel Canyon went as well as anyone could expect.  First, a Juniper Titmouse sang briefly from the junipers.  Then, a Gray Flycatcher perched on a treetop and wagged its tail downward repeatedly, a distinctive behavior distinguishing this species from half a dozen or more lookalikes.  A Spotted Towhee called from across the canyon, a common species that we just hadn't run into until that point.  Then a pair of Bushtits flew through a clearing, calling in flight and then landing and eventually pausing long enough to give me a quick look through binoculars.  The rain started as Andy broadcast Black-throated Gray Warbler and Plumbeous Vireo at a spot he had heard both species recently.  A Plumbeous Vireo flew into view and started singing in response, and a minute or so later, a Black-throated Gray Warbler started singing in the rain.  We would later calculate that with these two species, we tied and then broke the Cache County Big Day record!

Biking back down to the car in the rain from Steel Canyon, with six new species on our list and a new Cache County Big Day record.

After a quick bike back down to the car, we headed to another nearby road where Andy had recently had Short-eared Owls at dusk.  This is not a rare species in the county, but they tend to be most active at dawn and dusk, and we hadn't had them yet.  His spot worked like a charm, and within minutes four Short-eared Owls were flying all around us, species #156 for the day.

Two of four Short-eared Owls that put on a show for us at dusk on Sink Creek Road.

We were short on daylight, but also short on reasonable species we needed for the day.  We headed to Bear River Bottoms WMA at sunset in a last-ditch attempt at our biggest miss of the day, but we wouldn't find Downy Woodpecker there either.  We tried Cherry Creek again for Downy Woodpecker as the sky got darker, and then a little further up for Dusky Grouse, but didn't find either of those.  By the time we were done there, it was nearly 10:00 PM and we were both getting quite tired.  We tried following up on a tip for Long-eared Owl at Benson Marina, without any luck.  Some fireworks in the distance seemed to be both celebrating our huge day, and telling us it was time to be done.  At about 11:00 PM, we had few options for new birds left, and even less energy to look for them, so we called it a day.  We went to bed tired, happy, and satisfied, with a new Cache County Big Day record in the books: 156 species, topping the old record of 154 that had been set in 1988!

Andy heads into a stand of trees for a last-minute attempt at Downy Woodpecker as the sun set.

Here is our complete list of species for the day:

Snow Goose

Canada Goose

Wood Duck

Gadwall

American Wigeon

Mallard

Blue-winged Teal

Cinnamon Teal

Northern Shoveler

Northern Pintail

Green-winged Teal

Canvasback

Redhead

Ring-necked Duck

Lesser Scaup

Bufflehead

Common Goldeneye

Ruddy Duck

Ring-necked Pheasant

Ruffed Grouse

Common Loon

Pied-billed Grebe

Eared Grebe

Western Grebe

Clark's Grebe

Double-crested Cormorant

American White Pelican

American Bittern

Great Blue Heron

Snowy Egret

Cattle Egret

Black-crowned Night-Heron

White-faced Ibis

Turkey Vulture

Osprey

Golden Eagle

Northern Harrier

Swainson's Hawk

Red-tailed Hawk

Virginia Rail

Sora

American Coot

Sandhill Crane

Black-necked Stilt

American Avocet

Killdeer

Spotted Sandpiper

Willet

Long-billed Curlew

Wilson's Snipe

Wilson's Phalarope

Bonaparte's Gull

Franklin's Gull

Ring-billed Gull

California Gull

Caspian Tern

Forster's Tern

Rock Pigeon

Eurasian Collared-Dove

Mourning Dove

Barn Owl

Flammulated Owl

Western Screech-Owl

Great Horned Owl

Northern Pygmy-Owl

Short-eared Owl

Northern Saw-whet Owl

Common Nighthawk

Common Poorwill

White-throated Swift

Black-chinned Hummingbird

Broad-tailed Hummingbird

Belted Kingfisher

Williamson's Sapsucker

Red-naped Sapsucker

Hairy Woodpecker

Northern Flicker

American Kestrel

Olive-sided Flycatcher

Western Wood-Pewee

Least Flycatcher

Hammond's Flycatcher

Gray Flycatcher

Dusky Flycatcher

Western Kingbird

Eastern Kingbird

Plumbeous Vireo

Warbling Vireo

Steller's Jay

Black-billed Magpie

Clark's Nutcracker

American Crow

Common Raven

Horned Lark

Northern Rough-winged Swallow

Tree Swallow

Violet-green Swallow

Bank Swallow

Barn Swallow

Cliff Swallow

Black-capped Chickadee

Mountain Chickadee

Juniper Titmouse

Bushtit

Red-breasted Nuthatch

White-breasted Nuthatch

Brown Creeper

Canyon Wren

House Wren

Marsh Wren

Blue-gray Gnatcatcher

American Dipper

Ruby-crowned Kinglet

Mountain Bluebird

Townsend's Solitaire

Swainson's Thrush

Hermit Thrush

American Robin

Gray Catbird

European Starling

Cedar Waxwing

Orange-crowned Warbler

MacGillivray's Warbler

Common Yellowthroat

Yellow Warbler

Yellow-rumped Warbler

Black-throated Gray Warbler

Yellow-breasted Chat

Green-tailed Towhee

Spotted Towhee

Chipping Sparrow

Brewer's Sparrow

Vesper Sparrow

Savannah Sparrow

Grasshopper Sparrow

Fox Sparrow

Song Sparrow

Lincoln's Sparrow

White-crowned Sparrow

Dark-eyed Junco

Western Tanager

Black-headed Grosbeak

Lazuli Bunting

Bobolink

Red-winged Blackbird

Western Meadowlark

Yellow-headed Blackbird

Brewer's Blackbird

Brown-headed Cowbird

Bullock's Oriole

House Finch

Cassin's Finch

Pine Siskin

Lesser Goldfinch

American Goldfinch

House Sparrow

Where are the updates from St. Paul?

It's been a busy first month on St. Paul Island, Alaska!  I intended to be updating this blog regularly, but I just haven't been able to make the time.  For the time being, I'll refer you to my Flickr set from the island.  There will be less narration and summary there, but if you're anxious to learn about what I've been seeing on the island, it will give you a preview until I can get some blog posts up!

Pribilof Island subspecies of Rock Sandpiper

The Next Great Adventure: 3.5 Months in the Pribilofs

I recently accepted a summer job working as a tour guide, mostly for birders, on St. Paul Island in the Pribilofs!  This will be an amazing experience, and a nice paid "vacation" (although I'll be working a lot of hours), before I start a real career in the fall.

The Pribilofs are a small cluster of islands in the Bering Sea, between Alaska and Russia.  They are less than 200 miles from Russian waters and about as close to Russia as they are to Anchorage.  The Pribilofs are a popular destination for birders, for two reasons.  First, there are a lot of north Pacific/Bering Sea species that can only be seen in this area.  For example, Red-faced Cormorants, Steller's Eiders, Least Auklets, Crested Auklets, Parakeet Auklets, Thick-billed Murres, Tufted Puffins, Horned Puffins, Red-legged Kittiwakes, and McCay's Buntings all breed here.  Second, because the islands are so remote and so close to Asia, they are a likely spot to find lost Asian birds.  This is a big deal for North American birders who are trying to build their life lists, especially for those who are concerned with their American Birding Association (ABA), North American, or United States lists.  Some of the more regular Asian vagrants on these islands include Gray-tailed Tattler, Wood Sandpiper, Red-necked Stint, Sharp-tailed Sandpiper, Slaty-backed Gull, and Eastern Yellow Wagtail.  But perhaps the biggest draw are the rarest birds: tours in previous years have found Brown Hawk-Owl, Gray Heron, Chinese Pond-Heron, Eurasian Hobby, Spotted Redshank, Great Knot, Solitary Snipe, Oriental Cuckoo, Great Spotted Woodpecker, Rufous-tailed Robin, Oriental Greenfinch, Hawfinch, and many more very rare species for North America, and you never know what might turn up here next.  To see the complete list, click here.

If birds aren't your thing, there's still plenty to see on the island.  The Pribilofs were once known as the "Seal Islands" because of the large colonies of Northern Fur Seals that breed there.  Walruses can be seen here, more rarely.  A feral herd of reindeer now roam the island.  The Pribilof Island Shrew lives only on St. Paul Island, where I'll be, and nowhere else in the world.  There is an island subspecies of Arctic Fox that is very common there.

If you are interested in visiting the island, you can go with any of several tour companies, but I'll be working for St. Paul Island Tours.  I hope to see you there!

Parakeet Auklets on St. Paul Island, in the Pribilofs.  Parakeet Auklets are one of the specialty species of the Bering Sea and they can be seen breeding on the cliffs around the island.  Photo by Francesco Veronesi and available through Creative Commons license.

Arctic Fox pup on St. Paul Island.  These adorable canids are common throughout the island.  Photo by "im me" and available through Creative Commons license.

Brown Hawk-Owl, photographed somewhere in Asia.  A Brown Hawk-Owl found on St. Paul Island in 2007 was the first record for North America.  Photo by Andy Li and available through Creative Commons license.