When it Rains It's Poor

We always suspected that TV weathermen (they call themselves "Meteorologists") are so much like Astrologists...they make predictions based on what they see from the sky. Most of the time these are just wild conjectures purported as "science".

Friday night when the "meterologists" said that Saturday will begin as cloudy but will become sunny by midday, we planned our birding trip accordingly. We did our errands early Saturday morning, took a leisurely lunch, and then proceeded to San Joaquin Wildlife Sanctuary in Irvine to search for the Tropical Kingbird. It would be a lifer for us.
It was a little after twelve and the skies were still overcast. Nevertheless, we went to the area between Ponds 1 and 2 where the rare Kingbird was seen as recently as 9 o'clock that morning. When we saw a kingbird-like silhoutte hawking insects, I thought we found our quarry. But then a closer view only revealed a very active Say's Phoebe. As if adding insult to disappointment, it drizzled a bit.

Undaunted, we trekked the trails surrounding the other ponds to see if we would find some other interesting species. Unfortunately, only the usual suspects - Song Sparrows and Yellow-rumped Warblers - were there and even then because of the poor light, photographing them was next to impossible.
Having gone full circle, we decided to give to kingbird locale one more try. We saw a couple taking photographs in that particular spot. Encouraged, we hurried over and discovered that the couple was Glenn and Felicia, bird photographer and birder/blogger respectively. We have met this lovely and friendly couple several times before in our Orange County forays. It turned out that Glenn was photographing an American Kestrel and no, they haven't seen the Tropical Kingbird either.

Tired and cold, we drove home vowing not to take weathermen's forecasts seriously ever again.

A very B.C. Day

We wanted to see if the reported Varied Thrush and American Redstart are still at the Huntington Beach Central park in Orange County. They are not lifers for us but we still don't have any decent photos of either species.

We lucked out on both of our quarries. Actually we did not look very hard because it was so blustery cold! We stationed ourselves under a group of low trees where birds are quite plentiful. However our trembling hands made it difficult to handle our cameras much less click on the shutter buttons. Cynthia got a lucky shot of the constantly moving Wilson's Warbler - a yellow beauty with a black cap. I got a Bushtit which was all puffed up like a brown cottonball with a tail.
We finally gave up and decided to satisfy tradition. We couldn't find our favorite breakfast place and settled for Carl's Jr's burritos. Our bellies full and sufficiently warmed up by steaming coffee, we proceeded to Bolsa Chica. A block after leaving Carl's, Cynthia suddenly cried, "Look! a MacDonalds", pointing to the obvious. If only we were patient enough to go an extra 500 feet, tradition would not have been broken and a heartburn would not have been endured.

As we approached the boardwalk at Bolsa Chica, a familiar face was all hunched over his camera gear peering at the clump of bulrushes about a hundred feet away. After the usual hellos, Raul Roa told me that there is an American Bittern in them thar bushes. American Bitterns are quite uncommon in these parts and, of course, a lifer for me. As I plunked my gear next to his, he excitedly pointed to what appeared to be a bunch of dry reeds batched together with a pointy top. It was my lifer as I happily clicked away. Cynthia, on the other hand, was trying to shake off the cold by walking up and down the boardwalk and shooting at the various denizens swimming below. My friend and I waited for close to an hour for the bittern to show more than just its head and neck to us. It didn't happen. Cynthia and I then bade him goodbye as we planned on going to the other side of B.C. (Bolsa Chica) to explore the mesa above it.

Just as I was parking the jeep, I saw a Western Meadowlark busily working the grasses a few feet away. Cynthia grabbed her camera and fired away. I followed a few minutes later with mine as we followed the bird. The meadowlark just kept on feeding oblivious of the two crazy people running after it. Eventually it flew off and we continued our hike to the mesa. There we were treated to some almost close-up photo ops by a very cooperative American Kestrel. Only when a jogger whizzed by that the bird took off. We got 5 raptors that morning: Kestrels, a Northern Harrier, Red-tailed Hawks, Osprey, White-tailed Kite (and photgraphed two - the Kestrel and the Kite) - six, if you count Turkey Vultures. On our way back, we met another bird photographer acquaintance. Dan Smith related a story about our cooperative kestrel saying it even allowed him to photograph the small raptor while enjoying its rodent lunch. Just after we said our goodbyes that I regretted not remembering to tell him about a Great Blue Heron that we saw swallowing a whole mouse earlier.
Back at the parking lot, we were treated to another great photo ops by another very cooperative bird - this time a Greater Yellowlegs enjoying the nearby puddle.

It was not a bad day at all!

A Fresh Ending

We had originally planned to go to San Elijo Lagoon in Encinitas close to San Diego. But then we woke up late (again) this Saturday. (Must be the cool autumn nights, we reckoned). Anyway, we decided to go the San Joaquin/Upper Newport Bay route. This should give us a good enough variety of birds albeit the commoner species, to observe and photograph.

The very first pond we looked into at the San Joaquin Wildlife Sanctuary contained lots, and I mean lots! of American White Pelicans and American Avocets, some Black-necked Stilts, a sprinkling of Grebes and a bunch of Coots. However, they were quite a distance off and the group or any individual did not present a good photo-op. The Sparrows were scooting under the tangled bushes at our approach and the Common Yellowthroat teased us continually by showing themselves long enough to be seen but never long enough to be photographed.

We both agreed that it was time to move on to Upper Newport Bay. We briefly stopped at the edge of the road where Jamboree Avenue crosses over the bay. Below us gliding and searching for prey was a Northern Harrier which was soon joined by a Red-tailed Hawk. The two battled for a short while for territorial dominance and then decided to divvy up the wide area with the Harrier taking up the west side while the Hawk hovered over the east side.

We then proceeded to Back Bay Drive. Back Bay Drive is about a mile long and is a one-lane, one way street that goes from west to east and is used mostly by bikers and joggers. It hugs the southern edge of the Upper Newport Bay on its left side. Halfway up the road is a parking place and short boardwalk to observe birds. A few feet from the parking area is a dip where water flows from under the road to the bay. This was where birds, lots of them, can be found. If San Joaquin had pelicans and avocets, Upper Newport Bay had skimmers, godwits, willets, tattlers, gulls – tons of them! Again, these birds were so close to each other that an aesthetic photographic composition was out of the question. Frustrated at the inability to take pictures despite the plethora of birds, we decided to drive on. A little further down the road, I glimpsed a duck that I have not seen before. I immediately stepped on the brake and adroitly maneuvered the car back to the shoulder of the road overlooking the watery nook where the ducks were. A single Eurasian Widgeon, distinguished by its red head stood out among the commoner American Widgeons. Surveying the quacking throng, I noticed some brown-headed ducks with a long tail. “Northern Pintails!”, I shouted. The handsome birds, lifers for me, were digitally captured by my camera.

Having my fill of duck photos, we continued our drive. “Mourning Dove”, Cynthia said nonchalantly (it being a very common bird) as she pointed to a bird perched on a leafless tree on my side of the road. I looked at it and slammed on the brakes for the second time. “Back, back, back”, I told Cynthia as I engaged the car in reverse and gingerly parked on a small strip of land almost below the bird. It was actually an American Kestrel, heretofore a very skittish bird to observe. But this one probably was used to being stared at and thus provided me with great photo opportunities. I even managed to change lenses and it still remained where it was, unmindful of the activities below. Eventually it flew off perhaps hearing the growling of our stomachs (it was well past noon).

Refreshed by visions of ducks and raptors, we drove all the way back to Pasadena where we partook of some burritos at Baja Fresh.