A "song" for the holidays

Nuthatch posing on an open pine

Pipit bobbing on a stone

Say's Phoebe taking its time

And a Sandpiper looking so alone

Everybody knows that herons like to hunt for fish

And berries the bluebirds take

The trees have a kingbird and a finch

While buffleheads swim on the lake

Happy Holidays, everyone!

(Note: All of these pictures were taken in one morning's outing at Bonelli Regional Park using a Canon 5D Mk II with a 500mm lens plus a 1.4X extender.)

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Full Frontal View

You are a birder and enjoy taking photographs of the birds you see. Now, what if every other bird you saw stood still in front of your camera and gave you a full frontal image. Add to that a look that seemed to say “How about this pose?” You’d probably say that it was just a fantasy or really extremely lucky.

Well it was luck for sure when that happened to me at Bonelli Regional Park last Wednesday. I went there primarily to add the Pacific Loon to my year list. Yes, I saw it and no, I wasn’t able to take a picture of it as it flew to places unknown as soon as I set up my gear.

After that initial setback, things began to turn around as bird species after bird species were quite obliging in having their photographs taken, including an unexpected sighting of a group of Lawrence’s Goldfinches (another sought after bird) just as I was about to leave.

American Robin:

California Towhee:

Western Bluebird:

Song Sparrow:

Lawrence's Goldfinch:

Eye Candies

Imagine a parade of gaudy-plumaged birds appearing before your very eyes. Overwhelming your sense of sight to a certain degree of rapturous delight. And you’re not even in the tropics!

The place was Big Morongo Valley where we had an interesting encounter with a hungry Roadrunner and a staring contest with a couple of Long-eared Owl babies. At nearby Covington Park, colorful birds put on a show that made our long trip even more worthwhile.

Hooded Oriole:


Yellow Warbler:


Western Bluebird:


Vermillion Flycatcher:


Western Tanager:

"As if.." *

The American Coot is as common as dirt here in southern California. Because of that local birders tend to treat it as..well, dirt. Not only are they plentiful, they are quite unassuming in their dark plumage and their call is described as "flatulent" by Ted Floyd in his Smithsonian Field Guide to Birds of North America, page 143.

Monday morning I was at the lake's edge at Santa Fe Dam in Irwindale trying to identify some gulls flying in the distance and faring badly. A few feet away several Coots were swimming close to shore. One of them gave me one of those "flatulent" calls as if to belittle my gull-identification prowess. To make it even worse, it gave me this:

The Coots got my attention, to say the least, not because of the perceived insult, but because of this heretofore unobserved behavior. I didn't know Coots can dabble like a Pintail. Not only that, they can dive, too, like any self-respecting Scaup.

That made me realize that I have not been giving much concern to some species of birds just because they are very common and quite unattractive. Had I been more observant, like today, I would have noticed some rather interesting characteristics of these birds.

This fact was even more emphasized when I saw a Cedar Waxwing on the ground! All these times whenever I see waxwings, they are high up in the tree tops and always as a flock. This particular waxwing on this particular morning was all by itself and was on the grass peering here and there. Then I realized what it was doing. It was drinking the tiny dewdrops clinging on the grass leaves.

As if that wasn't enough, I got another lesson from the Western Bluebirds. As far as I know, Western Bluebirds are insect eaters. They would perch on a branch, survey the area below and then swoop at some unfortunate insect. Until this morning, that is, when I saw a bluebird pick up a berry and swallow it whole! I've seen Mountain Bluebirds do this but I thought Westerns have different feeding habits from them.

On that fateful morning in early March, Mother Nature gave me some life lessons. It made me rethink my approach in birding. It's like going back to basics. Birding, after all, is observing. Going forward it will be as if I was given a new pair of eyes. Seeing with freshness and noticing the fascinating behaviors of the feathered creatures around me.

* Clueless, 1995