There's a Kind of Thrush

There's a kind of thrush that is unlike other thrushes. It has a long tail and has a plain, dull gray color. Except for a tiny patch of buff on its wing and a white eyering, it is a nondescript looking bird. It may be less attractive than its more colorful cousins but we wanted to see it anyway. The Townsend's Solitaire, should we find it, will be our 87th lifer for the year 2008. A good place to look for it is at Big Bear Lake 8,000 feet up in the San Bernardino mountains.

The sun was slowly emerging from the mountains on the horizon and spreading a pinkish hue on the eastern skies as we drove to Big Bear on Saturday morning. There were only a few people braving the six degree temperature at Lake Arrowhead where we tried to get some warmth from the steaming hot coffee at MacDonalds. It was still freezing cold as we traversed the boardwalk at Stanfield Marsh at Big Bear Lake half an hour later. The Common Goldeneye pair that was reported seen here the day before was now nowhere to be found but a flotilla of Hooded Mergansers were swimming around. Next to the boardwalk Mountain Chickadees were already busy hunting for food.

Our next stop was the Discovery Center at the North Shore Drive. The lady volunteer was very eager to help but when asked about the Solitaire, she didn't even know there was such a bird. "Ask the guy at the Wild Wings store", she suggested, "he knows where to find the birds in this area." We thanked her but before proceeding to meet the local expert, we spent a few minutes next to the feeder that the center put up where a Pygmy Nuthatch and several House Finches were enjoying the seeds.

The gentleman at the Wild Wings store was indeed very knowledgeable of the area's avifauna. He mentioned the possible places where we will most likely encounter the Townsend's Solitaire. One of the places he mentioned was a route called 2N10. When I first heard the name, it seemed strange to call a place "two and ten". Why not just call it "twelve" I thought to myself. 2N10 turned out to be a rural dirt road that only a high clearance vehicle can negotiate. The Forest Ranger that we met told us that the route runs for about 7 miles through a pine forest. Half a mile into it and not encountering any bird at all made us decide to turn back.

We then tried the different trails (located at various points around the lake) suggested by the Wild Wing guy but we dipped on each of those. We even went to the Ecology Center, further east and north of the now dry Baldwin Lake, but the birds there were even more sparse.

At the trail at Juniper Point around 3 pm we saw a single Cedar Waxwing perched forlornly atop a dead tree. As we were going back to the Jeep I told Cynthia that I would like to leave for home earlier than we originally planned. One of the suggestions of the guy at Wild Wings was to look for Poor-wills at Polique Point at the North Shore. They can be easily found along the road as soon as it starts to get dark, he said. As tempting as getting another lifer would be, I would rather not drive through the downhill zigzag road when it is already dark. My wife whole-heartedly agreed. So we decided to do one quick stop at the Discovery Center to prepare ourselves (read: use the restrooms) before embarking on an almost two-hour trip home. Just as we were about to enter the building, Cynthia saw a Robin flitting among the pines. Why not one last attempt at photographing this bird she said. As we were following the Robin, a gray bird flew nearby and landed on a tree across from where the Robin was. There it started flicking its wings as if teasing the somewhat perplexed Robin perched at the opposite tree.

"What bird is it?", Cynthia asked.

"Townsend's Solitaire", I replied trying unsuccesfully to curb my enthusiasm.

"You're joking", my wife said. My non-response and the fact that I kept clicking away with my camera confirmed to her that I was not.

The bright red sun was sinking slowly and its orange rays were surrendering to the blanketing blue back of the evening. Along the way we can't help but talk about our serendipitous encounter with our target bird. We have been searching for it all day and to find one at a place where we were not expecting it was nothing short of a miracle.

"God saved the best for last", Cynthia remarked.

I couldn't agree more.

Nice and E.C.

The rains finally stopped this morning. I decided to take advantage of this respite to do a quick birding/photography at nearby Eaton Canyon. I wasn't expecting much, the day still dreary and cold with only an occasional glimmer of sunlight.

Instead of going behind the Nature Center as I usually do, I thought a change of direction would yield better prospects. First bird seen was a lone Anna's Hummingbird perched forlornly on a dead branch. Then nothing. As I approached the fenced off corral (used by the equestrian folks next door), a very skittish Say's Phoebe was hawking for insects. I move one step towards it and the bird would fly off to the other side of the corral. This happened several times that I almost titled this blog: Say No More. (har, har). On one occasion, while chasing the elusive phoebe, a larger brown bird flew by and caught my attention. Thinking it was just another Mourning Dove, I was about to continue my pursuit when the brown bird flashed some orange and soon alighted on a concrete structure near the fence. Peering through my binoculars, I was a bit surprised to see an American Kestrel. And the Phoebe was perched only a few feet away from it! Irony of ironies! Here I was only harmlessly desiring to take it's picture and the darn flycatcher avoided me like the plague and yet it would fly close to a known bird-killer! Strangely, the Kestrel paid no attention to it.

Frustrated, I started the trek back to the Nature Center only to make an abrupt halt. A little brown bird was hopping near the trailhead, itself looking for some hapless insect. I stood there almost awe-struck as the Rock Wren paid little notice to me and just did what hungry little Rock Wrens do at this time of day. This was the second time in the month of December that I was photographically rewarded by this cooperative species.

Back at the Nature Center, I dipped on the White-throated Sparrow but had good looks on a pair of Golden-crowneds. And what has now become a normal routine whenever I visit Eaton Canyon, I got serenaded by Hermit Thrushes.

North of the Center, I got some good shots of my target species by standing behind a dumpster (thank God it was empty). Three California Thrashers were sifting through fallen leaves looking for some tasty morsels. One, thinking I was just some pile of garbage, came close enough for a good photo-op.

With two notches in my belt and the morning still young, I was feeling lucky. The third notch came a few minutes later and was a total surprise for me. A few blogs ago, I had an "oh darn" moment from my last visit to this place. I saw but failed to photograph a Fox Sparrow. This time as I passed a small puddle behind a picnic shed, I noticed some movement from the corner of my eye. I stopped and remained motionless. In a short while, a Fox Sparrow appeared from underneath the bushes and plopped into the puddle. Why a tiny bird would bathe in 50 degree weather is beyond me. I wasn't arguing with nature as I happily captured for posterity the private ablutions of an uncommon sparrow.

Dark clouds soon began to gather and then my cellphone rang. My former co-workers were inviting me to lunch at a Thai restaurant. I got my 3 notches without so much of a sweat and now looking forward to a free lunch. I was singing in the rain that afternoon.

Soli Buteo regalis

It was a beautiful sunny morning last Saturday - a perfect day for bird photography. But gasoline prices had gone higher and even worse, I was feeling a little bit under the weather. My birding spirit prevailed over this dilemma primarily because there was allegedly a Ferruginous Hawk (Buteo regalis) sighted at Peck's Pit. Peck's Pit was close enough that it would not create a huge dent in my gasoline budget and the weather was nice enough that my cold would not get aggravated. Besides birding experts are still not in complete agreement as to whether this was really a Ferruginous inasmuch as it is way off its normal habitat and I wanted to help - hopefully through photographs - confirm its identity.

We saw a couple of birders as we got off the Jeep. They informed us that they saw the hawk but they thought it was just a young Red-tailed - a very common species. They also said the bird flew across the lake and thought that it would probably go back to the school compound where it was first seen. Undaunted by this not so encouraging news, my wife and I proceeded towards the lake resigned at just photographing the usual denizens of the park. Just then I noticed a raptor flying in from the lake.

"There it is!" I yelled and sprinted after it, Cynthia following right behind me. It landed on top of a tall sycamore and we moved slowly to get a better view. We spent about half an hour taking photographs despite the distance and the elevation of our subject. Eventually the hawk flew and we thought that that was the end of it. But then it decided to perch on a lower branch of another tree a few feet from where it was! This time we got terrific views of the raptor as it sat there, less than 50 feet away! Without a doubt, this is a Ferruginous Hawk, albeit a juvenile one.

At home, as I was downloading our photographs, I realized that we took almost 200 shots of just one species of bird. With the exception of a couple of shots of a Red-tailed Hawk (which we took just so we can compare it with the Ferruginous), we did not take any picture of any other bird that day.

The Ferruginous Hawk certainly deserved to be the bird of the day.