'Sucker Fans

A visit to the Veteran's Memorial Park in Sylmar turned out to be super Sapsucker morning for us. In a span of less than two hours we had some good looks (and photographs) of three kinds of sapsuckers: Williamson's, Yellow-bellied and Red-breasted. Now where is the Red-naped when you needed it? :-)

Here's a not-so-cooperative Red-breasted:

A quite cooperative yellow-bellied:

And a very cooperative Williamson's:

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2009 The (Birding) year that was

The year 2009 started with a big bang for us. My wife and I celebrated new year's day at Salton Sea and boy were we so happy to have made that trip. Racking up three lifers on that day alone sort of set the trend for what will happen on the following 364 days.

Also, for the first time in my relatively short birding experience, I decided to keep a year list inasmuch as this will be my last full year in the United States. In 2010, Cynthia and I will retire in the Philippines.

New Year's Eve and we were travelling to Benicia in Northern California to visit some friends. I told my wife that I hoped that we would see a Yellow-billed Magpie which I thought would be a fitting final bird for my yearlist. A few miles after we entered Hwy 580, Cynthia excitedly pointed to a long-tailed bird perched on a roadside tree. Then two more flew across the highway and I knew without a doubt that I got my final species for the year bringing my total to 341; 306 in the United States and 35 from the Philippines. Of these, 61 were lifers, 43 American and 18 Philippines. Not a bad tally considering we confined our birding to California in 2009, except for a two-week visit to the Philippines and a 4 day trip to Florida.

Of those lifers, most memorable was the California Condor we saw at Big Sur.

The others were surprisingly easy: Common Goldeneye and Black Scoter at Playa del Rey,

Common Goldeneye

Black Scoter

White-winged Scoter at Bolsa Chica,

King Eider at Cabrillo Beach

and Williamson's Sapsucker at Sylmar

and Bobolink at Bonelli.

Cynthia and I are hoping that 2010 will be another great birding year for us, especially since we will do most part of it in our native country.

"I have always depended on the kindness of birders." *

I am by no means an expert birder. I can get by in identifying the more common birds we encounter on our birding trips. I mean I don't think I will ever make the mistake of calling a Vermillion Flycatcher a Summer Tanager. But tiny sparrows, those darn empids, peeps, and of course, gulls, are another story.

My other "handicap" in birding is that I'm not good at locating birds. I would read on a yahoo listserv, for example, that an unusual bird was seen on the left side of a creek that runs north to south and is frequenting the flowering mulberry bush next to the bridge. I would get to the general vicinity but would never find the bridge, much less the mulberry bush.

And so, a lot of times, I depend on the kindness of other birders to either identify a bird for me or take me to the location of a target bird, or both. Then there are those glory days when a birder would offer to do such things for me and my wife without us even asking for it. "Angels", my wife calls these people.

Such was the case Saturday when we went to Santiago Oaks Regional Park in Orange County to look for the Yellow-bellied Sapsucker as posted in Neil Gilbert's blog. Despite the precise directions given by Neil, we could not find our target bird. We were about to give up after three hours of searching and was getting ready to go home when we met Jim Rowe. Almost nonchalantly he asked if we have seen the Yellow-bellied Sapsucker. When we replied in the negative, he graciously offered to take us where it usually hangs out. Sure enough, it was there as if summoned by the power of a kind birder to wait and show itself to a couple of "lost" seekers.

Earlier, in our meanderings around the park ,we got a photo of what we first thought as an empid, possibly the Pacific Slope Flycatcher that Neil mentioned in his blog. I sent that picture to Neil for verification and he very nicely pointed out that the bird we saw was actually a Hutton's Vireo. It may not be the flycatcher we hoped for, but the vireo was also a very welcome addition to our year list which at the end of February stood at 168 species seen. Not a bad tally and we owe most of them to the kindness and helpfulness of fellow birders like Jim and Neil, among others.


Note: Since the beginning of the year, I have adapted my blog titles from famous movie quotes and movie titles. This blog will be the last (maybe) to do so. Frankly, my dear, I'm running out of ideas. :-P
* A Streetcar Named Desire, 1951