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When we meet up again after a day off downroute I often get asked by the crew I’m working with if I “saw anything I hadn’t seen before” - by which they invariably mean a new species. It’s nice that people are polite enough to ask rather than just dismiss me as an eccentric of […]

I’m sitting at home today with the whole family riddled with cold, a leaden sky hurling little pellets of hard rain at the windows, my new deluxe garden-bird feeding station attracting absolutely nothing but gusts of wind, and waiting for Mike’s report from the BIG weekend at Cape May to tell us all what a […]

I was (again/still etc etc) transferring posts across from my old blog to 10,000 Birds this morning when I came across a photo-gallery I’d almost forgotten about, and that I think is just too striking to bury into the archives without flagging up. The bird in the photos isn’t particularly rare (scarce, but not yet […]

Ah, California. Oranges, the Beach Boys, surfing dudes, wetlands, mountains, and deserts, great birds and great birding of course - and, what was that other thing I keep forgetting about? Oh, yes, FOG! Huge great sky-darkening, end-of-the-world-resembling, camera-messing banks of never-ending FOG. Take a look at the two photos below: both were taken from my […]

Acorn Woodpeckers Melanerpes formicivorus
Guadalupe Oak Grove Park, California.
16 June 2006
Found from northwestern Oregon, California, the American Southwest, and western Mexico through the Central American highlands and into the northern Andes of Colombia, the beautiful (and noisy) Acorn Woodpecker prefers mixed pine-oak woodlands where oak trees are plentiful (including urban parks and suburban areas that possess […]

Even after unparalleled birding in Bolsa Chica and San Joaquin Wildlife Sanctuary, Amy and I chose to press on. We eschewed further coastal wetlands at Newport’s Back Bay for the leafy shelter of Huntington Beach Central Park. A big draw to Huntington was Corey’s report of Tricolored Blackbird at the horse stables, right along the […]

After an outstanding circuit of San Joaquin Wildlife Sanctuary, the intrepid Amy Hooper introduced me to the manifold wonders of the Bolsa Chica Ecological Reserve. This swath of coastal wetland off the shore of Huntington Beach is like no other place I’ve seen. Bolsa Chica is, at least in midsummer, all about terns. Thousands of […]

My visit with my friend Jay, fantastic as it was, couldn’t be about birding. That essential activity was reserved for the next day, when I had the pleasure of meeting up with the WildBird herself, Amy. Last year, when Amy came out to my neck of the woods, we had a grand time at Jamaica […]

I’ve been on the road for business for a couple of days and finally have time to start unpacking the pleasure portion of my travels. Work has brought me to southern California, which places me amidst some of North America’s finest birding habitat. Suffice to say, I’ve been indulging myself.
The first leg of my journey […]

‘Light-footed’ Clapper Rail Rallus longirostris flavipes
Newport Back Bay, California. 14 March 2005
 
Mike’s “On the Rail at Oceanside” post yesterday, and his and Mary’s subsequent comments about Clapper Rails, reminded me of one the most memorable birding encounters I’ve ever had.
Two years ago, on a bright and beautiful morning, I was parked up by some […]

Western Red-tailed Hawks Buteo jamaicensis
California, various dates 2004 - 2007
 
By far the most common and widespread buteo in North America, the Red-tailed Hawk is a bird of woodland and of open country, frequently seen sitting on telegraph poles or bare branches where it watches for rodents in the grass below (it’s worth noting that in […]

Townsend’s Warbler Dendroica townsendi
Cascade Creek (near Ano Nuevo State Reserve), California. January 2007

On the 11th of January 2007 I had the most memorable two hours birding I’ve had for a long time watching wintering warblers feeding at very close range over a thick pile of rotting sprouts in a field at Cascade Creek close to […]

1st winter female Hooded Warbler Wilsonia citrina
Cascade Creek (near Ano Nuevo State Reserve), California. 11 January 2007
 
On the 11th of January 2007 I had the most memorable two hours birding I’ve had for a long time watching wintering warblers feeding over a thick pile of rotting sprouts in a field at Cascade Creek close to […]

The first time I beheld the awesome bounty of Oakland’s Arrowhead Marsh, that initial encounter with a wonderland of waterfowl, waders, and West Coast gulls, was some time before noon in March of 2006. Though my surprise then at Arrowhead’s amazing productivity could surely be described as pleasant, my surprise this time upon learning that […]

I’ve already credited Harry Fuller for offering incredible guidance on where to go and what to look for while I’m here in the Bay Area. However, helping me sort out the terns and gulls at Cliff House was far from the extent of his influence. During our correspondence, he dropped this nonchalant suggestion:
If you have […]

Is the heat wave that seems to have the entire U.S., or at least the lower 48, in a vise getting you down? Do what I did and fly to the balmy Bay Area. With the rest of the Core Team safely ensconced in the nurturing bosom of Potter County, PA, I’ve struck out for […]

Placerita Canyon, Frank G Bonelli Regional County Park, Franklin Canyon Reservoir, and Sepulveda BasinCalifornia, USA

02 April 2006
 

Placerita Canyon

 
I spent yesterday (02 April) birding in the Placerita Canyon State Park (the site of the first gold strike in California apparently), the Frank G Bonelli Regional County Park (named incidentally for an LA County Supervisor and not […]

Apart from the first frenzied hours of my arrival in Oakland, birding was restricted primarily to those species eking out a living in my hotel’s foliage. Not that I tired of my spare minutes with the same old scrub-jays, ruby-crowns, yellow-rumps, crows, gulls, Anna’s Hummingbirds, Black Phoebes, and Brewer’s Blackbirds …it’s just that I wasn’t […]

Yesterday, I described the excitement of landing in Oakland and birding Arrowhead Marsh. By the time I finished there, checked into my hotel, and found my way to the hills above Oakland, the sun was growing low in the sky. The dramatic heights of Oakland Hills and the other elevated areas east of Oakland proper […]

Anna’s Hummingbird
Business has brought me to California this week and I’ve got to say, flying into Oakland is pretty sweet. Not only is the airport nice and clean, it sits less than a mile from premier birding habitat! Arrowhead Marsh, part of the Martin Luther King Jr. Regional Shoreline Park, is a birding bonanza, a […]