Terns Of Endearment

Western Tiger Swallowtail

I wish we could have slowed down our time in California.  It was such a nice stay full of great birds and memories.  We stayed close to the beach and had fun looking at the birds along the shoreline. 

Arctic Tern-blood red/orange thickish shorter bill

Besides the many Brown Pelicans, we also saw many terns.  The previous week in Arizona, we had a super rare Arctic Tern show up at a local watering hole. It had been my only tern for the year which was rather surprising!  Usually a Forster's or Least Tern shows up in April first.  Instead it was the super rare Arctic Tern.  Okay!  I'll take it. 

We did well staying away from people, but people gravitated towards each other and we had to be conscience of this.  Thankfully Cheroot, the wonder dog, helped maintain social distance with his grouchy demeanor. He's really not grouchy.  He loves hanging with his friends, but he doesn't like strangers! Or dogs off their leash!  I don't have a dog because I'm a cat person but dog owners are sometimes so irresponsible. Sure, you're dog is friendly and so am I.  However, some dogs are not friendly and are put on a leash for a reason(besides it being the law! to protect wildlife) "Free dogs" who are social put themselves in danger by running up to defensive pooches.  It was a new element to our birding that I hadn't much thought about.  A lady in Balboa Park laughed and said her unleashed dog was friendly and that it was "okay".  Yes, we love your dog, but Cheroot will rip the dog apart because of your negligence!  If I were a cat, I'd hiss. 

Forster's Tern

Let's talk about birds. While at the beach, we were noticing a lot of terns flying over our heads.  And with a closer look, we noticed quite a few species of tern.  My friend Celeste mentioned there was black at the tip of the bill.  That narrowed the bird down to a Caspian or Forster's Tern.  I saw her bird and then noticed it had a thin orange bill with a beautiful tail pattern.  Forster's. But what were the other terns?!

The next tern we saw breeds in the same area as the Snowy Plovers.  And sure enough, a Least Tern flew over our heads.  They weren't as numerous as the other species and an easy one to ID.  Small tern with a yellow bill. 

Least Tern

Wildlife and visitors continued along the beach of Southern California.  In one area, we had both Harbor Seals (or Common Seal) in one colony while several rocks over, we saw a huge group of California Sea Lions.  

Harbor Seals

It's tricky for birders.  Terns are magnificent creatures, but they aren't always easy in their varied plumage.  Often I go with the bill as a field mark.  We were lucky as we had clear marks.  I start getting into trouble when both Arctic and Common terns are in the same area.  Then there's the Elegant Tern vs the Royal Tern.  We did see a few Royal Terns while we were there. Let's take a look.

Royal Tern

Here's a shot of both species.  Royal Terns will also have the black cap.  This one does not.  The bills are slightly thicker with the Royal Tern.  The tern also has a paler orange/yellow coloring. 

Elegant Tern

When you look at the Elegant Tern, you'll see a longer skinnier orange bill.  It's also a large and elegant tern. REALLY:)  These terns are more common along the coast of Southern California right now and were the predominant tern species over the waters. 

Another tern that I know well is the Caspian Tern. It breeds along the shores of Lake Michigan in my home state of Wisconsin.  This tern is widespread and a bulky tern with a heavy orange bill with a dark end. This was the second most common tern species along the coastal waters.  

Caspian Tern

During the in between time, we'd all sit and enjoy the shade.  The ocean is great but the sun can still be very strong.  We found shade and charged our batteries under a tree full of Allen's Hummingbirds. 

A tern that I had been wanting to observe in the wild finally happened on this trek.  All of my friends have seen this species except me:)  That was such a wonderful discovery.  I thought I had seen one fly over my head.  My heart skipped a beat and my pace quickened on the beach towards the salt marsh.  These birds were outside the clouds of terns over the estuary.  They were fishing from the calmer waters of the salt marsh.  Easy to ID with that nice black bill. 

Gull-billed Tern

Where did we see all these terns?  Well, we found them at Imperial Beach along the Tijuana Slough that borders the ocean front.   Here is the list that we generated from our walk. Directions to get there are in the report.  One bird we did not see was the Ridgway's Rail which is often found there in good numbers.  But we didn't time our visits to the tide.  When the tide rises, you have a better chance of spotting this very cool and endangered rail. 

The end of the pier behind Celeste is where you can find the Pelagic Cormorants, when it opens again.  Great eats along that road as well

I want to also share with you that it's possible to observe all three cormorants in this area.  The most common cormorants seen are the Brandt's and Double-crested Cormorants.  The more difficult one can be the Pelagic.  But for some reason, the purplish hues of the beautiful Pelagic Cormorant love the end of the big Imperial Beach pier.  Even though the pier was closed, I did spy one bird fly towards the end of it. 

Brandt's Cormorant

It was a lovely walk.  The past two posts covered 5 principal areas of what I think are San Diego's premier birding spots.  There's a few more but we avoided those areas due to high human traffic.  We stayed near Balboa Park which is a really nice walk and full of great birds including the exotics.  We spied Red-crowned and Yellow-headed Parrots with Red-headed Parakeets.  Also feeding from the grasses were the Scaly-breasted Munia. 

Other stops included the beautiful Imperial Beach and Tijuana Slough, La Jolla coastal area, Torrey-Pines State Park, the Bird and Butterfly Garden near the Tijuana border, and Sunset Cliffs Natural Park where we saw this beautiful California Thrasher below. 

California Thrasher

If anything, this trek inspired me to get on the road soon.  But something was holding me back.  I'm glad I waited.  The bird gods have been kind to the birding community in Arizona. 

Maybe not exciting, but I think beautiful, the Western Gulls were nesting along the coastal cliffs. 

Western Gull

On our way home, we spied this very young Green Heron at a park in Yuma, AZ.  At one point I had to take this poor little heron out of the pond because a girl ran up to it and forced it into the water. It barely could swim. It needed a few days to get more strength. She knew what she was doing and it pissed me off. Back in the day, you could yell at kids freely(or talk to them nicely). I was hungry and grouchy and not in the mood to deal with kids. So instead, I had a talk with her mother while giving her the death stare. Then I rescued the little bird who couldn't get out of the pond due to the concrete pond wall being too high.  Hope this little one is okay.  Just needs a few days to strengthen up.  

juvenile Green Heron

So if you are chasing terns along the coast of Southern California, here are the terns we saw most to least being the Least:)

1. Elegant Tern-the most common
2. Caspian Tern
3. Forster's Tern
4. Gull-billed Tern
5. Royal Tern
6. Least Tern

We're back in Southern Arizona enduring the heat and wildfires.  Please think good thoughts for our Mt. Lemmon.  The Bighorn Fire was caused by a lightning strike for about a week now. As we were arriving back into Tucson, we hit the huge lightning storm. It has done some major damage to the mountain. I hope we can get it under control. Fire is good but it's not cool when you have your friend's home in danger of getting burned down.  It's painful to watch the wildlife flee their homes off the mountain.  June is already a stressful time for all the critters with water and heat being major factors. And the smoke! Is it covid or smoke that's causing the headaches? It's one thing after another these days. Next week, we take a longer and deeper look into the magic of Southeastern Arizona birding. 

Not my image, from ABC 15 news

The Caravan

Our trek to Organ Pipe was interesting, but it was the work in Mexico that had me more interested.  A lot of birders signed up for a gull workshop with AZFO's Lauren Harter and David Vander Pluym.  And on the last day of the conference, a large caravan of birders crossed the border into Mexico.

Magnificent Frigatebird

We planned on staying the night in Rocky Point or Puerto Peñasco.  Many of the birders wanted to go with the caravan together.  No matter how many times I write this, there are still birders who are afraid to cross the border even though it's completely safe to travel to Rocky Point.  Like everything else, people need to use common sense. 

30+ birders scour the ocean with their scopes

We spent our morning with scopes and gulls.  But we also had our own agenda.  I wanted to do a count around Morúa or the Pinto Estuaries so we broke away from the group after lunch to do our own counts. I've been doing work around those areas for several years now and had never birded the area in October.  We rented a place on the Morúa estuary and really had a nice hike full of excellent birds there.

AZ Fish and Wildlife's Troy Corman and Wrenegade team member Tim H scope the horizon for possible rare birds

It's hard to navigate areas with large groups of people.  Many were there to spot the Yellow-footed Gull which is a bird of interest for many people.  These gulls live around the Sea of Cortez in good numbers.

Yellow-footed Gull

We said our good-byes and then were off to our sector of Rocky Point to get some work done.

At Morúa Estuary, we do a major bird count

The first bunch of birds we crossed paths with were plovers.  Snowy Plovers were everywhere.  They are the cutest of the bunch.   

Snowy Plover

Another common plover along the Pacific waters is the Black-bellied Plover.  Most of the shorebirds are in their winter plumage right now so they all look rather gray together.  Some can be downright tricky!

Black-bellied Plover

Another special bird that people come to see in Rocky Point is the Wilson's Plover.  They have a big bill and are the sassiest of the bunch.  In the pic below, the bird is throwing a little "tude" at an oncoming Snowy Plover. 

Wilson's Plover is the sassiest of the bunch

Even though it is cooler and pleasant, the sun can be quite strong as it bleaches the landscape.  In the pic below, we arrived at the mouth of the estuary where the bird life was at its highest.  I discovered my first Black Skimmers for Mexico here.

The bright light of the dunes and the ocean create a bleaching of color affect

Another great bird to see was the Elegant Tern.  They were the most common tern in this area next to the Forster's Tern. This species is listed as Near Threatened.

Elegant Tern

There were schools of fish everywhere.  And where there were large numbers of fish, there were hundreds of birds diving into the waters. Heermann's Gulls closely followed Brown Pelicans and tried to steal the food from their bills. 

A near threatened Herrmann's Gull sits on the back of this Brown Pelican

On Sunday morning, Gordon wanted to do his survey at Cholla Bay.  So he showed a couple birders how he likes to do his count.  As always, we had a great time and finished our counts with a nice list of bird species there.  The key is to go at low tide if you're a photographer.  At high tide, Cholla Bay is great with a scope.  

Short-billed Dowitchers

Short-billed Dowitchers had to be carefully ID'd by listening to their flight call.  As they flew, we were quickly able to ID them as Short-billed and not Long-billed.

Birding Cholla Bay at low tide is great for photographers wanting to get up close to the birds

As the bay drains of water, shorebirds, like the Red Knot below, go crazy on the crabs. 

A dull winter plumaged Red Knot forages for food

I've seen Red Knots in a lot of places but they are often too far to get clear views. One of my goals for this visit was to observe this species better. And it was great! 

Western Willet

Our special find, and definitely off my radar, was this gorgeous Fox Sparrow, the Sooty-colored subspecies. At the Morúa and Pinto Estuaries, there are specific green spaces or migrant traps that have green lawns and mesquite bosques.  I looked over at the trash bin and saw a bird scratching on the ground.  At first I thought it was a towhee until we put our bins on it!  HOLY COW!  We ended up with a Fox Sparrow on our Mexican life list. I also added a Dark-eyed Junco which was yet another bird I had not expected for Mexico.  Anyhow, the migrant traps around the hotels are great near the estuaries!!  I've had so many surprise warblers and sparrows show up in these green spaces. 

A rare Fox Sparrow

Our adventures continue......

The Arizona 400 Club

Prothonotary Warbler

Well, life is good when you first begin birding.  It seems like everyday is a new bird day.  And for two years, it's pretty easy stuff. Then you hit the 300 wall.  In Arizona, it's easy to get over 200 birds for your state list.  But it's not so easy going from 300 to 400 birds.  Today's post is about the spectacular journey that took a difficult two years to achieve.

California Condor

It happened on April 30th, 2016.  A random Prothonotory Warbler had been migrating through one of our desert washes.  I was in my pajamas watching Game of Thrones.  My friend Magill texts me and tells me to get off my butt and go get the warbler.  I was playing with my cats and quite honestly had no desire to chase a warbler.  They are so hard to spot and always give me a headache.  But it would be a lifer and help me enter the 400 club for Arizona. So I reluctantly got into my car and went to the wash.

During my drive, I remembered my 300 start that began back on September 17th, 2013 with a Black-bellied Plover. I thought, "I'll never make it to 400.  Who cares, why try?"  I forgot about the number, yet curious birders would ask me what my state total was often and I'd reply, "I don't know."  The birds in the 300 category are majestic, difficult(to find and ID sometimes) and mostly in areas outside of my Southern Arizona birding zone.

The California Condor for me is THE bird of my 300 list.  It's the one I love the most.  It's the one Micheal loved.  And it's in the area furthest away from civilization......the North Rim of the Grand Canyon.  One of the most beautiful places on this planet.  And I'll be honest.  This bird made me cry. The sighting gave me goosebumps and made my eyes water up.  I always dreamed of seeing these birds in Arizona and around the Grand Canyon as a child. Never in my wildest dreams did I think I'd get the chance to see them in my lifetime. They were near extinction and I remember in 8th grade that I felt incredibly sad after our Biology teacher's lesson. I have always loved nature as a child, but today I have fully accepted it into my life. My life's work is only getting started. Thanks to many hard working people, these birds are slowly making a comeback today. 

Blue-footed Booby

Stranger things have happened.  A juvenile Blue-footed Booby made it into the Patagonia State Park. Kathie was still living in Arizona and we stood there marveling at this incredible ocean bird in the desert.  How in the world??!!!!

Eventually the list narrowed and the really difficult chases had to happen.  The Ridgway's Rail is one of the trickiest birds to find.  Not so hard to hear, but I wanted to SEE the bird.  When I finally saw my first one, I felt a heavy weight lift off of my shoulder. 

Ridgway's Rail

And then it came time for Mountain Plovers in dusty fields along junky roads that were tough on tires. And with Kathie again I spotted my first Mountain Plovers.

Mountain Plover

Then swifts.  Yuck.  They are sooo fast and give me headaches as well.  It required alone time without the pressure of other birders around me to find this lifer.  After two hours alone in Tucson, I was able to call my first Vaux's Swift.  But it took two years to get this photo below!

Vaux's Swift

Then it was time for the Grosbeaks.  One of my favorite group of birds. Searching for the beautiful Evening and Pine Grosbeaks are often difficult to find in the state....especially the Pine Grosbeaks because they are in a very tight habitat. And yet, they do live here.  Evening Grosbeaks are more common in Arizona BUT I have had to drive into higher elevations further north in Arizona to find them.  However, my first poor looks at one happened in Summerhaven up on Mt. Lemmon.

Evening Grosbeak

A several mile hike lead us to an amazing Mexican migrant. The Tufted Flycatcher.  Sore bodies healed over the week:)

Tufted Flycatcher

There were easy ones. Not always.  But they were a welcome break from the intense hours of chases. 

Greater White-fronted Goose

Some required us to work together.  After waiting a couple hours, a tropical Purple Gallinule would appear. 

Purple Gallinule

Some birds required us to find specific habitat in the state that attracted birds.  Lily pads(rare for Arizona)= Purple Gallinule  

American Dipper

Moving stream at the right speed(rare in Arizona)=American Dipper

Red-breasted Sapsucker

Drippy sappy mesquite tree during winter=Red-breasted Sapsucker

Elusive American Bittern

And sometimes you gamble.  And often you can lose, but sometimes you strike it big and find a rare American Bittern in a small area of wetlands.

Chestnut-collared Longspurs

If you REALLY want to get to the 400 club in Arizona, you have to know your longspurs.  More headaches BUT I honestly love these birds.  After a blowing dust storm and major headache, I found my McCown's Longspurs among the many hundreds of brown and yellow ground birds. 

McCown's Longspurs

Sometimes, you get shot at by stupid hunters, or nearly trampled by horseback riders or find fish hooks embedded to the bottom of your shoes.  Such was the case with the amazing Rusty Blackbird.

Rusty Blackbird

And then there are stupid ideas.  Black-billed Magpies.  We were camping near the beautiful town of Greer during the summer and decided to go chase down these birds. We thought it was a "closer" drive but it turned into HOURS!  We finally get to this weird town known as Teec Nos Pos on a practically empty reservation near the 4 corners and attempt to look for the birds. It was ugly. What did we find?  Shattered glass bottles, needles and oh.....a drug user. There were disagreements and discussion.  How far does a birder go if it jeopardizes their safety? We never did find the birds and it was the biggest fail ever.  

Later on, I returned with Micheal to visit our family in Colorado.  We tried once again to find these birds on an amazing road trip into Gunnison, Colorado. I decided to make the route go through Teec Nos Pos, AZ for a quick check.  Turned out to be the right idea and one of the most beautiful western routes to take during fall. And voila!  3 were hanging out along the highway.  All I can say is NEVER AGAIN!

I have great pics of these birds BUT I wanted to show my AZ friends that they really do live in Arizona:) And in that weird town of Teec Nos Pos!  I swear it's a Klingon Settlement.

The 400 list can also be based on hunches.  During a "hunch", I followed my heart to a nearby park in June and discovered an Elegant Tern for my birding peeps.  Never in my life did I expect to find this beauty.  I expected something.  Just not this very cool tern. 

Elegant Tern at Lakeside Park

As I finally arrived to my destination, I stood near the Tanque Verde wash full of Cottonwoods. It was all rather uneventful.  No one knew but me what this bird meant. A yellow caught my eye.  Western Tanager.  Another golden flash.  Yellow Warbler.  Female Summer Tanager.  Yellow-breasted Chat.  Black-headed Grosbeak!  Of course!!, I told myself.  This was after all a warbler.  Then I spied a chunky lemon throw itself into the tree in front of me.  I saw the butt of this bird and knew that Arizona number 400 was about to happen. I predicted where the bird would perch and focused my lens.  Experience paid off and I got my shots of the amazing Prothonotary Warbler.  It was about a 2 minute observation but it was one of those wonderful moments that seem to last forever.  

During the weekend, I glowed.  What a very special bird to mark my entrance into the AZ 400 club.  This year I have some truly special places that I will be sharing with you all.  I can't wait to visit them and report back. The life bird quest is about to begin again! Until next time......