California part 1 - Monterey

I recently returned from a short visit to California. The main reason to travel there was to take part in a conference that was held in Stanford University. Before the conference I spent two full days of birding in California. The first day, May 26th, was spent in Monterey County with Brian Sullivan. During the day we met up with Paul Fenwick and Brooke Keeney. It was an almost Big Day. Originally Brian had offered me to leave at 2 am and search for owls but I opted for a slightly more 'relaxed' option because I arrived in Carmel Valley close to midnight. It was a fantastic, action-packed day, birding from dawn till dusk non-stop. That's one way to get over a jetlag. We saw so many birds, too many to mention in full here. These were my personal highlights.

We started our day birding along the Tassajara road up the Chews Ridge. The sunrise over the Sierra mountains was breathtaking. 

Early in the morning we saw several Mountain Quails running along the road. The light was bad still, so the photos aren't great, but they are super birds.

Later on in the morning we didn't see them anymore but they remained vocal.

Up the top of the ridge it was very beautiful. So lush and green. Flowers in all their glory. According to Brian, the early part of the spring was exceptionally cold and wet, so breeding bird activity was at its peak when we visited. 

BTW I uploaded this photo and other habitat photos to eBird - I really like this new feature available. I hope I got the plant names right - California Wild Lilac, Foothill Yuca, Sticky Monkey, Scarlet Bugler:

It was very birdy up the mountain, so much bird song, pretty overwhelming for me with all those unfamiliar calls and songs. We searched and found two very cool Black-chinned Sparrows in open habitat:

Lazuli Buntings were singing up there too - stunning birds aren't they:

Around some conifer stands we had the lovely Lawrence's Goldfinch:

Wrentit is such a cool babbler-thing

So is California Scrub-Jay

We bumped into two California Striped Racers up there. So cool how this individual performed the cobra-like the hooding motion:

When we descended into the foothills, we searched and found California's only true endemic bird, Yellow-billed Magpie. We were on a main road without an option to pull over, so the only photos I took are rubbish, through the window. Sorry for the poor quality.

We then met up with Brooke and headed to Moss Landing and vicinity, including Elkhorn Slough and Zmudowski SB. It was packed with birds, lots of waterbirds and coastal stuff, I enjoyed it.

We spent most of the afternoon on Point Pinos, where we met up with Paul. The wind was blowing properly, complete with snow caps, shaky tripods and tons of seabirds. I was hugely impressed by the constant passage of Sooty Shearwaters, 50-60 per minute, an endless stream. There were fair numbers of Pink-footed Shearwaters as well, we counted 76. I was especially pleased to watch Black-footed Albatrosses from land. What a delight. 

Cetacean activity offshore was impressive, with several Humpbacks doing their stuff throughout the session, and a playful pod of Risso's Dolphins entertained us. Getting digiscoped footage of the whales was challenging (for me). It took me many attempts until I eventually got something.

Other cool birds that went through were a single 'Manx' Shearwater (is it actually a Manx Shearwater?), nice numbers of Pacific Loons and Rhinoceros Auklets, Heerman's Gulls - I enjoyed this session very much.

Heerman's Gull

Rhinoceros Auklets

Thanks to Brian, Brooke and Paul for an amazing day. Brian did almost all of the eBirding - hard work! You can check the checklists from May 26th in the Trip Report here.