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.
After two days without proper internet I have some catching up to do. I will write about our bear encounters later on... This morning we got up early and headed out to Long Beach. And there was a shorebird festival there indeed. The sandy beach was full of shorebirds, feeding on the sand and mud. The dominant species was Western Sandpiper, maybe 600-700 birds. They are so pretty now in summer plumage. Interesting to study the variation in bill length. They were busy running all the time:
Check out those nice palmations:
They were feeding on these tape worms - they certainly needed some pulling:
Other than the westerns there were some other species too, mainly Semipalmated Plover, Dunlin and Sanderling that were present in pretty good numbers too. I had few Semipalmated Sandpipers (4-5) and also 2-3 Least Sandpipers. This single Short-billed Dowitcher was very attractive:
Dunlin and Semipalmated Plover
Semipalmated Plover
Amir
Gidon avoided getting wet and dirty
A pair of Black Oystercatchers were on the mud too - stunning birds:
Look at that eye:
When I saw these two gulls in the field I was sure they were Western Gulls:
However by this shot I think they are Western X Glaucous-winged Gull hybrids:
I also had a single California Gull, and an Osprey patrolled the beach. From the vegetation along the beach some warblers were calling but I had my back to the trees most of the time so got views only of this Orange-crowned Warbler:
Later on in the morning we joined a whale-watching tour out of Tofino. Our first target was Sea Otters, and fairly quick we got to see some, in total we had four animals. A lifer for me so I was pretty excited. They were much larger than I had expected. We found three swimming in the open water, while this female was quite relaxed on the kelp:
Photobombed by Harlequin Duck
Then we went out into the open ocean, and the sea was pretty rough. Cleland Island was great though. It held both sea lions (California and Steller's):
And big numbers of Pigeon Guillemots whizzing about:
Those red legs...
We then continued to follow some whale sightings. We had encounters with both Californian Gray and Humpback Whales. The gray was alright and we did get some views of it, though typically we didn't see much more than a bit of its fin-less back. The humpback was distant and showed pretty bad. I must admit that the tour was too brief and we did run from one target to the next. Combined with the choppy sea this tour was slightly less enjoyable, but still I am very pleased with the otter.
Mandatory Bald Eagle
In the afternoon we headed back towards Nanaimo. We checked a couple of sites in Nanaimo that were pretty quiet. Buttertubs Marsh had nothing special, neither did Nanaimo River Estuary, so I paid some attention to common birds instead.
Another great day on and off Vancouver Island. In the morning we headed up towards Mt. Washington Alpine Resort. Right on top there was still lots of snow and rather few birds around.
'Oregon' Dark-eyed Junco
Red-breasted Sapsucker
In lower elevations there were more birds but the forest did feel somewhat dormant. Ruby-crowned Kinglets were abundant:
We had both Steller's and Gray Jays. Steller's Jay is a very charismatic bird:
Other nice birds were the beautiful Chestnut-backed Chickadees, a Rufous Hummingbird and that's it.
In the afternoon we joined a whale and wildlife tour out of Campbell River. We first headed south and rather quickly connected with two or three superb Humpback Whales that spent some hours south of Quadra Island.They did mostly shallow dives so we had only few tail flips but they were very impressive. At first they were quite distant:
But then they came to check us out and surfaces maybe 30 m away from us. Incredible.
Too close...
There were lots of birds in that area. Many hundreds of loons, and tons of ducks and alcids. There were about 15 Rhinocerus Auklets in that area but the only alcid I managed to photograph was a Common Murre:
On Center Island both sea lion species were present, though on different parts of the small rocky island. Steller's Sea Lions are huge! Males are real Behemoth - they weigh up to 1.5 tons! This bull looked very pleased with a harem of 7 females:
California Sea Lions are much smaller and not such beasty animals. The males have this distinctive pale patch on the forehead:
I want a harem too!
Our tour continued into the beautiful Bute Inlet. We searched for bears hard, but no luck today. There were plenty of ducks, including more Harlequins and Barrow's Goldeneyes. But the avian star of the afternoon was undoubtedly Surf Scoters. We had large numbers, are the good views they offered demonstrated what spectacular birds they are. That white eye of the male is stunning:
Check that red leg of the male:
Harlequin Ducks
We also had some Pacific Spotted Seals (Harbour Seals) and a few Dal's Porpoises.
Back in the harbour this Bald Eagle greeted us:
While having dinner we saw some Marbled Murrelets swimming close in so I had to improve my photos slightly:
Just a few shots of Glaucous-winged Gulls for my Larophile friends. Adult with very worn primaries and hardly and white spots left:
