Author Archives: bigyearfamily

An early AM call to Island Packers told us our trip was a GO! A wind forecast had put that in doubt. Meclizine taken to assist with our propensity to seasickness, Dean and I bundled ourselves for warmth and dryness. We planned to be outside on the bow for the hour long trip to Santa Cruz Island of the Channel Island National Park just offshore from Ventura. The sea was not as choppy as we expected and the hour went by very quickly. I realized early on I couldn’t focus on any birds with my binoculars due to the fine and large movements of the boat. Besides hiking on this spectacular 100 square mile island, the largest by far in the chain, our birding quest was the Island Scrub-Jay. This largest of North American Scrub-Jays is found only on this island! What a marvel that it is so close to home. 

We set out on Smuggler’s Road from Scorpion Anchorage heading first up on to the bluffs of the island to panoramic views of the Pacific.

We joined the Scorpion Canyon Loop Trail. It is in this canyon that the National Park “plan your visit” instructions told us to go to see the Island Scrub Jay.

We were perhaps 0.5 miles along the Scorpion Canyon Loop Trail when we spotted the jay sitting on a limb of a shrub silhouetted against the blue ocean in the background as we had not yet begun our descent in to the canyon.

Beautiful, big and not bothered by us in the least. 

Even if we saw no other new birds for our Family Big Year the day was a success, but more was to come. 

While photographing our first sighting we encountered a young man with a long lens hiking the opposite direction on the trail. He stopped to take pictures of “our” jay and chat. He had seen several jays in the trees of the Scorpion Canyon camp ground. More wonder awaited us. 

Lynn

This past Wednesday, I was pretty sure I saw a White-Breasted Nuthatch on a palm tree in our neighborhood, but only had an iPhone video of it. Unsatisfied, I went back with the camera several days in a row, but didn’t see it again. (The neighbors were so curious.) We drove up to Mt. Laguna for a run and birding yesterday and got out of the car at the Red Tailed Roost Trailhead next to a tree with three of them! And they were there the whole day! Of course…

Plus a special surprise:

Alison reminded us that the bird we often hear from the chairlift while skiing at Mammoth is the Mountain Chickadee and it could be in this area. Within minutes of parking the car we heard the familiar call. Nostalgia defined!

Contributing most to the cacophony in the forest were the Acorn Woodpeckers. They spanned the whole trail at the top of the mountain. More than we could count.

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Swallows seem to never sit still so when I saw this one and he sat there longer than I could hold the new lens without a rest, I wondered what was up. Then I noticed him watching a female a few feet away feeding (?) into a hole in the tree.

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I was sitting in the driver’s seat of the car adjusting the autofocus setting on my camera, when this bright one walked by:

The Nuthatches, Chickadee, Junco, Swallow, Stellar’s Jay, and American Robin above are new for our 2021 list. The Acorn Woodpeckers, Western Bluebirds, Song Sparrow, and Scrub Jay are repeats. Peter saw a Quail, but we can’t confirm which. We heard Turkeys, and saw a couple hawks, but no photos.

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A successful day!

-Blair

Went to Easter sunrise service at 6 this morning. Got home and had a coffee on the patio. Got blessed with the Broad-Billed, male and female, at the feeder! Nice, after being on the hunt!

This one goes on my spreadsheet! – Ed

These don’t count for the contest as they were taken last year…I’m still hunting for them this year. Just thought you be interested. I believe this is the Abert’s Towhee because of the brownish feathers on his bottom! Isn’t the Broad-Billed Hummingbird a beauty! I think I’m caught up for this year until I get back at it.

Best, Ed

I’ve seen some of their nests, built right into the Cholla cactus!

Had a little trouble identifying this one…hope this is right. The White-Crowned Sparrow is pretty common here and the literature says the immature of this species has a brown stripe on the head. Looks like the case!

Struggled with identifying this one as well but pretty sure it is the female Lesser Goldfinch.

-Ed

For Lynn and I our four-day trip to the Salton Sea area commenced with our departure from Ventura on Tuesday morning, March 9, Lynn’s birthday. About four hours later we arrived at the Salton Sea National Wildlife Recreation Area Visitors Center on the north-west shore of the Salton Sea. After collecting ourselves in the vast, largely vacant, parking lot we headed behind the center’s few buildings (most closed due to Covid-19) to an overlook area above a large lagoon. I walked up to the railing and observed the lagoon alive with numerous birds, many obviously new species for me. I was about twenty feet from a young man with binoculars and a substantial camera on a tripod. He gave a friendly nod. He was soon joined by another young man with binoculars who looked over at me and asked, “any luck yet?”. “No, I just arrived really”. Another pleasant nod. Soon it was clear they were looking for one bird in particular. “Have you seen the Garganey?” one called to us a few minutes later. “No, no idea what that is”. “Well, come on up and I’ll show you if you’d like”. “Absolutely!” we replied. They pointed out a female duck, about 50 yards away, swimming slowly by the edge of the lagoon close to similar looking female ducks. Our guides noted the Garganey is slightly smaller than the others, and its head a different shape. Lynn locked in immediately with her binoculars and with a few more directions I found it through my camera. Later, via the photos, we could zoom in and see the subtle differences that identifies this bird. Per Sibley West it is very rare, and hard to identify especially the female. We imagine the birders who helped us had received some kind of alert about the presence of the Garganey, and maybe assumed we had too, at least at first.

We returned to the same spot at the end of our second day, and there she was, still swimming leisurely close to the edge of the lagoon, never too close to the observation area, hanging with the blue-winged teals. No sign of any other Garganey, female or male.

Thank you kind birders for the gift of sharing such a rare bird sighting! I think it was even a bigger hit for Lynn’s birthday than the new kitchen faucet I gave her prior to departure. ;>)

Dean

Today was Sunday, and with it came the inevitable anxiety with the impending return to weekday responsibilities. I’ve wanted to go back with a camera to the spot where we saw the pair of Cactus Wrens on our run two weeks ago. It’s about 2 miles from any parking lot, so not convenient to reach walking. But, only 3.5 miles from home, so I took our old mountain bike down there on the trail for the first time. Peter stayed home to let Orlando play in the yard before sundown/coyote time. I stayed focused with just about 30 minutes until the hillside would be in the shadows. I passed the Kite and the Osprey without stopping – it would be too much time to get the camera out of the bag.

I pulled up to the spot, leaned the bike against the fence, pulled out the camera and listened. It seemed quieter than before, but slowly my hearing came back and I started to recognize some of the locals. I spotted a Mocking Bird sitting still in a cactus, my eyes were starting to focus. Then I turned and there was THIS FACE!

This week we figured out that the Blue-Grey Gnatcatcher is the one that makes the sound of a little kitten crying (there is also a Catbird in the Eastern US that sounds similar) so I was happy to also track this one this evening.

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-Blair

The birds in Hawaii were all gorgeous and varied in size. (Me and Peter even made a bird scale: burb, bearb, borb, and barb!) The birds had really colorful beaks. One of them that I saw had a green-purple beak! They have really cool patterns too! Some were almost camouflage while others were vivid and bright. – Ruby

I was in our living room and saw a flash go by the window that was something larger than usual. I looked outside and saw this hawk had captured the dove right out the back door. It tried to fly away, but I suspect it was too heavy so it landed on a chair back, then on the fence separating our neighbor, then to the ground at the back of the yard…all the time holding the dove.

Here it continued to do its thing and ate on the dove. apparently until it was light enough to fly away. I did get lots of shots of the process but thought it a little too descriptive and gruesome to show the detail here. I did like this shot with the feather in its beak. Nothing went to waste, as the next morning the feathers were totally gone, I’m sure a source of nice cushiony materials for all the nests being built in the area.

There are lots of hawks around. A couple years ago I saw a hawk that had captured a dove or gila woodpecker on the roof of our neighbors house. Also woke up to a pile of feathers on the cal-du-sac off our driveway later in the year.

-Ed Dahlberg