Wednesday, May 14, 2014

There's an all-you-can-eat buffet on Lake Havasu every night



IF you happen to be a Lesser Nighthawk - one of estimated 800 that gather to feed over the waves each evening as the sun sets over the violet Mohave Mountains. Trickling at first, you can see individuals and small groups of these graceful flyers skip over rooftops on their way to the lake. But look through binoculars (or even better, a spotting scope) above the dimming surface of the water, and you can see a vast ballroom of shadowy dancers pirouetting past each other as they gorge on swarms of flying insects. I managed to capture a snippet of this amazing phenomenon in some shakey digital footage: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E2SQIqscPp8&feature=youtu.be

Lesser nighthawks have a unique flight style, they flit and bounce as if they are weightless, changing direction haphazardly, rocking their wings like showman pilots. If they fly close enough, you might hear their flight call: a soft-spoken, trilling coo, that sounds almost inorganic.





These beautiful creautures are masters of camouflage. Most birds solve the problem "Where to sleep?" by hiding in dense foliage at night, thereby thwarting most daytime predators and catching some peaceful zzzs. Nighthawks, like many other species of the nightjar family, rely on their cryptic plumage patterning to make them invisible to predators as they doze on open desert slopes in broad daylight. But that begs the question, are nighthawks aware of this phenomenon? Do they know how clever their camouflage is, or do they just rest easy because 99% of the time, everything walks right past?





Either way, it works. I know because we are lucky enough to have 2 pairs that regularly roost in the empty lot across the street from our field house. Its not an exciting place, just a rocky patch where a house might be built someday, with a smattering of small creosotes. There's nowhere to hide, but even the neighbors' dogs don't seem to notice the sneaky nighthawks napping in plain sight. I've walked within meters of one, specifically hoping to catch it in my camera, and didn't see it until it launched into the air. Luckily, I managed to keep an eye on it and saw where it landed again.





The craziest thing is these birds are so confident in their camouflage, they don't even build a nest for their eggs! They lay a pair of small, speckly eggs right onto the sand. They are doting parents, keeping the clutch warm at night and shading them from the sun during the day. But parents' gotta eat sometimes, and the delicate coloring of the eggs keep them hidden in plain sight. I've wanted to find a nest and photograph it, but realized that walking around looking for perfectly camouflaged eggs might be a recipe for disaster - for the eggs, that is!

For now, I just look forward to each evening when their soft trilling echos over our roof.




Thursday, April 24, 2014

Kayaking the Bill Williams River!

5 April 2014. Hello dreamlife, when did you become real?? Bobby and I spent a free day kayaking up the river from Bill Williams NWR practicing both our boating and birding skills for OUR JOB! It's so crazy to me to think that just a few months ago, I was in Baltimore daydreaming about a fantasy life out west, and now here I am! Right in the middle of it!



We launched later than we had planned (5am alarm just didnt go off!) but it was a good thing because when we arrived at 8:15, the refuge entrance was blocked by a sign that read "closed for maintenance". A pair of pick-up trucks with kayaks strapped to the top were pulled over near it, and one of the drivers hailed us over. We met two Friends of the refuge, both named John, who were there for a volunteer clean-up day and a little fishing afterward. They informed us that the refuge would be opened again at 9am, so we birded from the highway until then (4 whole species!).

We pushed off the gravel shore into a breezy cool morning and headed toward hay-colored cattail stands. Our goal was to practice identifying the sounds of marsh species, in particular the rails. I've been wanting to do some field recording but my phone has been having major battery issues, so I have to consult the almighty xeno-canto.org for the sound bytes in this post.

Our first encounter was a raft of the ubiquitous American Coots. I say ubiquitous because you can't find water in the desert without spooking a few of these guys as they loaf around like gangly aquatic chickens. They don't have webbed feet like ducks. Rather, their toes are extremely long and "lobed" with skin flaps to make them like 6 slender spatulas. You can see it in the struggling way that they paddle, as if running underwater. In fact, they're so ubiquitous, I haven't even taken a photo of any yet, as if it would be a shame to waste pixels on such a banal aspect of the landscape hahaha poor things! Anyway, they are abusive parents so I shouldn't feel to bad. That's right, apparently these unsuspecting goofballs have an unsightly habit of producing large clutches of eggs and then culling out the young they can't afford to feed by bludgeoning them every time they beg until they either stop begging or drown. Can't wait to witness this stomach-turning form of parenting later in the season...

Well before I finished this post, I stopped in Rotary Park and got a couple mediocre shots. Here you can kinda see their crazy spatula toes:



And here's a raft offshore with a little taste of the local scenery



Their calls are fairly ubiquitous too, but vary widely and therefore can be tricky to identify. Here's a sample recorded by the ubiquitous Ian Cruickshank (he's submitted over 2500 recordings):

Something like a drunk (and therefore hiccuping) trumpet www.xeno-canto.org/160780
Cute monkey calls www.xeno-canto.org/160569

And a sample of their general croaking www.xeno-canto.org/143696 by yet another ubiquitous recorder, Paul Marvin (1801 recordings), from the nearby Salton Sea.

Coots can be difficult to distinguish from their moorhen cousins, the Common Gallinule, who also inhabit these reedy desert waters. Easy to identify in the field by their bright red nose-piece, Gallinules are skittish and rarely seen. SO we have to rely on our ears (this is a theme with marsh birds) for them. The voice is similar, but as if coming from a smaller bird, so pitch is slightly higher. I find them to resemble the sound of an actual (not drunk) trumpet.

This recording is a good sampling of different calls xeno-canto.org/29369 (Andrew Spencer)

This recording (PM) is described as a rattle call given after a gunshot edited out. xeno-canto.org/64552


We continued down a channel past the coots and towards the 95 bridge. As we loped along, we were greeted by the hollow-plastic-scraping-on-concrete call of Western and Clark's grebes, represented here: Clark's xeno-canto.org/143568 and Western xeno-canto.org/14870. Interestingly, both seem underrepresented on XC, perhaps I can remedy it, as soon as I get my recording set up back in action! Here's a photo of Clark's that I took further downstream when we first arrived up here in Havasu:



These slender-necked waterbirds are similarly dressed, with the Western pulling its dark cap lower over its eyes. Their legs are positioned on the very back of their bodies for optimal water propulsion, which also means they are incapable of walking on land! They dotted the channel all the way up to the riparian corridor, diving out of the way and popping out behind us. I even saw what looked like a practice mating dance, a pair mimicking each others' suggestive grooming movements! I really hope I can catch the full duet at some point this season (if its not too late already)!

I also finally got a good look at some eared grebes. In fact, one let me drift within feet of it, so I got a chance to study its unique, diminuitive physique (somehow reminiscent of Fantastic Planet's Oms!): tiny spade-shaped head, poppy-red eyes, golden ear plumes and funny boule-shaped body with nothing but what looked liked matted fur for tail feathers. I didn't want to spook it, so I left my camera in my dry bag. I didn't hear them vocalizing, but here is a recording for reference: xeno-canto.org/70456. Kinda eerie, reminds me of a sora, which is in the elusive rail family.

Tuesday, March 25, 2014

Survey Training day 2 - western grebe, lucy's warbler, ladderbacked woodpecker

Didn't have a camera for this one :(

I did a practice survey with Alicia as my guide at Castle Rock, in the Havasu NWR. It was an interesting plot, a wide dry shrubby canyon ending at a marsh, partitioned by its namesake, a large rock formation with steep walls. On the east side of it, a stand of trees, with one especially tall willow which saw a lot of action over the day. On the west side, a crispy tam and mesquite graveyard. The north end was open shrubby desert, we never even made it up there.

We started out listening to a lumpy male Costa's hummingbird sing his tiny kazoo song at the tip of a palo verde right by our parked cars. Then we followed the CH-CH-CH-CH song of a male black-tailed gnatcatcher coming from the east side of the canyon toward the SWEET SWEET SWEET song (recording of a different individual by Lauren Harter) of a warbler (yellow or lucy's??? I still can't tell! Alicia is a good teacher and let me figure it out in my own time) in the stand. On our way over there, we spotted a pair of ash-throated flycatchers and caught the DEET DOOT of a verdin south of us (then we completely stopped listening to them - whoops! others saw up to 7 PAIRS! gotta pay better attention next time!). A raven flew from the east wall to the castle rock, and appeared to be eating something (dirt? water from a tiny pool?) from a ledge.

We tried to see where the pair of ash-throats were going, and walked toward a wall of arrowweed, like a moat around the lush mesquite and willow stand. We knew there was water on the other side of it, but we weren't sure how far. A male gnatcatcher flitted about the arrowweed right in front of us, as if taunting my camera-less disposition (after failing miserably to capture his brethren on film in Blythe last week), and Jenn spotted the female over by the castle rock. I should have paid better attention to make sure they were a pair. I caught a brief glimpse of the aformentioned warbler, grey with a dark red rump patch - a Lucy's! as it dove into a nearby fruiting mesquite. The ash-throat pair were hopping about in the large willow when a male ladder-backed woodpecker showed up, causing a tizzy. The woodie won, the ash-throats dispersing, but not before confusing us because we caught a wiff of a call from behind us in the scrub. Are there more than 2? And how many Lucy's? We only hear one singing at a time. They only sing until the nest is built, so its important to pay attention to their countersinging early in the season!

Deciding we needed a bird's eye view to clear all this up, we begin ascending the side of castle rock, which you should never do in front of fellow crew members watching from below, because they will chastise you as you awkwardly scramble along a sloping inches-wide ledge with a clipboard in your hand and binos swinging across your chest. We ignored them and managed to get up to a fairly stable viewpoint. The view was great, but suddenly the birds shut up and stopped showing themselves. It was only 9:15, seemed a little early for the midday lull. After awhile of looking at coots paddling in the marsh, a strange visual phenomenon of small insects flying up and down in place whose wings only reflected sunlight on their way down, giving the impression of desert snow, and the ladderback not doing much in the willow, a harrier blasted out from behind and soared along the cliff wall then out over the marsh. Perhaps that's why it was so quiet? Then I spotted a raven on a shelf in the cliff wall decorated with white wash and a pile of sticks - a nest! Is it in use now though? The raven slowly ambled along the shelf, then hopped up into the nest and got comfortable! Ravens have enormous territories, so if this were a real survey, it would be best to consider it 25 or 50%, although we did see a few crossing the plot over the course of the morning, meaning the pair or family group were using the area extensively today.

I glossed over the waterbirds, because I need to brush up on them, but also need to not forget about them on the map! Apparently coots ARE territorial and the one we watched swimming with its head held low over the water did not have a stomach ache, but was acting aggressive towards a trespasser. There were two pairs of western grebes, whose mask dips down over its red eyes, but has a similar tinkly ratchet call as Clark's. I thought I saw some pied-billeds, and others say they saw an eared, which only winters here and has a loon-like call. We heard what Rudy IDed as a common gallinule calling from the reeds. It sounds a lot more trumpet-like than the coot, its tone often cracking and bending.

After overhearing an awkward interaction between Bobby and some unseen tea-party fishing enthusiast (handled gracefully by Bobby though), we decided to try the other side of the rock. Some rough wing swallows were flying over the blackened corpses of tamarisk and mesquite, possibly swinging close to nest sites in the cliff, but we never caught a definite landing. We heard 3 gnatcatchers chitting at the same time - which is not considered countersinging, a term reserved for patient communication between rivals, with pauses to listen to neighbors. We ambled towards them, noticing a strange crackling sound emanating from the downed branches at our feet, when we spotted a ladderback on a small burnt snag. Glassing it, I exclaimed, oh its a female! and Alicia responds, uhhh are you sure? when we realized we were both looking at different birds - a pair which promptly copulated for our viewing pleasure! The male then flew to the very base of a thick mesquite bush and began foraging. I've never seen a woodpecker so low to the ground (except the red-bellied's slurping worms from Patterson Park's lawn!). He moved on to a downed branch only a couple meters from our feet, and I watched his meticulous tapping/chipping away at the outer layer of wood to expose a small hole, then use his tongue to flick a fat white grub out of it! This is a real treat, considering they usually do this high up in treetops, far from the view of us landlubbers. While we were watching, we heard a drumming nearby. A rival male? Nope! It was the female, drumming on a burnt section of the aforementioned snag, in somewhat of a fresh indentation. Was she signaling that she would like to create a cavity there? Wish we could go back later and find out!

Ladderbacks are like the downys of the desert. Small woodpeckers with especially contrasting black and white barring on their wings and back, and dusty yellow, faintly spotty breasts. The males have a rouge crest that the females lack, but which both sexes possess when in the nest! They make the familiar PIK! call and squeaky laughing call like hairys and downys of the east.

The pair took off and disappeared on the east side of the castle rock. A Lucy's shot past us with a male gnatcatcher in hot pursuit. The same Lucy's as the east side? How many are there? These are the things I need to pay better attention to for the "real" surveys. The little Costa's was back on his perch when we returned to the lot, zinging away.

I felt a little less overwhelmed today than yesterday, but there was a LOT that I missed! Apparently violet-green swallows and white-throated swifts were seen foraging overhead and even approaching holes in the cliff walls. I practically ignored the waterbirds out of ignorance, but rather than forget about them, I need to remember to take notes, recordings, and look them up when I get back to the field house.

Sunday, January 12, 2014

East Oregon



January 7, 2014. I suddenly find myself on the other coast, driving from Portland to the Pacific on a wet, windy Rt. 6 through temperate cloud forests. I spied this juvenile bald eagle perched, drenching, just a few meters from the road, a river burbling below. Bobby guaranteed that I would see an American dipper on this drive, and just like he promised, at the first turnout we picked overlooking the river, several dippers were plunging into the icy stream, its waters sliding off their waterproof feathers like mercury. We made it to the coast, but it was spitting rain and I didn't want to ruin my new camera. We walked out on a jetty speckled with sooty grey, rich umber, and seaglass green rocks, between surging emerald waves pocked by curious sea lions and oppressed by a heavy grey sky. Gulls glided silently past our heads. We looked out into the seemingly empty surf, and if we looked long and hard enough, birds would suddenly materialize in the chop: horned grebes, surf scoters, and two kinds of cormorants: snake-necked pelagic and pale-chinned brandt's. On our way back up the jetty to land, we spied peeps shivering among the rocks near the water: surfbirds, rock sandpipers, black turnstones, and a gull calmly choking on a giant sea star. At Meares Point Park, we barely made out the ghostly shapes of common murre, pigeon gillemot, and white-winged scoter dashing through the mist hundreds of meters below our sheer cliff lookout. An unusually friendly hermit thrush greet us on the path back to the lot.



We traveled down to southern Oregon to see a little homestead Bobby used to work at building cob cottages. The landscape was beautiful and striking, with pinyon pines, cacti, and madrone. The madrone has red bark that peels in mesmerizing patterns, revealing silky smooth green sapwood. The air was filled with robins, hundreds of them, gorging on berries alongside cedar waxwings and beautiful stellar's jays.

Wednesday, January 1, 2014

Embarkation

03-22-14, Blythe, CA. Blogs come and go, this one is dedicated to my exploration of the world of birds and traveling. Its mostly for my own benefit, to help me gather my thoughts and understand what I am seeing, experiencing and learning. If anyone else finds inspiration in these posts, all the better. I wish I had started this when I embarked on my new life approx 3 months ago, but internet connection and mental focus was a bit shaky up until now. So I'm going to try to catch up in a summary-type fashion, then move on from there. So why not start with a photo from the balcony of where I left in January, Whole Gallery in Baltimore, MD.