Natural History Journal

2019 has been an excellent year of birding.  In California, we trekked from the lofty mountains to the rugged coast, as well as back and forth across our Great Valley's grasslands and wetlands.  Beyond our state's borders, birding trips led us from the deserts and sky islands of Arizona to the Low Country of South Carolina, as I tallied up nearly 100 "lifers" in the last 365 days. Quite the prize: an Elegant Trogon in southeastern Arizona In Southeastern Arizona, a birder's dream destination, we spent time in the Santa Rita and Huachuca Mountains, enchanting places of unexpected natural beauty that boast a never-ending assemblage of incredible birds.  Some of my very favorite and most exciting birds were Elegant Trogons, Elf Owls, Whiskered Screech-owls, and Rivoli's, Broad-billed and Violet-crowned Hummingbirds. Rivoli's Hummingbird in southeastern Arizona Other lifers in Arizona included: a flock of Neotropic Cormorants; Zone-tailed and Gra...

Sea ducks of the far north, Long-tailed Ducks are not all that common along the coast of Central California.  Nearing the southern extent of their winter range here, just a few individuals are spotted every winter along the coast, usually singly or mixed with flocks of other sea ducks, like scoters.  According to eBird records , this particular Long-tailed Duck, which we encountered last Friday while birding along Moss Landing's Jetty Road, has been hanging out in Moss Landing Harbor since May, which is quite unusual. Long-tailed Ducks breed in the Arctic, where they build their nests near the water's edge along ponds, streams and northern wetlands.  Winters are spent on the open ocean or freshwater lakes; they are often found on northern bodies of water, like the Bering Sea, Hudson Bay, Puget Sound and the Great Lakes, favoring waters off of sandy shores. Diving deeper than most other species of diving ducks, Long-tailed Ducks can reach depths of 200 feet while...

Between Christmas, December 25th, and Epiphany, January 6th, lie twelve days traditionally set aside for feasting and celebration, forever memorialized in a popular song: The Twelve Days of Christmas. I'm sure you know the song - and have heard it played a couple dozen times since Thanksgiving - but this year Eric and I made up our own lyrics. So, without further ado, enjoy my little bit of Christmas corniness!   On the first day of Christmas, my birder gave to me, A Pine Siskin eating thistle seeds. On the second day of Christmas, my birder gave to me, Two Mourning Doves, And a Pine Siskin eating thistle seeds. On the third day of Christmas, my birder gave to me, Three Marsh Wrens, Two Mourning Doves, And a Pine Siskin eating thistle seeds. ...And on it goes... On the twelfth day of Christmas, my birder gave to me, Twelve Dippers diving, Eleven Plovers piping, Ten Larks a-peeping, Nine Lazuli Bunting, Eight Marbled Murrelet, Seven T...

This little brown bird, the American Pipit, was first introduced to me four years ago by the leader of my California Naturalist course, during a birding outing at Merced National Wildlife Refuge.   Four years ago, I was fairly new to the idea of serious birding.  I have been acquainted with our local California Scrub-Jays , Yellow-billed Magpies, Mourning Doves and Northern Mockingbirds  as dear friends since childhood, and could even name them by their songs and calls.  I met Ospreys and Steller's Jays  while hiking in the Sierra, Western Gulls and Sanderlings  while bare-footing on the coast, and made the acquaintance of White-crowned Sparrows  and Ruby-crowned Kinglets in my parents' Central Valley backyard (during winter, of course).   Later, ill-planned adventures ("dates") with my then-boyfriend (now husband) Eric into wetlands and wildlands of the Valley left me in awe of Sandhill Cranes  and Tundra Swans ....

While we're  on the subject of owls , perhaps my favorite group of birds, I'd like to introduce you to a common little owl found across much of California and the west: the Western Screech-owl ( Megascops kennicottii ). While I've heard and even seen these little nocturnal hunters right here in our Central Valley neighborhood, the following photographs were taken this past summer while Eric and I were birding in Southeastern Arizona at the fabulous  San Pedro House  near Sierra Vista. Western Screech-owls inhabit open woodlands and forested areas below 6,000 feet in elevation, particularly favoring deciduous trees along rivers and canyon bottoms.  But they are not uncommonly found in parks and suburban areas as well, where a reliable food source and suitable nesting habitat are to be found. Screech-owls nest and roost in natural cavities, such as those excavated by woodpeckers or formed where branches break off of the trunk (as pictured here).  They als...

A few days ago, I mentioned that I recently encountered a species that took my breath away and left me shaking with excitement!  If you know me, or are anything like me, you know that this kind of reaction is typically caused by an encounter with a member of my favorite group of birds: the owls! Driving around Merced National Wildlife Refuge's auto tour loop in the early dusk of an overcast day, I casually remarked to Eric that it's funny how everyone pays attention to the wetland ponds on the left side of the road, all but ignoring the grasslands on the right.  With heads turned the opposite direction, there could be all kinds of neat birds in the grasslands that would never be seen!  To prove my point, car after car rolled slowly by with massive telephoto lenses pointing out the windows, trained on the wetlands and waterfowl, completely obliviously to the grasslands. It was just a few minutes after I made this observation that I glimpsed a flicker of movement over t...

While other Americans were out spending billions of dollars shopping on Black Friday, Eric and I spent a beautiful day birding leisurely around two of my favorite local " hotspots ": San Luis and Merced National Wildlife Refuges.  And what an exciting day we had!  To top off our list of nearly 60 species of birds, we saw a couple of real stunners: one rarity - a leucistic Black Phoebe - and one thrilling lifer that took my breath away and left me literally shaking with excitement!  (More to come on that exciting bird very soon!!) Credit for originally finding this leucistic Black Phoebe goes to fellow birder and blogger, Garry Hayes, who spotted this bird (I assume it's the same bird!) about a month ago and wrote about it  on his blog, Geotripper's California Birds .  I thought the unique white Black Phoebe was really neat when he shared the pictures with me last month, but since several weeks had passed, I'd actually completely forgotten about it! ...

Autumn is a beautiful time in California's Great Central Valley: the weather is mild, the winter birds have returned, and the low sun casts a beautiful golden glow over an already golden landscape.  And, ideally, autumn brings the first rain of the season, the first rain we've seen in over six months!  (Still waiting on that rain - hopefully tomorrow it will arrive!) Black-necked Stilts We recently spent a dry, dusty, windy day birding at the San Luis National Wildlife Refuge, logging over 50 different species and thousands of individual birds.  Thankfully, regardless of rainfall or lack of it, the National Wildlife Refuge system is able to allocate enough water to fill, or at least partially fill, their managed wetlands up and down the Valley.  (This is largely due to the support of waterfowl hunting organizations over the last century or so.)  For when the wetlands fill with water, the birds arrive in droves! Ducks over the wetlands: pintails, s...