I was sitting in the back of the conference room with my laptop plugged into the wall, when a young woman put her camera down next to me and sat down.   We exchanged smiles and idle conversation.  I asked her how she was enjoying BlogHer and she told me about her project.  When she asked me about my blog, I explained that I had 4; 2 for work and 2 personal ones–a life blog and a birdwatching blog.  Skipping over the other blogs (I think the whole pregnancy thing was freaking her out and being over 30, my life must be incredibly boring), she started asking me about birds.  I told her that I had been in San Diego before coming to San Francisco and that I got 3 life birds.  Not being a birder, I did not expect her to understand about life birds; but she had no idea that the birds in east were different from those in the west.  Floundering for an example that she could relate to, I finally hit upon the Cardinal.

‘You mean the red bird on the Christmas cards?”

“Yes.”

“That bird exists?”

“Yeeesss.  It is a common backyard bird.”

“I thought it was a made up bird.  Artistic license and everything.”

“No, it really looks like that and so does the Blue Jay.”

” We have Blue Jays and Chickadees.”

“You’re right, but yours are different that ours.  You have Chestnut-backed Chickadees and ours are Black-capped Chickadees.”  Noticing her blank stare, I move on to Blue Jays.  “and your jays are not the same as ours either.  We don’t have Steller Jays or Scrub Jays.”

“You don’t have Steller Jays?  They are everywheeeere.  You mean that Blue Jay on the cards is not made up either?”

“Nope.  It is real too. ”

“I’ve got to tell my brother, he has always wanted to see the red bird.  We told him someone made it up. ”

I assured her that the Cardinal was very real and fairly easy to see.

How do I get involved in these conversations?  That is twice in only a few days that young people have had no idea of the birdy world around them.  I am concerned for the next generation and what this may mean for conservation.

Out of the corner of my eye, I happened to see the flash of white on wings.  Tracking the bird to a tree, I saw it stash an acorn in a tiny acorn-sized hole.  I walked around the tree looking it up and down.  The whole tree was a pantry full of carefully stored food.  Acorn Woodpeckers do the darnest thing.  I have seen them in both California and Arizona.  They are easy to see not only in trees but also drilling in telephone poles along the highway.  I love that.

My favorite woodpecker actually is the Pileated.  What’s yours?

What the?  I slammed on the brakes and swerved onto the shoulder of the road.  I had seen the oddest hawk on a wire.   It had a huge eye and gray head.  We watched it as it watched us.  We couldn’t figure it out.  Big eye, no huge eye, gray head, look at the crest blowing in the breeze, very mottled back, very long legs and was that 3 bands on the tail?  Being on the west coast and out of my element, I wasn’t sure.  It could be anything.  I flipped open my ancient travel Petersen’s.  It didn’t fit any of the descriptions.  I looked back.

It had turned around.  With the red chest it had to be a Red-shouldered Hawk.  I have never seen one with a gray head before.  The Red-shouldered Hawks at home, do not perch on wires, are more woodsy and I usually see and hear them flying high above the trees.  He certainly had us going for a while.

Currently in between business conferences, I am loafing in Napa Valley.   Unable to find a bird guide (Grrrr), I randomly drove around this morning looking for birds.  With the countryside being so dry, I thought it would make the most sense to find water.   Looking at the map, I headed off to Hennessey Lake.  As soon as I got out of the car, I heard the crik-crik Western Grebes.  Scanning the lake from a distance, I saw what looked like white sticks planted out in the water.   It was a flotilla of Grebes.  Cool.  Even though I have seen them many times before, it was still a thrill to see so many.

The walk around the lake produced: Steller and Western Scrub Jay, Acorn Woodpeckers, California Quail, Oregon Junco, Spotted Towhee, some sort of dark sparrow protecting its hard-won worm from a maurading western fence lizard, Turkey Vultures, Red-tailed Hawk, a big flock of Bicolored Blackbirds, Black Phoebe, Great Egret, Canada Goose, Mourning Dove, Oak Titmouse, Coot, Pied-billed Grebe and maybe some others that I forgot.

Of special note, was the very dark, almost chocolaty Winter Wrens I saw feeding young at Muir Woods yesterday.  The woods was also full of Wilson’s Warblers and Brown Creeper.  I mean full, they were everywhere I looked.  Oh yeah, and there were Chestnut-backed Chickadees too.

I hope to bird the marshes on the way back to the city tomorrow.

In order to get out onto the bay, I plunked down my $32 and took one of those land-to-water crafts. In some cities they are called Ducks but here in San Diego they are called Seals. It is a, well, I guess I would call it a bus that can go in the water. After a 15-minute tour of the city, it put in over on Shelter Island for an hour-long blistering 5 mile-an-hour tour of the bay. The mate pointed out all of the Navy and Coast Guard vessels, sailboats and some of the wildlife.

On the way back it stopped at a bait barge for close-up looks at sea lions and some sea birds. There were loads of loafing sea lions, two of which were enormous males. The birds were Brown Pelicans, Snowy Egrets, Western Gulls, Heermann’s Gulls, and Double Crested Cormorants. Overhead flew Royal, Forester’s and Caspian terns. As we paused by the barge, a boat came along side to empty anchovies and sardines (I think that is what the mate said.) into the barge. There was quite the flurry of excitement when that happened, let me tell you. Yet another thing I had no idea about.

Licking a banana ice cream cone and strolling the embarcadero, I stopped to watch an immature pied-billed grebe swimming close-by. A young man sitting on the wall watched me snap a picture.

“Why are you taking a picture of a duck?”

It’s not a duck, it’s a grebe.”

“Greed?”

“No, greb-b-b-bah.”

“Gredah?”

No, grebe, with a B.”

“What’s a grebe?”

“Well, it’s a diving bird, sorta like a duck….”

“I thought it wasn’t a duck.”

“It’s not a duck. Look at its feet, they are not webbed.”

“Huh. You’re right. It has kinda fingers on its feet.”

“Good. You’re right. They are lobed.”

“How do you know it’s a baby grebe?”

“It still has a little striping on the head. Young pied-billed grebes have striped heads.”

“Huh. I never saw one before. I thought anything not a gull was a duck.”

“Nope, totally not.”

As I put my camera back in my purse, preparing to walk back the way I had come, he said, “How do you know so much about birds?” I turned, looking at myself in his mirrored sunglasses, “I read a book.” He shook his head, “Wow, yeah, a book.” I left him shaking his head at such a novel concept.

You know how once you have been to a place several times birding on your own and have seen most of the easy/common birds how frustrating it becomes, right?  Where are the other harder-to-find birds?  Are there local hot spots?  This trip I gave up and hired a guide.  I was looking for 4 life birds (elegant tern, bell’s vireo, black-headed grosbeak, california gnatcatcher) and I had no idea where they might be.  Local expertise was needed. 

I have had a terrible track record with finding guides.  I twittered-nothing.  I emailed some of the birdingpal folks-nothing.  Finally, I emailed San Diego Audubon.  Score!  I got an email back recommending Claude Edwards.  What a terrific find.  He knows all the bird songs and chip notes, where the birds are likely to be locally and has a vehicle.  A big bonus for me, is that as a biologist, he also knows plants, wildflowers, lizards, insects and points them out too.   If you are going to San Diego and need specific target species, I recommend hooking up with Claude (keps1@flite-tours.com) .  

Here’s the list of what we saw from 6:15-11:15 am. 

From the San Diego River Floodway to Old Mission Dam and Lake Kumeyaay,
to the bayside of Silver Strand, Imperial Beach Pier. and south Seacoast Drive

Pied-billed grebe
Western grebe
Brown pelican
DC cormorant
Great blue heron
Great egret
Snowy egret
Little blue heron – Silver Strand mudflats
Reddish egret – Silver Strand mudflats
Black-cr night-heron
Mallard
Ruddy duck
Red-tailed hawk
American coot
Black-bellied plover
Killdeer
Black-necked stilt
Willet
Long-billed curlew
Marbled godwit
Western sandpiper
Least sandpiper
Short-billed Dowitcher
Western gull
Gull-billed tern – IB Pier
Caspian tern – Silver Strand mudflats
Royal tern – Silver Strand mudflats
Elegant tern – Silver Strand mudflats
Forster’s tern
Least tern
Black skimmer – Silver Strand mudflats
Rock pigeon
Mourning dove
White-throated swift – Old Mission Dam area
Black-chin hummingbird – Old Mission Dam area
Anna’s hummingbird
Nuttall’s woodpecker
Downy woodpecker – Old Mission Dam area
Ash-throated flycatcher
Black phoebe
Pacific-slope flycatcher
Cassin’s kingbird
Tree swallow
Hutton’s vireo – Old Mission Dam area
Bell’s vireo – Old Mission Dam area
Western scrub-jay
American crow
Common raven
Bushtit
White-breasted nuthatch – Old Mission Dam area
Bewick’s wren
House wren
Wrentit
Northern mockingbird
California thrasher
European starling
Orange-crowned warbler
Yellow warbler
Common yellowthroat
Yellow-breasted chat
Black-headed grosbeak
Blue grosbeak
Spotted towhee
California towhee
Song sparrow
Savannah sparrow (Belding’s)
Brown-headed cowbird
House finch
Lesser goldfinch
House sparrow

70 species and 3 of the 4 lifers.  Still no California Gnatcatcher.

Point Reyes National Seashore

I am leaving for a 10 day, mostly business but hopefully some pleasure, trip to California.  The bins are packed, as well as my well-thumbed Peterson’s guide to Western Birds.  I hope to meet up with a fellow birder in San Diego to get a peek at those Elegant Terns.  At the very least I will be hanging around the bay.  Speaking of bay, after I leave San Diego I will be flying to San Francisco, where I definitely will have the chance to do some birding.  More later, I gotta go finish up a few things before I’m ready to go.