No Hookers in Texas

Mission, TX

I spent three days looking up, and what did I see?  Well, it was a hawk watch, vulture watch, anything watch, except for I guess a hook-billed kite watch.  The hook-billed remained...sadly...uncounted, but well, I saw a lot of migrating hawks including the above broad-winged hawk and at least 70 of its pals fly over head migrating north, I saw somethings that well...we'll get to that..

The stakeout at Bentsen for hawks was so much fun (sic), I drove over to Salineno to stakeout red-billed pigeons one afternoon and evening.  15 Hours on a dike or hawk tower wasn't enough, so I supplemented that with five hours on a boat landing looking at Mexico...

Big Year Days 74-6

Big Year Total:  492

Coded birds:  35

Cool animals: Bobcat, Harbor seal, gray whale, California sea lion, pronghorn, porcupine, sea otters, Island gray fox, ringtailed cat

Miles driven.  15,700

Flight Miles 54,300

flight segments: 53   Different Airports: 27

Hours at sea: 25

Miles walked 80

Miles biked 2

states/ prov. birded:19

They have been seeing red-billed pigeons, a bird missing from my life list, and one starting to border on becoming  a nemesis, (did I say that?) on the island north of the landing and on the island south.  It was a hot afternoon and the thermometer was 99 when I walked over to check on the two locations, but there was nothing there, no pigeons, just osprey, six of them in all.

I ran into a friendly Houston birder named Gary Benderim, who was there after the same tough bird, I was.  We chatted and he went and checked the surroundings, too.  He saw the same seedeater I had, a female type.  I went up to the feeding station and found a flock of bobwhite, they still had Altamira and Audubon's orioles but will be closing shop in a few days as the caretakers will be moving on.

I came back down and spotted FOY barn swallows feed over the river.  Then fishermen arrived and well first one, then two, then five, one of them caught a small largemouth and one of the osprey caught a catfish but besides that, fishing seemed a bit slow, and generally the ospreys stayed perched.  I was dozing off in the heat when all of a sudden something had gotten over me without me noticing it.  It could have been the pigeon....but IDK, it was too fast and I was droopy, so I started chain eating mints.  I needed to pay attention!  Had I missed my chance?

It was dragging on.  Gary came back and we watched, waited and hoped, I didn't mention my possible dozing miss....530, 6, 630, and then two birds came at us from Mexico.  There was no doubt this time...PIGEONS!  The correct ones but they were in Mexico, way in Mexico. Damn!   I began to coax them like a golf shot waiting for the action, the wind, or the break to work.  They were still coming at us.  "Come on, come on!"  I yelled.  Then they turned to almost Parallel.  I swore and then tried to encourage them.  "Left!  Left! Get into America, come on!"  I yelled as if they could hear or understand me.  It was then as if waiting for a monster Tiger Woods putt (when Tiger was a monster) to break over an unseen ridge on TV, that the birds started turning towards us again as we stood there transfixed.  "Come on, come on, a little more!" I yelled as Gary pulled up his camera and began to take shots.  I couldn't take shots as I had to know where these birds were.  They were now clearly over the Rio Grande, but where exactly is the border? Where is America?  I had heard from multiple sources that it was the channel, but where exactly was that?  The birds zipped past as I followed them as they headed east of south dead down the river.  "Left!" I yelled one more time and then they veered ever so subtly a little to the left heading towards the island and then I watched as they went over the island clearly on our side.  "Yay!  ABA!"  I jumped and cheered as if the gigantic putt rolled into the hole.

Now, I can say two things about these two pigeons.  First, they were undoubtedly red-billed pigeons, and secondly, and unquestionably they crossed into American airspace, at least somewhere in that journey.  Was that when they passed us? Possibly, but it was definitely as they took a straight line from us towards that island as the river goes a little more to the right.   The bad part of having to watch them and their exact position the whole period was I was unable to take pictures, and there was no way I was going to have those birds out of eye sight at anytime, when I thought they crossed into ABAdom, I shouted it.  Gary agreed.  Just like a Tiger putt I did a little fist action with the bird.  It was in the hole, it is in THE hole...wait, that IS golf.  This is birding.  Os becomes an Ex...Tick, counted, bird #489.  Gary is sending me a copy of a picture he took for my records.  Lifer number #734 too.  I'm drinking beer tonight, well I didn't but I will get to that.

It isn't like they would be good pictures, here is a ringed kingfisher taken by me a few minutes later.  It is the best of ten shots and isn't very good, I look forward to seeing what Gary got.  I didn't need it but the kingfisher is in ABAdom, too....see the border?

No, you don't.  To be honest I'm not sure where this bird is, but it landed on our shoreline.  This you will agree, is really an imperfect science and I saw this bird last year in Roma (I mean same species of pigeon), they never ever crossed the border.  I assume the border was past where the guy in Mexico with the jeep drove out past the sand bar.  Those pigeons were squarely on the Mexican side IMHO.

WARNING:  What I'm about to say should be graphic.  It should be laced with expletives and every foul word I could come up with, maybe even using a British dictionary for more.   I turned back towards Mission nearing dark and after the traffic being afraid of the plethora of police and stops upon cars next to me three times, for infractions, I couldn't fathom....maybe the truck with the boat failed to yield for a cop but it was solid traffic and I was to his left, so where could he go?

Going 40 in a 60, I finally got to Hidalgo County phew!  Wow, I will never EVER, spend a dime in Starr county, either the county is so unsafe as to warrant the occupation by the Texas State Police, so one shouldn't dare venture from your car OR they are just being a public nuisance and either way I want no part of it.  You couldn't give me property in that county.  Now, finally cruising along at the speed limit, at the Bentsen State park exit, traffic just stopped, no stop and go, just stopped and no go.  it took 90 minutes to get to the next exit, Encarnation (sp?) and %^^&...okay construction, no problem but they %^^&$ Texas highway department didn't mark the detour and people were going every which way and the cop gave the frontage road people, where us that were going where we were supposed to go, no turns at the intersection.  It took me three hours to go 3 miles, REALLY?  I found the Motel 6 in Mission which by the way is NOT findable by Siri on Iphone and I was too pooped to eat, drink beer or anything,...I went to bed.

I moved from the dike to the official hawk watch with the John and usual counters for the next two mornings. The guys have good eyes, especially John's friend, name alludes me.  It was not as good of a day as the day before when they saw 11,000 plus vultures.  Heck, I saw a lot of vultures from the dike, not that many, but lots.

Then we get to more imperfect science.  Hook-billed kites and hawk IDs.  Only four species commonly group up here, Vultures, broad winged hawks, Swainson's hawks, and Mississippi kites, the latter two haven't begun coming by yet, so if there is a group of raptors--broad-wings, but single birds of other species will come into a kettle of vulutres especially say, zone-tails which may be a hunting technique.  Gray hawks flap and broad wings don;t except with heavy air trying to gain altitude.

So here is a bird from the ground..I'm pushing my lens

I'm thinking Cooper's hawk here.

here is a hook-billed from internet

Now on hawk-watch day II, the guy standing next to me called this bird on Ebird, I bird I clearly remember, BTW,  a hook-billed, this is his picture....I will cite if needed but don't want to cast any aspersions.

I had it down also as a Cooper's but...?  No one called it hook-billed at the time.  This is imperfect.  I saw a roosting hook-billed at Santa Ana a few years ago and I know exactly what it was but no photo and no one believed that ebird report.  It got up, and flew off back towards Mexico....It is just the way things are.  I was standing on the dike when another gentleman came by all excited reporting that they had seen two condors at the bird blind earlier...."Now that is a really good bird."  I said not really knowing what else to say...but Condors!!??  I thought giggling to myself.  Correct ID'ing of birds takes some practice.  It also requires keeping some of these fantastical things to yourself.

About all I do know is this is a white tailed kite.

the weather became even heavier on day #3 and it wasn't until nearly 11 that the vultures and hawks lifted off.  I had a bird way out in the scope that I could have called a hook-bill, even the watchers were waiting for my call but I couldn't do it, I just couldn't.  IDK, so I leave Texas hookless, so to speak, no hookers, but unless someone has something to enlighten me, I need to come back.

The synopsis

3/14 Bentsen Rio Grande State Park

487.  Broad-winged Hawk

Salineno

488.  Barn Swallow
489.  Red-billed pigeon

Santa Ana NWR

490.  Yellow-throated vireo
491.  Stilt Sandpiper

Bentsen Rio Grande State Park

492.  Nashville warbler

Okay, now some Texism.  H E B stores. one of the most intriguing markets--stores, I have seen in a while.  This store always makes me laugh.

First, flaming birds?  Nothing says birds better than flaming ones....okay they are probably talking fried chicken but do I really want flaming chicken?

Now the first time ever visiting one of these masterpieces of local commerce was in Rio Grande City when I used to shop in Starr County, they had an entire section of Madonna statues next to a beer display.  Hundreds of Madonnas....Mother Mary and imported beer....I think about the two of them.

Okay here is one

Grilling next to School and Office?  Or office between sporting goods and grilling?  Who lays these stores out?  They are never the same.

I needed toothpaste....I couldn't find any.  It actually was in this aisle

Okay look at what they have in this aisle..think about this combo.....Reading glasses next to Incontinence?  Travel Sizes.  The combo of Feminine hygiene and eye care?  They have depends next to small tubes of toothpaste, next to pregnancy tests, by ....

I went and bought a really weird beer for my lifer beer.

 

True Blonde Dubbel.....only at H E B, almost following my wine theory for a good red.  I buy from the label which has to be either a naked woman or a fine French Chateau, I have never been wronged using this technique.....this one was close, but does it work on beer?  They weren't naked but it wasn't too bad of a beer either...a day late but still savoring the pigeon.  This beer was about as close as I came to hookers in Texas,  Okay a bad pun made from a guy who lives for these things........ 

Cheers to Texas!

Cheers to Red, red IS not the new pink.

Olaf

The Hummingbirds are back

The first hummer came to the feeder and even it mocked me with my trouble with pink....then I scratched my head...a pink breasted hummingbird.....what the?  Everything seemed pink now to my eyes....

It was the start of some early hummer madness...they were hummers...I was mad, mad as a hatter.

Big Year Days 71-73

Big Year Total:  486

Coded birds:  35

Cool animals: Bobcat, Harbor seal, gray whale, California sea lion, pronghorn, porcupine, sea otters, Island gray fox, ringtailed cat

Miles driven.  15,500

Flight Miles 51,300

flight segments: 49   Different Airports: 27

Hours at sea: 25

Miles walked 70

Miles biked 2

states/ prov. birded:19

SE Arizona

It was a long day repositioning from Connecticut and my busted pink goose project.  I flew into Minneapolis, hooked up with my wife and daughter and then on to Phoenix and Tucson.  We crawled into our hotel room for a few hours in Green Valley.

Let me say, this was a scheduled trip for sometime.  I needed family and this trip was a bit on the calm and down low.  I needed that...

I had three birds I needed, as I had scrapped the search for the black-capped gnatcatcher to go get the ivory gull, that was a first stop and then I needed a spotted owl.  I also learned that there was a hawk watch at a park in Tubac south of Green valley and when I emailed the person reporting the numbers, he said anyone could come.  The place offered, picnic tables, a jumping dog, and a group of about 60 watchers...the first bird called out was a black hawk, and life...was good.

It turned out the dog walkers came out and watched the bird watchers and many of the bird watchers watched the dog walkers.  It was basically the month of March in Tubac, people with dogs looking at people with bins looking for birds but generally chatting.  My daughter watched Joey, the jumping dog who could easily clear the fence in the dog run, and after a while, as my hoping something else showed up waned, I realized my two ladies weren't watching hawks and just dogs...it was time to leave.

We then went to Florida Canyon and got the gnatcatcher with a little effort, and then we had ice cream bars at Santa Rita Lodge while watching hummers feed.  It was a little slow as the heat of the day was happening, but my daughter was adding year birds right and left.

After a supply stop in Safeway where I met the oddest, and most talkative checkout guy ever, I got a listing of his entire household of pets, feeding schedules, and I learned he was a young man who needed to leave Sierra Vista right away....really.  His middle name was bored...

We came into the Beatty Ranch just after 1530, and met Tom and Edith.  They were the consumate hosts and we stayed in cabin A.  It was a rejuvenating place and good for Silja and my souls.  Sometimes we don't seem to know which way to go..

but here...we met in the middle.

It was nice at the Beatty's, and it turned out one of the three Chemistry Profs that challenged me and shaped me back in the day at Ripon College, Dr James Beatty PhD of Ripon is Tom's brother and also now lives in Sierra Vista.  Ahhh...P Chem...the memories.  Not all memories are good.  One memory is of one of my classmates and one of the 8 in that class killed himself the weekend before finals started, with cyanide he stole from the stockroom possibly even when I was on duty.  We all went to Scott's funeral on reading day.  I ate with Scott just before he did this as I had a forensics meet in UW-Stout.  He seemed okay 48 hours before....I also remembered a caring prof during those trying times named Dr. Beatty.  I chose to remember the good......

This is the forth time, Ripon College has turned up recently birding.  I have even been rescued by the president of the Board of Trustees in Belize birding once.  I called my old prof, who I'd lost track of when he retired and although he didn't remember me, I thanked him as I have Dr Scamehorn who is still living in Ripon and I always regret I never did this for Dr. Earle Scott before he died. Dr Katahira who replaced Dr Scott in 1986 is still there and teaches my twins.  It has been 28 years since I graduated ...I was a 22 year old punk back then, with unruly hair, bad dress, and well, not a six pack or even a single can abs....now... nothing has changed!

It is a small world, and as the Beatty's hail from Fargo area, it was nice talking midwest with them.  They have suffered much over the years with fire and flood and it is amazing they still have a ranch.  I needed the 10 hours of sleep and so apparently did my family.  Tom took us personally and showed us the pair of spotted owls in a tree, it was even kind of sweet in a romantic sort of way.  Nothing beats owl sightings and for the rare owls, even better.  We look forward to coming back in hummer season.

We hiked as much as my wife's bad ankle would tolerate and except for my daughter loosing her cell phone, I think in Suguaro National Park, it was good trip, even she thought so.

You know, I like writing about some big event, or ranting about something I see, but this was just a nice relaxing weekend and allowed me to reconnect with my wife of 25 plus years and my 15 year old daughter....that and 3 target birds and 11 FOY birds gave me a total up to 486.  I got 5 hummers, including a couple of really good photos of birds I haven't photoed...Okay ready now for more chases.  The biggest surprise was a yellow-throated warbler in Patagonia.  It has been there for months but what is that doing there?  Maybe it like us needed a little R&R.  Thank you Arizona, the Beattys and the birds.....

Synopsis

3/11/2016
Tubac Hawk Watch

476.  Broad-billed hummingbird
477.  Common black hawk

Florida Canyon

478.  black-capped gnatcatcher (code 3)

Santa Rita Lodge

479.  Broad-tailed Hummingbird

Miller Canyon

480.  Spotted Owl
481.  Magnificent Hummingbird

3/12/2016

482.  Cassin's Vireo

Paton's Hummingbird Center

483.  Violet-crowned hummingbird
484.  black-chinned hummingbird

Patagonia City Park

485.  yellow-throated warbler

3/13/2016

Saguaro National Park
486.  Gilded flicker

Here are some of the gorgeous photos of birds from this weekend

Common black hawk, first one on the watch, we saw 5, not sure what the final tally was for Friday

broad billed hummingbird

Black capped gnatcatcher male, got many photos of the female below

Black-tailed gnatcatcher

spotted owls (Mexican)

Violet crowned himmingbird, which is slowly becoming my favorite hummer, third time is the charm to get decent photos of this bird....2013, and 2015 photos sucked!

painted redstart

well enough R&R, I need to get my last 14 for 500 by my 50th birthday and stay on schedule...any one need a birding partner is LRGV?  I land in McAllen in the morning.....

Life is good, the hummers are back!

Olaf

The Pink Menace II?

Big Year Days 68-70

Big Year Total:  475

Coded birds:  34

Cool animals: Bobcat, Harbor seal, gray whale, California sea lion, pronghorn, porcupine, sea otters, Island gray fox, 

Miles driven.  15,100

Flight Miles 47,300

flight segments: 46   Different Airports: 27

Hours at sea: 25

Miles walked 66

Miles biked 2

states/ prov. birded:19

Hartford, CT

It is my hope that some adversity will make me stronger.  The good news is that I came to Connecticut and added my 47th state to my lifetime visit list, now only missing New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and South Carolina, the bad news is I seriously dipped out on the bird.  It was one of those monumental busts...

I sat above in the departure lobby in Montreal (pictured above) for a flight that I ended up being the only passenger....note to self--there is a reason no one else is going to Hartford..maybe you shouldn't go either.  It was a very small Beechcraft 1700D and I did get here alive but well....

The final score is Pink-footed goose 3, Olaf 0

It was long and a hard stakeout at Fisher Meadows in Avon, CT.  I came, I didn't see, and I was conquered.  All this, despite the best efforts of Mark Danforth, the man who found the goose originally.  It was also in spite of  Darlene Moore, who had been reporting it nearly daily and took me under her wing, even feeding me and putting me up after I got stubborn and stayed an extra day when I should of bugged out.  It was also despite it being reported just 3 hours before I got here.

I had expected a quick in and out, be home for dinner almost, but the bird didn't cooperate.  I think the bird was coming in the first night with a lone snow goose and two pairs of Canada's in low light but it didn't stop and kept flying north right by its nightly hangout...why?  IDK, the geese seemed to change their patterns the second day and despite a search of the whole region and sorting thousands of Canadas ...........no dice.

Some dip outs don't bug you but this one did.  I don't like to feel defeated and today when I made a last ditch effort to see the bird I ran into a man from Ohio who recognized me and to be honest, that gave me a boost.  He knew Jay Lehman, big year birder and knew of me and has followed this....you know that is what this is all about, people saying hey, god job!  Thanks!

Birders came and went and one thing was constant, no goose.

I got excited when 500 geese came in yesterday and one was different...

My excitement waned when the bird turned showing me it's white face--greater white-fronted goose...the only reported one here in months.

I was somewhat happy to have noted the American woodcock returning and hearing their peent, which gave me bird #475 and saved me a early 50 mile trek to get one in Wisconsin but it wasn't much of a consolation prize.

Both John and Debbie S. from St Martin took in this wayward traveler (Debbie has taken me down in the islands under her wing before) and so did Darlene Moore, a woman I hadn't met before....thanks much for your warm hospitality.  I appreciate your kindness.  I don;t think I'm worth it, but well...this is depression talking, I'll perk up when a good bird is nabbed.

I wish I could have something witty to say, but I'm worn out with this stakeout and I don't want to sort geese for a while.  Yes, they are just fascinating to watch land, and I did watch it for days but well maybe I'll appreciate my time in Connecticut more in retrospect.  Anything in excess is tiring...

I tried to standby a flight to get out early but alas NO, last man not on the plane.  I sit here waiting for a call from any birder that they have found the bird but alas, the phone isn't ringing.  I'm better off because it will go before I can get there anyhow and I'll miss the last flight out which I am on.

I worry that this bird will become my new nemesis...I have issues with pink....I am trying everything, a new hat, a new shirt, I played Ex's and Oh's in the woods yesterday....I just hope the Pink Nemesis hasn't reincarnated as a goose...a %^& pink-footed goose.   There is a story about this goose costing me in the past...a business deal in New York....but I won't have any of this talk....I just won't have a new nemesis...NO!

Hope and patience is the only things us birders have some days and if my hope fades and I become inpatient, this will evolve into a VERY long year.  Maybe that is what I will get out of this dip out is a new perspective on all of this....in that I find something I can truly hope for.

Thanks again to everyone in this fine state, I apologize for avoiding it for 49.96 years...gosh I'm almost 50, maybe that is why I feel so down...birthdays suck.

enjoy the moment

Olaf     

Uhtceare about the Rock

It was all dark, I could feel a presence looking at me, maybe many presences and then the light shined and the familiar music started with a finger running down the piano.  I didn't like my hair at all, my shoes were wrong, and the Rainbow flag I was wearing seemed ill fitting and a bit drafty.  I noticed the mike in my right hand and then I had an urge to sing: "Go on now, go walk out the door..just turn around now.."  Why was I singing the Gloria Gaynor's song, but I continued and then in the chorus out comes Bart Simpson wearing only a thong, but also colored like the LGBT flag like my dress and then also out comes Robin Williams, he was all pale and gray but was wearing even less, LGBT colored socks and red 1970s Converse high-tops.  "You look terrible, Robin."  I said in a pause.

"I'm just dead, Olaf."  he smiled and then said "Just go with it, man...go with it."  Bart was singing I will survive alone so we had to catch up.

Then the music stopped and Robert Wuhl (may favorite actor) came out, he was teaching a class, the spectators were graduate students, he was lecturing on LGBT anthems of the 1970s...."Now let me introduce the late Freddie Mercury...."

I woke up with a start..."What the...?"  I said sitting up in bed and where even was I?  Then I felt women looking at me...I laid back down....I was in the safe confines of my bedroom with the beautiful models of the 1920s and 30s of Marcel Herrfeldt paintings looking at me.  Brighid the dog groaned un-approvingly, it was too early...even for her.

For the next hour I was taken over by a terrible case of uhtceare

 UHTCEARE. (n.) Pronounced- oot-key-are-a. An Old English word meaning. 'lying awake before dawn and worrying'

and it had nothing to do with that strange dream, well maybe not.  One shouldn't be too concerned about being oneirocritical (pertaining to the interpretation of dreams) so I won't be.  I was worried about whether going to St John's Newfoundland, the "Rock" was a good idea.  It is the best palce to see two coded birds, but I already had the tufted duck.  It was a long way for a black-headed gull.  I would need to get up in an hour.  The marquis bird, the yellow-legged gull hadn't been seen for a while, the ice had melted 2 months early and a snow storm was imminent.  It would be a long trip for just a black-headed gull.  Then what?  The uhtceare just continued until the alarm sounded and soon, Allwin and I were heading to Minneapolis.  I was going birding alone, he was just off to visit college and the airport in Minneapolis was on the route to Ripon. Oddly Sirius radio was on the 70s channel and then as I danced to some mighty fine disco tunes, No "Ex's and Oh's for me today.  My son just looked at me like I had a disease.  I then sang to "I will survive" and I looked at him staring at me like was I truly okay...."What?"  I said.  "It is a powerful song, the narrator discusses her refound strength after a devastating break up.  It is sort of analogous to the refinding of the strength of the late seventies after the breakup of the sixties culture for the baby-boomers if only to be crushed again as they became 40 a few years later in the eighties..."

"Where did that come from?"  I said quietly to myself I wasn't even thinking about that.

Then I added when he asked me a question about things I regretted from the past.  Sigh, more thoughts I would rather not think about......but I discussed how I felt like I had arrived to a party just as the Baby-boomers were turning off the lights.  I was 10 days below the cut off for the 18, then 19, year old drinking age as they raised it to 21 in 1984-87.  The boomers had their fun and now they stuck the 1980s with us, Aids, Reagan, Inflation, bad music, conservatism, and Walter Mondale and Dukakis....They had given the tail end of the Boomers or GenX the shaft, that was my one regret, missing the all the fun...but as the song goes, I will survive.

"THE ROCK-- NEWFOUNDLAND"

Newfoundland, Canada

Big Year Days 64-67

Big Year Total:  474

Coded birds:  34

Cool animals: Bobcat, Harbor seal, gray whale, California sea lion, pronghorn, porcupine, sea otters, Island gray fox, 

Miles driven.  14,900

Flight Miles 43,200

flight segments: 45   Different Airports: 26

Hours at sea: 25

Miles walked 66

Miles biked 2

states/ prov. birded:18

Where to start....I arrived at 1230 AM, almost wanted to hug the cheery Hertz rep at the airport and went to my hotel, a B&B in downtown St. John's, which I might add as it turned didn't offer breakfast, in fact, it was devoid of any hosts at all, and was above a very noisy nightclub which kept going to 3am.  It is called the Duckworth Hotel and was warm and the bed was night but lacked much of anything such as some direction to the stay which I guess for me was okay.  It was cheap.  The Quality Inn is the the old birder standby and well, the bed was nicer here but it was easier to figure out the bar and get a direction to visit there but it wasn't bad.

The local young birder el-primo, star medical student, and all-around nice guy Alvan Buckley picked me up before 6am outside and while I waited on the cold dark streets of the capital of Newfoundland for him, it seemed like I was in a move scene with Peter Sellers "The Pink Panther."  A cab came by going left and then turned right up the hill.  A moment later the same cab retraced it's step down hill.  He then went by me slowing....I waived him off.  I sat, just like the observer in the movie did.  Then he came around again from same direction.  He came around from three directions 5 times stopping twice.   In the movie the three cars doing such can't leave the neighborhood and end up crashed at a fountain, luckily Alvan showed up before that happened.

We joined what appeared to a gathering of the St John's birding community at Cape Spear, looking for a white gyr, I had seen a gyr already but white ones....while waiting in the cold, I observed the first point of sunrise on North America, its easternmost point is Cape Spear.

While I was there I added a couple of new birds.

#471  Black Guillemot

 way out in the sea and so windy, I was unable to use my digiscoping equipment, but it was the bird as were the five common eiders Bruce McTavish called out which after they flew by, I sort of looked at everyone and then had a vision of another movie....Rare Birds. With William Hurt in it and it was filmed here.  The birders were all searching for a not real "Labrador Duck" to get birders in to save a restaurant.  Bruce MacTavish was almost in the movie but didn't make the editting, today, the dean of Newfoundland birding looked at Black Head, maybe even with his naked eyes a mile plus off, and called out a white morph gyrfalcon, which everyone was there except me to see.  He should have been the movie in my opinion.  

The gyr landed and Bruce found it in his scope and after he let me look, I found the bird sitting on a rock in my scope once I got bearings.  It was a dot on full power but impressive none-the-less.

So I was plus two birds for the year before my coffee had gotten cold which I would be soon, and Alvan, Chancey, and me (hope I spelled his name correct) who was another local birder took off on what would become a generally futile attempt to see a yellow-legged gull, a black headed gull, and a Bullock's Oriole at a feeder.  Eventually we did find a Thayer's gull that they were looking for.  I did get better looks at a couple of birds I had seen before....

Tufted ducks...

Eurasian Wigeon

Alvan sent off SOSs, APB or what ever they call it out there for the gull.  We looked everywhere ...but no coded gulls, just the usual, Iceland, Herring, Great Black backs, a couple of European subspecies Mews, and black-legged kittiwakes.  The weather was changing and a big storm was coming in, the wind was picking up and the ice was being tore from the ponds and all the gulls had gone away to hide.  Then something worse happened, the Fieldfare was reported five hours away and right in the middle of what would become the teeth of the blizzard.  The storm seemed to make a donut around St John's but eventually it started here and soon it was too miserable to bird.  I turned in early tried to sleep, and continued to experience uhtceare about the Rock....

Morning came and the snow had came, then rain, it was a mess outside, but where the fieldfare was, worse--70 mph winds and 16 inches of snow....

I forgot Newfoundland is one of my mermaid birding spots...spots with mermaids adorning them, I like mermaids....

Ventura harbor California

Catalina Island

and the Chocolate mermaid princess of St John's Newfoundland

Why a chocolate mermaid...?  Why not...but things always happened to the good when I am blessed by a good mermaid.....

I needed to be patient and let the Chocolate mermaid do her magic...

I got picked up and we looked and looked, but no oriole, no yellow legged gull, and even no black-headed gull and then after a full 2 hours of staking out a feeder for what was for me a near backyard bird...a friend of Alvan's named Bill (last name?) spotted three BHGU and off we went.  Had the mermaid helped me?

Out in the surf, there they were...

#473  Black-headed gull, my first coded bird for a while and a lock bird as Alvan said unfortunately we must have lost the key, albeit only temporary, thanks Bill.

It was a still a tough go for the yellow-legged gull as the gulls had there own agenda wherever that was and didn't show up with their European visitor in tow.  Of the 20,000 gulls hanging around, we maybe saw 10-15%.  My scheduled plane was set to go out at 5am, in general, this trip had been a bust, the uhtceare had been warranted, like a premonition...what singing I will survive had to do with it...IDK.

I went to bed early and woke up at 0130, I had said I was chasing the fieldfare, but had second thoughts, I hadn't cancelled anything.  I sat there, more worry, and then "F this, the mermaid is on my side." I said, bolting out of bed.  I fired up the computer booked a flight a day later and sprinted for my car.  I drove to Hertz, up-rented a car, wanted to hug the woman again, she is so nice, and took off on a 500 mile round trip odyssey that in many respects will be the pivot point of this year of birding....in many respects, it was wasteful, stupid, idiotic, name an adjective,  but I was going.....

driving at night in moose country...bad idea...but I ran across no moose.  Driving on little sleep....I didn't nod off...bad roads....they weren't too bad........at dawn, I pulled into Lumsden, NL a town of a few hundred and found Forest Ave, the sight of the first sighting at Trace Stagg's house and then also with Bill Bryden next door.  Bill had photographed it on Saturday.

 My day in Lumsden was just really indescribable.  These people are some of the warmest and friendliest people in North America.  They have such warmth, they even, I think, they melted a little of the snow and warmed my heart.  They are almost too friendly.  Can that be?  Bill and Trace gave me the once over, some direction, I gave them some dog berries I swiped from a cemetery in St John's as the woman buried under them didn't need them any longer and the robins and the fieldfare had largely cleaned out most of them in the village.  We laid them out for the birds....first they had to find them.  I began the stakeout as the entire town drove past me to school.

I was certain I heard the fieldfare at 0730 and a little later, but all I saw was a robin in plain view looking at me acting stupid.  They had said the fieldfare was skittish and well they appeared correct.  Bill took me on tour.  We even went down looking for eiders and only found a few common eiders.  I came back and staked out the feed, generally blocking traffic to and from the school, or more so when the locals stopped to see how I was doing, or while I was walking around lurking in the neighborhood with camera in hand.  Why they put up with me and seemed friendly doing it, IDK?  At 1030, I got antsy.  Then I thought about it all.  One robin up looking stupid, the others hidden or feeding...lookout bird...crap.  sparrows do that all the time and Bill had said they had a very aggressive sharpie around, the birds had adapted to a lookout, and also they were on the lookout for me  or any human.  It was simple, find the lookout, find the fieldfare.  I drove the streets....

Then I saw a robin land in the top of a larch tree (or whatever shedding conifer they have)...and I turned down that street to check it out.  There wasn't any berry trees nearby and I was about 500 meters from Bill's.  The robin flew as i approached and then a second one and then a large dark thrush with an undulating flight, robins fly straight...while belly...the fieldfare.  I ran the stop sign on the main road, accelerating and then as it dove into a spruce and shrub thicket I slammed on the brakes on the side of the road.  It was standing up so I could see it well, good look, gray head black-brown saddle, white underneath, large bill for a thrush, I've seen this bird in Sweden many times, and to be honest never got a good photo then ....satisfied with the look, I grabbed for the camera, then it dived down and I waited.  A local man with his husky saw me and walked over..."Good day!"  I was greeted.  Then I had to explain myself, then talked about owls, eiders, the dog had to lick me....I got invited to lunch and then....the bird popped out of the undergrowth and flew west and then i could see it circle.  I bid my chum adieu and chased after it, but i lost it as seemed to head down towards Bill's.  Just near the village office, I saw the lookout bird and then it saw me and spooked, three birds went three directions and one suspiciously the fieldfare....a man named Barry Hall, another of Lumsden's nuevo birders came over to Bill as I drove around and parked and gave Bill the thumbs up on seeing it.  Barry reported having seen the bird right when I did.  Now Barry had a big camera out, and then the three of us cased town for a picture.  This went on until nearing noon when Frank King, another Newfy birder drove up and now four of us looked along with Trace through her window and then she drive us around town.

At 2 pm I needed a bathroom break and at the convenience store, which didn't have a bathroom, the clerk chatted me up about America and the bird.  I got invited to dinner.  Then returning to Frank, he reported it again, hearing it and seeing it fly by...dang thrush...skittish bird...no photo.  So that was the way the day went.  We walked got invited to things, chatted up the neighbors, and even almost crashed a burial but gave someone directions at the burial...I guess the next step was an invitation to the event.

We looked and looked, but except for along ways away from the sightings, never encountered a lookout bird except a group that I think was a second flock of robins, which eventually came in that evening to the stakeout to eat our offerings of dog berries and then blueberries as Bill added some of his remaining supply for pancakes....but no fieldfare....alas at least I saw it but neither Frank nor I got pictures.....

we did see some very photogenic white-winged crossbills...

robins at the stakeout

pine grosbeak which came up as rare on ebird

We gave up near dark and I headed the 250 miles back to St John's and my next chase, I was beat, but the people of Newfoundland are just great, thanks to Alvan, Bruce, Trace, Bill B, Bill ?, Chancey, Ed, Frank, tanks everyone. Everyone who invited me into their car to warm up, thanks too.  Just out of Lumsden I turned on the radio, the first song started....It was Elle King singing the Big Year anthem, Coincidence....?  I'd have no uhtceare anymore, this was righteous, both the Chocolate mermaid and Elle King had blessed it.

I had bird #474 a fieldfare which I now consider the bird of the year....maybe I could have got a photo but I'm a birder first and a photographer second and I think that way....hard to not to in a car with a skittish bird.  No yellow legged gull but there would be a Rock II trip, I knew it and Alvan hoped so too, as that would mean a really good bird.

One last look....

Good day!

Thank you Newfoundland!  I love you guys!  I promise to never sing disco music EVER in your fair province.

Olaf
  

The Milk Run

The Yellowstone Trail, ND/SD/ MT

Big Year Days 62-3

Big Year Total:  470

Coded birds:  31

Cool animals: Bobcat, Harbor seal, gray whale, California sea lion, pronghorn, porcupine, sea otters, Island gray fox, 

Miles driven.  14,400

Flight Miles 38,200

flight segments: 42   Airports: 23

Hours at sea: 25

Miles walked 64

Miles biked 2

states/ prov. birded:17

  In an attempt to continue to share useless but hopefully mildly entertaining information describing my avian big year adventures...this time in the northern prairie....

All J.W. Parmley of Ipswich, SD really wanted was a better road between Ipswich and Aberdeen, South Dakota.  He bought his first car in 1905 and by 1910 he had enough of the muddy stage trails and organized a movement.  When he had to go to Mobridge, SD the other direction, the residents that direction also wanted a better road and soon it snowballed.  By 1912, Parmley was galvanizing a movement to build the first good road from Plymouth Rock to Puget Sound and the Yellowstone Trail later known as US Highway 12 was born.  It was the first transcontinental highway in America and it all started because a guy was pissed that he had four flats in only a 20 mile drive.

I live a mile and a half from US-12 and every year in June for a crazy day, I decide to bird what I call the "Milk Run," a hectic crazy day of birding the Yellowstone Trail to the Montana border and then I swing down into the Slim Buttes of NW South Dakota and cruise home.  It is usually a 900 mile day of birding and depending on what I need I catch the easternmost breeding location of McCown's Longspurs, Sprague's pipits, short-eared owls, Baird's sparrows, western hawks of all sorts, and then I get some  of the western species in the small portion of the Custer National Forest I clip.  One of the spots I featured in a novel, and it is an area with much history, beautiful scenery, odd things, and birds.  It is a haul, with a 2am departure, but it usually is a haul of birds I never otherwise see in a given year.

Still on the lookout for northern saw-whet owls, South Dakota birding guru, Ricky Olson had been seeing some and allowed me to invite myself over to Pierre to look for them.  I had two days off between California and Newfoundland, so what the heck.  I arrived in Pierre, the diminutive capital of South Dakota just before 8pm, it is a 290 mile drive for me.  South Dakota is so cheap, when they probably should have moved the capital to a population center, it would have cost money to do it, so it stayed put, here in Pierre.  The state is also so cheap they even reused the plans for the Montana State Capital in Helena for our own, since it would save money.  If it was good enough for Montana, it would be good enough for us, well that and they didn't want another referendum to move it.  If they broke ground, the attempts to move the capital would cease.  At 12,210 people, Pierre is almost the smallest state capital being passed by Carson City, NV in the last couple of decades in population but itself, passing Montpelier VT.  So it is still 49th.  It isn't a bad place, but it isn't on a major interstate and it isn't really on the way to anywhere.  I don't think any elected politician really wants to move here, but few Governors have been Pierre area businessmen.  Mike Rounds, two term Governor and now senator, was in insurance locally.

He picked me up and we went around calling.  We stirred up great horned owls, shared birding stories, and I learned that my lifer yellow-rail in South Dakota had been rejected for no other reason than I didn't have a picture....Ricky is on the State records committee and is President of the SD OU.  At one stop, right after we stopped calling, I heard an odd bard in a nearby cedar, unfortunately Ricky hadn't heard it and then he heard something but I didn't.  I couldn't call a tick for an owl sound he hadn't heard, but I'm sure I heard it,  so in the end the score rose to Saw whet owls 4 Olaf 0, 4 tried this year no NSWO....thanks anyways Ricky

I left Pierre at 10, immediately it switched to 9 crossing the Missouri River and the Mountain time line and I decided, heck, I'm already west, heck, I might as well go do the Milk Run in reverse.  I had a lead of a good bird on near the route--greater sage grouse.

I drove for 160 miles without even passing a gas station and then near a boat ramp in the Shadehill Recreation area I pulled off the road at nearing midnight for a couple hours of sleep in the back of my car.  The problem with grouse is they get up early and I still had many hours to get to the spot south of the Yellowstone Trail about 15 miles from  the prairie dog town that harbored McCown's in the summer.  I I woke up with a hangover at 0230 and climbed into the front seat and took off.  great horned owls came off the ditch in the prairie as I drove into Lemmon and reconnected with Hwy 12 and headed west.  Luckily, in Hettinger ND, the convenience store is open 24 hours and had foul tasting but caffeine laden java.

I arrived at the last city in North Dakota on Hwy 12, Marmarth, population 143 and shockingly the largest city in Slope County, but what this county lacks in people it has in oil, which was first discovered locally in 1936, as this is still clearly in the oil fields.  The town was a favorite settler destination as the climate in the early 1900s up until 1930 was wetter and the population approached 5000.  At one time the jail housed the Jesse James gang and Teddy Roosevelt shot his first grizzly bear just outside of town.  It was too early for history so I drove south on Camp Crook Road and then an eerie glow caught my attention, WTF?

Gas flaring....here they just do it in pits as there is no pipelines for all the gas and because of this, anywhere near oil wells it never gets dark and worse, all the flaring makes this terrible smog.  I have not been in the oil patch in the last few years since the Bakken boom and not experienced smog, well except when it was a blizzard outside or heavy rain.  Luckily, I had a favorable weather forecast otherwise I would never have attempted this.

North Dakota biding guru Corey Ellingson of Bismarck had given me a location of the lek of greater sage grouse, A bird, I fear, isn't long for this world.  I used to see them on my Milk Run down in the first county in South Dakota about 40 miles from here, but unfortunately West Nile Virus destroyed all the birds of that lek and with a continual plowing of the sage out here in the prairie, a fragmented population, the poor grouse numbers are dropping and dropping.  

These directions were not for city people.  I wound past oil pads in the dark, more fires, farm machinery, until nearing the Montana border, I parked the car and still an hour before first light, I crawled in back for a nap.  I was expecting the bubbling and dancing outside of grouse but I awoke to silence. Not even a coyote was howling.  Crap, I wondered, had I misread the directions?  I reposititioned the car as the fog steadily worsened.  I started to scour the surrounding sage brush for birds and then I looked on a hillside about 150 yards off.  I could see a male grouse just laying there.  It wasn't displaying or anything.  It moved it's head or I might of thought it was dead.  I know it is early but usually they will display this time of year.  It's lack of anything confused me.  I looked at the disinterested grouse for a while and then I decided I should try to get a photo, only digiscoping would do, so I grabbed the scope, got my phone attached and then attached that to my window mount and then I had to start the car to roll up the window.  By the time I was ready and prepared, the grouse was gone.  I need to get more streamline for this.  Eventually, since I was not near a lek I got out and listened.  I could hear them a long ways away, maybe 3/4 of a mile?  But with the heavy air I couldn't really tell.  The smog was getting worse so any more time here was futile and there was no need to walk the prairie to flush this bird...I had it and this was about them, not me.  This bird has enough problems without being scared to death by a large 6-3 230 pound Oaf, I meaning Olaf coming crashing its way.

I drove across the border hoping to stumble upon something, but I saw nothing in the endless prairie and smog except this old sign marking the border...

This is looking east with North Dakota state line on it, the other side had Montana state line on it.  I wonder which decade that sign got placed?  Here is a look at a herd of antelope to get the mental picture of the smog I stumbled upon.

It was just like I was in a glass of milk...I guess this IS the milk run.  .I drove east out of the oil patch and upon leaving, the smog cleared.  Hum, the flaring isn't causing this...yeah...right...
bird #469 greater sage grouse, first bird in North Dakota for this big year, well I think it was in North Dakota, it was close to the line.  Thanks Corey.

Nobody thinks of the Dakotas as a birding destination, but we have some great spots and hopefully, if nothing else, I will be sharing this to you as the year goes along.  The one bird everyone asks me about wanting to see is the gray partridge.  Which locally we call grays or in Wisconsin as a kid we called them Hungarian partridge.  These are backyard birds near my cabin and along with that area, Lemmon, South Dakota is the other really good spot for these birds ...but...there is no really easy way to get them.  I have actually seen as many times bass fishing on my lake from the boat as they stand on shore as I have flushing them in a field. although my springer does a good job getting them up, she is no pointer, that dog.  I spent an entire month riding ATVs near my cabin au naturel searching for the elusive birds, with an entire chapter of the futility of it all in my BPT book.

Grays like open rangeland but will also be out in fields and they also like to look at you from rock piles but they are flighty...really REALLY flighty birds.  More so than any grouse-like birds I see.  I've only been able to put a camera on one twice.  Unlike pheasants which will fly 50 yards if flushed, these birds will fly over a mile sometimes if spooked, especially if they don't have chicks.  So you don't get a second chance at them  My technique....endless mindless driving to get them.  It is just work.  Eventually, one will flush or will stand and look at you and you hope you have your camera ready.  I have probably already driven 50 miles in prime areas this year looking and have seen exactly none of this bird.

The best area, I think is around a couple of hills on Reidy Road just off 12 east of Lemmon, SD.  There is native range and farm fields.  In a couple miles of this road, in June, I can really pile up the birds, once I saw 32 upland sandpipers on 32 consecutive fence posts and then when they ended Dickcissals began, when they ended, Lark buntings....oh I yearn for June, as today except for a couple of horned larks, the fences were barren.  I drove the loop and in a prime area I looked out to the north of the car, the passenger side....partridge!  8 of them and I sped up over the hill to hopefully catch where they were going below the crest.  I hopped out, camera in hand, ran up the field and looked and ...nothing...like every time....they just kept flying.  It was bird #470 anyways, gray partridge.

I still had well over 300 miles until I got home and I was shortly on the road home.  I drove a while and then I saw something white in the only tree I could see for miles.

Another snowy owl....I didn't need it but heck...OWLS ARE COOL!

There is a reason, I guess, that I have trouble finding owls, although I hate to mention it.  There was this nurse in Two Harbors MN, who had a spiritual animal--the beaver.  Apparently beavers have special insight or something.  I don't remember her name and always refer to her as the "beaver woman."  She determined my spiritual animal is the eagle, which makes sense but I don't want to elaborate.  She told me owls don't like eagles, so I would always have trouble with owls birding....so there is the reason for my many saw-whet owl misses, I guess...beaver woman speaks....or something like that.

I got home by 5 not stopping at any other place, not even the Arch over old Hwy 12 in Ipswich as I had to drive to Minneapolis in the morning for a flight to the ROCK...Newfoundland.  The rock is a place that makes the weather out here look good.
Two more off the grouse section of the checklist, but still too many to go.  Hum....I'm thinking, I need a glass of milk...I wonder why?

got milk?

Olaf

Happy Leap Day

Ah Fresno...the huge trees of Fresno...Airport

Big Year Days 60-61

Big Year Total:  468

Coded birds:  31

Cool animals: Bobcat, Harbor seal, gray whale, California sea lion, pronghorn, porcupine, sea otters, Island gray fox, 

Miles driven.  13,500

Flight Miles 38,200

flight segments: 42   Airports: 23

Hours at sea: 25

Miles walked 64

Miles biked 2

states/ prov. birded:15

...California Continued.  In an attempt to continue to share useless but hopefully mildly entertaining information describing my avian adventures

Day #3

Again, to catch up, I'm traveling with one of my twins, Allwin, who is a traveler and eagle eyed but has never birded before.  Allwin is a junior at Ripon College majoring in German and Chemistry, speaks fluent Swedish and German, (also has 4 years of Spanish) and is currently studying abroad in Bonn and is home for a month on break.  Any job ideas out there?

We woke at 4am to hit the Angeles Crest Highway after spending the night in Glendale.  Even the huge metroplex of LA hadn't woken up yet this Leap Year Day, my bonus day for this big year, as I get an extra day than many who have done big years have had.  We climbed and climbed in the darkness and I expected a long journey with many incoming vehicles on Hwy 2 but where the road goes to Palmdale, the traffic just ended.  Hwy 2 past the ski resorts was still closed due to winter unlike when I came this exact way 3 years to the day but going the other way, and it was open.

Tom Ford-Hutchinson one of three California birders I have emails for or Facebook friend (met him on Dana Pt Pelagic) had given me an owl and quail tip for Red Box, and all of a sudden as I drove up the mountain, we were there.  We stopped and got out and listened.  A man in a cable repair truck was sleeping in the parking area....cable guys....white vans...NSA, kidnappers, spies...?...maybe here it was just a tired guy taking a nap.  After hearing absolutely nothing, It was so quiet without traffic noise, city noise, or unfortunately birding noise, we drove up to Mt Wilson and stopped where we could, but we still heard nothing.  I had heard reports of spotted owls at the observatory area but all we heard was the wind and the hum from many towers buzzing the early morning cable and news to many homes in the valley before us.  Maybe even sending "Ex's and Oh's" on the radio to everyone below.

Back at Red Box, and now with the sun coming up, we walked the trail down the mountain for about a third of a mile and started to hear a cacophony of something unknown.  What was this bird noise?  It was certainly not from a quail?  They kept going and going, and it was getting harsher in character.  it was so noisy that when the Mountain quail finally did call out I could hardly hear it.  Then we spotted the culprits of the noise....squirrels, dangest noisiest squirrels anywhere.  I need to improve my squirrel identification.  Then thankfully more Mountain quail called out and so we looked for them and intermittently tried to determine the guilty tappers of the trees, but we could only see acorn woodpeckers.  We never spotted a quail.  We came back to Red Box and then heard some more mountain quails call and then something else called from about two trees away, the steady toot toot of a northern pygmy owl.  Cool!  We looked in every tree and then it seemed to change to the opposite side of the valley by the parking lot and so we came over there.  I called the owl and the one on this side stopped and then continued on the other side. I'm not sure we had two owls but we definitely had one. but try as I might, we couldn't actually find the bird.   Then behind the museum (there is a Native American museum of some sort at Red Box) a dog spotted me, and began to bark.  It never stopped.  The little owl did, though and I with the dog yapping so, I couldn't hear anything...it was time we should go.

Chilao Visitor Center was out next stop.  It is only open this time of year on weekends from 10-3, closed on this non-holiday, Leap Day of course, it being Monday, but it is a good spot for birds.  They have many feeders and squawky jays.  I saw bird number 465...an old nemesis, the white headed woodpecker.  However, it still isn't a perfect shot.  I have more blurry and out of frame shots of this bird....

plus many band-tailed pigeons.

Steller's Jays,

even ones that seemed to want us to feed them.  Allwin wanted to go get peanuts for the friendly bird, which upon getting one, basically told us to leave in "Jayese".

I saw a warbler that was probably a hermit warbler but it wasn't a 100% proposition, up in a pine tree and well, I couldn't call it...we called for Clark's nutcrackers which I assumed were here but no signs of any, and despite looking, we didn't see anything.  Allwin started to climb on the rocks so I decided we needed to keep on moving, before he fell or I died of freight..

I love the San Gabriel Mountains.  There were exactly 6 other people up there anywhere and it was so peaceful and quiet despite just being above the huge city.  I liked it when 26 years ago I went with my then fiance Silja and we took a ski lift to the top and saw the rare desert bighorn and I like it now.  Then driving out not far from Red Box, two mountain quail flushed from the side of the road and flew over the hood of the car...."quail!" I yelled and was out of the car looking down the canyon for them.  No quail to take a picture, but we did hear a flurry of talk from the two of them before they quieted up and we got tired of looking.

You know, it is Leap Day and I have seen all of the quail....all of them this year.  That is a happy thought.

  Tom had also said this oasis in Kern County may be very good for goldfinches and as such we decided to go...it wasn't that far directly north and well it was such a nice day.  Let me say one thing here and now....Advice #1 for anyone doing a big year.  "TEXT YOU DESTINATION TO SOMEONE!"  We didn't and as we drove deeper into the hills on the side of the Mohave Desert, we lost cell phone service, and then lost a decent road, and if we had lost an oil pan or tire we could have lost our lives.  Advice #2  "DON'T RENT A FAMILY SEDAN TO BIRD OFF ROAD!"  The Ford Fusion wasn't meant for the San Marcos Road (which I learned was replaced in 1962 due to too many people complaining of car sickness) and it certainly wasn't meant for the Jawbone Canyon, then Kelso Valley Road and it CERTAINLY wasn't meant for the Butterbredt Canyon Road, and the drive to the Nature preserve at Butterbredt Springs on the bottom.  The internet warned it was rough, but didn't say HOW rough.  Sigh....it was lucky we didn't loose a tire OR a whole wheel...note to any of you buying used Hertz cars?  I kept checking underneath for leaks every time we scraped something.  So avoid a deep blue Ford Fusion, it was hard miles on it...  even worse, we found no goldfinches either, not much of anything was out here, ruby crowned kinglets and spotted towhee.

Oh my, we would have never been found out here.  Birders die of exposure to the desert....

We drove back to Fresno, stopping to see the absolutely orange hillsides of the hills above Bakersfield, it was one of those times to stop and enjoy the moment.

We stayed in Fresno, and ate our first evening meal at Denny's...otherwise we were too tired for supper, except for one time we ate at In-and -Out Burger in Ventura....wow marketing geniuses they are.  Gordon Ramsey would be proud of the simple menu they have.  The lines in the drive-thru truly amazing.  Menu--Hamburger, cheeseburger, or a double burger, and with or without onions.  Here is lunch in Palmdale....

Morning arrived and I still had unfinished work to do before our 4pm flight east.  We returned to the scene of the Ruff alert, Merced NWR.  The rangers were on high alert as when we walked out to an overlook one followed us and then she saw someone through here binoculars apparently too far from his/her vehicle in the distance, off she ran to her pickup and then sped across a dike to the scene of the crime.

Another "criminal" at Merced was that dogone Ruff, standing us up for a second day....rats!  I did see a bushtit out of Allwin's window for something....ruff or bushtit...?  Some get the gold, I get the tit...not sure that sounds correct...

Debbie Shearwater sent me a pleasant message when she learned I had driven near her house.  She asked me what I needed and it turned out I had driven right past a Lawrence's goldfinch hotspot, she had just seen them at the Antelope Fire hall up Panoche Road....this time I avoided the blocked section although she said she had gotten through it, but I bet she didn't have the family car I had.  Although the fire hall yielded no finches, I would like to thank Debbie for encouraging me to get this bird....I almost let it pass as we had struggled with it so, nearer to LA. Who is kidding who?  We struggled with it today

We drove up on the Panoche Hills Access road a place many have been seen as recently as Sunday...no finches.  We stopped at Mercey Hot Springs and well, usually never a shy one, I am shy about having too much camera equipment or bins near naked people and when a woman walked up to her car wearing a loose bathrobe, very loosely...and gave me a look, we stayed out of the campground and looked a little outside for the finch, but struck out.  I'd love to come back here and stay a while with my female escort...Silja some time or I should have birded here during my last clothing optional big year.  Alas, that was then and this was now.  I spotted a finch just outside on the road as we crossed the first bridge-- a house finch and then 4 cliff swallows flew out of under the bridge...a returning migrant, bird #467.  These nest on the side of my cabin and get into my cabin much to the annoyance of Lena, my daughter, so I never thought of the camera but I bet ebird is going to give me grief for these but they weren't tree swallows, 8 of those were also overhead.  My first migrants!

Off we drove watching the clock...we stopped at every ranch up to the fire hall and every ranch down.  At the Panoche Inn, we pulled off the road as I heard finches and got out.  Three guys were drinking Coors outside the bar, one apparently the owner petting a black and white cat.  He was curious if we wanted a beer or drink and then curious what we were up to.  I didn't feel comfortable really giving his property a once over and we stayed in the parking area as he and my son talked about Germany.  I periodically scanned the trees.

then Allwin said, "there is one in a tree, I see yellow"... I looked without enthusiasm.

"Just a flycatcher."  I said dejected.  It was an ash-throated flycatcher, not a bad bird...that I had seen already.  I then gave up.  I tried to extricate ourselves from the situation as the guy was so friendly and I guess as long as we were't despised solar developers, we were interesting.  We chatted about a French couple who stopped looking about a roadrunner and the pretty green hills and then Allwin said.  "there it reallyIS this time to the right of the flycatcher."  It almost wasn't worth the effort to turn my head.

Damn, he was right!  It was the bird!  WOW!  Gray finch, yellow head and yellow on the bum, its back was to me and into the sun and then it flew with a 2nd one briefly landing on a barbed wire fence showing its front profile.   Then poof, they flew off as the bar owner standing by us never waivered in his story.  Lawrence's Goldfinches!!  My final missing endemic California bird.  My disposition improving, we headed to Fresno, mission accomplished...but then as luck would have it just at Mercey Hot Springs the car flushed a flock of 50-100 Lawrence's as I drove past a large patch of the yellow fiddle-neck flowers on the side of the road.  Why now, the 3rd time through here?   Really?  It was just the way it was and then I spotted two dudes with a camera at the first bridge north of Mercey, I slowed and asked them what they had...they were flower chasers, not birders...I don't know what rarity they were photographing.  I know less about flowers than squirrels.

Allwin then asked me if I had everything.  I said everything but would have liked another look at a Bell's sparrow, everyone has been reporting them in here and then on a sage, I spotted one of the little skulky bastards...sitting up in perfect light.  I slammed on the brakes, grabbed for the camera and as word came to it apparently from the birding gods that Olaf was near...it vanished.....I hate those sparrows. ..anything that used to be a sage sparrow, I never get a good camera shot at either of them.   At least I got a good look at this one but to all of you with great photos of this bird on fences and on sage, and sitting up all pretty...phooey on you....or congrats...I'm not sure which.
   
bird summary

Feb 29
San Gabriel Mountains CA

463.  Mountain Quail
464.  Northern pygmy owl
465.  white-headed woodpecker

March 1
Merced NWR, Merced CA

466.  Bushtit

Mercey Hot Springs

467.  Cliff Swallow

Panoche Rd.

468.  Lawrence's Goldfinch

It ended up being a bit ugly birding, late looks, quick looks, wrong side of car looks, heard only and no looks, and especially no ruff looks, but you know, I got everything I needed but unfortunately not what I really wanted.  All totaled, we drove 1150 miles in California in 4 days, plus 200 miles to get to Minneapolis, 13 species of year birds and well happy memories with my son.  That alone was priceless....

It was a Leap Day, I'd always remember.  I don't think I will get to bird with my son the rest of the year and hardly will see him....Allwin spent the trip reading a book on obsolete English words and then telling me about them....I made the trip between sights quicker but ...well....I was never a word smith, but words like owling (don't confuse with looking for owls in the dark) and gefunkle and maybe even oko-pogo seemed mildly amusing and useful.

a couple of extra memories for me

Olaf

PS trips upcoming

Sage grouse chase to North Dakota tomorrow
then leaving for Newfoundland
I may go to Texas to get hook-billed kites/ red-billed pigeon/ and tropical parula after that if nothing better appears before going to Arizona the following weekend with daughter and wife to go owling in Madera/ Sierra Vista...any added intel would be appreciated, we are staying two nights at the Beatty Ranch.  I have a few birds missing at both locations...let me know