Marsh Camp

I spent all last week volunteering at Marsh Camp, a bird-oriented day camp for children mostly nine and ten years old. The camp, organized and run by Sea and Sage Audubon, is based at San Joaquin Wildlife Sanctuary in Irvine. In addition to teaching kids about birds, I was able to do a lot of birding.

San Joaquin is only thirteen miles from my house, so I rode my bike there every morning. If I didn't stop to look at birds or slack off at pedaling, I could do it in fifty minutes. I still managed to spot a few interesting birds while cruising at twenty miles per hour, including Greater Yellowlegs, Common Moorhen, and White-faced Ibis. A brisk thirteen-mile ride in the early morning is a good way to start the day!

Most of the camp days followed a similar schedule. The main morning event was the bird walk. Every morning, I accompanied four campers and an adult naturalist around the trails, looking for birds and other interesting life forms. None of the kids in my group (top of post) were super-birders, but they knew their birds and were interested. We started with easily-observed species such as American Avocets, including this baby.



Even the plain old Mourning Doves provided good opportunities for the kids to study and sketch birds.



By the end of the week, the campers were eagerly seeking out more elusive species such as White-tailed Kite and Virginia Rail to add to their list for the week. They ended up with sixty-five species for the week, which isn't crummy for a bunch of beginning birders. It was encouraging to see a group of kids enthusiastic about birding - I hope they keep it up.

The afternoons were spent indoors, where I helped direct games and teach lessons. Some of the more interesting indoor activities including dissecting owl pellets, constructing bird feeders, and playing bird trivia.

On Thursday, the "raptor lady" from the Orange County Bird of Prey Center visited to show some raptors to the campers. It was bittersweet to see the injured raptors up close, knowing they could never be released back into the wild. Some had been hit by cars; others had been stolen out of nests and become imprinted on humans. Here are photos of two owls that were brought in, a Western Screech-Owl and a Great Horned Owl.





I had fun all last week, even though I was working hard most of the time. I'll be back all next week helping with another week of Marsh Camp, and then for two weeks after that I will be assisting with Advanced Camp. Hopefully I'll see some more interesting birds, and maybe even get a few Bigby birds!

Birdathon

The car rolled to a stop on the narrow road up Silverado Canyon, and through rolled-down windows I and my teammates for the 2009 Sea & Sage Audubon Birdathon, Leigh Johnson and Vic Leipzig, heard the faint whooping of a Spotted Owl drifting down the canyon. We whooped with excitement ourselves. This was to be a common theme of the day: finding uncommon species, but missing expected ones.

Birdathon is a spring day when teams of birders go out and find as many species of birds as possible in an attempt to raise funds for Sea & Sage Audubon Society. Many teams spend all day, and most of the night, in search of birds on Birdathon. Vic and Leigh picked me up at three thirty in the morning and we headed up into the mountains to listen for owls. The Spotted Owl was the first bird of the day, as good a start to the day as I've ever had. It was a good night (actually morning) for owling; we also heard Great Horned and Long-eared Owls, plus Common Poorwill. As dawn began to break, a Purple Finch burst into song, an unexpected voice in the dark. It was our only one of the day. We also heard a Green-tailed Towhee, a very difficult bird to find in Orange County, while it was still mostly dark.

We were already behind schedule by six thirty in the morning, but by deleting a couple stops on our route we made up time. The coast was next on the agenda. We hit a number of spots between Newport and Laguna Beach, finding species such as Pacific Loon, Black Oystercatcher, Parasitic Jaeger, and Wandering Tattler.

After spending too much time seawatching, we cut inland. We picked up Costa's Hummingbird, Phainopepla, Cactus Wren, Green Heron, and Western Meadowlark at a few quick stops along Laguna Canyon Road. Peters Canyon, Santiago Oaks, and Holy Sepulcher Cemetery, all local patches of mine, produced a bunch of new species for us, including Blue Grosbeak, Yellow-breasted Chat, and Wood Duck. Unfortunately, it became clear to us at this point that it was definitely an "off" day for migration, as we struggled to find even some basic migrants.

We breezed out to Tucker Wildlife Sanctuary in Mojeska Canyon around midday. It's a long drive out there, but it has some "must-have" species. In the brief time we spent there, we found a number of new species such as Band-tailed Pigeon, American Robin, and Northern Flicker. We cruised out of the mountains and whirled through San Joaquin Wildlife Sanctuary and Mason Regional Park in Irvine. The Green-winged Teal, Black-crowned Night-Heron, American White Pelican, and Sora that we found at San Joaquin were the only ones we got all day of these species. We had less luck at Mason, finding only one new species: an American Redstart. However, this species is rare in California, making a nice bonus.

It took only five minutes to tick off Grasshopper Sparrow and Horned Lark near UCI in Irvine. These two species can often pose problems on big days. From here we headed to Huntington Central Park. As I said before, we were having very little luck with migrants. We were hoping to get some at here, but the wind kicked up and the park was rather desolate. After much hard work, we managed to dig out a handful of new species - Western Tanager, Black-throated Gray Warbler, and Olive-sided Flycatcher.

Bolsa Chica was next. We were counting on finding a bunch of new species here, and we did. We had seen very few ducks and shorebirds all day, and within minutes of arriving at Bolsa Chica had spotted over a dozen new birds. Some of the more interesting ones included Brant, Glaucous-winged Gull, Snowy Plover, and Horned Grebe.

We still had a decent amount of daylight left, so we cruised around Upper Newport Bay and were rewarded with some species we had missed all day: Osprey, Northern Harrier, Clapper Rail, and Virginia Rail. As sunset loomed on the western horizon, we madly raced through a couple parking lots in Irvine and finally managed to get Brewer's Blackbird. We also made a very quick stop at San Joaquin and immediately found our target Common Moorhen in the creek along the entrance road.

We sped up to Irvine Regional Park as day faded into night. We arrived just in time to see an American Kestrel as it was going to bed. Kestrels are becoming alarmingly difficult to find in Orange County, and we hadn't seen one all day. A Lesser Nighthawk zoomed by, almost hitting Vic in the face, but he didn't see it until it was almost a quarter-mile away. It was another new species.

In the morning we had found three species of owls; now that it was dark we were looking for three more. Two of these, Western Screech and Barn, can be found at Irvine Regional Park. The Screech-Owls were uncharacteristically silent. It took several minutes of whistling for one to give a few chirring calls. The Barn Owls, on the other hand, were calling loudly and flying around conspicuously.

The last possible owl, Northern Saw-Whet, required more work. This species, along with Spotted and Long-eared, is very uncommon in Orange County and can only be found up in the mountains. We cruised back up Silverado Canyon and after a short search heard one whistling. It was our last species of the day, and a good cap to the day; the owls began and ended our day, like bookends.

This is the paragraph where I say "Oh, it was an amazing day!" Well, it was an amazing day. We were on our feet (or rather, on our rear ends in Leigh's car) for nineteen hours. Our final tally came to 168 species. That's not crummy for a big day in Orange County, especially considering we did very little scouting. As with any big day, we missed a number of "easy" species, including Long-billed Curlew, Rufous Hummingbird, White-crowned Sparrow, and Peregrine Falcon. Migration was also very slow, which didn't help matters one bit. With a better migration day, and more scouting, we could have easily knocked off another dozen species. However, it was still a very fun day, and I got four county birds: Spotted Owl, Long-eared Owl, Saw-whet Owl, and Green-tailed Towhee. It doesn't get much better than that folks.

Fun at Sea

Not many pelagic (sea-going) birding trips are offered from Orange County, for a good reason: pelagic birding in Orange County is sub-par. Most people interested in seeing shearwaters, alcids, and other pelagic species usually head straight to more productive waters, such as Monterey or Fort Bragg. A few choice species are most easily found off Southern California, but even then Orange County is largely ignored in favor of places like Santa Barbara and San Diego. Obviously, this is bad news for someone trying to rack up a decent list for Orange County. Fortunately, Sea and Sage Audubon (of Orange County) runs a couple pelagic trips out of Dana Point every year. One was scheduled for January tenth, so I shelled out fifty bucks to reserve myself a spot on the boat.

I wasn't seriously expecting anything great - probably just Black-vented Shearwaters and Western Gulls - but heck, maybe we'd turn something up. My dad dropped me off at the Ocean Institute at seven-thirty on Saturday morning, and half an hour later the boat was underway. Before we had even departed the harbor, we had spotted Pacific Loons, Glaucous-winged Gulls, and Black Oystercatchers. Oystercatchers are always cool, no matter how many times you see them.



We hadn't gone far before a sharp-eyed birder pointed out the rare Pelagic Christmas-Tree swimming in the water. It was a pity a Christmas Shearwater wasn't sitting on top of it!



Some genuine pelagic birds appeared once we were a mile or two offshore. A smattering of Black-vented Shearwaters cruised by the ship on stiff wings. The boat flushed a couple Rhinoceros Auklets (small grayish birds with an unlikely name) off the water's surface. Several smaller grayish alcids gave us good views of their hindquarters as they desperately struggled to become airborne. Cassin's Auklets aren't very friendly. There was some brief excitement in the stern when a powerful Pomarine Jaeger (undoubtedly very big and squishy - JG) swept through the flock of gulls attending the boat. Nice birds, the whole lot - but ones that I had previously seen in Orange County.

The day took a turn for the better once we were about a dozen miles offshore. A pair of different alcids swimming ahead of the boat turned out to be XANTUS'S MURRELETS. This obscure black-and-white alcid was a life bird for me. This is a Southern Californian specialty, breeding only on the Channel Islands and off Baja California. They were a bit too distant for my three hundred millimeter lens to pull in. When I got home, I told my mom "I got a life bird today - Xantus's Murrelet." "Never heard of it," she replied.



The murrelets would have been enough to make the day noteworthy, but more surprises lay in wait for us. A short time later, a "dark" (read: Sooty/Short-tailed) shearwater sailed by the boat and landed nearby. After extensive study at close range, we positively identified it as a Short-tailed Shearwater. This species is rare in Orange County, though probably more regular than thought because of the dearth of Orange County pelagic trips and also confusion with the more common Sooty Shearwater.



It was difficult to produce any sightings on the level of the Xantus's Murrelets and Short-tailed Shearwater. We tallied more Cassin's Auklets, Rhinocerous Auklets, Pomarine Jaegers, and Black-vented Shearwaters, but the only new species we could find after a few more hours of puttering around the ocean was Common Murre. In the early afternoon, as we chugged back into the harbor, I turned around to see this at eye level.



Looking up, I saw this:



Then this:



And finally, this:



This cheeky first-cycle Western Gull didn't see the point of flying all the way through the harbor, so he decided to just kick back and enjoy a ride on the Sea Explorer while a bunch of weird birders snapped pictures of him from a few feet away.

My birding for the day didn't end when I stepped off the boat. I met my dad on the dock and we drove the short distance to Doheny State Beach, a famous spot for studying gulls. A Glaucous Gull, a big frosty gull with a funky name, had been seen there earlier in the week, and several of the birders on the boat had popped over to Doheney and seen the bird before the boat left in the morning! When we arrived, I started off down the beach, sifting through the hundreds of gulls loafing on the beach. After half and hour, I had seen only the expected species - California, Ring-billed, Heermann's, and Glaucous-wined Gulls. I climbed over a small hill and found several thousand more gulls hanging out in the mouth of the San Juan Creek. Up to now, the search had been manageable; now it was just crazy. Surprisingly, however, I spotted the target bird after only a few minutes. The Glaucous Gull was one of the closest birds, sticking out like a sore thumb: big and white with a bicolored bill. I got a photo of it beside a Glaucous-winged Gull for comparison.



Glaucous Gulls are birds of the north, only rarely wandering as far south as Orange County. This was another new county bird for me, my third for the day: the Xantus's Murrelets and Short-tailed Shearwater were also new. Additionally, I picked out a nice first-cycle Thayer's Gull and several Herring Gulls out of the vast flock, for quite the variety of gulls.

It was a great day. The pelagic trip didn't disappoint, producing a couple great species for Orange County. Additionally, it is always fun to see the more regular pelagic species. Interestingly, The Birds of Orange County: Status and Distribution lists twenty-five as the county high count for Cassin's Auklet; we saw at least three times that number. Very little is known about the seabirds of Orange County! I will jump at the next chance I can get for an Orange County pelagic. The lesson I learned: expect the unexpected, not just Black-vented Shearwaters and Western Gulls!

Utter Exhaustion

Want to know how to completely exhaust yourself? Volunteer to help work Sea and Sage Audubon's Advanced Bird Camp. That's not all. You must awake early every morning and ride fifteen miles down to San Joaquin Wildlife Sanctuary (where the camp is), and perhaps ride fifteen grueling uphill miles back if you see a new species for your Bigby list. Thirty miles on a bike in a day isn't very far, but sandwiched between the ride down and the ride back are seven hours of tramping about San Joaquin Wildlife Sanctuary and attempting to keep a bunch of hyper kids in order. Then, on Friday night, you foolishly stay up until one in the morning playing cards and trading jokes with campers on the clammy floor of the Audubon House. Am I complaining? No way. It was fun.

The days blended together into a blur of birds. Every morning we split up into groups and stomped around the marsh, seeking birds. On Monday I got very lucky - a Gull-billed Tern winged by as our group was headed back to the Duck Club late in the morning. A rather rare bird (though unusual numbers have shown up in the area this year), and a new Bigby bird for me. This meant I had to pedal home under a blazing sun, with only one water bottle to keep me going. How I lost my other bottle is a story in itself; all I will say is that it involved my clumsiness and a street drain.

Of course, the common birds of the marsh put on a show for the kids. Many of the kids were very enthusiastic and knowledgeable. One morning we were treated to the sight of a rowdy juvenile Least Tern begging for food from its parent. The juvenile flew around the adult, screaming constantly, while the adult plunge dove for fish. Eventually the juvenile got his meal and spent a few minutes resting on the shoreline.



Shorebird migration was more than a little evident throughout the week. Big flocks of Long-billed Dowitchers (early on Friday morning I counted roughly one hundred and fifty in the first three ponds alone) congregated in the shallow areas of the ponds. Peeps weren't as numerous as dowitchers, though some Western and Least Sandpipers showed up. I finally saw my first juvenile Western Sandpipers of the year, true beauties clad in subtle tones of buff, brown, gray, and rufuous. A handful of Wilson's Phalaropes were present the entire week.



Of course, the campers were encouraged to look for not only birds but also plants, insects, mammals, reptiles, amphibians, fish, and anything else that crossed their paths. As usual, I kept a sharp eye out for butterflies. I saw several Queens (Danaus gilippus), including this one that cooperated for the camera.



Bird walks were not the only activities that we did. We taught bird lessons to the kids inside the duck club, played bird games, and painted Red-breasted Merganser decoys (photo at top). It was great to see the kids so interested in the bird lessons. None of the kids were hardcore birders, but undoubtedly they now know far more about birds and the environment than the average kid nowadays.

Even now I battle to keep my eyelids from shutting. Was it worth it? Yup. Will I be doing it next year? Hopefully. Now my task is to find a comfortable spot for a quiet nap.