Fairweather Zealot

On my final day in California, I wanted to get a little time for some final birding but I knew that I would have to leave almost immediately after the end of the conference. So, I went out a little early to see if I could see anything of interest such as a picture of an oak titmouse.

While I saw quite a bit in a small wooded area across from Stanford Stadium, the light was tough. Still, I got to see a Spotted Towhee (first of year), a couple of Western Scrub-Jays, Chestnut-backed chickadees, oak titmouse and even a small flock of bushtits.

Eventually, it was time to move on – and the walk actually provided to be very birdy. Along the walk were more bushtits and titmice, and when I got to the conference I was able to have breakfast with a pair of Oregon Juncos who were jumping around the edge of the patio. While I was admiring them, I heard a unique call in a nearby tree. Of course I had to check it out, where I saw a pair of woodpeckers – a pair of Nuttall’s woodpeckers*, a new lifebird. Unfortunately, I only had my iPhone and couldn’t get a picture of either species.

After the conference, my walk back to the car was also full of birds, including two species of hummingbirds (Anna’s (a new bird) and Black-chinned), more oak titmice, another towhee singing at the top of its lungs and several more scrub-jays, most of them flying around the buildings at Stanford. A trio of ravens (which I guess is a traditional resident here, even though they are uncommon in the area in general) were calling from the top of one of the buildings as a I walked past. I don’t often get to see them and even more rarely get a good luck so that was a nice touch.

So, all too soon it was time to head to the airport. But in addition to a nice conference (which I’ll get around to writing about soon), I had a lot of great birding in a short amount of time. You can see my entire set of pictures on Flickr.

Bird List

After my day out with Patty and Al, I had to start the real reason I was in California to begin with: the Mobile Health 2010 conference. It was tough to sit through a two hour workshop after getting up at threw crank of dawn and walking around all day, although I’ll say the presenters did a great job. And the birding was nice as I got to see a black Phoebe doing its thing in the parking lot.

The next day, the conference began in earnest, but since I decided to walk from the hotel, I was treated to a short nature hike. In a short span I saw both red-tailed and Cooper’s hawks, acorn woodpeckers^, chestnut-backed chickadees and a small troop of bushtits^. And I heard a bunch of others I couldn’t ID by voice alone.

After the conference, my walk back was even more fruitful, as I saw many more birds, including my lifelist Oak Titmouse*. But I had places to be, as Patty had told me I was likely to see one of my main goal birds – Cinnamon Teal – at Radio Road, and I was quickly losing light between the hour and the encroaching clouds. Finding the place was pretty simple, but my apprehension was growing as I watched the golden afternoon light flitting in and out grim the clouds, finally I arrived and found that karma was giving me some dues.

Right in front of me – and bathed in a wash of golden light peaking through the clouds – was a gorgeous male Cinnamon Teal in breeding colors. He would turn out to be a single specimen, making it even more beautiful to have seen him at that moment. But he wasn’t alone in the grand scheme of birds in this little retention pond area.

Feeding close by were a few Black-necked stilts and American Avocets, far closer even than they were at the Baylands. Further out, numerous waterfowl including Gadwall, Northern Pintail and Northern Shovelers swam about eagerly eating the bounty in the shallow ponds. But a site in a second pond caught my eye, dragging me away from that gorgeous rust-colored duck – a Ruddy Duck, as a matter of fact. A single male with that unique baby blue bill was courting a number of females. Seeing his beautiful colors close up was great, but the real fun was watching the mating display. He would swim up toward one of the females, put his bill against his breast and then begin this stuttering call as his head jerked up like it was on a gear sprocket. He did this repeatedly though the hen acted as though they’d heard it all before.

After a short while, and numerous pictures, I decided to peer around to see if anything else was interesting. While there was nothing close by, there were a few cool birds, namely single canvasback and Lesser Canada Goose specimens. But it was the teal, avocet, stilt and ruddy duck that were the highlights of the visit.

Bird List

Day 2 started early as I met fellow Flickr birders Photo Patty and her husband Al for a day of birding in Monterey. I have to say right off that Patty wins the “Good Trooper” award for coming along two days after breaking her leg (she insisted).  I was excited to have some locals to show me hot spots, but I couldn’t have expected the pinpoint accuracy they would have with their predictions. Not only were they able to produce many new birds on my list, but they seemed to almost always do it at the first place they tried. Anyway, the trip to Monterey was nice as we caught up since their visit last July, talked about our trips to Arizona (man, I really want to go back), and they filled me in on the places we would be checking out. Continue reading

The end of May was a flurry of activity: lots of work, and then I was asked to fill in for a co-worker at the Mobile Health 2010 conference out in California. It meant missing out on my long- awaited Phils-Red Sox game but I was excited because I’ve been doing a lot of mobile stuff lately. Plus, since the tickets were for Saturday and the conference didn’t start until Sunday, I would have some time to explore the area (read, bird). Continue reading

It seems that things can be too good to be true, and such was the case for our rental for the week. I mentioned yesterday that it was a bit small, and while that was not such a huge deal, some other … characteristics were a bit more off-putting. Continue reading

After a long year and lots of hard work, Shari needed a vacation and I loved the idea of a week at the beach. She did the research, since it can be tough to find a dog-friendly place at the shore, and secured a small bungalow down in Cape May for a week. Continue reading

Our last day in the Cave Creek area we wanted to hit some of those places we had missed earlier and look for a couple of species that we really wanted to see: Juniper Titmice, Scaled and Montezuma Quail and Zone-tailed Hawks. We also wanted to make a trip up to the Chiricahua National Monument to see the amazing rock formations there. Continue reading

 Now that we were finally at the first leg of our trip, it was time to start in earnest. Waking up at the Cave Creek Ranch was majestic – the magnificent peaks of the canyon walls reflecting the morning sunlight was beautiful, there were a multitude of birds hanging put at the feeders just outside the back door: curve-billed thrashers, canyon towhees, cardinals and several hummer species, along with cliff chipmunks and rock squirrels. Continue reading

 Day 2 started better than the first day although we had our little side trip to get a new card reader. It required a a trip to Wal-Mart to pick one up, but since we had to get groceries anyway it wasn’t a huge deal, if a but inconvenient.

The drive on the interstate was typical of the type of road, but at least the roadside scenery was different from what we were used to. At one point about halfway there was a short length of amazing rock features along both sides of the road, a kind of sandbox odd the gods. As we got closer, and off the interstate, the scenery got more interesting. We crossed into New Mexico for a brief while (the road seemed to ignore state lines), before heading into the desert ecosystem, mostly unfettered by man save for the sparse barbwire fencing that was ubiquitous throughout Arizona. Continue reading

To say I was excited for this trip would be a great understatement. But there was a bit to do last night before we could leave: mow the lawn, clean the house for the pet sitter, and of course, pack. By the time 10 o’ clock rolled around, we were exhausted and still not done the ‘chores’. And the oppressive temperatures didn’t help, either. So, I woke up at 2:30 a.m. to get a jump on the remaining tasks before our 6am flight. Shari was already up and doing stuff, so we both pitched in so we could have plenty of time to park and get to the gate. It didn’t work – we were five minutes too late and missed our flight, but were lucky enough to get on another only 1.5 hours later, which messed up my plans a bit but was a minor set back in the grand scheme of things. Continue reading