Memorial Day Weekend Desert Birding

This weekend Libby went on a camping trip/ late spring birding trip extravaganza! This'll be an illustrated narrative of the experience, but if you'd like to skip straight to the pictures we took over the weekend, you can click here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/rowleypics/sets/72157605250412673/.

We stayed the night at Black Rock Campground, a campground in the north-western portion of Joshua Tree National Park. You can't actually access the rest of the park from that area, so you don't have to pay an entrance fee. We arrived in the gathering darkness of light twilight, with lightning and flashing on the horizon, a brisk wind chilling the air, and the first stars blinking overhead. We chose to hedge our bets, and put up our comfortable new tent. Subsequently, we spent a pretty comfortable night. Our sleeping bags kept out the cold, and the only sounds from outside were our fairly noisy neighbors and a pair of Great-horned Owls hunting in the nearby desert.

Here's our new tent, and me, at Black Rock Campground.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/rowleypics/2520587198/in/set-72157605250412673/

Black Rock Campground is in classic Mojave habitat - Joshua Tree forest. Because we would be out of that habitat when we went to Big Morongo, we did a little birding there before we left. Gambel's Quails called from the tops of Joshua Trees and bushes all around us, and we flushed coveys of them as we wended our way through the brush. We were a little puzzled by a California Thrasher, which we thought might be out of habitat. The most beautiful bird of our walk, however, was a trio of Scott's Orioles, including a bright male. That's the regularly breeding California oriole we see the least of, so we were happy to get some good views of it. Libby likes to call them black-headed yellow birds because they remind us a bit of an inverted Yellow-headed Blackbird. I'm going to put a day list, with birds separated by location, at the bottom of the post. You can check there if you want to get a feel for what some typical high desert avifauna.

We couldn't waste too much morning, so we jumped in the car and sped off to Big Morongo Canyon Preserve, an oasis on the edge of the town of Morongo Valley about 10 miles west of Black Rock Canyon. Big Morongo is a special place because it supplies year-round water to desert wildlife - an oasis packed with dense vegetation and bird-life. This makes it a valuable stop-over for a lot of tired migrating birds during spring and summer, and it has recorded far more than its fair share of rare vagrants. It also provides habitat for some birds that are uncommon in California. This is one of the few locations where Summer Tanagers breed regularly, Brown-crested Flycatchers can be regularly be found in one of its eastern-most locations, and Vermilion Flycatchers also breed here every year.

Big Morongo had a fire a few years ago and is still recovering.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/rowleypics/2519770487/in/set-72157605250412673/

Migration was slow, though, at the preserve. The most common migrants were Wilson's Warblers, Yellow Warblers, and Western Wood-Pewees. We also saw a couple of Western Tanagers, a Willow Flycatcher, and a Warbling Vireo. Still, we were able to find all of the common specialty resident birds, with the exception of Least Bell's Vireo. Besides the three above, that includes such colorful species as Hooded Oriole, Blue Grosbeak, Lawrence's Goldfinch and Yellow-breasted Chat. Oh, and we saw a raccoon - a picture's in the set.

A male Summer Tanager at Big Morongo.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/rowleypics/2519793715/in/set-72157605250412673/

We spent a few hours at Big Morongo. We made sure to walk all the trails and we also spent some time at the feeders to see all three of the local hummingbird species. But, we couldn't stay all day because we wanted to make it over to Luckie Park at Twenty-nine Palms to look for (or, as the Brits say, "twitch") a Scissor-tailed Flycatcher. Scissor-taileds are generally found in Texas or parts thereabout, but this particular individual spent last summer at Luckie Park and is back again this summer. We had some directions for the bird, but it never showed in the places recommended to us. A short walk, however, yielded the exciting view of a smallish bird with streaming tail feathers sailing towards us. Hurrah! I got a few pictures, included in the Set, but none show the distinctive tail. The park also hosted Robins and Grackles, but the second best bird we saw there was a fly-by White-winged Dove. Oh, and also.

A nice lady at Big Morongo recommended we stop by the Joshua Tree National Park visitor's center since we were going to be at Luckie Park. It's basically just across the street. So we did, and that was fun. It's got an artificial oasis that they have to maintain since its natural water dried up some years ago. The best bird we saw there was a really sharp-looking MacGillivray's Warbler. We also picked up some desert species that we missed at Black Rock.

You might think that, after all this awesome birding, and as time must have been ticking away, that we would call it a day and come home. Well, we didn't. Next target for the day was Black Swifts, that nest behind a waterfall called Monkeyface Falls near Forest Falls at the base of San Gorgornio. So, instead of taking the 10 all the way home, we turned north in Yucaipa and headed up Mill Creek Canyon. When we arrived it was around 4:30, and it was cold and wet. Low clouds covered the tops of all the nearby mountains. So we ate dinner and then stopped by a picnic area along Mill Creek where we enjoyed a different sort of riparian habitat than earlier. Here we had a Bullock's Oriole, which made the third oriole species for the day.

The creek was quite full from the recent rain and snow.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/rowleypics/2519773249/in/set-72157605250412673/

We spent a good deal of the rest of the evening up at the base of Monkeyface Falls watching for any swifts, but none showed. Well, I did see one, but it went zipping by at the base of the cliffs so fast I couldn't see anything about it before it disappeared in the direction of Forest Falls. It might have been a White-throated Swift, so it's nothing to count. This is delightfully accessible, though, so we might have to go back and try again sometime a half-hour or so before sunset. That's when they come in to roost. And, then we drove home! All-in-all, we had a great time.

Trip List:

Black Rock Canyon:
1. Gambel's Quail
2. Great-horned Owl
3. Ladder-backed Woodpecker
4. Ash-throated Flycatcher (heard)
5. California Thrasher
6. Black-throated Sparrow
7. Scott's Oriole

Big Morongo:
8. Turkey Vulture
9. Cooper's Hawk
10. Red-tailed Hawk
11. American Kestrel
12. Virginia Rail (heard only)
13. Mourning Dove
14. Black-chinned Hummingbird
15. Costa's Hummingbird
16. Anna's Hummingbird
17. Nuttall's Woodpecker
18. Western Wood-Pewee
19. Willow Flycatcher
20. Black Phoebe
21. Say's Phoebe
22. Vermilion Flycatcher
23. Brown-crested Flycatcher
24. Cassin's Kingbird (heard)
25. Warbling Vireo
26. Oak Titmouse
27. Bewick's Wren
28. Western Bluebird
29. Swainson's Thrush
30. Northern Mockingbird
31. Yellow Warbler
32. Wilson's Warbler
33. Common Yellowthroat
34. Yellow-breasted Chat
35. Summer Tanager
36. Western Tanager
37. California Towhee
38. Spotted Towhee
39. Song Sparrow
40. Black-headed Grosbeak
41. Blue Grosbeak
42. Hooded Oriole
43. House Finch
44. Lesser Goldfinch
45. Lawrence's Goldfinch
46. Rock Pigeon
47. European Starling
48. House Sparrow

Luckie Park:
49. White-winged Dove
50. Eurasian Collared Dove
51. Western Kingbird
52. Scissor-tailed Flycatcher (Lifer!)
53. American Robin

Oasis of Mara Visitor's Center:
54. Verdin
55. Cactus Wren
56. Phainopepla
57. MacGillivray's Warbler
58. Great-tailed Grackle

Mentone/ Mill Creek:
59. Acorn Woodpecker
60. American Crow
61. House Wren
62. Black-throated Gray Warbler
63. Bullock's Oriole

Highway 62:
64. White-throated Swift
65. Common Raven

Cryptic Species

One of the things that makes birding interesting as a hobby in a way you might not expect is that the collective ornithological knowledge upon which all birding is based - field guides, checklists, etc. - is always changing. That's because there is still a whole lot of mystery in the natural world, and every once in awhile, someone unlocks a new door and discovers something exciting. For example, there are still new species being discovered right here in North America.

How can that be? Haven't we exhaustively explored every inch of our continent? Well, yes, but sometimes two different species can look identical. All North American birds have been named via a dead bird - a "type specimen" in a dusty specimen cabinet in a university or a library shot by famous old ornithologists birds are named after - like Nuttall, Audubon, or Townsend. So they were named by appearance - the physical make-up (or morphology) of the bird.

But, if they are genetically distinct despite their identical appearance, and choose not to breed with each other (more often than not, given the choice), than isn't that a different species? The most famous examples of this is found in the Tyrannid (New World Flycatchers) family - these birds do not learn their songs, like most singing birds, but rather are genetically programmed to sing the songs they sing. So, even though some are basically identical (Alder and Willow Flycatchers, Cordilleran and Pacific Slope Flycatchers, Eastern and Western Wood-peewees), if they have different calls, that reflects a genetic difference. And, if the birds choose to breed with their own species instead of their sister species when given the choice (this happens where the species are found in the same place - so called "contact zones"), then they're separate species. Since female birds are apt to choose their mates based on song, this is what does happen, and so we've been adding species since people started studying this sort of thing in the last 30 or 40 years.

A recent book I read (The Singing Life of Birds by ornithologist Donald Kroodsma) suggests that Winter and Marsh Wrens are distinct species (both with an eastern and western version) based on the fact that they have distinct songs and calls. He did laboratory studies where he raised eastern and western wrens in the same room, playing eastern and western songs for them. He found that the birds, though song-learners, didn't learn each others' songs as well as they learned their own version of Marsh Wren song. The author then studied the contact zone for Marsh Wrens in the Midwest, and found that the birds maintained their perfectly distinct songs even when found in the same marsh. His conclusion is that, given sexual selection for birds that sing familiar songs and the genetic predisposition to learn their own song, the birds are distinct species. This probably needs to be followed up with a genetic study to confirm the females' preference before it will be accepted, but it seems very likely.

He had not found or studied a contact zone for Winter Wrens, however. Winter Wrens are, to the English, THE Wren. It's the only kind of Wren found in the "old world", and it's found from the Bering Straight to the British Isles - in both hemispheres. The Pacific-slope population, though, has long been thought to be the most accomplished singer. It sings longer and more complex songs than any other group. Finally, someone's done the study, and found the place where this complex singing group meets their more widespread (and less virtuoso) eastern relative. And, lo and behold, the birds in the contact zone maintain their distinct song, defending neighboring territories in the coniferous forests of western Canada. And, the molecular DNA study shows they don't interbreed. So, the females are choosing the birds that sing the song their ancestors sung, and the birds are therefore a distinct species. But you can't tell them apart just by looking!

Winter Wren from Germany (Wikipedia)
This bird is showing the distinctive Winter Wren formula - a little mousey brown bird with a short barred tail and an eye-brow. Looks like a Bewick's Wren whose tail's cut off. The Pacific Winter Wren looks pretty much the same.

So the Winter Wren Libby and I've seen (in Northern California) turns out not to be Troglodytes troglodytes. It's Troglodytes pacificus - not officially, there's a group (the AOU) that decides that, but almost certainly. Now, I would be interested to see if the birds of Europe are the same as the birds in eastern North America. There aren't any contact zones, so people will have to come at it from a different angle. Hopefully some ornithologist will pursue it, now.

For birdwatchers, there'll be a new bird to identify, tick, add to our lists. A new vagrant to look for in the Fall (an eastern Winter Wren was in Huntington Beach this Fall, for example, identified by call notes). A new bird to seek out in the Northeast. Since the whole pleasure of birdwatching hinges on identifying birds, this carries significance. The field guides will be have to be amended, with new color-coded range maps and illustrations. Libby and I's current field guides are already lacking the Cackling Goose and the Dusky vs. Sooty Blue Grouse split, so this is just one more thing to learn. I love that things are so dynamic. What larks!

Hunter Beetles

Have you noticed the beetle swarm currently afflicting southern California? Unlike any time before, I've been seeing big black beetles everywhere. I thought they were stink bugs, but it turns out they're a related beetle. One distinction: they can fly! One similarity: they can stink!

They're called Hunter Beetles and Biola's swarming with them right now. Since I help with the pest control in the residence halls on campus, I hear about this sort of thing. Plus co-workers and employees have been complaining about them, too. And, of course, I'm seeing them everywhere. I think it's pretty cool, and just found an article from the OC Register about it. You can read it here: http://sciencedude.freedomblogging.com/2008/05/03/tiny-predator-beetles-invade-oc-colleges/

Blue Eyes

Did you know baby crows have blue eyes? I didn't, but this one does, so apparently at least some do. Isn't he cute?

http://flickr.com/photos/rowleypics/2509810869/
Baby American Crow in La Mirada Creek Park

It's baby bird time in Southern California right now. Just today I saw a young Cooper's Hawk, young Mockingbird, and lots more young Phoebes and Crows. Just as migration is winding down, the fruits of spring are becoming obvious!

Here's a baby Phoebe from nearby the crow: http://flickr.com/photos/rowleypics/2509810605/

You can always check for updates to our photo-stream here: http://flickr.com/photos/rowleypics/

Prince Caspian

Libby and I hadn't planned on watching any movies this weekend, but we both came down with colds. So, instead of following through with our previous plans of mucking about in 100+ degree temperatures in the desert, we sweated through the high nineties at our apartment. To break the monotony, we put some DVDs in the old laptop - Batman Begins (to prepare for the sequel I'm most looking forward to this summer), and the Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe. Of course, after having finished the first Narnia movie, we took advantage of the opportunity to catch an air-conditioned matinee of the new sequel.

To be honest, I wasn't really looking forward to the new Prince Caspian movie because 1) the first Narnia movie was a little underwhelming, and 2) the trailers were boring. Still, if one's grown up on Narnia, one can't help but indulge his curiosity.

Fortunately, the new movie is good. It's better in many ways than the first one - especially in production value. It is very pretty. The costume design and digital effects are excellent. We saw it on a digital projector at the local Regal, and it shined in polished perfection on the screen.

The acting is also a little bit better. Trumpkin was especially well acted, I thought, and Libby liked Edmund a lot. Lucy and Edmund have grown a lot since the last movie! Eddie Izzard wasn't great as Reepicheep, but that's not too surprising if you've seen the Five Children and It (don't).

The plot's very different than the novel, but I can live with that. I feel like these adaptations suffer a little bit of Lord of the Rings envy - I don't mean just in adding a few thrilling and out of nowhere scenes, and this movie seems to revel in it. Huorns in Narnia? Where are the Ents? And, there are parts I'd like to have seen that were left out (the Bacchanalia, for example), but, again, I can still enjoy it, and I did.

Thematically, it was interesting. The major theme was faithlessness, in both Narnia and the children, towards Aslan. That's a big question for a big budget movie to express, and it predictably doesn't address it very closely. The children learn not to rely too much on themselves, and Narnia learns that it can't forget about its past. Very nice.

Anyway, if you're at all a fan of the books, you should see this movie. You should like it. Plus, if you don't see it, they might not make the next one. And who else wants to see Eustace become a dragon? And to see Reepicheep sail over the end of the world in his coracle on a wave of light?

A Post

Hey Folks,

Not much going in Rowley-ville lately. Hence the slow posting.

Yesterday we baby-sat the nephews, which was fun. Jonathan was go-go-go! He made us lots of desert (dirt - with rocks for marshmallows), played with cars, made a water tower for a duplo train, threw around a frisbee, danced, hopped like a frog, made airplane trains, and looked for imaginary Easter Eggs. Thomas is really just insufferably cute. He followed his big brother around admiringly; attempting to engage in Jonathan's activities. He's a lot slower, though, so mostly he wanted to be carried around and watch.

Summer's coming soon for me, the semester ends on the 23rd.

Summer's a little further away for Libby, but it'll come.

Migration just doesn't stop, though. Every Tuesday I bird my way to work and enter the info on ebird.org: birding web 2.0 sytle. Personally, I like to see the little green bar graphs for each week in La Mirada Creek Park (click here). It would be such an accomplishment to get each week filled in! Unfortunately, though I've been birding the park since September, I didn't enter any checklists until April. Someone else entered one in March, which is great, but that's a lot of wasted walks to work. Also, it means there are some birds not on the park list that I've seen in the park: Chestnut-sided Warbler, Plumbeous Vireo and Olive-sided Flycatcher (all from the same amazing day back in September (or was it October?)!).

I put up some new pictures on Flickr recently of birds at Biola this week. Check it out here:

http://flickr.com/photos/rowleypics/

or here:

http://flickr.com/photos/rowleypics/sets/72157604487716261/

Here's one you don't have to click out to see:

Green Herons are year round breeding residents on Biola's campus.
http://flickr.com/photos/rowleypics/2491614513/in/set-72157604487716261/

Fun Spring Birding

Libby and I had a great time birding Santiago Oaks Regional Park on Saturday. We had a good diversity of species in mild weather. It's strange; despite our two 100 degree hot spells, this spring seems cooler than normal. We've had clouds every morning - and most or all of the day - for more than a week, temperatures have struggled (often unsuccessfully) to reach 70, and this morning there was a heavy drizzle in La Mirada - enough that my face and helmet were dripping wet when I arrived to work.

Back to the main point, though. Migration seemed moderate for mid-May. There were a few warblers moving through; mostly Wilson's Warblers. One group of pine trees hosted a female Hermit, a group of Townsend's, and our only Yellow-rumped Warblers for the day. We were also happy to see a few on-territory Lazuli Buntings. The park has recently burned, and that makes the habitat perfect for Lazulis. Both Oriole species and many Western Tanagers rounded out the colorful show. We didn't bring our camera, though, so we missed out.

The bird of the day was a single male Blue Grosbeak. He was singing from the top of a very high Eucalyptus tree, and we couldn't make out his color well. Thankfully, he decided to be cooperative, and flew down into a burned oak in an arroyo below us; making it easy for us to appreciate his deep blue body and chestnut wings. That was a treat, as Blue Grosbeaks are a bird that we don't see very often.

As we were leaving the Blue Grosbeak, I pulled up with a gasp. A Mule Deer was descending the hillside into the wash! It disappeared behind a small bend, and I thought for a second that Libby would miss it. Luck was with us. Libby was already watching a buck following my doe. We stood stock-still and watched as the two deer emerged from the hills, stepping hesitatingly down the dry wash towards us. At first slowly, then more and more hesitantly, they approached within a couple of dozen feet. Every once in awhile the breeze would shift and they'd catch our scent. Then they'd stop, stare at us with their big liquid eyes, twitching their big ears. I think they would have eventually crossed the trail immediately below us, but a mountain biker puffed by going uphill, spoiling the scene. Off the deer bounded, stotting stiff-legged back up the wash and then up the hills to the left. They lingered there a moment, the doe approaching us again, but then a man walking his dog spooked them over the ridge for good. It was one of those magical one-with-nature kind of moments, where you almost feel outside of your humanity.

Incidentally, this is only our second trip to Santiago Oaks, and last time we visited we saw a Gray Fox. Pretty cool.

List below:

1. Wood Duck
2. Killdeer
3. Cooper's Hawk
4. Red-tailed Hawk
5. Red-shouldered Hawk
6. Turkey Vulture
7. Great Egret
8. California Quail (H)
9. Rock Pigeon
10. Mourning Dove
11. Red-crowned Parrot
12. White-throated Swift
13. Black-chinned Hummingbird
14. Anna's Hummingbird
15. Acorn Woodpecker
16. Nuttall's Woodpecker
17. Hammond's Flycatcher
18. Pacific-slope Flycatcher
19. Ash-throated Flycatcher
20. Warbling Vireo
21. Hutton's Vireo
22. Western Scrub Jay
23. American Crow
24. Common Raven
25. Barn Swallow
26. Northern Rough-winged Swallow
27. Cliff Swallow
28. Bushtit
29. Bewick's Wren
30. House Wren
31. Wrentit
32. Swainson's Thrush
33. Phainopepla - a single male flew out of a Pepper Tree we were approaching.
34. European Starling
35. Orange-crowned Warbler
36. Yellow Warbler
37. Townswend's Warbler
38. Hermit Warbler
39. Yellow-rumped Warbler
40. Common Yellowthroat
41. Wilson's Warbler
42. Western Tanager
43. Lazuli Bunting
44. Blue Grosbeak
45. Black-headed Grosbeak
46. California Towhee
47. Spotted Towhee
48. Song Sparrow
49. Hooded Oriole
50. Bullock's Oriole
51. Brown-headed Cowbird
52. House Finch
53. Lesser Goldfinch
54. American Goldfinch

I like to keep records of the birds we've seen, that's why I post these lists. One of the things I like about it is that I also see what birds we missed. This list is lacking any Kingbirds, which is weird, Oak Titmice, despite apparently good habitat, and Western Wood Peewees or Olive-sided Flcyatchers, although this is the time of year we ought to be seeing them. I had four Western Wood-Peewees in La Mirada last Tuesday, but none on Saturday! Weird. I wonder why - different habitat? Just not moving around that day?

Oh, and Santiago Oaks has an orange grove. Orchards are supposedly the most reliable place to find Common Ground-doves in Southern California, but we couldn't find any yesterday. I wonder if any are ever found there.