Kitchen Creek Road

This last weekend Libby and I went camping! We left Friday night and drove down to Cibbets Flat Campground in the Laguna Mountains east of San Diego. The goal, of course, was to see some birds. We hoped, especially, to see Black-chinned Sparrows and Gray Vireos. Other birds that lived in the area we'd never seen before included Mountain Quail and Western Screech-Owl. We tentatively planned a trip to a park in Oceanside on the way home to see if we could see Red Crossbills. We ended up missing out on all but the two priority species. If you want to skip the reading and go straight to the pictures, I've put up a small set on Flickr: http://flickr.com/photos/rowleypics/sets/72157604814391344/.

We left our house around 6:00 pm and got to the campground around 8:30. It was already dark, and we'd planned on that, so we didn't even bring a tent. We did a little futile owling until around 9:30 and went to bed. Libby slept alright (and got one mosquito bite), but I didn't sleep very well at all. It was occasionally very windy, and it felt funny on the parts of my face sticking out of my mummy bag. I got to hear Common Poorwill calling in the hills around the camp, though. We've seen a Poorwill before but never heard one, so that was cool. It called the most and for the last time right as the first diurnal birds were just barely starting their dawn song.

Libby alongside Kitchen Creek below the PCT.
http://flickr.com/photos/rowleypics/2448138408/in/set-72157604814391344/

We were back in the car before 6:00 am to get a jump on the morning birding. We started out by walking a short distance of the Pacific Crest Trail where it crosses Kitchen Creek Road until a little after the sun hit it. This was definitely the birdiest part of the day. California Quail were everywhere - we kept hoping they'd be Mountain Quail. We had a pretty pair of Blue-gray Gnatcatchers harassing a Scrub Jay, our first Lazuli Buntings of the spring, a Brewer's Sparrow - pretty much the plainest looking North American sparrow, but actually kind of rare in the Laguna Mountains as far as I can tell, a male Calliope Hummingbird among the many Costa's Hummingbirds, a Hermit Warbler atop a big clump of scrub, and our first ever Black-chinned Sparrow just a little below the trail right by Kitchen Creek. We were pretty far away, but we could see the Black-chinned Sparrow was a gray bird with a black chin and brown wings. Our first lifer since our trip to Sacramento in February!

After getting back to our car and applying some sunscreen - chamise chaparral doesn't offer much shade - we started looking for Gray Vireo. We had a couple of spots to check pulled from the San Diego County birding listserve, but the first one came up empty - except for a couple of Rock Wrens. So, we decided to head on to the next likely spot. We parked a little above mile marker three to walk the creek up to mile marker four, which was one of the landmarks where they'd been seen. As we walked and watched for interesting birds along the creek and hillsides, some birders from Ohio pulled up next to us and asked how we were, etc. They were looking for Gray Vireos, too, so, I passed on what I'd read about mile marker four. A few minutes later the car came zipping back down. They'd found a singing Gray Vireo right across the creek from the mile marker, and wondered if we wanted a lift. Sure thing! So, we got a lift from a nice guy from Ohio who then pointed out where they were seeing the bird. And that's how we saw our very first Gray Vireo. It was a little far away to see very well, though we could hear it quite clearly, and the sun was in our eyes. We came back later and found it right in the same place, but it wouldn't perch for us to use our spotting scope on it. Oh well, not the looks I wanted to get, but not terrible, either. It seemed larger and heavier bodied than I had expected, but it was overall gray, and lighter below, flipping its tail from side to side as it hopped about in the bushes.

The Gray Vireo is a scarce bird in California. It used to be fairly common in appropriate habitat - miserably hot dry chaparral and juniper-pinyon woodlands - so it was relatively common around placed like Cajon Pass, the east side of the San Bernadino Mtns, the dry parts of the Santa Rosas and San Jacinto Mtns, and even Joshua Tree NP, but it's mostly disappeared from those places now. There are probably fewer than 100 breeding pairs in California every year, and the densest concentration (maybe a dozen pairs or so) is in the Kitchen Creek Road area. So this isn't a common bird by a long shot, and we were happy to see it. Gray Vireos are still quite common in the heart of their range, fortunately, and you can find them in out of the way parts of Utah, Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico and Colorado.

We kept birding after our Gray Vireo, of course, and after walking back to our car, we did some birding in creekside habitat. Between a couple of stops and a short walk, we found a few fun birds like Lesser Goldfinches, House Wrens, Steller's Jays and Oak Titmice, more Western Tanagers (one of the more common birds of the day), Wilson's Warblers, a Townsend's Warbler, and an uncooperative MacGillivray's Warbler. By the time we were done, we were ready to eat lunch and make for home.

We decided we had time to bird Buddy Todd Park in Oceanside because it was only around noon when we left. We missed the Red Crossbills there, but we still saw some neat birds and padded our trip list a little. Highlights were more Western Tanagers, a Mountain Chickadee - in a very urban park - and a bunch of Hermit Warblers. Hermit Warblers are just about my favorite warbler. They're beautiful, and they're a West Coast specialty. You can only find them in the wetter forests of the western mountains - from the Pacific Northwest south through the Sierras. They migrate through every spring, but I'd never before see more than one at a time, and usually only once or twice a year. So three in one spot was great, and they were fairly cooperative, so I got a few pictures. See below:

Hermit Warbler at Buddy Todd Park in Oceanside.
http://flickr.com/photos/rowleypics/2447324239/in/set-72157604814391344/

Finally, here's the trip list for posterity:

Kitchen Creek Road Birding Trip
April 24th/25th Bird List:

Drive:

1. Black Skimmer (off the 5)
2. Rock Pigeon

Kitchen Creek:

3. Mallard
4. Turkey Vulture
5. Red-tailed Hawk
6. California Quail
7. Mourning Dove
8. Costa's Hummingbird
9. Anna's Hummingbird
10. Calliope Hummingbird (a single migrating male)
11. Acorn Woodpecker
12. Downy Woodpecker -
This is a little mysterious because it appears to be out of range. It seemed awfully small to be a Hairy Woodpecker, and that would also be out of range (though geographically much closer). Libby's pretty sure it was a Downy, and she got a better look than I.

13. Pacific-slope Flycatcher
14. Dusky or Hammond's Flycatcher
I don't know which is more likely, and we weren't really close to the bird. It was a drab, mostly brown non-tail flicking Empid. It didn't look like a Pacific-slope and it didn't act like a Gray Flycatcher, but we don't enjoy Empidonax flycatchers very much. Maybe one day.

15. Ash-throated Flycatcher
16. Western Kingbird
17. Gray Vireo (Lifer)
18. Warbling Vireo
19. Steller's Jay
20. Western Scrub Jay
21. Common Raven
22. Cliff Swallow
23. Northern Rough-winged Swallow
24. Wrentit
25. Oak Titmouse
26. House Wren
27. Rock Wren
28. Blue-gray Gnatcatcher
29. Townsend's Warbler
30. Hermit Warbler (FOS)
31. MacGillivray's Warbler (FOS)
32. Wilson's Warbler
33. Western Tanager
34. California Towhee
35. Spotted Towhee
36. Brewer's Sparrow
37. Black-chinned Sparrow (Lifer)
38. Black-headed Grosbeak
39. Lazuli Bunting
40. Bullock's Oriole
41. House Finch
42. Lesser Goldfinch

Buddy Todd Park:

43. Black Phoebe
44. Cassin's Kingbird
45. American Crow
46. Mountain Chickadee
47. Bushtit
48. Western Bluebird
49. Northern Mockingbird
50. European Starling
51. Yellow-rumped Warbler
52. House Sparrow

Selasphorous female

Heard only (all but Waxwings at Kitchen Creek):

Mountain Quail
(this would have been a lifer if we'd seen it) calling along Kitchen Creek Road between MM 3 and 4.
Common Poorwill
Nuttall's Woodpecker
Cedar Waxwing

Park Birding

My favorite part of migration is the way that anything can show up right in your backyard . Throughout the winter you have a pretty static bird population, and same with the summer, but the periods in between will vary from one day to the next. For example, on Tuesday this week I walked to work through Creek Park and found three Ash-throated Flycatchers (one below). On Thursday, when I walked the park again, I found none. However, the number of Western Tanagers had jumped from two to at least ten! Some of these birds (especially the Tanagers, it seems to me) will stick around a day or two to feed, but many migrating individuals feed through the day and catch the midnight train northward - as the Ash-throated Flycatchers apparently did. You can check out recent pictures of birds from right here in La Mirada parks here: http://flickr.com/photos/rowleypics/. I even have an album of pictures I've taken in La Mirada Creek Park (the park I go through to get to work every morning) here: http://flickr.com/photos/rowleypics/sets/72157604454374702/. All these birds could show up in any Southern California back yard (though a Dusky-capped Flycatcher probably won't).

http://flickr.com/photos/rowleypics/2437422159/

Ash-throated Flycatcher in Creek Park. This is right across Imperial from where the Dusky-capped Flycatcher spent the winter. The birds are very similar, but this picture shows that the Ash-throated Flycatcher's belly is very pale. Also, the tail shows stronger rufous on its central tail feathers and the rufous does not extend all the way to the tail's tip - there's a dark line that cuts it off. That's a typical Ash-throated feature. The Ash-throated Flycatchers never vocalized, very different from the noisy Dusky-capped, and they were much more cooperative - as you can tell by the picture quality!

You can actually observe the nocturnal migration of birds via radar on the internet! This is pretty cool, and complicated, but here's a simple and fairly reliable way to do it. It's also bandwith intensive - just FYI. I'm following recommendations I saw on the Texas Birding Forum (TEXBIRDS), but there are other websites out there, too, and some offer some different methods. Here's the link: http://www.rap.ucar.edu/weather/radar/. If you want to watch the nocturnal flight of birds, here's the easy way to do it: first: set the "product" to "regional reflectivity" (".5 degree reflectivity" works, too, but is more restricted in scope). That sets it so you'll be getting data from the correct altitudes. I just leave the "background" at default. Second: you need to set the time frame so that you're looking at night (since that's when birds migrate). The time zone is UTC. Right now it's 2:30 pm (1430) PDT and 2130 UTC (GMT) - so we're 7 hours behind out here. If I want to watch the night flight I can set it for the morning - 0600 PDT is 1500 their time and set the loop duration for 6 or 8 hours. There you go! Now, click on your area of the map. I aim for SOX in Southern California.

The blue color is mostly birds moving northward. The reason that it's not uniform is mainly due to the fact that the radar will find birds best at certain distances away according to the birds' elevation and the radar's effectiveness at different angles. Other factors, like humidity and such, also contribute to the reliability, but in general them be birds.

Another fun thing to watch is the birds all take off. I just set mine for April 21st (full moon = many birds migrating), 0500 UTC end time (10:00 pm PDT), and just set it for 2 hours. Starts out with nothing much showing. Maybe some dust in the air or something, and then everything goes blue! It's incredible how many birds are in motion every night during the spring (some nights more than others). Bird migration is truly one of the awe inspiring enormous natural phenomena of the world.

More on nocturnal bird migration here: http://www.npwrc.usgs.gov/resource/birds/migratio/when.htm

More on NEXRAD monitoring of bird migration here: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/news/RadarTracking.html

A Google search on nexrad bird migration will show up more, too.

Irvine Park Birding

So, Libby and I went birding together on Saturday at Irvine Park. We had a pretty good time. We started by exploring the Villa Park Flood Basin - somewhere we hadn't ever really heard about until there was a recent Audubon field trip there we missed. The flood basin contains Santiago Creek just in case it gets out of control, and has developed some riparian scrub habitat - dense thickets of willows, a few sycamores and some rushes where there are some little ponds of standing water. This kind of habitat has been seriously reduced or degraded in southern California, and supports a good diversity of breeding species like Yellow Warblers, Blue Grosbeaks, Least Bell's Vireos, Yellow-breasted Chats and other desirable species (in some places Willow Flycatchers, though not in Orange County).

It was overcast, and the sun was behind most of the willows, so we didn't find all the possible species, but we did have fun there. The highlight was that there were a lot of Yellow-breasted Chats out and singing conspicuously. Yellow-breasted Chats are a pretty shy species, and we'd only seen them previously in Arizona, though we'd heard them plenty at the San Joaquin Wildlife Sanctuary in Irvine. April, for our local population, is apparently the time to find them. They were singing from exposed perches in trees that form the canopies around the area. That's fun, since their songs consist of barking and whistling. We have a special place in our hearts for Chats because they're on the cover page of Libby's National Geographic Guide.

http://flickr.com/photos/rowleypics/2425531137/

Yellow-breasted Chat

After we'd done the loop through the flood control plain, we wandered off to take in some of Irvine Park's sights. This was Libby's first time there! We ended up visiting the OC Zoo and finding a cool statue of James Irvine II - the man himself! The zoo was pretty fun. It's small, but only $2.00. They have a Golden Eagle, a Bald Eagle, a Red-tailed Hawk, an Ocelot, a couple of Mountain Lions, and a couple of bears. Cool.

The last thing we did was stroll over to the place where a Lewis's Woodpecker has been spending the winter. It's still there, though we were far away from it.

Here's a bird list, in no particular order at all:

1. Cooper's Hawk
2. Mallard
3. Cinnamon Teal
4. Wood Duck
5. American Coot
6. Red-tailed Hawk
7. Turkey Vulture
8. Mourning Dove
9. Rock Pigeon
10. Red-winged Blackbird
11. House Wren
12. Marsh Wren (Heard only)
13. Bushtit
14. Oak Titmouse
15. Wrentit
16. Green Heron
17. Great Egret
18. American Crow
19. Common Raven
20. N Rough-winged Swallow
21. Tree Swallow
22. Acorn Woodpecker
23. Northern Flicker
24. Nuttall's Woodpecker
25. Lewis Woodpecker
26. Hutton's Vireo
27. Yellow-breasted Chat
28. Yellow-rumped Warbler
29. Orange-crowned Warbler (Heard only)
30. Black-throated Gray Warbler
31. Yellow Warbler
32. Common Yellowthroat
33. American Robin
34. Western Bluebird
35. Black Phoebe
36. Pacific-slope Flycatcher
37. Black-headed Grosbeak
38. Lesser Goldfinch
39. House Finch
40. Song Sparrow
41. California Towhee
42. Spotted Towhee
43. Northern Mockingbird
44. European Starling
45. Cedar Waxwing
46. House Sparrow
47. Black-chinned Hummingbird
48. Anna's Hummingbird
49. Red-crowned Parrots
50. Western Tanager

A round 50! I didn't know that until I just numbered them. Cool. There are a lot more birds around that park and flood basin that we didn't see, some of them very easy - like Scrub Jays, but it's not about numbers, it's about having a good time out of doors. And we did.

Here's the link to the Flickr set: http://flickr.com/photos/rowleypics/sets/72157604679785851/

The Idiot

Late last night I finally finished Fyodor Dostoevsky's novel about a "positively good man." The Idiot is both an intimate novel, centered on one man - the "idiot" and the people he knows - and a sweeping one, covering not only the spectrum of humanity, but also faith, politics, and psychology. That's pretty typical for Dostoevsky, but this novel's weak plot arc accentuates the variety to a high degree.

The idiot is Prince Lev Nikolaeyevich Myshkin, introduced at the beginning of the work as a young man returning to his home country from Switzerland. There he successfully underwent treatment for "falling sickness" - epilepsy. He's introduced as a destitute and homeless traveler, coming to a country he hardly remembers. His benefactor has died, and he has no source of income. Nevertheless, he has hope to meet his only surviving family member and to make his way in Petersburg.

On the train he meets another young man, a passionate scoundrel named Parfyon Semyonovich Rogozhin (Russian names are the best). Rogozhin is also returning to Petersburg, but he has only been gone a few months. He fled in a fever after having stolen a great sum of money from his father in order to buy diamonds for a woman. The woman is Nastasya Filipovna, a prideful beauty that suffers under the cloud of having been raised as a kept woman by a lecherous rich man. Rogozhin's father has now died (his death hastened by his son's betrayal), and Rogozhin has come into an inheritance that he plans to use to buy out Nastasya Filipovna. Despite their contrasting natures, Rogozhin and the Prince hit it off. However, their friendship will eventually turn to rivalry.

I won't go into the rest of the plot here, simply because it's a long book and I wasn't sure where it was going until the very end. I was surprised to find that, though the book is about a "positively good man," and is thus in some ways of lighter tone than the Brothers Karamazov or Crime and Punishment, it is also more tragic. It is, in fact, a tragedy - in a very classical sense. However, the protagonist completely lacks hubris, and so the tragic paradigm is inverted. This is very curious. If the paradigmatic ancient Greek was Oedipus, and his destruction encapsulates the hopeless universe that Sophocles inhabited, what does the failure of Prince Myshkin represent in Dostoevsky's essentially Christian universe?

That's the kind of powerful question that the book leaves with its readers. I loved this book, and I love it more now than ever - indeed, my love for it is still growing as I consider it. But, I don't think I'd recommend it as an introduction to Dostoevsky. Crime and Punishment is probably the most accessible (though very dark) of his works because of its focused nature and plot arc, and I might suggest someone start there. Of course, it wouldn't hurt to begin with The Brothers Karamazov, which everyone says is his master work, and certainly is one of the very best novels ever written.

Diamante Poems

Last week I had my students writing Diamante poems, which have seven lines and are shaped like diamonds. The basic structure is this:

Noun #1 (contrasting to Noun#2)
adjective, adjective (relating to Noun #1)
-ing verb, -ing verb, -ing verb (relating to Noun #1)
noun, noun, (relating to Noun #1) noun, noun (relating to Noun #2)
-ing verb, -ing verb, -ing verb (relating to Noun #2)
adjective, adjective (relating to Noun #2)
Noun #2 (contrasting to Noun#1)

They're pretty fun and easy to create (which my students like), and since there's a definite structure that they must follow, they're also easy to grade (which I like). Anyway, I told Jonathan about them, and I made one up yesterday when we were hiking in Irvine Park so he could hear an example:

Winter
dark, cold
skiing, cuddling, drinking
hot chocolate, sweaters, lemonade, flip-flops
swimming, fishing, camping
bright, warm
Summer

And then today when we were walking around Creek Park, I saw one of my favorite common birds: a Black Phoebe. It inspired me, so I suggested we make up a Diamante together. Here it is:

Phoebe
small, familiar
snapping, turning, catching
flies, park, eyes, talons
flapping, soaring, diving
large, imperious
Eagle

So there you go. It's our first attempt at writing poetry about birds...but perhaps not our last! Or maybe it is. We're not big on writing poetry.

Depressing

CNN had an article on its front page this morning about a blog the LA Times runs about every homicide in LA County. There are a lot. The reporter has covered 845 deaths (and counting) on her blog since she began in January of 2007. It's mind boggling to consider the rate at which our local cities are bleeding.

Lord, have mercy.

Weekend Wrap-up

OK, so, since the weekends are the most interesting part of our lives, and our lives are very interesting, I'm sure everybody's wondering what went down in Rowley town this weekend.

Well, let me tell you!

Friday evening we were going to have steak! There was a big sale at Stater Bros the other day, and we have been living high on the hog ever since. Unfortunately, none of our meat was thawed when we got home. Instead of violating our steak with the defrost setting on the microwave, we decided to go for a walk. We walked all the way to the Panera near Biola, had dinner, and walked back. That took two hours! OK, so that's pretty interesting, right? It gets better. On the way home, we stopped at Fresh & Easy and got some ice cream and root beer. So we had root beer floats while we watched the new episode of The Office! Nice!

Saturday it was really hot. We went birding at Oak Canyon Nature Center. We saw 35 or 36 species or something in bright sun, high heat, and strong wind. Not the greatest conditions. Highlights included our FOS Western Tanager (earliest I think we've ever seen one), Ash-throated Flycatcher, Pacific-sloped Flycatcher, and Nashville Warbler (for the fabulous Libs). Um.. I'll do a species list... as I remember them. Biggest disappointment was that we didn't see any Oak Titmice. We both got our lifer Oak Titmouse there, and it's bizarre to completely miss them. Also, no Black Phoebes and only one Yellow-rumped Warbler. Huh?

1. American Crow
2. Bewick's Wren
3. Song Sparrow
4. Golden-crowned Sparrow
5. Spotted Towhee (lots)
6. California Towhee (lots)
7. California Thrasher (2 - 1 singing, a neat opportunity to watch and listen to one)
8. Black-headed Grosbeak (lots! singing, and mostly heard)
9. Common Raven
10. Western Scrub Jay
11. Wrentit (singing in a little bush, Libby picked him out)
12. Bushtit
13. Pacific-slope Flycatcher
14. Ash-throated Flycatcher
15. European Starling
16. Anna's Hummingbird
17. Allen's Hummingbird
18. House Finch
19. Lesser Goldfinch
20. Nuttall's Woodpecker (quite a few)
21. Mallard
22. Wood Duck
23. Yellow-rumped Warbler
24. Black-throated Gray Warbler
25. Wilson's Warbler
26. Nashville Warbler
27. Cooper's Hawk
28. Osprey (quick fly by)
29. California Quail (2, right by the trail, so cute - a nice little kid pointed them out to us)
30. Western Tanager
31. Great Egret
32. Great Blue Heron
33. Acorn Woodpecker
34. Northern Mockingbird
35. Mourning Dove

OK, so 35. We saw a lot more when we went there during the last week of April with Biola's ornithology class last year. We're really getting into the main season for migration in So Cal, now, so it's very exciting.

After birding, Libby did homework and I took a nap. Then she made an awesome pie, and I did some reading in The Idiot by Dostoevsky. Very good book. Very good pie. Then we went over to Mom and Dad's to eat the pie with them, as well as some yummy food that Mom made. And we looked at their pictures from New York. Which were very nice. Good times.

Sunday was church, of course. It was also 100 degrees. No joke! It said so on the internet. Still, after church (steak for lunch!) Libby cut my hair. And she did a good job, and learned a lot, and I'm happy with the results. After that, we went down to the park and played catch (in the 100 degrees) before taking a stroll around Creek Park. We weren't birding, but we did notice a panting Nuttall's Woodpecker and a migrant Black-throated Gray Warbler. That was fun, very relaxing to play catch. We stuck to the shade, but were extremely thirsty when we got home. Result? Water, pie, milk. Beautiful combination.

Then we did some reading. Libby's just finished Captains Courageous by Kipling, and started a new book she picked up courtesy Father David at church yesterday called The Dangerous Dutchman. I'll let her share about that. I kept plugging away at The Idiot. Did I mention it's a good book?

After that, we went to Dustin and Katie's (thanks for hosting!) where we got to meet the little Hagelberg. He was very cute, and we got to poke him (me) and hold him (Libby) and play a game with a hopping dog with him. Then he went to sleep, and Lem played with the fire for awhile while Luke told us stories from Pathfinder and the Flight of the Conchords. And we got to have some awesome chili and stuff. Very good food. And then we went to bed.

Wasn't that very interesting, just like I said it would be? Well, you're welcome!

The Office is... back!

Ok, so Libby and I follow one, and only one, television show. And, because of the writer's strike, we have gone 4 months without it. Today, it's back. I hope we're not the only ones excited about that.

The Happiest Birds on Earth

Above is a picture taken at Disneyland of the happiest Wood Duck on Earth. Jonathan and I have a list of all the birds we've seen at the Magic Kingdom. It's not a very long list; we think they probably spray all kinds of stuff around that place to keep bugs away. Having no bugs means fewer birds. But here's what we've got so far:

1. Pied-billed Grebe
2. Double-crested Cormorant
3. Green Heron
4. Great Egret
5. Wood Duck
6. Mallard
7. Ring-necked Duck
8. Turkey Vulture
9. Cooper's Hawk
10. American Coot
11. Ring-billed Gull
12. Rock Pigeon
13. Mourning Dove
14. Anna's Hummingbird
15. Black Phoebe
16. American Crow
17. Yellow-rumped Warbler
18. Townsend's Warbler
19. House Finch
20. House Sparrow
21. Cedar Waxwing

We'll keep adding to it as needed.

Long Beach Birding

Spring is really flowing along here in Southern California. The flowers are blooming, the trees are approaching full leaf, and, of course, the birds are on the move. This is my favorite season for birding. Fall brings more rare birds, which is fun, but Spring brings back all the familiar species of the summer as well as through-passing migrants. Everything is new and bright and happy, and the birds are singing everywhere.

http://flickr.com/photos/rowleypics/2397597590/

We took advantage of Spring to go birding at El Dorado Nature Center in Long Beach. We hadn't been there in a long time, not since our first spring birding (2005). Libby had gone there with her class, and then she brought me along later. We both remember ticking lifers there, too. Libby had her first Oriole ever there - a Bullock's, and she thinks she saw her first Common Yellowthroat there, too. And I remember ticking my first Black-throated Gray Warbler and my first Song Sparrow there. We both even remember the very spots where we saw them!

No lifers this time, of course, but we did see some new birds for the Spring, and we had a good time. It was actually fairly quiet in some spots there, and we came out with a very low species total - 36. That's a very low total for any spot in Southern California, but we had a slow day. It was overcast all morning, and that might have had something to do with it. We had our first of season Black-throated Gray Warbler in a big mixed flock with Townsend's Warblers and Yellow-rumped Warblers. We also had our FOS Wilson's Warbler and our first of season Black-headed Grosbeak - an attractive male. The highlight to me was a Cassin's Vireo that we saw on our way out. That's only the second time I've ever seen a Cassin's Vireo, and the other time I saw one it was in Madera Canyon last Spring in Arizona. Cassin's Vireos aren't rare in Southern California, but I always seem to miss them, somehow.

Otherwise, the birding was ordinary. Lots of egrets and herons - 5 species - and tons of Song Sparrows, House Wrens, hummingbirds, and Northern Rough-winged Swallows. Pictures are up here: http://flickr.com/photos/rowleypics/sets/72157604443642565/.

On the theme of new birds for the year: I saw my FOS Black-chinned Hummingbirds yesterday (a female at Biola followed by a male on my way home in Creek Park), and my FOS Warbling Vireo (finally!) at Creek Park this morning on my way to work. Right now the most common warblers are still Yellow-rumped, but there are a lot of Orange-crowned Warblers around, also, to complement a scattering of Townsend's. I'm trying to get pictures of them, but they're usually really high in Eucalyptus or Sycamore trees.

All American Yarn

Having finished Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, I can say it is undoubtedly Mark Twain's best novel. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer was one of my very favorite books growing up, for good reason, and it is a better book for children. However, it lacks the vivacity and breadth of its sequel and is a less mature book on the whole. In fact, Huckleberry Finn's most disappointing moments involve the re-emergence of Tom Sawyer as a major character near the end.

I couldn't help but notice that despite its famous cautionary introductory epitaph, ("Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot.") the novel does weigh up to heavy moral considerations, and it is Huckleberry Finn's journey through these considerations that make the most fascinating reading. Tom Sawyer's appearance forces the submission of those considerations because Tom's personality so outweighs Huck's, changing the whole tone of the work. Further, Tom carries with him a secret that undermine Huck's entire resolution. When Huck decides to free Jim despite his cultural upbringing, it is a human victory. But when Tom reveals that Jim was already free, the objective tension evaporates. Apparently, many consider the ending of the novel the most disappointing part; reminding me of similar criticisms of The Odyssey.

In truth, I think that Huckleberry Finn could be seen as Mark Twain's The Odyssey recast as an American novel. Both are episodic travel narratives with heavy morals. Both feature a clever protagonist who relies on his ability to spin a quick lie to escape trouble. But Odysseus is trying to get somewhere, and Huck is trying to get nowhere. The whole tension of The Odyssey involves Odysseus's struggles to reach his wife. The episodes he struggles through carry both interior tension and the always pressing urgency of finishing the voyage. Meanwhile, the whole tension of Huckleberry Finn lies in the adventures he has on the way - for their own sake. The only over-riding tension in Huck Finn is Jim's quest for freedom, and he blows it up at the end! Homer's problem at the end of his epic was the Greek culture didn't have a redemptive solution to a cycle of violence. Twain's was that you can't get anywhere if you aren't going anywhere, and just maybe, that you can't be too serious in a satire.

So, I think, the question a curious reader will be left with is - why? Why does Twain avoid a plot arc? Why does he avoid the moral? Why does he require the epitaph? Is it by principle? Or is it a failure in his art, one of which perhaps he was very conscious?

If it's a principled rejection one wonders if it's a commentary on America. Maybe a country with an open frontier is a place with many futures but no destination. Or, maybe, he's purposely playing a giant joke on critical readers everywhere. Let's spin a beautiful yarn, fill it with interesting characters and wit, vivid images and a rich American backdrop, but then let's make it empty . No stuffing, just a balloon with which to bang on befuddled people's heads.

Mark Twain was a genius, no doubt, but I think he shirked his opportunity to write a great American novel. Instead, we just have a good book. I guess he only wanted us to enjoy it as such.

Books!

We were out at Peter's Canyon last Saturday, where we had a pretty good day birding. We had 57 species, I think. But this, this is not a birding post.

We found something else, just as exciting, a $1.00 bookstore. It's on the corner of Jamboree and Chapman in Orange, I think. I wasn't feeling all that well at the time, so it's kinda foggy. Anyway, it's a huge warehouse sort of store, about the size of a medium supermarket - like Stater Bros in La Mirada. It's got a bunch of aisles of books, all $1.00. Of course, it's terribly hard to find anything, but for $1.00, you'll take what you can get.

Our best find was made by Libby. She found Tolkien's Smith of Wooten Major and Farmer Giles of Ham. Neither of us had read those stories before. They're both sort of novelettes; really just children's books. I liked Farmer Giles of Ham better than Smith of Wooten Major, but Smith of Wooten Major was very typical of Tolkien. It's about a man's interactions with Faery, but it doesn't have much of a plot. Farmer Giles of Ham is about Farmer Giles, of course, and his adventures with a giant, a dragon, and a king. It's a fake English history about the area around the Thames. The Thames, it turns out, was named after Tame - which is what his dragon became. Very entertaining reading, and I'm glad Libby picked it up.

I got the Prince and the Pauper by Mark Twain. Unfortunately, it's not at all funny. Rather bad, in fact. However, it's not nearly as bad as Tarzan of the Apes. I picked up the very first of Edgar Rice Burrough's silly series on a whim, but it's not really worth anything. It's all in terrible earnest, but the dialogue (why does Blogger want me to spell that without a "ue"?) and plot points are wretched. Tarzan wasn't even adopted by gorillas, but by some sort of great ape that Burrough's mostly just calls anthropoids. They are, of course, at perpetual and deadly war with gorillas, and everything else. Tarzan, of course, goes about magnificently killing everything. But he also learns to read English from his parents' effects. Of course, he can't speak English, as he's been raised by apes. He doesn't speak anything until a French officer teaches him to read English in French. So he pronounces "me" as "moi" and so forth. How confusing would that be? But it works well enough that he's fluent in about two weeks.

As you can see, I spent a lot of time reading when I was sick. I also finished Huckleberry Finn for the first time, so I'm caught up with the rest of America, now.

Mammoth Ski Trip

http://flickr.com/photos/rowleypics/2371605701/in/set-72157604303150106/

This year's spring trip to Mammoth was great. There's nowhere so peaceful or soothing to spend a week, especially when it offers the complete sort of solitude it can in winter. While we would see others if we were skiing down on the trails below the cabin, we never saw a single other soul at the cabin. Nestled in the woods and snow, we had a refuge from everything. No TV, internet or running water - just books and family.

http://flickr.com/photos/rowleypics/2371603743/in/set-72157604303150106/

Dad got us all ski passes for the Tamarack Lodge's groomed tracks. That was fun, and very helpful since the snow was crummy. Libby learned a lot about how to snow plow, and I tried to learn a bit about stopping. We covered a lot of miles around Lake Mary, Mamie, and Horseshoe, and took some other trails we'd never been on before. We went up Coldwater Creek campground's trail to the very end, took the Pine Creek trail, and some others.

Conditions were, as I mentioned above, far less than ideal. It was about 60 when we started skiing on Monday afternoon. So, of course, it froze overnight, and the next morning saw everything covered in thick ice. Fortunately, it was warm again, and thawed pretty quickly. But Wednesday and Thursday were colder, and it never thawed in the shadows. We got a dusting of snow on Tuesday night, but it didn't accumulate - all the storm brought was intense wind for Wednesday. In some places it was windy enough to push you right along on your skis without any work. That's sort of fun if its behind you, but less fun when it's a headwind.

Another bummer was that Dad came down with a cold part way through the trip. That's especially a bummer for me because I apparently caught it from him. Libby caught it from him or me, too, but I seem to have gotten it the worst. Not that I'm complaining (sorry, yes, I am complaining).

http://flickr.com/photos/rowleypics/2371613343/in/set-72157604303150106/

On the way home we stopped at Fossil Falls (above) as we left Mammoth pretty early because of the icy conditions - there just wasn't much of a point to sticking around. That turned out to be a neat place; Libby and I hadn't stopped there before. It's just south of Coso Junction on HWY 395. Once upon a time, back during the last major glacial period, Owen's River actually came out of Owen's Lake and flowed down through the desert below Owen's Valley. There it flowed over an earthquake fault - a bit of an uplift that created a ridge of basaltic cliffs - creating a waterfall. This shaped the basalt into fantastic whorled shapes. When the glacial period ended, Owen's Lake became a salt lake without an outlet (like Mono Lake), and you can take the opportunity to walk around a waterfall's bed. Anyway, it was a neat stop, and there were some neat wildflowers and birds, as well as the neat rock formations. We were also treated to a flyover from an F-16. I've included pictures from there in our Flicker photo-album for the whole trip:

http://flickr.com/photos/rowleypics/sets/72157604303150106/

Santa Rosa Plateau Flowers

We're a bit behind on our posting due to a trip to Mammoth and subsequently coming down with energy-draining colds. Because I'm sure everyone is deeply disappointed, expect us to attempt to assuage your grief through poorly written prose and badly composed digital images in the upcoming days.

A week ago Saturday, the 22nd of March, we took a family outing to the Santa Rosa Plateau with my family. My Dad's brother Jim and his new fiancee Terri visited Grandma and Grandpa Rowley for Easter and Grandma's birthday. So, it was a big party that headed out to the hills to look at flowers.

We had a fun time. There were loads of people there, but there were also good numbers of flowers in bloom. A nice to way to celebrate Easter time, isn't it? Here's the Flickr album from the occasion: Santa Rosa Plateau Pictures.

Chocolate Lilies blooming at the Plateau
http://www.flickr.com/photos/rowleypics/2369544957/in/set-72157604295813652/

Jim and Terri are very knowledgeable about plants, so it was good to be there with them. The Chocolate Lilies, above, are a big draw at the plateau. We were able to find them pretty easily, as everybody seemed to know where they were. There were actually quite a lot, but some of them were fairly far into the preserve.

We also stopped by the Vernal Pools, where the shrimp and tadpoles were happily swimming, while being predated on lots of Garter Snakes. The snakes were swimming or slithering around the pools in Plague-like amounts. Loads of fun, since they're hardly poisonous. Funny story about poisonous snakes: we were birding Peter's Canyon yesterday. I was standing on the edge of the trail listening to some birds calling, when I heard a funny raspy rattling noise. "What sort of bird makes that noise?" I thought to myself. The sound came again, and I thought, "That's a mechanical sort of noise - something's shaking something." That's when I backed slowly away from the trail's edge as it rattled a third time. We didn't see the snake, but we didn't really want to make an effort.

Garter Snake checking me out.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/rowleypics/2370383502/in/set-72157604295813652/

Mammoth pictures are already up on Flickr, and we'll post about it in a bit.

Happy Spring!

Today's the first day of Spring! Yesterday I took a walk around Biola and La Mirada Park. I got a chance to greet some of the spring birds and flowers. I put up an album of the pictures I took on Flickr. Here's a Hooded Oriole from La Mirada Park (my FOS):

Hooded Oriole at La Mirada Park
http://flickr.com/photos/rowleypics/2347113912/

It's also Maundy Thursday. Today the western church, in various denominations, will commemorate the Last Supper. "Maundy" comes from Maundatum - Latin for commandment. Today we remember that Christ gave us a new commandment, to love one another.

This comes from John 13. After Jesus had washed his disciple's feet, and had sent Judas out, he said to his disciples:

"Now is the Son of Man glorified and God is glorified in him. If God is glorified in him, God will glorify the Son in himself, and will glorify him at once. My children, I will be with you only a little longer. You will look for me, and just as I told the Jews, so I tell you now: Where I am going, you cannot come.

"A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another."

This is the very mission of the Church. Tonight we'll have a service where we commemorate the Last Supper's institution, washing of feet (a symbol of the kind of love Jesus requires of us), and when the service is over we'll take our place waiting with him for Good Friday. All night, volunteers will take turns praying in the church. With our sleeplessness, we will strive to fulfill Jesus' wish where the disciples failed.

Failure is such a huge element of human life. Writing this I was thinking about how badly the church (and me!) are in fulfilling its mission. But two things encourage me. First, the very next passages in John 13 after the new commandment is given are Peter's promise to never betray Jesus. We are not alone in our failure, but Peter went on to do great things for God. Secondly, Jesus' death on the cross is the very and only cure for our failure, and on Friday we'll do well to remember that.

Isn't it amazing that the same Lord through whom a beautiful bird like a Hooded Oriole was created died on a dirty cross in Palestine? The return of a beautiful bird like a Hooded Oriole can be as powerful a symbol of the Resurrection as the first blooming lilies of spring - just keep your eyes open!

Chino Hills Stroll

This last weekend Libby and I took a bit of a stroll at Chino Hills State Park. Libby got a book of 101 Hikes in Southern California for her half-birthday from work, so we thought it would be fun to try out one of the closest hikes on a Saturday afternoon. Unfortunately, I mistook the wrong road for the trail head, and we didn't get to try out the hike described by the book, but we still had a good time wandering around through little trails on the exceptionally green hillsides.

You can see how green it was behind Libby in this picture.
http://flickr.com/photos/rowleypics/2342290746/

All of the plants were incredibly alive there, and there were lots and lots of flowers blooming among the grasses. A further pleasure was watching the wind blow through the grass and up over the hills. The wind would push through the grass, tossing it like wind tosses waves in the ocean. Unfortunately, it began blowing up a gale while we were there, and we found it prudent to head for safe harbor after only about an hour and a half or so. We'll have to go check it out some time when its not quite so squally.

I put up some pictures in a set on our Flickr page: flickr.com/photos/rowleypics. I sprung for a Flickr Pro account so that I could load pictures without any size restrictions. I've added quite a few lately, so if you're interested, feel free to peruse our entire photostream.

A Lark Sparrow perched on a rail checks out his own shadow.
http://flickr.com/photos/rowleypics/2341464813/

Despite the blustery conditions, we did see some interesting wildlife - ground squirrels squeaked from the hillsides, lizards on the trail, an awesome looking Jerusalem Cricket that Libby found, and some birds. It wasn't really a birding trip, though we need to scour Chino Hills for Rufous-crowned Sparrow (an Aimophila sparrow we've never seen, even though they're practically in our backyard) and maybe even for Black-chinned Sparrow when they've arrived (there's a very small population of these birds in the hills). Of course, even when we're not birding, we can't help but notice birds. So, the few we saw during our hour amidst the billowing gales follows in annotated list format:

1. Turkey Vulture (these guys really get tossed around by the wind)
2. Red-tailed Hawks (a few of these, highlight being a beautiful dark-phase juvenile that passed overhead)
3. American Kestrel
4. Anna's Hummingbird
5. Song Sparrow (the only birds we heard singing despite the wind)
6. California Towhee
7. Lark Sparrow (A particular favorite, strikingly beautiful for a sparrow)
8. Tree Swallow
9. Violet-green Swallow (FOS - yet again we saw Swallows migrating in a windstorm)

Albi (The Racist Dragon)

Flight of the Conchords are New Zealand's 4th most popular digi-folk parodists. Jonathan and I really get a kick out of them (probably because White people like singing comedians). We especially like this song. Though Business Time is pretty hilarious too.

Three Strikes Birding

This weekend we took a day trip to Anza Borrego State Park to look for three birds. Of our three targets, we found zero. Worst birding trip, ever. Here's a photo album, though.

female Phainopepla

Our three targets were Le Conte's Thrasher, Crissal Thrasher, and Long-eared Owl. Le Conte's was my most-wanted species, so we spent a lot of time wandering around Clark Dry Lake and the Borrow Pit area of Anza Borrego, but we had no luck. We swung at Crissal's Thrasher in the Borrego Sink - the only place where a tiny population of Crissal's Thrashers are hanging on in San Diego County. That was miserable. The sink is a low area that historically had a large and healthy population of mesquite tapping into the water. But now the city of Borrego Springs has used so much water that the water table has receded and all the mesquite is dead. It's depressing to wander around these shriveled and sun-blackened skeletons hoping to glimpse a population of birds that's undoubtedly doomed. We won't be going back. Crissal Thrashers are more easily found near the Colorado River, so we'll probably look for them there or in Arizona. Long-eared Owls are supposed to spend the winter and spring hanging out at Tamarisk Grove campground. We checked in with a ranger, and he said that his year they never showed up; victims of last year's drought. With no seeds to eat, the small animal population suffered, and consequently large predators have had to move on.

We did see a lot of neat wildflowers. There's a nice little bloom going on in a few places of the park. Here's an album of just flower pictures that we took.

Birdcage Evening Primrose

And we also did see a few birds. Best bird was a Prairie Falcon that came careening in a few feet above us and plunged into some creosote after some prey (probably Le Conte's Thrasher, heh). He came up empty, but it was very impressive.

Black-throated Sparrow

We also witnessed a large push of swallows migrating north in the twilight. The wind was blowing hard by this time, from the north, but they were plunging on inexorably. They flew low , passing within feet of us as they gave every bit of effort to make progress in flights of 10 - 20. Every few minutes a new flock would come up and pass us. Migration is such a force of nature. These birds were giving everything they had for every yard of progress, but they kept going.

For posterity's sake, I'll include a pitiful little bird list. Phainopepla were common around the small oases we checked out. This doesn't include birds seen on the road in the mountains above. We had a fair sampling of the year-round residents, Black-tailed Gnatcatcher, Black-throated Sparrow and Verdin are common desert-only species that we don't often get to see.

1) Common Raven
2) American Kestrel
3) Prairie Falcon
4) Black-throated Sparrow
5) White-crowned Sparrow
6) Verdin
7) Horned Lark
8) Phainopepla
9) Black-tailed Gnatcatcher
10) House Finch
11) Lesser Goldfinch
12) Northern Mockingbird
13) Ruby-crowned Kinglet
14) Swallow sp. (N. Rough-winged or Tree, I think)
14) Costa's Hummingbird: two males and a female on a nest in a Tamarisk
15) Loggerhead Shrike - these were very common around Clark Dry Lake.

We saw Roadrunner tracks, but we didn't see any.

Dusky-capped Flycatcher

Well, I submitted my Dusky-capped Flycatcher (Myiarchus tuberculifer) find to the California Bird Records Committee (CBRC). Initial feedback is that it's a convincing record. I don't imagine it will have any trouble being accepted. If it isn't, though, I'll still likely learn something valuable about identifying birds.

So what is a Myiarchus tuberculifer and why is it exciting (to me, anyway)? This is it:


It's a small bird in the family Tyrannidae. Tyrannidae is a uniquely new world family: it's only found in the Western Hemisphere. Nonetheless, it's considered the largest bird family on earth. That's probably subject to change as avian taxonomy is in constant flux. The members of this family generally specialize in eating insects, but some will eat berries, also.

The Dusky-capped Flycatcher is a mostly tropical species (like the vast majority of its family). You will find it in woodlands from southern Arizona south to northern Argentina. You usually will not find it in California, but it is apparently the most expected wintering Myiarchus flycatcher on the coastal slope of southern California (according to an e-mail from Kimball Garrett - someone who should know).

Some birds make a mistake when they head south for the winter and end up going in the wrong direction. This bird traveled northwest instead of south. It's probably been frequenting this Eucalyptus grove most of the winter. Who knows how many unusual birds were spending this winter in out of the way places? Finding these hidden treasures is one of the many pleasures of bird-watching.


So, how do you know if you've seen a Dusky-capped Flycatcher?

Dusky-capped Flycatchers are best distinguished from their nearest congeners by voice. Its typical call is a descending peeeur with a strongly mournful quality. But it definitely has other vocalizations, one of which I heard the first time I saw it. That was frustrating at the time, but I appreciate it, now, as I feel I have a little better experience with the species.

Dusky-capped Flycatchers are also the smallest of the Myiarchus flycatchers north of the Mexican border. It looks a little rounder rather than the more lanky appearance of its close relatives. Otherwise, the yellow on the belly is brighter, and the dusky cap contrasts strongly with its gray throat. This really stands out from quite a distance. One thing that many birders will look for on a Myiarchus flycatcher is the under-tail pattern - vaguely visible in the photos above. Many of the birds have fairly distinctive patterns (though there's actually considerable variation). Dusky-capped Flycatchers lack the strong rufous coloring that's obvious on the other species, and the paler inner feathers contrast with the outer feathers from the base of the tail to its tip. The Ash-throated Flycatcher is especially distinctive in that it shows a darker bar across the base of the tail - this is generally absent in the other three species found in the U.S.

Oh, and the scientific name of Dusky-capped Flycatcher strikes me as pretty trippy: Myiarchus tuberculifer. What's it mean? It means "lord of the flies" "carrying a fleshy protuberance." This is from the Dictionary of Birds of the United States (a book I wouldn't mind having, actually). Tuberculosis is derived from that same root.

More information on Dusky-capped Flycatchers:

Wikipedia: Dusky-capped Flycatcher page.

USGS Patuxtent wild bird research site: Dusky-capped Flycatcher.

What Bird?: Dusky-capped Flycatcher page (field guide format includes vocalization and range map)

Internet Bird Collection: Dusky-capped Flycatcher video. This vocalizing bird's call is a little quicker than the ones I've heard (in La Mirada and Arizona). Since it's videoed in South America one wonders if that's reflective of a taxonomical difference. Of course, you can't tell from one video. There are four other videos of this species from South America, but I can't figure out how to link to the page that displays those options.

Myiarchus Pictures

This morning on my way to work, I observed a single Myiarchus flycatcher foraging in the Eucalytpus trees in the undeveloped parts of Creek Park just north of Imperial Highway. These three shots were very distant, but they were the best that I could manage.



I don't know what species it is. I think it's most likely an Ash-throated Flycatcher, but it might be a Dusky-capped Flycatcher. My impression at the time that it was small and yellow to be an Ash-throated, but the sun was warm and indirect. Its bill seemed large, and the tail seemed to lack the rufous of an Ash-throated. But, looking at these pictures, there seems to be some rufous in the tail (the second picture), and the wing bars seem pronounced enough to belong to an Ash-throated Flycatcher. The call more closely resembled an Ash-throated Flycatcher to a Dusky-capped Flycatcher. Either way, it's fairly rare, but Dusky-capped would be less likely.

Opinions welcome! Feel free to comment.

Astro-Blasting!!

Libby and I put off our celebration of St. Valentine's Day until this last Sunday, so we could eat at the Blue Bayou. We had a lot of fun at Disneyland. Here's us blasting some robots to save Star Command's power cells.

Look at how concentrated we are! Libby was having an off day, but we still had fun. I love this ride. It's like a video game and a fun theme park ride all in one.

Astronomical Wonders

Did you catch the eclipse Wednesday night? It was beautiful, and the weather was surprisingly cooperative for us. Every once in a while there'd be a thin veil of clouds, but generally it was very visible. Here's a record shot from our camera:


After I took the camera off the tripod we set up our spotting scope, which works OK as a telescope. We observed the moon through that for a bit, and then Libby went looking for Saturn. She found it! We could clearly see the rings sticking out on either side of the gas giant. Through the scope it was a beautiful clear star with two sticks on either side. We like to imagine it was something like what Galileo saw.

Regulus was also very clear just above the moon, and this is a great time to see the closest star visible in the Northern Hemisphere. Sirius is the brightest star in the south. You can use Orion's belt as a pointer - it's just straight off and a little below it (at least around 8:00).

Birding the Sacramento Valley

For Presidents' Day weekend, Jonathan and I went on a birding trip to one of the Fifty Places to go Birding Before You Die (I got this book as a Christmas present from one of my wonderful students). We went to destination 13: The Sacramento Valley. Jonathan has put pictures up on facebook.

We drove up Saturday morning, leaving at 5:45 am to get a good start. By lunch time, we were in Sacramento. We stopped at Sutter's Fort, had a picnic lunch and walked around. From there we went to the Capitol. It's a beautiful building on the inside and outside. No luck seeing the Governator, though.

Saturday evening we went looking for Short-eared Owls in a well-known hot spot, and had great success. They put on a good show along with Northern Harriers, a White-tailed Kite, and Red-tailed, Ferruginous, and Rough-legged Hawks all in one big field. And Burrowing Owls were abundant in the next field over. We weren't the only ones there. There were probably 12 or 14 birders total, standing on the side of the road, watching and photographing the scene. Jonathan had a funny idea: What if the way birders greeted one another was to give 'em the bird? I thought we should try it and see what would happen. However, he was not committed enough for this. I sure called his bluff.

After the owls, we still had about an hour drive further North to Willows where we would spend both nights. We passed the time in the car singing Anyone Else But You by the Moldy Peaches, and making up our own silly verses about each other.

All day Sunday, and also Monday morning, we birded all over the Sacramento National Wildlife Refuge. We encountered many other birders as we explored the area. And about 50% of them drove a Subaru. No kidding. I guess it's "the official car of birders" or something. I had no idea! But now I have to have one.

We had three target birds that we studied before the trip: Tundra Swan, Rough-legged Hawk, and Short-eared Owl. We ended up getting all of them. Here's the final trip list:

(in taxonomic order)
1. Pied-billed Grebe
2. Eared Grebe
3. American White Pelican
4. Double-crested Cormorant
5. Great Blue Heron
6. Great Egret
7. White-faced Ibis
8. Turkey Vulture
9. Greater White-fronted Goose
10. Snow Goose
11. Ross' Goose
12. Canada Goose
13. Cackling Goose
14. Tundra Swan*
15. Wood Duck
16. Gadwall
17. Eurasian Wigeon
18. American Wigeon
19. Mallard
20. Cinnamon Teal
21. Northern Shoveler
22. Northern Pintail
23. Green-winged Teal
24. Ring-necked Duck
25. Lesser Scaup
26. Bufflehead
27. Common Goldeneye
28. Ruddy Duck
29. White-tailed Kite
30. Bald Eagle
31. Northern Harrier
32. Red-shouldered Hawk
33. Red-tailed Hawk
34. Ferruginous Hawk
35. Rough-legged Hawk*
36. American Kestrel
37. Peregrine Falcon
38. Chukar* (We don't know if we can technically count this one, since they might not be from an established population.)
39. Ring-necked Pheasant*
40. California Quail
41. Common Moorhen
42. American Coot
43. Sandhill Crane
44. Killdeer
45. Black-necked Stilt
46. American Avocet
47. Greater Yellowlegs
48. Long-billed Curlew
49. Dunlin
50. Long-billed Dowitcher
51. Wilson's Snipe
52. Ring-billed Gull
53. Herring Gull
54. Rock Dove
55. Mourning Dove
56. Great Horned Owl
57. Burrowing Owl
58. Short-eared Owl*
59. White-throated Swift
60. Anna's Hummingbird
61. Belted Kingfisher
62. Nuttall's Woodpecker
63. Northern Flicker
64. Black Phoebe
65. Loggerhead Shrike
66. Western Scrub-Jay
67. Yellow-billed Magpie
68. American Crow
69. Common Raven
70. Tree Swallow
71. Cliff Swallow
72. Bushtit
73. Marsh Wren
74. Ruby-crowned Kinglet
75. American Robin
76. Northern Mockingbird
77. European Starling
78. American Pipit
79. Yellow-rumped Warbler
80. Spotted Towhee
81. California Towhee
82. Chipping Sparrow
83. Savannah Sparrow
84. Fox Sparrow
85. Song Sparrow
86. Lincoln's Sparrow
87. White-crowned Sparrow
88. Golden-crowned Sparrow
89. Dark-eyed Junco
90. Red-winged Blackbird
91. Tricolored Blackbird
92. Western Meadowlark
93. Brewer's Blackbird
94. House Finch
95. House Sparrow

Disneyland with a Toddler

Kids under 3 get into Disneyland for free. Jonathan and I have Disneyland passes. We also have a nephew just under the age of 3. It all fit together so nicely. So, we took the little guy to the Magic Kingdom. You can see pictures from the trip here. (This actually happened over a week ago, but I've been too busy to post about it until now.)

We had a good time. Little Jonathan said some funny things. Like when we were driving there:

Husband Jonathan: Aww, shucks.
Nephew Jonathan: Shut it! Shut it up! Don't say that word!

And then when we were getting out of the car, after arriving:

Me: Jonathan, do you need help getting out of your carseat, or can you do it yourself?
Nephew Jonathan: You should help me. Quickly! Before the train leaves!

It was a new experience for Nephew Jonathan and I think it was a little overwhelming. There were colorful, exciting things everywhere. And lots of people! He wanted to be held the whole time, and only walked by himself when we got back to the parking structure on our way out. But we rode the train, and the horse-drawn car (twice), and the Storybookland ride, and we saw a fire truck, and watched the Carousel (he was quite plain that he did not want to ride the Carousel, but he did want to watch the Carousel). And I think, all in all, it was a successful trip.

In The Place of the Lion

For my birthday, one of my gifts was Charles William's The Place of the Lion. Thanks, Phillip!

Charles Williams is not as well known as Tolkien or Lewis, but like them he was a member of the Inklings, an informal literary group of authors and critics that met in Oxford. He was a Christian, like Lewis and Tolkien, and wrote books that were full of atypical but Christian themes. The Place of the Lion is no exception.

The setting of the novel is a little country town. But for the novel, the address might be: Smetham, England, UK, Physical Earth. The point being that the plot of the novel revolves around the collapse of the heirarchical ideological immaterial realities of unchanging universals (personalized via ideas contained in Medieval thinkers) into the physical world. Kind of confusing, right? That's pretty typical of Williams' fiction.

Basically, some people in Smetham were fooling around with some kind of Neo-Platonism. The leader of this outfit is attacked by an earthly lioness escaped from a local circus. But when the lion contacts this Berringer fellow, the archetypical lion springs from the intersection and begins roaming the countryside, subsuming its lesser daughter into itself. But a lion to Williams is not only a giant predatory cat, it is also a spiritual reality. It is aggression and rage, also, such as you and I feel.

Soon other archetypes start popping up. The perfect serpent, eagle, butterfly, horse, and unicorn all appear. As they appear they subsume their earthly emanations. So the countryside is emptied of animals (except for sheep), but also, those humans who most closely serve each spiritual significance. A man becomes a ferocious lion, a woman a snake. A man who collects butterflies sees the idea of butterfly and is so consumed with its vision he eventually neglects life and dies. Buildings start falling down, the weather turns unbearably hot, and the end of the world appears nigh.

Pretty crazy, right?

Anyway, I really liked it. There are a couple of Dante-esque moments that would make any fan of the Comedy smile, and the ending was a pleasant surprise. The book was encouraging in its commitment to the way things really are, and the necessity of spending ourselves for the sake of truth, and not vice-versa. That's especially nice during the political season, when knowledge and opinion are bartered for votes, popularity and power.

I recommend the book, especially to those who have a bit of Classical education. It's fun to see the connections and to find someone who reveres the Medievals.

Anna's Chirps

Researchers have developed a new theory to explain an Anna's Hummingbird's chirp at the base of its dive. This is something anyone in California can observe - Anna's Hummingbirds are everywhere around here - and it's something he or she can probably observe right now, as we're well into the Anna's courtship season.

Anyway, it turns out that the chirp at the base of their dive (quite distinctive, and quite loud) is actually made by vibrating their tail feathers. Since they feathers are stiff, when they spread them at about 50 mph, they vibrate like a reed in a clarinet. It sounds louder to me than anything they use their voice to produce - and Anna's Hummers are accomplished singers.

Here's a BBC Article about it.

Here's a You Tube video.

Santa Rosa Plateau

Last Monday we went hiking on the Santa Rosa Plateau. It was a good time. Here are some pictures.

We saw a Bobcat and nine Coyotes. We also saw some birds:

Acorn Woodpeckers
Nuttall's Woodpecker
Red-tailed Hawk
heard a single Western Meadowlark singing
saw some Yellowlegs (probably Greaters)
Northern Shovelers
American Wigeons
a single male Phainopepla
Western Bluebirds
California and Spotted Towhees
Savannah Sparrows
Juncos
W. Scrub Jays
Oak Titmice
Bushtits and
White-breasted Nuthatches

I also just saw a Nuttall's Woodpecker outside my office. That's interesting because previously I've only seen Downey Woodpeckers around Biola. But this had an all dark back liberally streaked with horizontal white. Definitely a female-plumaged Nuttall's. I'm always keeping my eye open for wintering Sapsuckers, but it's interesting that a Nuttall's would be found. They're resident in Southern California, and thus not likely to wander. Thus, it may be indicative that we have an urban population. I've heard that they're beginning to adapt to urban mature-growth woodlands, but this is the first one I've ever seen outside of their favored oak-woodland habitat.

My Friend

I haven't seen my commuter-friend, Genius 7, as often this school year as I did last year. Since September I've probably only seen her 4 or 5 times, but two of those times happened this week.

Today, I was stopped right next to her for 2 consecutive red lights on my way home. And I learned some things.

1. She wears a pink rain jacket, despite her bright red hair.

2. She talks to herself using animated hand gestures.

3. Unless that was a dog I saw in the front seat. If so, she talks to her dog using animated hand gestures.

4. But I think it was just a white grocery bag and not a dog.

Beach-side Birding

Yesterday Libby and I had a pretty good time birding. One of our plans this year is to try and see most of the rest of the birds that are common in Southern California that we've missed so far. That will mean doing a trip to Santa Cruz Island for the endemic Scrub Jay, and we're talking about doing a pelagic birding trip. But we're also going to try and see some of the birds that are closer to home, and that we've just overlooked.

We're also going to try and study up before our little trips a little better than we have so far, in order to get a better shared understanding of what we're looking for. We're emulating Phoebe Snetsinger, whose biography Libby is reading, and doing a pre-trip notebook for all the species we might see. So, before our trip on Saturday we studied up on five birds: Common, Pacific and Red-throated Loons, Surfbird, and Wandering Tattler. The Loons aren't all the difficult, especially in summer plumage, but in winter, they're all pretty drab gray colored and the differences are subtle: bill size, and plumage features like the demarcating line on the neck being bold or subdued, faint chinstraps, collars, and also some behavioral differences. The shorebirds are just plain gray birds that live along rocky shores.

We've seen a Common Loon a few times before now, but we had never seen the other four birds. Mostly because they're not common in protected bays, which is where we normally go birding near the coast (Bolsa Chica or Newport Back Bay). This time we went to the Newport Pier and to Crescent Bay in Laguna Beach.

We hoped to have all three species of Loons and maybe try a little sea watching from the Pier. When we pulled up there were a bunch of gulls and some Brown Pelicans circling the beach - mostly Heermann's and Western. We saw one or two Ring-billed, too. On the way out we saw some Eared Grebes, Horned Grebes, and some Surf Scoters feeding on the barnacles encrusting the pillars. At the end, we found a place along the rail next to all the fishermen and started looking for loons. We soon found a Red-throated Loon! Soon we also had a Common Loon, and we spent a long time watching birds fly by the pier at quite some distance. Most of those we couldn't identify because they were so far away. Our scope is a little fella' and we've no experience with truly pelagic species. There was a constant procession of small birds with quick wing-beats skimming the surface of the water. I'm guessing they were a Shearwater of some sort. There were also distant rafts of Cormorants. Only a single Pelagic came close to the pier. It gave us great looks of its unique iridescent feathers.

I was disappointed not to see any Pacific Loons near the pier, but we decided to move on and check out Crescent Bay for the shorebirds. I missed the turn the first time, but we doubled back and found it soon enough. There were some other birders there looking for an American Oystercatcher that was reported last weekend. We set up on the overlook and started scanning the rocks. The low ones sported both Western and Heermann's Gulls, Black-bellied Plovers, a Whimbrel, and some Willets. The rocky off-shore outcroppings were covered in Sea Lions, Brandt's Cormorants, Black Oystercatchers, and Brown Pelicans. And then, there was an American-type Oystercatcher! We got the scope on it, and right behind it was our lifer Surfbird! Cool!

American Oystercatchers are common along the Atlantic coast, and they also breed on the Pacific coast of Mexico. However, our local Oystercatcher is the more range-restricted Black Oystercatcher. Its breeding range extends south into Baja California where it overlaps with the northernmost breeding American Oystercatchers. And that's where they hybridize. So when an American Oystercatcher appears north of the border, there's always some debate over whether or not it is an American Oystercatcher or an American x Black Oystercatcher hybrid. Last Saturday someone ran the bird through a scale named after an ornithologist named Jehl to determine its descent and decided it was good for an American Oystercatcher, but we heard second hand while we were there that someone had seen two American Oystercatchers on the beach that morning. So now we don't know if we saw the same one someone had earlier rated, or not. It definitely was not an ideal American Oystercatcher. It showed some a dirty rather than clean line on the breast between its black and white plumage, and it showed a few flecks of black on the undertail. The wing-stripe appeared slightly restricted, but the tail looked good. Overall, I'm leaning towards it being the bird earlier described (which was rated a 33 out of 38 - 30 or lower being a definite hybrid).

We hung around for awhile waiting for the appearance of the second bird, or our Tattler. We were rewarded with a good look at another Pelagic Cormorant coming in for a landing on the rock (showing big white patches behind the wing - a wonderful field mark) and a Pacific Loon! One came steaming along feeding and preening through the area. Great luck. And then I found a bobbing shorebird far away in the rocks. It turned out to be our Tattler. And with all five targets wrapped up, with a bonus hybrid or lifer to boot, we headed for the car. And were stopped by a pod of dolphins heading through! And then by a pair of Lincoln's Sparrows, some Golden-crowned Sparrows, and a White-crowned Sparrow in the cliff-top park. So that was fun!

Day list:

House Sparrow
Heermann's Gull
Western Gull
Ring-billed Gull
Brown Pelican
Rock Pigeon
Black Phoebe
Horned Grebe
Eared Grebe
Clark's Grebe
Surf Scoter
Snowy Egret
Red-throated Loon*
Common Loon
Pelagic Cormorant
Black Turnstone
Willet
Whimbrel
Black-bellied Plover
Brandt's Cormorant
Black Oystercatcher
American Oystercatcher?
Anna's Hummingbird
Surfbird*
Allen's Hummingbird
House Wren
Pacific Loon*
Wandering Tattler*
Golden-crowned Sparrow
White-crowned Sparrow
Lincoln's Sparrow
House Finch

TGIF

What a day. I had to confront a kid about cheating on a Math test. And I also had two kids bleeding, and another one throwing up in class, though not all at the same time.

At least it's Friday.

Bird Pictures

This weekend I completely organized Libby's and my bird pictures using Picasa's album feature. It's neat, because you can sort pictures in albums without moving them between folders. What I ended up doing was making an album for every taxonomic avian family we've photographed a representative from. This was quite time consuming, but it was also fun. Finding it fun, I suppose, separates me from most other human beings. Anyway, I can now find pictures by folder - which is organized by date or a title indicating the nature of the event we visited, or find a bird picture by family!

I thought I'd share two of my favorite bird pictures so far:

This Anna's Hummingbird (Calypte Anna) was photographed at the San Diego Wild Animal Park back in December when we visited it. I'm mainly happy about catching the iridescence on the head so well, but the fact that it's a hummingbird flight shot is also fun. My biggest complaint (besides quality limitations) is that there's an artificial feeder in the scene.

I found this Hermit Thrush (Catharus guttatus) at Irvine Park last Saturday when I went to take a picture of the wintering Lewis' Woodpecker and to just spend some time in the great outdoors. I was walking along the little nature trail up on the hillside above the park, when this little Hermit Thrush came right up to me! It was a special moment, as the bird was obviously interested in me for some reason. I was able to reach back, grab my camera (which was still in the bag) and take this one picture before it flew off. Unfortunately, it was obviously a little shady and so the photo's uncomfortably dark, but it's fun to get so close to any kind of bird. It's even more fun to capture the moment!

Christmas Break Photo Round-up

Over Christmas Break (Yay for Holiday pay and the wonderful category of Bonus Day pay here at Biola), we had an opportunity to spend some time with both sides of the family and even got to do some birding with Bill and Becca.

Christmas Eve was spent with at Grandma and Grandpa's house, and that was a lot of fun, and so was Christmas at the Mootharts. Libby put up some pictures in an album on Facebook.

On the 26th, we headed off to Bolsa Chica with Bill and Becca, and we saw 65 species for the day. Nothing really out of the ordinary, but lots of fun looking at all the wintering water fowl. I was pleased we were able to find the resident White-tailed Kite for them, though we missed the resident Reddish Egret. The tide was really high, so we didn't do much shore-birding at all. A real highlight was a very confiding Brown Pelican sitting above a tide gate that let Becca get almost within arm's reach of him before flushing!

On the 27th, we visited the San Diego Wild Animal Park (photo album here). It was a real blast to see all the neat African animals. Of course, we really enjoyed the aviaries. Golden Orioles are beautiful anywhere, and so are Golden-headed Quetzals! There were also a good number of native species hopping in the bushes or flitting about. Bill and Becca got to see Say's Phoebes, Nuttall's Woodpeckers, and Cassin's Kingbirds. Libby and I got our binoculars on a beautiful soaring dark-morph Red-tailed Hawk - which was our first of that color morph for Red-tails. It was very striking.

Oh, and it turns out we saw a semi-wild Wood Stork that lives at the Wild Animal Park (but isn't an exhibit bird). We saw a stork flying between exhibits, but I just thought it was an escapee. It did occur to me that it looked just like a Wood Stork - white body and wings, with dark head and black flight feathers - primaries on down - but as I'm unfamiliar with the family in general, I couldn't eliminate other options. But I just read on a birding blog - 10,000 Birds - that there is a wild Wood Stork living there. I don't think we'll count it, though. On the one hand, I'm sure that we saw one, but on the other hand we didn't know what we were looking at, and I'd like to appreciate it better. Kind of like how we've held off on counting Varied Bunting so that we're sure to find it again and appreciate it in color (rather than in a distant silhouette).

We spent the last few days of that week relaxing! But on Monday the 31st, we went birding/walking with Mom and Dad at the San Joaquin Wildlife Sanctuary. We had a pretty birdy day, with high-lights being all three local Teal species together in one place, Northern Shovelers feeding in their circles, an escaped exotic Weaver species, a female Phainopepla, and a Peregrine Falcon. We walked downstream on the trail toward the UCI Marsh, too, and saw lots of White Pelicans, egrets, herons, lots of White-throated Swifts and some Northern Rough-winged Swallows, and loads and loads of Red-tailed Hawks. One field showed 5 in one binocular view, with one more sitting about 2 degrees to the right!

After that, Libby and I headed off alone to chase down some Wilson's Snipes reported further upstream in San Diego Creek. That was a successful chase, too. After a little head scratching and intensive scanning of every little bump in this little urban run-off channel, we came up with 10-15 of the funny looking birds. So, that was our last lifer of the year, on the last day of the year. As we were watching, we also had a White-faced Ibis fly in, and out again, which was just a nice touch.

That afternoon we installed Microsoft Office on my parents' computers and a router, before going off to watch the new National Treasure movie (silly, but fun), and have a delightful fast food dinner. We got home and were in bed by 9:30 so we could get up early the next day for Disneyland!

Happy 2008!

Jonathan got me Disneyland for Christmas. Well, two annual passes. Which is a lot of potential Disneyland fun! We went for the first time yesterday, to start the year off right. We had a great time, despite the large crowds (a lot of people had the same idea about starting the year off right). We took it easy, and didn't stress about having to see this or that attraction. After all, we've got a whole year!

You can see more pictures from our trip to Disneyland here.

The Muppets Christmas Carol - One More Sleep Til' Christmas

It's true. There's only one more sleep til Christmas!

COMICS!

Nothing like a good old cartoony comic strip to brighten your day, right? Libby and I have been enjoying the newly opened archives of American Elf, one of the most entertaining web comics around. It's a strange mix of touching family strips, humorous commentary on the mundane, and then all of a sudden there will be a bunch with lots of bad words and "adult" situations. Anyway, I recommend it in a very qualified way - if you're sensitive to this kind of thing you'll likely be offended by looking at the site (and I won't put up a link but obviously Google sees all).

So, on a slow night last week a while ago we made our very own comics. Since we don't have a scanner, I just put up on the fridge and took pictures of them. Here're the results:




Libby's is the top, better, one. Mine are the two lower ones. Aren't we brave to post them on the internet?