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.

Humorous Happenings

This is a funny article via the Inland County Birds listserve (San Bernadino, Riverside and Imperial Counties).

Birds Invade Redlands Home
http://www.redlandsdailyfacts.com/ci_9146474

Basically, some migrating Vaux's Swifts (the article incorrectly names them Chimney Swifts- almost identical relatives restricted to the eastern United States) went down a chimney into someone's home to roost. Hundreds of them. This understandably upset the home's residents. It's too bad they weren't home when the swifts arrived. It would have been like Hogwarts sending letters down the chimney in the first Harry Potter book. Totally freaky.

Although, wow, what a mess, it would have been neat to hold a Vaux's Swift. I've only ever seen them in flight. Also, I haven't seen any in our area this Spring. Last Spring a bunch of them were in a mixed flock of migrating swallows at Biola near the end of April. I'm not sure why I've missed them so far this year.

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.