On top of the world

"You know you are a real birder if you've ever faked your own death to attract vultures."

I know that many of you read my father's blog (badweaherbigyear) and if you have you might remember him pretending to be a disabled camper in order to see a grassquit. While I am not sure how ethical this is or how similar it is in comparison to faking one's own death but it shows his devotion to this big year.

I am not nearly as hardcore as my dad is, although he will say he is taking it easy, and according to this quote I may not even be a true birder. While that may be true, I am enjoying seeing new birds and amazing places. One such place is Colorado. I had never been to Colorado before this weekend and was amazed by all the mountains. My dad, however, was on a mission. He had gotten to the airport earlier than us and the second we were in his sight he walked away. I found it to be quite rude that we didn't even get a hello or a hug since it had been at least a week since we had last seen him. He had plans for us and greetings had to wait.

When we finally caught up to my dad at the rental car, a jeep, we packed our stuff and drove (for hours). When we at last reached Silverthorn and started driving around the houses like creepers, looking for birds. I was only slightly concerned about someone calling the cops and helped my dad to find bird feeders around the neighborhood. The neighborhood was located on the side of a mountain overlooking a green valley. It was quite eerie when it started snowing and I saw the contrast between the green valley and the white snow. In this snow we saw a grey-crowned rosy-finch.

After seeing all we could at Silverthorn, we left (thankfully not in a cop car) and headed to Gunnison. At this point we had been driving since we left the airport and had yet to get out of the car. So you can imagine my boredom. It got better when we reached the road around which we might find a Gunnison sage-grouse. We looked until dark and all I found was my spirit cow, and yes I said spirit cow. I am sure you have heard of a spirit animal, so the idea of a spirit cow should not be a foreign concept. 

I created the idea of a spirit cow in order to distract myself from the post-plane exhaustion and to annoy my dad. I have to admit it was a lot of fun.

The next day we headed back to Gunnison and after much searching we got a bit of good luck when the grouse we were looking for flew over.

Our trip passes in a haze of driving with only the occasional stop every few hours. We eventually stopped at Colorado National Monument and I saw a juniper titmouse.

While in that area we also saw a herd of  mule deer.

 So far besides the driving it had been an enjoyable and very scenic trip. The part that made me wish for more happened at the top of a mountain in the snow. We were there to see a ptarmigan of some sort which lived in the high altitude. We hiked up a hill and I stood for a moment in the wind. I was on top of the world! However, as I looked out across the snow I saw hundreds of people snowboarding and skiing down the mountain. This caused a craving for my snowboard or even my skis. I missed them so badly as I watched all these other daredevils gliding down the white mountain. My love for the snow and all sports related to it was much greater than my love for birds and even though my dad yelled at me and tried to guilt me for not searching for his ptarmigan, I still sat there on the mountain watching and taking pictures of the boarders and skiers.

If only it was winter, I have told my dad and he reluctantly agreed that after his big year is over it will be his turn to be the follower on our trips. We decided that a ski/snowboard trip in Colorado would be an amazing adventure next year. I hope you all accomplish your dreams for the next year or two. 

Love,

L

Phoneless

This latest trip was to Tucson, Arizona. We stayed in Miller Canyon which was very beautiful. The one downside of the canyon was that it had no cell reception, but I adjusted and after the first day used my phone just a camera. However this turned out badly since I grew used to using my phone less, I did not notice later when it went missing. The location of my phone is still unknown, but besides that, the trip was one of the most vacation like of any birding trips I have been on this year.

I got to go on my first hawk watch this weekend. A hawk watch is a strange pastime where people sit in a clearing waiting for a hawk to fly by. I noticed that many people also brought their dogs with them which provided a great source of non hawk related entertainment.

This is Joey the dog, she was known by almost everyone at the hawk watch and had the unique skill of being able to jump out from the dog park. I had to laugh as she ran around saying hi to everyone. In addition to seeing Joey the jumping dog I got to see a common black hawk.

The best part of that day was convincing my dad to let us go shopping. We needed presents for my grandmother and great grandmother's birthdays. My dad gave us fifteen minutes to pick something out, but we able to evade my dad for thirty. It was fun and we found some really nice presents. After that we went to see some humming birds and I got three new birds to add to my list.

Broad billed hummingbirds

Broad tailed hummingbird

Violet crowned hummingbird

My parents practically had to drag me away from taking pictures of all of the hummingbirds. 

It was a lot of fun and I was quite happy on the ride back to our cabin. Later that night we went hiking to see the elusive spotted owls. We saw them and got a great view of the sunset over the canyon.

One of the people who owned the cabin we were staying at was kind enough to show me a ringed tailed cat. 

The next day we went hiking in the desert and saw a curved billed thrasher and a black tailed gnatcatcher.

This blog was mainly just pictures since not much of interest happened this weekend besides losing my phone (potentially while hiking in the desert). I hope you all have a great week

L

Snow on the beach

Snow on the beach, it is something that is difficult to picture. When I first saw it as we were walking along the water towards the car, I could not figure out what it was. At first I thought it was ash? Then I looked closer and it was white. I never for a second thought it was snow. My dad informed me that it was in fact snow when he noticed that I had stopped following him. Snow on a beach? It is such a strange concept.

Our trip did not start at a beach or in the snow. That happened later. It started on a flooded dirt road somewhere in North Carolina. Our very pretty but equally impractical Dodge charger had no chance of going into the water, so we hiked. My dad didn’t want to carry his giant camera all the way down the road and so he suggested we just take mine, it was very sneaky. Guess who ended up carrying the camera the entire two miles to the tree where a red-cockaded woodpecker was? Me. I did this in my snake boots which are great at defending against snakes and going through water but….they are terrible to walk in.

We saw the bird but I regret getting out of the car to hike those two miles. My ankles hurt so badly afterwards and I had to strongly encourage myself to get out of the car when we reached a beach area. It was quite pretty and there were many new birds for me.

It was neat seeing all of these new birds and walking around in the sand, so much so that i ignored my foot pain and enjoyed being on the beach. It was almost erie walking through the dunes and looking out apon the ocean. We reached the point of the beach and continued back along the rocks. It was beautiful and when it started snowing the area became almost surreal. We came across a lone black scoter who seemed very at home in the snowy waters.

On the walk back to the car I picked up shells and fossils. I planned on giving them to my mom as a kind of apology for making her be alone on Valentines day. I felt bad that we left her and also bought her some presents from a tourist shop. Technically my dad paid for them with my guidance. 

We had originally come down here in order to go on a pelagic but it was cancelled and pushed back a day. We still went on Sunday but the weather was bad and I got seasick. It was a very miserable trip for me since I didn't feel good and had cold feet (literally). I did get to see a hammerhead shark, a couple of sea turtles, dolphins, and a great skua! Which helped to make up for the long day in the boat. That is all for now, have a great day!

L

Unexpected Death

I was informed of an unexpected death while on my way to see the ivory gull at Duluth, Minnesota. The gull had died. This was quite a surprise to me as people had been feeding the gull and I'm sure they would throw themselves in the way of a gyrfalcon before they would let it fly off with the rare ivory gull, but alas the gull is no more. This put a damper on my trip this last weekend but it all worked out in the end. I did not get to see the gull but I saw nearly every other bird that we could have seen in the Minnesota area. All except the ruffed grouse, but I will see that another time.

This trip started like all birding trips in my family, very early. We drove and drove and after hours we reached Aggasiz national wildlife refuge. After passing by an abandoned house we came across a flock of sharp-tailed grouse. To be honest I could not see them until they were pointed out to me. I was so sleepy I could barely see a hand in front of my face but the idea of new birds helped to wake me up. We were pleasantly surprised when one of the sharp-tailed grouse turned out to be a prairie chicken. This is a picture of a sharp-tailed grouse.

We were so pumped up by the two-for-one that we went to find a northern hawk owl.  About a mile from the Canadian border there it was, sitting on the top of a tree in clear view.

We drove around in the hopes of finding a great grey owl, but all we got was stuck. Yes stuck, I had to get out and push which was a new experience for me. My dad, ever the gentleman, didn't leave the car. He did let us go out to eat for lunch at subway since we had seen all the target birds for the day. If any of you know my dad you will realize how rarely he goes out to eat, he is a hardcore birder, he does not waste good birding time on food.

After lunch we went through Warroad, and while there we came across a flock of ghost bohemian waxwings. I call them a ghost group because like an aberration they vanished into thin air. We drove all over Warroad and never caught sight of them again. It did not faze me as I had already seen them and at that point I was carsick and sleepy. I woke up a little bit when we came across a small group of pine grosbeaks.

Sax-Zim Bog: We were on the lookout for a great grey owl and after our easy find with the hawk owl we were sure we'd find it. Things didn't go quite as planned. We searched the places where owls had been found previously but we found no trace of them. I was disappointed. After a few hours of driving we gave up and went to Marie Lou's feeders to pick up an evening grosbeak. We found them. We had to make fun of some other birders, however, as they were scaring the grosbeaks.

I was rejuvenated somewhat by seeing the evening grosbeak and so we headed to another feeder to try and see the boreal chickadee. There was already three cars there when we arrived and by the time we left there were about eight. I had fun watching my dad talk about his birding prowess, but the cold got to me and I had to go hide in the car with my dog for a while. The boreal chickadee did not show right away but we had no lack of birds to look at since the grey jays were being very photogenic. The boreal chickadee finally showed after a half hour and was received by a large group of birders armed with their various types of cameras, one man even had two.

We resumed our search for the owl after that but to no avail. It was midafternoon by the time we gave up and started searching for a black backed woodpecker. My butt was numb and we had been in that car for over five hours at that point, I was stir crazy. So I was happy to be able to get out of the car each time we tried to call a black backed woodpecker. We used my mom's beat pill to call them but received no response. It was after one of these calls that we heard a thump on the side of the car, I asked my dad what it was and he responded that Bridget must have bumped something. Bridget is our dog. We continued driving and were planning on meeting up with one of my dad's friends when we decided to stop and call for the woodpecker again. It was then that we realized what the thump had been, it had been the speaker. On our drive back to where we had heard the thump, I couldn't help imagining that everyone we had passed might have picked up the speaker or god forbid run over it, we were lucky though, the bright red speaker was still there and my mom had one less reason to murder us when we got home.

The day was long and exhausting. I had given up on seeing any new birds and I will admit I started day dreaming while looking for them. I was not allowed to read or listen to music so I was insanely bored and my dad and I continuously fought over the radio. I was shocked and pleased when my dad's friend sent us a picture of a great grey owl. She had seen it in the opposite side of the bog however, so we had nearly twenty minutes of driving to get there. My dad put the pedal to the metal as we sped down the main road, going 100 mph at times. We made the twenty minute drive in closer to ten, it was both terrifying and exhilarating at the same time. When we were within sight of his friend's car we saw a great grey owl.

We were overjoyed and could not be more thankful to Julie, my dad's friend. We offered to buy her dinner and drove to a diner in Cotton, MN. It was a pleasant evening and being outside of the car after driving all day was a welcome change. I stole my dad's food while he was talking to Julie and almost fell asleep after eating. We still had an hour drive to our hotel after that though.

The next day started earlier still as we were meeting a Facebook friend of my dad's named JG. He was going to help us find the blacked backed woodpecker. He seemed to be a nice guy and helped us out when our dog spilled my dad's coffee all over my seat. We offered to give him the dog in exchange for his help, but...he refused. It was not long after that when I caught a glimpse of something in the woods and saw the woodpecker. We all shared a group hug as this was my Dad's 400th bird for 2016 and my 237th bird. JG seemed overjoyed to be with us for this monumental occasion and was even more excited than we were about it.

We were all quite happy as we drove off to Superior to see a snowy owl. The snowy owl hadn't gotten the memo that we were looking for it, however, so we were unable to find it. We also could not find the gyrfalcon which may or may not have eaten the ivory gull. 

I was very hungry by then and strong armed my dad into abandoning the search for a snowy. My dad showed me the place where he claims to have proposed to my mom on the way to one of his favorite restaurants. I say he claimed because my mom insists that where he showed me was not in fact where he proposed. That raises the question if he did not propose to my mom there then who was he proposing to? 

During lunch I had a struggle with the wait staff, they were so prompt and quick that I could not get more than half of my overly strong tea down before they refilled it. Which may not be a bad thing but I had had enough tea and wanted to finish the cup. I never could. The food was good though but my dinner companion didn't allow for much conversation, he was writing his own blog at the time. Once I had finished my food I snuck off to look in the tourist shops. I loved looking at all of the cool glass works in one of the shops and I was able to hide out there for a half hour before my dad found me. He had wrongly assumed I'd be in the candy shop, I had hardly given that shop a glance. 

We headed back to Superior to try again at finding the snowy owl. It was by a stroke of luck that a gyrfalcon was sitting on a pole off in the distance. It was too far for me to get a picture, but I was so relieved that we had found it. If only the darned snowy would show up then we could leave! It was after this that my dad started getting superstitious and since we had listened to exes and ohs right before we had seen the great grey owl, he decided we needed to listen to it again to find the snowy. I was forced to buy it off ITunes and we listened to it again and again changing the words as we sang. It did not work right away, JG had rejoined us with his daughter and a few hours had gone past when we listened to it a final time before going and picking my mom up from the airport. This time when we turned around to re-drive the same road there was a snowy owl sitting on the post we had been driving past for hours. The song worked! I give total credit for the bird showing up to Elle King. Her song is my dad's good luck song and maybe mine as well.

We went to pick up my mom after seeing every bird on our list of needed birds. Life was good and we got celebratory frosties from Wendy's. I had mine with my dad's french fries, if you haven't eaten milkshakes and french fries than you are missing out. My dad forgave me for stealing his fries since my salad had BBQ sauce on it, do not ask why Wendy's decided to ruin my salad I can only speculate. One of the things I came up with is that the workers got high one night and decided that BBQ sauce went well on salads-it doesn't. Besides the nasty salad and car sickness the trip went good. I finished the day with a bird count of 243. It was a good trip and while I was sad I had not been able to see the ivory gull, I was happy to have had a good weekend of birding. 

With love,

L

Relapse Island

It all started at a gas station in Hutchinson, Minnesota, on our way to the airport. In a moment of weakness I bought three packs of gum, justifying it by saying I would give them to friends...my friends never got any.

Most of the first pack was gone by the time we landed in Orange county, California. All of that first pack and most of the second were gone by the time, an hour and a half later, my dad showed up to take us to the hotel.

Day 1:

I had become slightly hardened to the life of a birder and didn't complain over being woken up at 5:30 a.m. We left the hotel room armed with backpacks full of rain gear and snack food. We headed downstairs and true to form Jim was sitting there drinking a cup of coffee. Jim is one of my dad's birding companions and was hanging out with us all weekend. My parents left us in the lobby while they went to get the car. While we were waiting, Jim realized he had misplaced his backpack. He ran off to find it and I covered for him. When he came back without having found his backpack in his room, we drove him to the nearby McDonalds where he had eaten breakfast. While waiting for our food to be ready and for Jim to find his backpack, I witnessed a homeless lady hiding her stuff in the bushes. It was with sympathy that we informed Jim of the large number of homeless people walking around.  We all came to the conclusion that his backpack was gone for good. `

We sped off to catch our boat. We got lost trying to find the right pier, but with some help from Siri we made it on time. We said goodbye to my mom at the parking lot and headed off to the boat.

I was shocked to see giant bags of popcorn next to the boat. I remembered my dad mentioning that popcorn would be used to lure in the birds.  He started talking to the other birders and abandoned me. I found Jim and stayed with him since my dad was swapping bird stories with old acquiatances. Jim pointed out a Surf Scoter while we were waiting. The ship sailed off just as the sun crested the tree line and I soon saw all three of the commonly seen gulls.

Heerman's Gull

This is most likely a immature Herring Gull

Western Gull

I don't particulary like terns due to an accident involving a flock of them when I was young, but I took this picture anyway.

Even though I already saw one I couldn't resist taking pictures of my favorite bird, the Brown Pelican.

I saw many new birds as the day progressed:

Rhinoceros Auklet

Common Murre

Mammals too:

Grey whale with dolphins

  

Being on constant look out for birds is exhausting and after a few hours of this I feel asleep. I awoke to people shouting "I see a brown booby!" Not at all how I planned to wake up and on anything other than a birding boat it might have had a different connotation. However, since we were on a birding boat a Brown Booby happened to be the main attraction.

The Brown Boobies were situated right under the burning natural gas from the oil rig.

  The day was long after that, we had all been in the boat over four hours and had seen nearly every species possible on this pelagic cruise.  No one minded having the boat head back to port.

We  all agreed to meet up for dinner that evening, and while waiting for my dad, we starting discussing dementia.  Jim showed up and added his own story of dementia.  As it turned out, his backpack was not in the possession of a homeless person but safely locked in his room.

Day 2:

Much to both my mom's and my joy, the ferry for Catalina did not leave until 9:30 am.  After sleeping in and packing snacks, we headed to the ferry.  This time, Jim brought his backpack. 
The ride over was uneventful except for when I pointed out a Sooty Shearwater which was one of the few birds we had missed the day before.

Once at Catalina, we headed to the bike shop where my brother's old roommate was working.  He got us set up with mountain bikes and directions to the best places to find Spotted Doves. The ride started ok, but I soon realized how out of shape I was. It was during one of my frequent breaks that I first saw the dove. It was a fleeting view. We made it up to the botanical garden that was situated at the top of the road. My mom being the rule breaker she is, sneaked through the turnstiles and walked right in. My dad and I, who are not quite to that level of rule breaking decided to wait for the attendant to return from lunch. I broke out my gram crackers and we ate some lunch ourselves. Eventually my mom returned, looking slightly miffed at us for waiting.

Once we got in to the gardens, it was a steep climb up to the top. We didn't see many birds, but we did get to pay our respects to a man who has made my life better but is also responsible for my gum addiction.

William Wrigley Jr.

The ride down the road was far easier and much more fun than the ride up. My mom sped down it like a speed demon and was going fast enough to pass golf carts. I sped down it too but at a much less deadly speed. We met up at a place with a sign calling it the bird park, but when it actually was either a day care or a preschool.

We visited some of the other good birding places around the island and got a better view of the dove.

Also a great look at some hummingbirds.

Allen's Hummingbird

Anna's Hummingbird

It was almost time to head back to our ferry when we stopped at Big Olaf's Ice-cream for a snack.

The ride back was relaxing and I finished my book (Ash by Jaymin Eve and Leia Stone) and sat in the back of the boat watching the sunset.

Day 3:

We checked out of our hotel early the next morning and headed off to see a Oak Titmouse. My plane didn't leave until that afternoon so we had plenty of time. It wasn't a long drive to Irvine park, but during that time my dad's self appointed themesong came on, exes and ohs.

We saw our other target bird the Lewis's woodpecker right away.

And soon found the Nuttall woodpecker too.

After seeing the Nuttall, we wandered around and ended up next to a playground. My mom couldn't resist trying out the mini zipline-like contraption attached to the blog, however as she stepped off she landed wrong and tumbled to the ground. Originally we thought she had broken her ankle but thankfully it was just a bad sprain. When my dad turned around and saw my mom on the ground he had to comment "this is why fifty year olds don't play on playgrounds!'' After making my mom start laughing he helped her to the car and sent me and Jim off to find either some titmice or owls. We found neither. I did see a Western Scrub-jay though which was a year bird for me.

My dad met up with us then and we trekked around in the woods for a bit and eventually sighted a lone Oak Titmouse sitting atop a tree.

We were contented after that and rejoined my mom. The next destination was the park pond and I got two new species of duck there, the Mallard and Wood ducks.

Mallard

Wood Duck

That was the last bit of birding before heading off to the airport and once there I said goodbye to my dad. My mom used her suitcase as a makeshift crutch in order to get into the airport, but I knew she wouldn't be able to hobble all the way to our terminal. So I found her a wheelchair and with Jim wheeling our suitcases I pushed her to security. The vast power of the wheelchair allowed us to skip the entire line at security, I have a deep respect for wheelchairs, and allowed us special treatment. Jim left us to eat his peanut butter, which in the airports eyes is a liquid, and so I struggles to push both my mom and our two suitcases, not to mention our backpacks.

However, we made it to the terminal with plenty of time to spare. My mom wanted to attempt to hobble down the passage to the airplane but I talked her out of it. Our plane was full and we all knew that after first class the fight attendants were going to start mandatorily checking peoples bags. I remembered that only one group of people got to go in front of first class, people who required more time to get down the airway. Both my mom and I got to be the first people on the airplane and I was lucky enough that the Steward wheeled her down and offered to call ahead and have someone waiting to take her to our car.

So, all in all our trip went well. I got to see new places and see many new birds, 40 to be exact. I also saw two different species of dolphins, one seal, many sea lions, and a grey whale. I relapsed back into my gum addiction but I am taking William Wrigley's memorial as a sign. I am happy to say I don't get sea sick and I am looking forward to all of my future boat trips. I hope everyone reading this had an amazing weekend!

With love,

L