The Goleta Birder

  For our last day in Puerto Penasco, we elected to bird the first few hours to the NW of town before returning to the hotel to cool off and pack for an hour, before driving back to the USA. We started off at the Islas del Mar resort. The semi-tidal lagoon and single freshwater pond here proved slightly disappointing, although we saw a good number of Yellow-crowned Night-Herons here. The area of trees around the entrance buildings, combined with the green lawns looked like a great migrant trap and did not disappoint. Despite being very early in the season for this far south, we racked up over a dozen species of typical western passerine migrants, with the most interesting being Willow and Gray flycatchers and Black-throated Gray Warbler. A pair of Curve-billed Thrashers seemed a bit out of place and I suspect this species has taken advantage of the resort plantings in the area to achieve a minor range extension. We then headed down to Playa Pelicano, an area of broad mudflats b...

Over the last couple of decades, I have spent a lot of time birding in Mexico, amassing a list of over 900 species. At this point, I have only a handful or endemics or near-endemics I need to see and have been spending more time looking for North American migrants, which were not a priority on earlier trips. One location I have been wanting to visit for some years is Puerto Penasco, which lies on the coast of northern Sonora, only an hour’s drive from the US border. I decided to tack on a couple of days here as part of my Arizona birding trip. Late summer is a pretty bad time to visit due to the high humidity and temperatures, as well as being a poor time for more northerly bird species that sometimes stray down in winter. However, I had a couple of potential “Mexico ticks” that seemed reasonably likely in Common Tern and Baird’s Sandpiper and the visit would give me the opportunity to scout out some areas better. Wes Fritz, who joined me for the Arizona trip, is alw...

  When I first moved to Goleta in 2000, boobies of any species were barely annual in coastal southern California. Starting around 2013, that situation began to change and significant numbers of Cocos (formerly the brewsteri race of Brown Booby) began to occur on Sutil Rock, off Santa Barbara Island. These subsequently began to breed along with odd pairs of Blue-footed Booby. A period of warm water also greatly increased records of Masked, Nazca and Red-footed Boobies with the result that sometimes four or five species of booby might be seen in a single boat trip and all five have been observed roosting on Sutil Rock. Since the booby colony represented a significant detour from the preferred routes of pelagic birding trips out of Ventura harbor, we recently started running some dedicated trips out to Santa Barbara Island. Since Santa Barbara Island is over 40 miles offshore, the journey out and back is in itself quite good for pelagic bird species, providing the optimalroute is t...

If you look at a map of California, you will notice that the coast performs a right angle turn from east-west to north-south in Santa Barbara county. The location where the right angle turn occurs is Point Conception. I live along the "south coast", which is the east-west running section. This section of the coast is protected from the prevailing NW winds by the Santa Ynez Mountains and the coastal waters are relatively warmer, although still usually requiring a wetsuit. The "north coast" has colder waters immediately offshore and is much colder, windier and foggier. Unsurprisingly, this leads to some ecological differences. From a bird perspective, the most obvious is the relative abundance of alcids off the north coast compared to the south coast. The cooler, foggier conditions also enable a number of more northerly butterflies species to occur. On July 23, I headed up to the north coast with Hugh Ranson, who generously provided the photos for this post. The main ...

If you have read some of the blog entries from June, you may recall that I saw Spanish Purple Hairstreak in Monfrague in Spain and Purple Hairstreak on the Bristol Downs in the UK. Spanish Purple Hairstreaks were easy to see with many nectaring on roadside plants or perching on low tree foliage. In contrast, Purple Hairstreak is a more difficult species to see as they spend the vast majority of their time high up in oak trees. With persistence, it isn't too difficult to see small dark butterflies flitting around in the oaks, but even with binoculars it can be hard to get a good look. I was fortunate that one chose to come down to a bramble bush for 20 seconds after a 45-minute wait. Santa Barbara County, in California, where my home town of Goleta is located, is very good for hairstreaks, with over 10 species. One of the hardest to see is the Great Purple Hairstreak. Although Great Purple Hairstreak appears to have quite a wide distribution in the county, it is remarkably difficult...

  In this post I am going to discuss a few fieldmarks for separating the two dowitcher species from each other. I will start with adults in alternate plumage and then discuss juveniles. The two species are extremely similar in basic plumage and given the rarity of Short-billed Dowitcher in the county in winter, I am not going to discuss the slight differences in detail. You should always try to confirm a winter Short-billed Dowitcher by call. To reduce the learning curve, I will be covering a subset of the available fieldmarks and focusing on ones I find especially useful or easy to use. Alternate Plumage When first viewing an adult dowitcher in alternate plumage, I start by assessing the overall tone of the reddish underparts and how extensive this coloration is on the underparts. In Long-billed the underparts tend to be more brick-red and this color extends all the way through the vent. Short-billed, on the other hand, has more orange-toned underparts and this coloration ex...

  Dowitchers occur in three distinct plumages – alternate (breeding), basic (winter or non-breeding) and juvenile (young of the year). Being able to determine the plumage of a particular dowitcher is essential as plumage features that apply to a juvenile, for example, may not be relevant for an adult. Dowitchers change between plumages by going through a molt. Molt is a process that takes some time and it should therefore come as no surprise that birds on migration are often in active molt from one plumage to another.   Since these transitional plumages resulting from active molt can cause identification pitfalls, I will also give some examples of them and how to recognize them. The photographs on this post and the next were kindly provided by Peter Schneekloth (PS), Brad Hacker (BH) and Lynn Scarlett (LS). Basic Plumage Dowitchers can be in in basic plumage starting from as early as August through to April/May. Note that young birds may retain basic plumage through the ...