News From My Egret Pond

 



 

 

 

By Mel Carriere

The rather murky body of water you see above is located on my mail delivery route in San Diego.  It is a rather stagnant pool that collects along an ephemeral stream bed in the Tijuana River Valley that I am pretty sure must eventually connect to the River itself, which is not far off.  Despite the weak or non existence flow of this stream, there always seems to be water in the pond - of dubious quality, of course.

 

Even though it might be questionable by human standards,  birds, seem to like it.  So I call this my Egret pond because I frequently see a Great Egret posted on its North Bank, from where it presumably hunts.  I never see the bird on the South Bank and I am wondering if the strong sunlight reflected from its white plumage blinds its potential prey items and provides a kind of disguise.  I have only been the mailman here since late September,  and I am anxious to see whether or not the bird switches sides in the summer,  when the sun is more directly overhead.

I should call it my Coot Pond because I see many more Coots here than Egrets, but Coot Pond sounds rather mundane, while Egret Pond has an exotic, almost je ne sais quoi Frenchy ring, so I will go with that.

 

On Tuesday I was pleased to find some dabbling ducks in the stew as well.  I was particularly happy to see a pair of Cinnamon Teal, a bird I haven't seen in a couple years.  There was also a Gadwall, which is the duck you see in the very pedestrian photo above if you really squint.  Along with these more notable dabblers there was also a pair of Mallards, who don't thrill me too much because I often find them over wintering in apartment swimming pools; lounging about the deck as shamelessly as if they were paying rent.

 

If I see anything interesting in My Egret Pond I will be sure to post it on these pages.  I pass by it almost every day unless I don't have any mail for the horse farms down there.  A little haughty of me to call the pond "My, " I know, but I don't think anyone else is willing to take possession.  I'll arm wrestle the Coots for it if I have to.

 

 

Photo is my own

 

 

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I Killed the Meadowlarks - A Confession

By Mel Carriere

Who killed the Meadowlarks - I did of course.

My son and I walked up the hill to the bowling alley last night to get something to eat.  As we listened to the screeching complaints of the Killdeer in the distance we were remembering the time when the neighborhood was new and we used to take similar walks on the shaded path that runs behind it. 

I nostalgically pointed out to him the Pepper Tree where I saw my one and only flock of Lawrence 's Goldfinches.  This thought reminded me of the metallic tinkling of the Horned Larks breaking the silence of dawn on the barren desertscape of the construction sites that once surrounded us.  Then as I looked up the hill toward the office park where the rowdy Killdeer protests were being staged I asked my son if he could remember when that was plowed ranch land up there and we used to hear the piping flutes of the Meadowlarks during our walks.

He said he did and I believe him even though at the time he wasn't much higher than one of the fence posts the Meadowlarks use as perches to declare their sovereignty in song.  I said wasn't it a shame that we can't hear that lovely soundtrack of the wonderfully wide and empty countryside anymore.

Then all at once I realized what a hypocrite I was for saying that.

For it was I who drove out the gentle Meadowlarks, because it was I that wanted to live in the quiet suburbs on the edge of the mustard covered rolling hills where once there were only serenely grazing cattle.

To be certain the Meadowlarks were not the original residents of those hillsides once paved by plowed furrows and low grasses but now carpeted with asphalt and sprinkler-watered, human planted, mass produced exotics. Unknown scores of years ago there was sage, sumac and chemise up there, and the hills were alive with the bouncing ball songs of Wrentits and the rambling, mad gibberish of California Thrashers.

Then the ranchers came in and plowed under the sage shrub, and the Meadowlarks moved into the bulldozed habitat as if it had been terraformed according to strict Sturnella specifications. Here they thrived in peace for decades until the allure of the development dollar provoked by suburban settlers such as myself forced these supreme songsters of the Icterid race onto their own avian trail of tears and ushered in the House Finches, the Goldfinches, the Kingbirds and the Phoebes that thrive in the office park ecosystem.

All of these historical avian events were provoked by the hand of man.  If I rue the absence of those bright yellow feathered breasts belting out a piping tune across an ocean of grass I must remember that their removal was done under my orders, carried out with tractors and bulldozers that were financed by my monthly mortgage payment.

So here is my confession, my confession and yours, the next time we take our evening suburban walk and wonder where all the old birds have gone.

True, it's been 30 plus years since I pointed a gun at any living creature, but the effect is the same as if I had.  Who killed the Meadowlarks - T'was me.


Image from:  http://sdakotabirds.com/species_photos/western_meadowlark.htm

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Peregrine Falcon Arrives on Scene - Crows Eat Humble Pie

By Mel Carriere

Since I decided to start blogging about birds about a month or so ago it is amazing what interesting avian sights I have seen coming out of the skies and up from the murky depths of San Diego Bay.  Either I am paying more attention to birds or the narcissist divas of the feathered set have heard about my blog and are craving the spotlight of being featured here.  Sorry birdies, your captive audience so far consists of only 239 people who probably stumbled upon my writings by accident.  It's still a work in progress.

Since I began blogging I have seen some really cool stuff.  On January 17th I spotted a pair of Magpie Jays flying between Eucalyptus Trees down by the Tijuana River.  Since they are not a native species the Magpie Jays do not count as far as listing is concerned, but they have established a colony down in the river valley that appears to be maintaining a tenuous lease on life, and whether native or not they are an impressive sight.

On February 7th I reported a Pacific Loon here that I spotted swimming alongside a shipyard pier, which was a new one for me and a score for the list.  Then on February 10th there were Bluebirds in my front yard, which is a first for my neighborhood.  Finally yesterday, which would have been February 11th, I spotted A Peregrine Falcon that raced in to harass a flock of Crows that were yelling insults at it from the safety of the thick foliage of a pine tree.

I haven't seen too many Peregrines during the course of my birding career, but as soon as I saw this one swooping in from a distance of about a half a mile I knew immediately what it was.  By the wing shape it was definitely a Falcon, but too big to be a Kestrel and flying much too fast to be a Hawk, who typically approach at a more leisurely pace.  There are very few occasions where I don't question what a distant bird shadow may be, and this was one of them.  The raptor had "Peregrine" written all over it, as if it had been copied and pasted into the sky from the silhouette section of the Peterson Field Guide.

The Peregrine Falcon, from this brief observation, is ass kicking on the wing, and the Crows hiding deep in the greenery of that pine tree acknowledged this too.  There have been many times I have seen a "murder" of Crows harassing a flying raptor, and most of the time that raptor is trying to get away; albeit while flying slow enough to maintain a sense of decorum at the same time.  I have never seen Crows back away from a fight with a Red-Tail or a Red-Shouldered Hawk.  They make a noisy, boisterous display of chasing these predators safely out of their neighborhood.

But the Crows hunkering down in that tree weren't about to sally forth to rumble with that Peregrine.  They were making a great deal of noise, to be sure; the air was filled with their loud, raucous protests, but it was kind of like the neighborhood nerd taunting the neighborhood bully from the safety of his second story window.  It really doesn't have any effect whatsoever on the bully except to maybe piss him off a little more for the next time you and he are alone in a room.

As a matter of fact, the Peregrine seemed to be the one taunting the Crows.  It swooped in to practically brush the tip of the pine tree giving refuge to the Crows, and I gained an impressive profile view of the bird as it buzzed the Crow tower.  As a matter of fact I believe the Peregrine may have caught the Crows off guard, and judging from its sudden change of direction and the breathtaking dash it made toward that tall pine, I believe it intended to "eat Crow" for dinner.

As it turned out it was a near miss for the Crows, and the only thing that was dined upon was some humble pie by the Corvids in the treetops who were, to quote the bard, "...full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."  Judging by this uncharacteristic humility of the Corvus clan in this instance, for me the Peregrine Falcon is the unrivaled raptor champion of the skies.


As usual, my poor photography skills require outside help.  This stunning photo is attributed to:  "Falco peregrinus -Morro Rock, Morro Bay, California, USA -flying-8" by Mike Baird - Flickr: Peregrine Falcon (Falco peregrinus) at Morro Rock, Morro Bay, CA 03 Dec. 2012. Licensed under CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons - http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Falco_peregrinus_-Morro_Rock,_Morro_Bay,_California,_USA_-flying-8.jpg#mediaviewer/File:Falco_peregrinus_-Morro_Rock,_Morro_Bay,_California,_USA_-flying-8.jpg


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Western Bluebirds Invade my Neighborhood

By Mel Carriere

I had a surprise waiting for me in my palm trees this morning.  Since it was a surprise with feathers attached that would seem to narrow it down to some sort of species of parrot or another colorful tropical variety, but the winged visitors to my Queen Palm trees happened to be a pair of Western Bluebirds.

In my own experience here in San Diego County, Western Bluebirds are more common on high mountain meadows.  My first run in with them was at one such mountain meadow at Cuyamaca Rancho State Park, probably 50 miles outside the city limits.  I don't think that Sialia mexicana is an exclusively montane species, but just seems to do better the farther away it gets from human civilization because it does not have to compete for nesting space with Starlings, a very aggressive winged species that follows Homo sapiens wherever it goes and bullies its way into bird houses meant for Bluebirds.

If my brush with this thrush was any indication of an overall trend, perhaps this means that Bluebirds are sneaking their way back into the city limits and we can soon expect them as regular visitors to our yards, including yards like mine that feature palm trees, of which they appear to be peculiarly fond.  When you've seen this bird hawking for bugs beneath a canopy of Sugar Pines it just seems strange to find it getting comfortable among palm fronds, sort of like stumbling across Tom Hanks and his volleyball inhabiting an island where you were expecting dark skinned Polynesians.  But the Cornell Lab of Ornithology assures us:  "Look for Western Bluebirds in open woodland, both coniferous and deciduous.  They also live in backyards, burned areas, and farmland, from sea level far into the mountains."  That pretty much includes everywhere, so I haven't made any great ground breaking discoveries here.

I'm not saying I haven't seen Bluebirds in my city before.  On a few occasions I have observed them on residential lawns in the older part of Chula Vista, the city where I live, and once I spotted the species on the playground of a church school.  Closer to home, from time to time I will come across a Bluebird or two in the park where I used to jog, which is just a few blocks from my home.

Despite these previous encounters in my city, I can attest that Western Bluebirds are new to the neighborhood where I have lived for 15 years, and I know this because I am completely attuned to the local bird sounds.  Therefore, when I heard that strange chattering in the treetops this morning I realized right away it was something different, and my eyes immediately turned skyward, pointing into the depths of the palm fronds that were poorly masking the ascent of the Sun in the west.

At first I assumed they were probably Hooded Orioles, a not very common visitor to my yard but one that has nested in my neighbor's palm trees from time to time.  This really didn't make any sense, however, because February is just too early for Orioles, even in sunny San Diego.  Not satisfied with the Orioles theory, I kept my eyes pointed to the branches for another hopeful moment, but the sun was just too blinding so I had to turn away.

Being in danger of getting to work late I was about to give this business up up as one of those frustrating bird encounters in which the avian participants are just not as enthusiastic as I am about the process. Then, almost as if they were deliberately trying to announce their red carpet arrival, the Bluebirds swooped down and landed on my neighbor's minivan, parked about ten feet away from my own car.  Here the pair remained for at least twenty seconds, and for the life of me it was like they wanted to be sure they were properly identified and cataloged by me before going about their other important bird business.

The strong light coming from the West made the birds a little blurry to my tender, groggy morning eyes, so I'm not sure if I was seeing two males, two females, or one of each.  Yet I couldn't have mistaken the blue on rust combination, and I am highly gratified that this newest addition to my neighborhood list, the Western Bluebird, is such an obliging bird, always willing to stop and pose for a photograph even if the potential photographer is a bumbling derp with a camera and never has a lens at the ready when he needs to.


Image attributed to:  "Western.male" by Blalonde - Own work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons - http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Western.male.jpg#mediaviewer/File:Western.male.jpg

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Birding the Shipyard - Pacific Loon is an Unexpected Visitor

By Mel Carriere

If you have spent any amount of time chasing birds I'm sure you know that the good ones, the real list scratchers if you want to call them that, almost never pop up where you expect them to and you want them to.

Last Tuesday I went birding in the Tijuana Wildlife Refuge, deliberately setting out with binoculars in hand to see if I could catch any new, interesting birds to decorate my life list with.  Although I saw a fair variety of interesting birds in the refuge as usual, there wasn't anything flying or afloat that caused me to edit my life list afterward.  I wasn't disappointed; birding is like fishing in that a bad day birding beats a good day at the office, but I didn't get that tingling head rush that spotting a new species creates for those that pursue this pastime passionately.

In contrast, there are times when birders stumble across their quarry in random, unexpected places, and I am happy to report that today was one of those experiences for me.  I got up early this morning to work security for a ship christening at the Nassco Shipyard, and the last thing on my mind was birds.  Of course I always have the binoculars and field guide in the trunk of my car just in case, but I certainly didn't carry them with me into the shipyard,  knowing that in doing so I would be tagged as loonier than one of the birds I saw today and then spun back around to go put them away.

But birds there were in abundance at the shipyard this morning, and good ones too. Fortunately I was stationed directly on the edge of the pier where the christened vessel was moored, and from there I had a "birds eye view" of the waterfowl below.

The first species that caught my attention was a flock of about five of what were either Western or Clarks Grebes.  I was immediately inclined to label them Westerns, but taking a good look at my field guide afterward produced some doubt about this, because in winter plumage the lore region of the Clarks gets darker and that of the Western grows lighter, making them harder to tell apart.  So I will just call them Aechmophorus sp. and we'll leave it at that.

The Grebes were apparently chasing some sort of small bait fish that I could see producing tiny ripples on the surface of the water.  It looked like they had found a feeding bonanza, because after a while they stopped diving and seemed content to drift along, listening to the music of the Marine band coming from the ceremony.

The Grebes were a welcome diversion from the drudgery of guard duty, but nothing to get my pulse pounding.  Whether Clarks or Westerns they were still old friends and as such, not particularly exciting.  But right as the show was wrapping up and the champagne bottle had been smashed against the hull, I chanced a look at the water once more and really did see something notable and unique for me.

There in this sterile industrialized setting, drifting  among towering metal cranes and rusty keels, swam a solitary Pacific Loon, diving for his own champagne brunch right below the edge of the pier. Although I once spotted a Common Loon in San Diego Bay while on a whale watching tour, Loons on the whole are much rarer than Grebes on our winter waters, so this was an exciting find.

The Loon did not seem particularly wary and swam to within a few feet.  If I had not been under strict orders not to use my cell phone I might have been able to produce a fuzzy photograph of it.  As it is you will have to be content with this one I borrowed from the web, which in any case is much better than anything I could take.

I was enchanted that even in winter plumage I could see the tiny star like spots on the Loon's back, these stars being the source of many beautiful Native American cosmological legends.

So there's one for the list when I least expected it.  Not too shabby, to enjoy a morning's worth of memorable birding and get paid for it too!

Image from:  http://www.schmoker.org/BirdPics/Photos/LoonsGrebes/PALO1.jpg

Birds by Mel is powered for flight by copious amounts of shade grown warbler friendly coffee, which unfortunately is very expensive.  I have nothing to do with ad selection, but if you don't find them overly offensive or aggravating please support my sponsors featured to the right and on the bottom of this post.

White Crowned Sparrows Sing the Sad Song of Winter

By Mel Carriere

Note:  This article was originally published on Bubblews, but with the decline of that website I am gradually removing some of my more popular posts from there and posting them on my own site.  This was actually my most "liked" post on Bubblews, and I hope you enjoy it.

I always enjoy hearing the sad, wistful song of the White Crowned Sparrows in the tree tops during the fall and winter months in San Diego.  Being a letter carrier means being outside all day, of course, and if a mailman wants to he can really get in touch with nature.  I, for one, have learned to recognize the changes that come with the lengthening shadows and the crisp autumn air, and one of these changes is the plaintive, homesick call of the White-Crowns.

The White Crowned Sparrows (Zonotrichia leucophrys) start singing here pretty much around the first of October.   They can be heard pining away for their homes with that sadly sweet whistle that seems as if it is echoing off the distant mountain peaks from whence they flew.  The Cornell Ornithology laboratory points out that some of these birds migrate 2,600 miles from Alaska to Southern California, sometimes flying 300 miles in a single night.  I believe this, because you can hear the icy clink of the glaciers in their protracted wail.  It is clear by their melancholy tone that they miss their homelands in the Northern Latitudes, and have only winged their way southward because the cold has made their lives in the northlands untenable.

Once in San Diego the White Crowns trade their lives in the Pine Tree ringed meadows of the North for our weedy, mustard clogged fields that are only sparsely shaded by the semi-tropical Eucalyptus.  Southern California’s  man made suburban thickets are poor substitutes for the tundra and high alpine meadows from whence they travel, but I for one am certainly glad they made the trip.

For me the song of the White Crowned Sparrow means that summer is over and autumn is now upon us.  It is almost as if the warm Santa Ana winds blow them in, but they bring the cool air of the north with them in their baggage and winter soon follows along in their wake.

I encourage all of you to go outside and listen for the natural sounds that adorn your neighborhoods during the changing of the seasons.  In our mechanized, automated society we no longer have to be in touch with nature to survive, and we often forget that there is a hidden, natural world that still exists parallel to our own, but as if it were located within a separate, unseen plane.  I depend upon the White Crowned Sparrow to remind me that this secret world still exists, and when I hear them singing their sad, lonely Winter’s song, the forgotten knowledge this sound stirs up never fails to thrill me.

Image from:  "White-crowned-Sparrow" by Wolfgang Wander - Own work / http://www.pbase.com/image/83910026. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons - http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:White-crowned-Sparrow.jpg#mediaviewer/File:White-crowned-Sparrow.jpg

Birding the Tijuana Refuge 2/3/2015 - Serenaded by Meadowlarks

By Mel Carriere

It's been a while since I have been serenaded by Meadowlarks.  We used to have them around our neighborhood when we were still on the outskirts of town, but in the 15 years since moving here the inexorable advance of civilization has driven most of the Meadowlarks out of town, and I have no one to blame but myself.

Therefore, it was nice to get out this morning and take a walk among the Meadowlarks at the Tijuana Wildlife Refuge.in Imperial Beach, California.  I try to make a pilgrimage here at least once a year in order to renew my waterfowl identification skills and, among other things, to listen to the cheery song of the Meadowlarks that abound on the estuary flats.

I got a little bit of a later start than I wanted to, but I still managed to compile a fairly good list of birds that I will share with you here, in case you are planning on making a visit out west and would like to scratch a species or two off of your list.  Sorry my pictures are so crappy, but I only had my cell phone camera to work with and it is woefully inadequate for bird pictures.  I got one picture of a fuzzy egret but didn't even try to take a shot of anything else.

The first bird to greet me at the 5th Avenue parking lot was an Anna's Hummingbird, one of three or four that I saw during my visit.  It was sunning itself on the fence that separates the refuge from the Navy helicopter base next door.  The male Annas also like to perch high on the top twigs of the Sumac bushes that dot the refuge, vying for space with the male Red-winged Blackbirds that bully them out of the way to get the best high singing posts.

As I made my way down the River Mouth Loop I was accompanied by the constant piping of the Meadowlarks, as well as being greeted with the inquisitive glances of the ubiquitous Belding's Savannah Sparrows that bounced through the bushes wherever I went.

Here is the bench that overlooks the mouth of the Tijuana River, at a place I call Nirvana Point.  I christened it such because I had a Nirvana-like moment here about 1999, when I first started bird watching.  On my first visit to this particular spot I saw so many new, glorious winged creatures that I couldn't flip the pages of the field guide fast enough to keep up.  Today the few shorebirds I could see from here were not particularly active, but there was a mixed flock of Willets/Godwits across the water, two species that seem to frequently make common cause against the harassing Harriers that swoop down low across the estuary flats to snatch up unsuspecting feathered snacks.

In addition to the Willet/Godwit combo I also saw an Advocet parked out across the water, a small flock of diving Scaup, and a Surf Scoter with its laughing clown-like features drifting indifferently with the current.

As I sat atop this bench I took notes on all I surveyed with my phone, but became increasingly annoyed as I discovered just how non bird friendly spell check devices are.  There were definitely no Ornithologists on the spell check board.  My Wigeon kept being changed to widget, my Willet to Will E; whatever sense that means, and my Scaup to scalp, which made me want to scalp the inventor of that wretched device.

While on the subject of Wigeon widgets, I was a disturbed by the lack of dabbling ducks on the waterways.  For two straight years I have not seen any Green-winged or Cinnamon Teal, two birds that used to abound in the inner ponds of the refuge.  The only two dabblers I observed this morning were Wigeons and Pintails, in abundance.

Here is the shot of the fuzzy Great Egret I took.  There were no other Ardeidae visible this morning, with the exception of one skittish Snowy Egret I scared away from Nirvana point.  In the past I have seen Tri-colored and even Reddish Egrets here, along with the more common Great Blue and Little Blue Herons, so this dearth was somewhat of a disappointment.

Here is my complete TWR refuge list for 2/3/2015:

Anna's Hummingbird
Belding's Savannah Sparrow
Western Meadowlark
Great Egret
Red-winged Blackbird
American Wigeon
Snowy Egret
Lesser Scaup
Ruddy Duck
Avocet
Marbled Godwit
Brown Pelican
Surf Scoter
Willet
Northern Harrier
White-crowned Sparrow
Pintail
Stilt
Yellowlegs sp
Sandpiper sp
Kingfisher
Eared Grebe
Whimbrel
Buffledhead
House Finch

I was also troubled by the lack of regard that the nearby residents have for the sanctity of the refuge.  I have no problem with the joggers, but the dog-walkers tend to let their animals off the leash, and the bikers seem to think that they are free to go off-roading through the sensitive plant species, as if this was their private playground.  Seen above is a sign announcing a "Fragile Area," but as you can see the tire treads go right past it, as if it were only some kind of a dare or a joke.

I hope you enjoyed my brief report of the TWR.  If you are a beginning or a novice birder it is a great place to begin padding your list, so make it a stop on your west coast tour.


Meadowlark from:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_meadowlark#mediaviewer/File:Western_Meadowlark.jpg