And Another Surprise: A Lazuli Bunting, one of the Prettiest of Birds

It has been an extraordinary week. We are halfway through the spring season, and I've seen plenty of my favorite tropical spring migrants, especially the Hooded Oriole, the Bullock's Oriole, the Rufous Hummingbird, the Yellow-headed Blackbird, and the Western Tanager.  But as of a week ago I had not yet observed my "holy grails" of the spring: the Blue Grosbeak, the Black-headed Grosbeak, and the Lazuli Bunting (Passerini amoena). As of today, I have!

The story of the Black-headed Grosbeak is coming in a future post, and the Blue Grosbeak was the subject of yesterday's post, but it's today that surprised the heck out of me. I was changing up my walking location by exploring the Ceres River Bluffs Regional Park. The park is primarily a soccer field complex, located on the high terrace above the Tuolumne River. But tucked away at the northern end of the park, down on the old floodplain, is an abandoned walnut grove and a drainage pond that may have once been a quarry. The floodplain is reverting to its original riparian environment, and native birds have been returning to the floodplain. One birder has reported Lazuli Buntings at the park once or twice a year since 2009, but few others have seen any there. But...the sole report for this year was on May 5. If I had any chance at all of seeing one, the day after a previous sighting seems a reasonable bet.

I saw a pair of Lazuli Buntings during the summer of 2018 on the Tuolumne Parkway Trail, but only at an extreme distance, and my pictures served only to identify the birds and nothing more. This afternoon I was walking on the north shore of the pond and I saw a flash of blue. I zoomed in and much to my delight, it was a male Lazuli Bunting, and it was only 30-40 yards away. I started snapping pictures, and after a moment I realized there were two birds, one a lot more drab in color. It was a female!

It may be a function of the rarity of sightings, and I realize that beauty is a highly subjective thing in any case, but this is one pretty bird. It's no surprise that Sibley selected it as the cover bird for his authoritative guide to birds of the American West.

Another Uncommon Bird: A Merlin at the Ceres River Bluff Regional Park

It's been a rather extraordinary week for me. I got to see a truly rare visitor to our region, a Sage Thrasher, on Friday. And then today it was an uncommon bird (at least for me as I have only seen one of them previously). It was a falcon species called a Merlin (Falco columbarius).

I was running some midday errands in town and thought a bit about where to walk today. I settled on the fairly new sports complex in the area called the Ceres River Bluff Regional Park. It's mostly a bunch of soccer fields along Whitmore Avenue in the town of Ceres, but the park property includes a lower terrace that was once a walnut orchard adjacent to the Tuolumne River. The walnuts are mostly dying away but natural riparian vegetation is taking the place of the trees. A pond (stocked for fishing, apparently) captures runoff from the fields above and provides habitat for birds, turtles and fish and other wetlands species. It's a productive birding spot, with more than 140 species reported so far.

There was some construction going on with the access road to the "wilderness" so I walked along the top of the bluff only to discover an alternate trail down to the river. I explored for awhile finding a fair number of birds, but it wasn't until I was walking back up the bluff that I made my special discovery. I saw the bird in the distance and from the silhouette assumed it was the much more common American Kestrel, but as I got closer I realized the color and spotting was all wrong. I started snapping pictures.

The bird was pretty much unconcerned with me other than the one stern look you can see in the picture below.

The view was nice from the top of the bluff. After a long dry summer, the recent rains have brought some greenery to the pond area and the water level was up. There were Canada Geese, American Coots, and a Pied-billed Grebe hanging out in the water.

Blue Grosbeak on the Tuolumne River in Ceres

This is one I was really excited about. Blue Grosbeaks (Passerina caerulea) are not all common in our area, as we are pretty close to the edge of their range. I've been watching the Tuolumne River Parkway Trail like a hawk hoping to see one, but the only dependable sightings this year in our county have been farther to the west, at the Ceres River Bluff Regional Park, and at the San Joaquin National Wildlife Refuge in the western part of the Great Valley. They've been seen elsewhere in the county, but not for years at a time.

So I delved into the records at eBird and found that some Blue Grosbeaks were seen at the Ceres park for the first time in three weeks, so I passed on my normal morning walk on the Parkway Trail and headed to Ceres on the off-chance that I would actually manage to see one. I haven't had much luck in situations like this, and the first results weren't promising, just a lot of Eurasian Collared Doves, California Scrub Jays, House Finches, and Rock Pigeons. I saw one bird across the river and snapped a picture, but figured it was just a European Starling, and I hiked on.

Ceres River Bluff Regional Park is actually an athletic field complex, but there is an undeveloped section of the park on a terrace just above the river. It used to be a walnut orchard, but the land was purchased by the city and is being returned to a native state. There are some ponds on the site, so it provides excellent bird habitat.

I was walking along the river and reached the northwest corner of the property and saw another dark colored bird in the distance, but this time the sun was at my back and when I zoomed in I saw blue, but not the blue of a California Scrub Jay. It was a Blue Grosbeak. I started snapping pictures like the one below, thinking that it might be my only chance to get any pictures at all. But then to my surprise it flow towards me and overhead, landing in the top of a young sycamore tree only 100-150 feet away. I was able to get the pictures above before the bird moved on.

The European Starling that I mentioned earlier? When I downloaded the picture at home, I found much to my surprise that it was also a Blue Grosbeak. I'm glad I saw the second one, because it would have been rather frustrating to think of a single sloppy shot as my only record of this incredibly beautiful bird.

The birders report that there are females in the park as well so I hope they are breeding and that they'll move on upstream to my daily walk on the Parkway trail.

ADDENDUM: Got a few more pictures the next day. Here is the best one...