Black-crowned Night-Heron at CSU Stanislaus

It's was time for final exams at CSU last week, but I arrived early enough to stroll around the campus to see what birds were out and about. Stanislaus is not a bad spot for seeing birds. There are lots of trees and ponds for habitat, so I tend to see a fair variety as I walk about.

Most of the ponds are carefully tended and the reeds are cut back to keep things "manicured", but Willow Lake lies between the two science complexes and adjacent to the outdoor laboratory area, so it is more overgrown and wild than the other water bodies (I'm pretty sure that's on purpose). It usually has the best variety of water birds and shore birds. There are always some Mallards around, a few American Coots, and some loud and obnoxious Canada Geese. In spring and summer there are Great-tailed Grackles to add to the cacophony. A Snowy Egret usually fishes quietly along the shore.

But until that night of finals, I had never seen an adult Black-crowned Night-Heron (Nycticorax nycticorax). I've seen the Hawaiian sub-species, and I saw a juvenile once in 2016, but never a grown individual. It was in the weeds at the south end of the pond.

It seemed unconcerned about my presence (I was on the walkway along with dozens of other people). The pictures seem close, but that was the zoom-lens at work. The Night-Herons are common enough but are rarely seen because they usually forage at, well, night. They lay low during the daytime hours. Luckily I was out at sunset.

Western Tanagers on the Tuolumne River, and My Confession of Ignorance

There was a time not that long ago when I thought birding wouldn't be interesting because there didn't seem to be all that many kinds of colorful birds like those in the tropics, or on islands like Hawai'i. This was pure ignorance on my part, and I freely admit it. I've seen the same phenomena in my area of expertise (such as it is) in geology: people who don't know any better think that practically all rocks are gray and uninteresting (note: they are not).

Once I started paying attention, I was astounded at how wrong I was. One of the most shocking examples that shook me out of my ignorance was the sighting of a Western Tanager on a trip up Clark Fork of the Stanislaus River in the Sierra Nevada north of Yosemite National Park. Those pictures from 2014 were part of the inspiration that led to the start-up of this blog.

The Western Tanagers migrate from Central America to the American West as far north as British Columbia and Alberta. They are more commonly found in conifer forests like the Sierra Nevada where I saw that memorable specimen in 2014. When seen in the valley, they are often just passing through. And so it was that I did not expect to see any along my stretch of the Tuolumne River.

But then to my surprise I saw one or two of them in 2016, and then again in 2017. I was not happy with any of the shots I got at the time. Then in late April of this year I got yet another single crappy picture, but I posted it anyway thinking it would be the only one I would see this year. I was wrong.

Because I have been taking almost daily walks along the Tuolumne River this month, I've started to pick out the patterns and habits of several resident tanagers. I don't see them every day, but as you can see, I've managed to get a fair collection of half-decent pictures.

Now, if I could just get a handle on the habits of those beautiful Grosbeaks and Orioles....

Swainson's Hawks along Milnes Road

There are many diverse habitats for birds in our region, from lakes and ponds, rivers, forests, oak woodlands, and marshes. But the Great Valley is, or was, most notable for the vast prairie that stretched for four hundred miles from Bakersfield to Redding. It once hosted huge herds of elk and pronghorn, and was the winter home for millions upon millions of migratory arctic birds. But of course the prairie was uprooted and replaced by millions of acres of agricultural fields. It's less of a rich habitat for most animals, but it is still a good place for raptors. The fields provide plenty of rodents and large bugs like grasshoppers for food, and there is a veritable forest of power lines and telephone poles providing roosting and nesting sites.

Red-tailed Hawks are the "go-to" answer to the question "what kind of hawk is that?", but there are a dozen species of raptors that have been observed in our area. I was driving home along Milnes Road east of Modesto yesterday when I saw a pair of Swainson's Hawks (Buteo swainsoni) feeding on the ground in a cow pasture.

The story of the Swainson's Hawk is fascinating. They are migratory to an extreme. They spend winters in Argentina, and in spring they flock together by the thousands to migrate north to North America as far as Alaska, a round-trip of 12,000 miles. I've not had the privilege of witnessing it, but they migrate in kettles (flocks) of thousands of birds at a time. It must be something to see!

It Must Be Flycatcher Week: Pacific-slope Flycatcher on the Tuolumne River

I've been on a steep learning curve this week regarding flycatchers. For the three years I've been following birds on the Parkway Trail on the Tuolumne River I've seen a fair number of flycatchers, principally Black Phoebes who stick around all year, and Ash-throated Flycatchers, who have been fairly common sights during the summer months. Then, in the space of just two and a half weeks, I observed not one, not two, but three new species of flycatcher. First there was the Western Wood-pewee on May 7. Then two days ago, I sighted an Olive-sided Flycatcher that I hesitated to even report out of insecurity over my identification skills (plus it's kind of rare down here in the valley).

And then there was this morning. I'm looking for Olive-sided Flycatchers, or Western Wood-pewees, or Ash-throated Flycatchers (I always know I'll see the Phoebes; I know where they live). But the bird that appeared was none of those. It had a different color scheme, and it had a white ring around the eye. I hit the books (again) and realized I had photographed a Pacific-slope Flycatcher (Empidonax difficilis). The picture is not great, but I'll catch better ones next time! Or maybe it'll be a Hammonds Flycatcher, or a Willow Flycatcher. Apparently it is that kind of a week.

As their name suggests, these flycatchers are found in the extreme west in a line that extends from Mexico to southern Alaska and Canada. They are closely related to the Cordilleran Flycatchers, which are found farther to the east. They were once thought to be the same species. They eat...flies (and other insects).

A Bit of a Rare One: Olive-sided Flycatcher on the Tuolumne River

Sometimes I feel like such an amateur (that would be because I am). I've gotten to where I can recognize a lot of the common birds to be seen along my favorite haunts, but I am still finding it necessary to try and get a picture of the more obscure species so I can use the guidebooks to nail down an ID of an unknown bird. I'm learning the flycatchers, having found Black Phoebes (all over the place), and the somewhat less common Ash-throated Flycatcher, the Western Wood Pewee, and Say's Phoebe. But yesterday I was photographing what I thought might be the Western Wood-Pewee, but later I had doubts. The breast colors were wrong, the wing bars weren't as prominent, and so on. But what was it? I finally settled on an Olive-sided Flycatcher (Contopus cooperi).

But there was a problem with that. A quick bit of research on eBird revealed that the Olive-sided Flycatchers aren't seen on the valley floor all that often (only in three spots in our county in the last month or so). They are more common in the hills and conifer forests in the mountains that surround the valley. And I don't feel comfortable claiming rarer birds even with pictures. So I started asking around and got some encouragement with the ID, and today I found that one of the county experts saw one on the same trail today, so I'm feeling a bit better with my discovery.

The Olive-sided Flycatchers have an extremely large range, spending winters in the Amazon Basin of South America, and migrating north to the Western United States and across a wide swath of Canada and Alaska. They like forest settings where they can find a good perch and sally forth to, um, catch flies (and presumably lots of other kinds of bugs, including bees). They've undergone a steep decline in population over the last fifty years (losing about 80% of their total numbers). According to eBird, the problem has a lot to do with habitat loss in their wintering grounds.

Warbling Vireo on the Tuolumne River

I learned in geology a long time ago that one finds what one is looking for but doesn't find what one is not looking for. Another birding naturalist reported seeing a Warbling Vireo (Vireo gilvus), on the Tuolumne River Parkway Trail on the 9th of May. The Warbling Vireo is a bird I've never seen before, or at least never recognized during my walks along the trail. But less than two weeks after Siera's report, lo and behold I see three of the vireos in two days! I didn't even yet know what it looked like, but because of the eBird report, I was on the lookout for some new kinds of birds in the canopy overhead.

Warbling Vireos winter in Mexico and Central America. During the spring and summer they spread out across the United States and western Canada to breed. They are less common on the valley floor, but are widespread in the local hills and mountains. They prefer to hang out in the upper canopy of the forests and woodlands where they search for caterpillars and moths. They occupy enough different environments that six subspecies have been defined.

Pair of Ash-throated Flycatchers on the Tuolumne River

We greeted the Ash-throated Flycatcher (Myiarchus cinerascens) on this blog about a month ago as the spring migrants started arriving from the tropics. I've been seeing them off and on ever since along the Tuolumne River Parkway Trail on my morning walks. This time was a bit different because I was taking pictures of the one with the ruffled feathers (below), I realized that a second one had perched below and wanted to be in the picture too.

The spring has continued to bring more and more birds to the river trail. I noted in the last flycatcher post a month ago that the Tuolumne River Trail had reached 100 separate species of birds observed. The number now stands at 107! Fellow nature blogger Siera Nystrom sighted a Warbling Vireo, a Townsend's Warbler, and a Wilson's Warbler. I added a Western Wood-pewee, some Forster's Terns, and just yesterday I discovered some Black-necked Stilts in the recharge ponds across the river. L.D. Scott saw a Savanna Sparrow. Who knows what will be seen next time?