Duck is a Four Letter Bird

Birds nesting on my house!

2011-05-09T11:41:00.001-07:00

Here we can see the butts of two pigeons who have decided that the eaves of my house, above the porch, are an acceptable substitute for a cliff face. It looks like some previous owner built a little box on this spot (the mirror-image side of the porch doesn't have this box) ...perhaps that person really loved the oh-so-melodious sounds of pigeons courting?

Meanwhile, on the side of the house, a robin has raided the recycling to make a cushy nest of used tissues.
There also seems to be a house finch pair trying to nest in the rafters above the porch, but it was so high up I didn't get a picture.

Looking forward to seeing some babies!

Peregrine Falcon sighted at SF Palace of Fine Arts!

2010-12-15T17:17:00.000-08:00

Haven't posted in a while, but I thought this was worth sharing. A co-worker at the Exploratorium, Walter Kitundu, recently took some great photos and video of a peregrine falcon that has been roosting on the Palace of Fine Arts. The dramatic friezes make for some picturesque shots!

PFA PEFA from Kitundu on Vimeo.

Another photographer, Glenn Nevill, also got some great shots of the falcon.

Click the picture to go to the gallery:

Elkhorn Slough

2010-08-12T19:00:00.000-07:00

Back in June I went down south toward Monterey. I was dreaming that I'd perhaps spot a condor from Hwy 1 (there are sightings on ebird all along that area) but as it turns out during the summer, all the condors hang out inland. Even though I didn't find any condors, it was a nice drive along the rocky cliffs.

And there were plenty of other birds to spot. These black specks on the rocks turned out to be a bunch of murres and cormorants, nesting:

Murres are kind of like the penguins of the northern hemisphere. They're black and white, they swim after fish, they hold themselves upright... also, they can fly, so they'd probably win against penguins in a fight.
If you zoom in on the cormorants, you can just baaaaarely see that they have some purple and gold on their throats. That's how you know these are Brandt's cormorants and not your standard old double crested cormorants. Finally, a sea creature named after someone other than Steller!

Evidently these cormorants like to live near kelp beds... so seeing them around might mean that there's a good chance of seeing other kelp-loving things, such as floating logs:

Just kidding, those are totally sea otters.

While photographing them from some sand dunes near Elkhorn slough, we ran into a researcher who was collecting data on the otters' reactions to passing boats. Apparently there is a recommended approach distance (200 yards) but that number hasn't been actually been well-confirmed. So, whenever a boat passed, she had to record its distance from the otters (in otter-lengths) and the otters' reaction. Mostly their reaction was "continue being adorable."

We kayaked a bit and also spotted a pigeon guillemot. I didn't get a picture, but as one would expect from something with "pigeon" in the name, it had red feet and it was hanging out under a bridge that smelled like guano.

And, finally, here's a raven, familiar friend of cold, foggy lands.

Aaaaand, some rattlesnake grass.

Point Reyes. "Reyes" in Spanish means "Crazy windy," right?

2010-08-12T17:00:00.000-07:00

(Wrote this in May... finally posted...)

Lots of wildflowers blooming at Point Reyes.

I didn't managed to photograph many of them though, because they were waving around all crazy in the wind! (Wind not pictured; effects can be estimated by the angle of the tree.)

But this little sedum was a sturdy fellow:

Supposedly, lots of migrating birds are around too. The day I went there, though, the only birds I saw were migrating backwards--blown by the 100 mph winds.

Actually, the white-crowned sparrows were huddled in the bushes, and the ravens managed to use the wind to hover close to the hillside.

Though mostly they were just lurking on the ground.

House Finch Nest

2010-05-06T19:50:00.001-07:00

Tom found a house finch nesting in the eaves of his work building.

The babies are pretty small and gross looking now. You can see the yellow edge of their mouths in this picture--the "gape."

Many baby birds have a color changing mouth--it's thought to help the parents see where to put the food. Baby finches have particularly interesting mouth-interiors. Some of them kind of look like they licked a psychelic black-light painting of a clown. I couldn't find a picture of the house finch's version though.

Mt. Diablo: Spring

2010-04-28T09:18:00.000-07:00

It's been 6 months since I last went to Castle Rock/Mt Diablo. It's rained quite a bit since then, which makes a big difference in the landscape, both birdy and flowery (as symbolized by this shot of poppies and a bluebird nest box).

Not a single acorn woodpecker showed itself, but I did spot a Nuttall's woodpecker fighting a bluebird for a nest cavity:

(FIERCE!)

And speaking of fierce, here's a terrible and blurry picture of a Cooper's Hawk lurking in the undergrowth.

Also going strong: lizards.

Darkling beetle in its tiny world:

Dragonfly
I think this is a tent caterpillar.

And the highlight of the season, all the flow'rs:

Blue dicks:
Owl's clover:

Monkey Flower (and a cool holey rock)

Blackbirds

2010-04-16T21:14:00.000-07:00

I mentioned to my co-worker that I was seeing blackbirds on my way to work, and she responded "big deal, blackbirds, they're everywhere, who cares?" Brewer's blackbird is, admittedly, one of those trashy birds that is usually seen lowering property values in McDonald's parking lots, but there's something special about them for me, because they're absent in winter, and every spring they return to the same cluster of trees to nest. They're like robins,but cranky. Some of them also may be Narnia fans--they like this one particular lampost:

I see them chasing each other, but the magical moment where one pecks my head is still just a dream...

And just because, here is a video of the Brewer's Blackbird's cousins, Red-Winged Blackbirds, singing in Briones:

Cedar Waxwings

2010-04-13T20:00:00.000-07:00

For days now, on my way home from work, I have been hearing this wheedly little cheeping coming from the flowering cherry trees. Some flock of birds going "Wheat, Wheat, WHEEEEET, Cream of Wheat, Wil Wheaton, WHEEEEEEEE!"

It's Cedar Waxwings.

They look so cool. With their spiky hair and little bandit masks, they're like the Bird Pirate Roberts, or something.

They have other cool accessories too, like this awesome yellow tail stripe. The yellow color can be influenced by diet; some birds that eat a certain non-native berry get red tail stripes.

I took about a thousand pictures on "burst" mode and I got this nice surprise view of the tail stripe:
Another diet-based measure of health and robustness is in the wing feathers, which have these carotenoid filled red dots on them. Supposedly this looks like sealing wax (hence the name "waxwing") but apparently the dots are actually a modified part of the central vane of the feather. What are these red dots for? You mean BESIDES looking AWESOME? It is apparently a source of some speculation, but this article suggests that the birds add dots as they age, and thus they can look at each others' wings to avoid getting a crush on a Waxwing Lolita.

If humans could live on a mostly-fruit diet, I bet we'd have cool stripes on us too! In fact, I'm going to go eat some berries RIGHT NOW. Here's hoping.

Things I saw just walking around.

2010-04-10T19:44:00.001-07:00

Lots of friends spotted at the lake today.

Lady ruddy duck, resting tidily on a small rock, probably on her way to breed somewhere cool:

When she saw me photographing her, she looked a bit indignant, then waddled off.

Resident pelican is getting all decked out in bright orange, head tuft, and the beginning of a beak bump poking out from behind the wing...

Eared grebes still going strong, but they'll be gone any time now...

I think I bore them: they're always yawning when I approach. Right before they dive underwater to show just how jaded they are.

A rare sighting of a land cormorant. It was pulling at some frayed string at the edge of the rowing dock. Nest materials perhaps?

Night heron with green and gray stripe background.

Some cheerful humans who got excited when they saw me pointing my camera into trees. So I took their picture too. They waved (not pictured).

And another in the series of "animals sniffing the camera."

Friends!

Double Crested Cormorant

2010-04-08T20:41:00.000-07:00

Cormorants are shy and prefer to have their pictures taken underwater. Sometimes I can catch them when they are sunning themselves on the trash-catching buoy things. This one looks like it is wearing fake eyelashes to go with its beautiful blue eyes... but that's just the double-crest it's named for.

One thing I like about cormorants is the texture of their feathers. At a distance they look plain black, but up close, they are beautifully scaly. Each one of the edges you can see here is the result of a thin black border to the individual feathers. And see how the back feathers don't have that scaliness?

I love the shy-looking cormorant. Another subtle detail is the stripy beak.

Here's another cormorant that has a much more impressive crest. Maybe that's a triple crest?

You know it's spring when the pink flowers are blooming, and the cormorants are perching in dead trees, grunting like pigs.

I guess every bird has ears really. It should be called the metaphorically eared grebe.

2010-04-05T20:33:00.000-07:00

Here is what a winter eared grebe looks like

And here are some gorgeous shots Tom got of them last weekend (yes, with the toilet-tube-o-scope):

Sassy McBigForehead:

Here you can see the big lobed feet typical of grebes:

And this one's just pretty. Worth clicking to see larger, it came out pretty crisp.

Yawn and foot stretch!

I have never heard an eared grebe make a sound. It's probably saving up its squawking energy for when it reaches its breeding grounds, probably some inland freshwater pond.

Corvids

2010-04-02T09:56:00.000-07:00

Crows are actualy pretty common at Lake Merrit, but they're even harder to photograph than Goldeneyes. They just hate it when you look at them. Maybe they're embarassed to be such a goth symbol when they just want to frolic in the daisies.

They prefer when they can glare disdainfully at you from the safety of a tree.

I also spotted a pair of ravens up in Redwood. One of the pair took up the traditional "mock-humans-from-a-tree" post, while the other one...

...did some strange jumping jacks near a picnic table.

It hopped up and down several times, gworked, and flew away.

But the winner of "Best Recent Corvid Picture" goes to Judy, who went on location to the Grand Canyon:

I read Bernd Heinrich's Mind of a Raven... I think this one might be showing a bit of the "fuzzy head" he describes as being typical of a bird being submissive. And look, here you can even see its niticating membrane (the bluish eye) as it blinks.

Both of these behaviors (blinking and fuzzy head) at the same time, plus a sound called "knocking," might indicate a female. Hard to know for sure though without more context; I'm no expert!

Growing Up Ring-Billed

2010-03-21T09:36:00.000-07:00

Speaking of changing looks when it's time to breed, here's an example of nature's makeup...

Ring Billed Gull, year 1: Pink beak and legs, brownish eye.

After another year, they get the classic gull look: grey back, white body. The bottom gull is, I think, younger or at least more pathetic than the one above. Its legs and bill are a duller yellow than the one on top. Note that the one on top has a slightly streaky, mottled head. It's not quite in breeding shape yet. I noticed that the tip of the beak on both of these birds isn't a "ring" but a solid tip, so I'll make a guess that both of them are second years and not quite mature. (Gosh, do NOT tell me I'm going to have to buy one of those special guides to the 1001 indistinguishable looks of one kind of gull.)

Now this dude or lady is getting there. The head looks all clean and smooth, the bill is properly ringy.

Finally, check out fatty mcPiggerson here: See the red eyering and mouth? I guess it's kind of like having a face boner.

Sass Factor 5: American Coots

2010-03-18T09:03:00.000-07:00

If you are an animal, spring usually means it's time to get your breeding on. Coots are no exception, and they're particularly visible when it comes to reproductive madness. GW Gullion, whose paper on coot displays I also read, has another paper on the red bump of coots. Apparently most migratory coots don't have one during winter, when they are away from their home territory:

But in spring, the testosterone of both males and females sparks the growth of a reddish callus:

...which can get gigantic and menacing.

I took all these coot pictures on the same day. So, why do they have different sized bumps? Gullion says that the most dominant coots--those defending a territory--are the ones with the biggest bumps, and the others are lower on the pecking order. Some coots stay on a territory year-round, and keep their red shield, too. I am wondering, do coots on Lake Merrit have a territory? Do they actually nest there? They are supposed to prefer freshwater. I've never seen a baby coot at the Lake. What are they defending if not nest sites? Are they just testosterone fueled jerks that will fight regardless?

Gullion also argues that coots may recognize each other by the callus, as well, since sometimes they will try to fight their mates until they see their partner's face.

Next time I'm out I'll see if I can compare the faces of the attacking coots and the fleeing coots.

Twitterpated?

2010-03-13T08:27:00.000-08:00

"Nearly everybody gets twitterpated in the springtime. For example: You're walking along, minding your own business. You're looking neither to the left, nor to the right, when all of a sudden you run smack into a pretty face. Woo-woo!"

Ok, seriously though, *what* is this gull doing? I've never heard one make this noise like a baby crying. My first guess was that it was some kind of breeding display type of thing, but if it's displaying for the other gull in the shot, it's surely robbing the cradle! Er, the nest? The... rocky patch?

Ad that's not the only sign of ring-billed gull madness around the lake these days:

My guess is that it's trying to drum up some business. For its mouth. And by business I mean worms.

Borges Ranch

2010-03-01T09:32:00.001-08:00

Borges Ranch is a mini-park, part of Mt. Diablo. It was mostly very muddy, and I forgot the camera, but got this nice image of the farm with the trusty cel-phone cam. And see that area where the fence's shadow makes kind of a grid? There's a bunny there:

See? (Binoculars to cel-phone picture, that is SO 2010)

Based on the range maps in the Peterson guide to mammals, I will guess that this is a brush rabbit.

The birds, man, of Alcatraz

2010-02-20T09:26:00.000-08:00

Alcatraz isn't really known for having birds on it. It's more of a history and architecture thing.

Architecture with some jungle let into it.

You probably wouldn't be that surprised to see a gull on it...

But what about HUNDREDS of gulls (the white dots) fighting over various patches of weed-choked asphalt?

It's true, Alcatraz is actually an important breeding site for Western gulls, as well as Brant's cormorant and Pigeon Guillemots (which nest in abandoned pipes!). I only spotted gulls, but it might be worthwhile to come back in the summer and try to see baby gulls...

As a bonus bird, on the way back, I saw a grackle outside the ferry building. It's a common bird, but I have only seen one once, at a random rest stop in Arizona. So, rare for me.

In case you are thinking the above picture looks like just some boring blackbird, compare it to this picture of an actual boring blackbird from the same tree.

See? ACTION GRACKLE with Long Tail accessories.

Arrowhead Marsh, President's Day

2010-02-18T21:40:00.000-08:00

Inspired by some equipment I saw at the Flyway Festival, I decided to make my own camera-to-binoculars gasket. One toilet tube and a roll of handlebar tape later...

I had something which was marginally easier to use than just pressing the camera up to the lens.

I went to Arrowhead Marsh to test it out.

First victim: Cross-process turkey vulture eating some roadkill:

Starlings:

This trip got me thinking about the old "habitat specialization" thing. Shorebirds are the classic example of supposedly splitting up resources according to behavior and even body shape. Shovelers have big ol' beaks for filtering plankton:

And a nearby green-winged teal does its thing.

The avocets also seemed to like the "surrounded by grass" water more than the "mudflat" water. You can see from this pic that their heads are turning red for breeding...

Jackrabbit also likes the tall grass.

Also in the grass-water environment, a greater yellowlegs held itself aloof from the duck-avocet-gull party. It's probably working on its novel, feeling deep feelings that others just don't 'get'.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the road, kildeer picked up tiny things from on top of the algae-covered rocks:
Suddenly we saw the kildeer take off, followed by a big flock of avocets, and then the starlings. Who did that?
Me. It was me. Hawk. I'm actually not sure what kind of hawk this is. It's one of those difficult "brown, probably young" IDs.... it was making the red-shouldered hawk sound, keyerr-keyerrr, and I sort of saw that pale half-moon on the wing. It doesn't have the red tail's tum-band, but then, it doesn't have a stripy tail, either. The dark head and non-streaky sides might mean a harrier... Well, chalk another one up to "keep practicin' the raptors."

A bit later though, we DID see a red tail, which we saw lift into the air, burdened down by something heavy and squirming. But then ol' buttertalons dropped it and flew into a tree further away. Turns out the snack was a ground squirrel. An ex-ground squirrel.

What's up, redtail? You put it on your plate, now you have to eat it! What's wrong, you don't like eating near children playing badminton? Yeah, me neither.

But back to the habitat split up thing. Away from the rocks and grass-water zones, there's the tall grass-mud-salt water land, favorite of the willet and marbled godwit. I saw the godwits really shoving their faces down in the mud and they definitely had a few more inches of face than the willet. They were picking up what looked like jellybeans and chomping them down. Tiny clams maybe? Do they eat the shells too? Hmmm...

A lucky spotting this time, a clapper rail! Its distinctive call gave it away right before it scurried across the channel as the tide went out. Right back into the tall grass.

Last time I saw a clapper rail here, it had a radio antenna sticking out of its back. The CA subspecies of this rail is endangered, so they're prime candidates for being tracked for conservation. It's impressive that they are able to survive here, so close to the airport and freeway. Maybe the antenna helped them blend into the long grass too...

On the bridge overlooking the deeper water, there was a surf scoter, or, as I like to think of it, a crazy-eyed clown face duck. Love these things:

Anyway, these photos are obviously still not professional grade or anything, but if you look back at the first photo of the marsh at those tiny white dots, that shows you how far away most of these birds actually were... I think the toilet-tube has done a pretty good job.

Berkeley Marina

2010-02-15T09:30:00.000-08:00

Birding by bike is always fun, though without binoculars it's a bit harder to see the far-off things. There were a few close-by tidbits at the Berkeley Marina this weekend:

Pissed-off, testosterone fueled blackbirds are always a good bet for photography. They'll defend their territories, from other blackbird dudes, or even from nosy human ladies with cameras. Birders' Handbook explains that the dudes flashy the red when defending territory, and hide it when trying to sneak around. Also, red-winged blackbirds hate other males, but research has shown that they REALLY hate taxidermy models of males with double-sized red patches. They peck those right OUT!

Ground squirrels are also something of a photo gimmie. Like their cousins at the lake, they are quick to associate a human with the possibility of a tasty snack.

Their love of Cheddar Pirate's Booty aside, their burrowing activities are actually quite important ecologically. Burrowing owls use the squirrels' holes as a hangout. There are a few owls that winter at the marina, and there is a fenced-off area marked with signs asking people not to point out the owls, in case hawks follow their fingers right to the snack.

Also, second loon sighting of the year! A Common loon, I think. Its neckline looks a bit more notchy than the Pacific... somehow I keep seeing every waterbird in drab winter plumage... I should have made it my goal to see one in breeding plumage...

Hybrid goose grows up

2010-02-08T14:24:00.000-08:00

Remember the domestic goose in love with a canada goose?

I found a suspected hybrid. It's got a splotchy face, and the beak shape seems a bit domestic-y, with that flattened forehead bit. The butt also looks droopy like a domestic.

Here's a canada goose for comparison:

And a domestic:

It's unique looking but quite charming, really.

Noses

2010-02-06T14:05:00.000-08:00

Recent hikes have uncovered quite a few creatures which were curious about what my camera smelled like.
In Briones, some wet cows:

And an even wetter newt:

Meanwhile in Berkeley, a disapproving squirrel:

A banana slug:
A happy puppy:

And an Eric:

Wormdance

2010-02-04T14:02:00.000-08:00

In the last few weeks it's been raining a lot, and I have observed the ring-billed gulls on my way to work doing a funny shuffle. Looks like quite a few people on youtube have seen the same thing. It seems that their dancing makes worms come up to the surface and provide a seagull snack.

Lake Update: Who's around?

2010-02-01T13:18:00.000-08:00

Winter ducks are still hanging out. Here's a dude and lady canvasback:

And a golden-shy:

I also caught a bufflehead grooming and looking goofy:

Moments like this show you the colorations of some lesser-seen parts, like the secret black bowling pin shape on the back...

...and the bubble-gum-pink foot...

Ahem. Back to dignity.

Jack London State Park and the hunt for the pileated woodpecker

2010-01-30T23:08:00.000-08:00

I read online that there might be pileated woodpeckers at Jack London State Park. A woodpecker the size of a crow: it should be easy to find, right? I imagined I'd see it in the parking lot, stomping on tiny sparrows like an avian Godzilla. Hey, they're related to dinosaurs, right?

Anyway, it turns out that although I did see a dark blob in the distance that MIGHT have been a pileated, that was the best view I ever got. On the other hand, I did see a coyote chasing a rabbit through a grape field.

Also some scrub jays:

And plenty of nature's comedians, the acorn woodpeckers. People say that hyenas and kookaburras sound like they are laughing... I say the laughing animal of California is the acorn woodpecker.

Probably, they're laughing at squirrels who can't pry out their acorns and steal them. That's because acorn woodpeckers use their pecking powers to make holes in dead trees to wedge food for the winter. Just TRY to pull that out, squirrel...

What was interesting about this particular population of acorn woodpeckers is that they had made several of their granary trees out of eucalyptus. Normally they use oak trees, but in this area that has a lot of vinyard and few oaks, the eucalyptic remnants of a failed timber speculation apparently make a pretty good substitute.

Night Time

2010-01-17T22:35:00.000-08:00

Last night, walking home in the dark, I noticed that there were tons of pigeons huddled together on the streetlights. Since they're normally on the ground during the day, this got me wondering about how else the landscape of the lake might change at night. Would I find birds in different locations, or doing different things?

I decided to check it out. I also put the high ISO and flash powers of my camera to some serious testing.

The first, obvious answer was that, yes, the night herons really are active at night. They leave the freshwater duck pond and spread out to various perches overlooking the water. The storm drain outlets are usually claimed, as are the shallow water areas:

I wonder if they fish all night, or only early evening? These pictures were taken between 8 and 9 pm.
More surprising, perhaps, was the number of other birds that are awake and active at night. I spotted some scaups swimming around. I was surprised at first, but then remembered that a lot of scaups seem to be resting and floating with heads under wing for a lot of the day. Maybe they are somewhat nocturnal?

I also found some insomni-ducks:

A lot of mallards and some Canada geese were standing around on Swedish beach, in the shallows. They grunt-quacked begrudgingly at being woken up and forced to move into deeper water. You can see their eyes shining. At the Exploratorium, when you see the cow-eye dissection, one of the things they show you is a part of the eye called the tapetum. It's basically a bonus reflector in the eye that helps animals see in low light; it's also what causes the eyeshine in the photos. I noticed that the mallards' eye shine looks greener, and the geese eyes look redder. This could be a result of the flash color, too, or the angle of the light...

I found some more pigeons sleeping in a tree; seagulls were conspicuously absent. The highlight of the walk was two raccoons washing their paws and drinking from the duck pond:

While taking this picture, I was aiming at a completely dark area, hoping I found the right spot and that the flash would illuminate the racoon. I guessed right, but the camera focus wasn't cooperating... Check out the raccoon's eyeshine:

There is a raccoon inside of this thing. I didn't quite get the camera in time to capture its descent. What is it doing in there? Unknown. I'm guessing it's studying all the legal 3-letter Scrabble words.

I was surprised how much ambient light there was, allowing for a few nice shots.

Eastshore Park

2010-01-05T16:44:00.000-08:00

New Year's day, first birdwatching of the year! Both Tom and I were getting over colds, so we opted for an easy trip that turned out surprisingly fruitful.

Where: Eastshore Park (you may know this location as "behind the Emeryville Chevy's" or "that area you can see as you approach the Bay Bridge but how the heck do you get over there?")

When: High Tide. The sandpiper buffet is all covered up with water, so they have nowhere to go but the narrow strip of rocks lining the water's edge: conveniently, less than three feet from the paved path. Easy pickins!

Tom's getting good at digi-binoc-ing; can you believe I didn't even crop these photos? Nice work Tom! We saw three main kinds of shorebirds here:

1) Willets (not pictured here, but whenever I say their name, I say it like the witch in Willow...)
2) Marbled Godwits:

It certainly looks like it has all its marbles.

3) Whimbrels: They have a cool skunky striped head and a "whimbrsical" name.

We found a kingfisher acting like a hummingbird, flying from high perch to high perch:

Yesterday I was contemplating what birds I would like to look for in 2010, and the first thing I thought was, "it would be nice to see another loon." And the very next day, BAM. Looney Tunes.
A super sweet look at what I think is a juvenile Pacific Loon. Looking at the Sibley illustration, the stripey back seems to indicate a young bird.

The loon was paddling along, and periodically it would dip its face underwater, while continuing to swim forward.

(It dipped a bit more under than this photo shows.) We concluded that maybe it was looking for fish before committing to a longer dive. In other words, a lazy loon.

Finally, near a series of saint-candles someone left lit among the rocks, we found a little group of least sandpipers. At least I think that's what they are. Tiny and yellow legs... small enough to fit in your mouth.

Apparently in the birdwatching world, these little dudes all look alike, and as a group they are just called "peeps." Unlike the marshmallow peeps though, these probably wouldn't look very dramatic when microwaved.

Birds of 2009

2010-01-03T15:44:00.000-08:00

Here's a list of birds I saw (or recognized) for the first time in 2009. It's kind of nice to look back on them, because most of them were spotted during a fun trip. It's a cool way to reminisce on the year's adventures:

Red-Throated Loon: April, Lake Merritt
Back in April, my sister and James called my attention to this bird--the first loon I'd ever seen. After evading our attempts to capture it in a laundry basket, the loon went on to nurse its illness under the storm drain.

Tundra Swan: December, Columnes
The swans also came with a quite juicy look at some Sandhill Cranes. I'm hoping this can be a yearly pilgrimage.

Spotted Sandpiper: June, South Lake Tahoe
A honeymoon bird!

California Gull: Lake Merrit
I've probably been seeing them for years, but my gull IDs are finally improving

Least Tern: September, Middle Harbor Park (Oakland Port)

Common Murre: August, Tennessee Valley Beach
Another bird that I may have seen before but couldn't ID until now.

Clark's Nutcracker: June, South Lake Tahoe
The way Tom tells this story, it goes, "Lisa heard a bird calling, and she said, 'that sounds like a corvid, but not one I know,' and we walked over to the tree and there it was. Clark's Nutcracker."

Pygmy Nuthatch: April, Presidio
A side benefit of working out there is a quick chance to look for these every day. When I saw one for the first time, I thought, "what IS that? It's like a nuthatch, but TINY!"

Wrentit: August, Tennessee Valley Beach
I remember thinking, "It's like a giant bushtit." I'm proud of IDing this bird because it shows I am paying better attention to small, dull-colored birds that hide in bushes.

American Pipit: December, Sweetwater Reservoir, San Diego
Another steaky brown bird which I would have formerly ignored as a hopeless case.

Townsend's Warbler: February, my apartment
Tom spotted the yellow and black football helmet of this bird through our window. Considering that our view is of a parking lot with a single scrawny oak, this was a remarkable find.

Wilson's Warbler: August, Tennessee Valley Beach

Song Sparrow: June, South Lake Tahoe
Another candidate for "brown streaky birds that formerly all looked the same to me."

Then there's all the birds I saw in Sicily this fall:
Cormorant, Little Egret, Great White Egret, Grey Heron, Shelduck, Sparrowhawk, Golden Eagle, Kestrel, Oystercatcher, Redshank, Crag Martin, Pied Wagtail, (European) Robin, (European) Blackbird, Blackcap, Coal Tit, Great Tit, Nuthatch, Magpie, Jackdaw, Hooded Crow

Next year, I'd like to add some more firsts! A few candidates:

Pileated Woodpecker
I have a lead on a park in Sonoma.

Green Jay
If I go to SE Texas on Vacation like I want to...

Grey Jay
Another mountain trip sometime?

Roadrunner
Will this be the year?

Any Thrasher
Next on the "Brown Bird" list

Any new Warbler
Maybe I'll have better luck if I go to NY again...

All images came from the NY Public Library Digital Archive, where I have taken years off my life just browsing the cigarette cards alone...

La Jolla

2010-01-01T16:25:00.000-08:00

One last stop on the San Diego birdwatching tour: La Jolla, the Children's Pool at Casa beach. This spot has been nominated by a bunch of harbor seals as "best place to scratch your butt while humans watch."

These lazy, slug-like seals recover from the freezing clutches of the Pacific by lolling (and LOLing) in the sand where there was once a kiddie pool. They rudely sleep, scratch, and even have their babies right where HUMAN babies could be swimming. Apparently some people got mad about the seals acting all "Seal Privilege" and wanted to make the seals leave, or perhaps dress them up like toddlers, and there is a big controversy. So far the seals get to stay.

Like most of the animals I get to photograph, they're habituated to people, looking up longingly in the hope that you'll drop your halibut-flavored ice cream cone.

In addition to the adorable waddling of these Sea Fatties, there were a few birds at the beach. First, a Black Phoebe. Now, these things like water, but this is the first time I've seen one actually on the beach, foraging amidst the kelp.

Lots of brown pelicans do their part to keep the beach stinky and poo-covered:

And I also got some shots of a Heerman's gull. E-bird lists them as appearing in Alameda county (with many sightings at Eastshore park, not too far from Lake Merritt), but I don't think I've ever seen one there. Anyway, like the ring-billed gull, it's something of a gull freebie: the only one with a red beak and greyish body. They have this streaky looking head during winter, and a white head when trying to get a date.

San Diego: Sweetwater Part 2

2009-12-30T20:36:00.000-08:00

A different day, we went to Sweetwater reservoir. It's mostly open and brushy, with a big old lake in the middle. The lake was packed with Western grebes, all making their characteristic "cree-ee-ik" sound.

In this inlet, we spotted all kinds of goodies. That white speck in the center is a great egret.

Tom got a really good shot of a Northern shoveler through the binoculars. It may look like a lady mallard at first, but then, look at the muppet-sized snout!

The shoveler, shoveling.

It was also a good spot for meadowlarks, and this one demonstrated something interesting that I noticed only when reviewing the photos. When the meadowlark is looking at you, it appears to have a black "V" on its chest.

But when it turns its head, you can see that the pattern of black feathers on its neck is different! It looks like maybe the long chin feathers cover part of the black shape normally. "V" for "very deceptive..."

Then there was this bright colored bug...

On our way back we spotted some distinctive roadkill... poor bobcat! Cause of death: no longer having a face! Some mammals I've only seen via roadkill, and this is one. Let's hope for only live bobcats in the future!

San Diego: Sweetwater part 1

2009-12-28T21:36:00.000-08:00

Every time I go to San Diego, I look for roadrunners. There's a spot on ebird that had a few sightings which is only a mile or so from Tom's house, so we decided to check it out. It looks like most of the county: scrubby, shrubby, and rocky. In other words, perfect for road runners.

The trailhead, weirdly, is across from a giant strip mall, near an abandoned trestle bridge:

As a bonus, it runs along a creek, so there are willows, sycamores, and much-needed pools of water for desert living creatures. Plus, it's a posted nesting area for the endangered Least Bell's Vireo, though we'd be unlikely to see one in winter.

Aforementioned sycamores. Such a different creature growing in a streambed than on the Berkeley campus...

And their strange seed balls (which you seldom see in city-growing sycamores!)

Well, we didn't see any roadrunners or vireos. A few elusive sparrows and a very shy woodpecker were the main attraction. But, other items of interest included this strange squash which grows all over the creekside:

A surprise cactus:Some poop that might be from a creature that had been eating from the plentiful carob bushes:

A nice sunset:

Cosumnes River Preserve

2009-12-24T11:40:00.000-08:00

Saturday Field Trip: Went out to Cosumnes River Preserve (in the small town of Galt, near Lodi) and got a tour from SOS Cranes. It was a gloomy, cloudy day, about 50 degrees. One of the guides explained that such a day is called a "duck day" among hunters, because low clouds force the ducks to fly low, making it easy to shoot them.

The area mostly consists of organic rice fields, which were referred to as "rice checks." I think it refers to the dirt barriers that check the water from running out, but of course I was imagining the birds standing on a bowl of cereal. Anyway, there are raised roads running in between the flooded areas, which you can drive on, but you have to stay in the car: a car looks like an unthreatening shiny lump to a bird, whereas a walking person looks like a potential murdering devil. Birds are biased that way.

They look like specks, but these dots are actually thousands of white-fronted geese that we scared, despite our shiny-unthreatening-lump disguise:

And here they are overhead in their flying V that's made of flying geese. Check out how dark the sky is! This was at like 2:30, too!

Also along the Cereal Bowl we spotted many red-tailed hawks: (Can you see it? The dark blob in the center right).
Lots of hovering kestrels about, too. I shot this one through someone's spotting scope: look what a difference from my crappy binocular shots:

Great Blue Heron:

We also saw a few tundra swans--a first for me!

After the tour we headed to nearby Staten Island (unlike its NY counterpart, this Staten Island contained a single farmhouse, a slowly rusting barn, and a lot of flooded cornfields.) This is where Sandhill cranes rest at night, surrounded by a safety cushion of shallow, corny water. We hung out a while, waiting for them to arrive at sunset.

We learned that they tend to stay in family groups and pairs, so they're seldom seen alone.

We also learned that a major difference between cranes and herons (since they look quite similar) is that unlike herons, cranes lack a "thumb" claw, so they can't perch or nest in trees. They have to nest on the ground, on protected wetland islands.

Anyway, my crane pictures don't do them justice. Check out flickr for some pro-level juicy crane goodness. They also make a really cool sound.

It was a good day.

Arrowhead Marsh: Quickie

2009-12-22T10:55:00.000-08:00

I had to pick up my sister-in-law from the airport and instead of waiting at the "Park and Call," I waited at Arrowhead Marsh--part of the MLK shoreline. I didn't have much time, but I did see a mighty flock of birds sleeping on the pier. See all those little white blobs there?

Binoc-photo reveals: yes, they are birds!

Almost all of them were willets (plain grey back, white tum. They have a really cool black and white wing pattern that you can't see here. Can you believe none of them were flying in their sleep?). But one of these sandpipers is not like the others. Can you find it?

Hint: It's also the only one rocking out with its beak out. Yep, the brown(er) one with the half pink half black, slightly upturned beak is a marbled godwit.

Skunk headedness

2009-12-20T10:32:00.000-08:00

White-crowned sparrows are fairly common at the lake, but, seeing as they are tiny, wary, and typically barricaded inside their shrub-forts, I hadn't managed to get a decent photo before. I'm also terrible at IDing sparrows. Streaky, non-streaky, brown bits here and there, how am I supposed to remember whether its butt was chestnut or buff? White-crowned is distinctive though; it's the freebie of sparrows.

Here's the little skunk head:

Another white-crowned sparrow fun fact is that they have dialects: sparrows in different areas sing different songs. The ones along Trestle Glen have a song that sounds very like the opening to Beethoven's 5th. "Bip-Bip-Bip-BUUUUUUH" followed up with "doodley doodley zzzzzee" All of them have a similar pattern of a few clear notes, then a bunch of blathermouth, and then a buzz. (As opposed to house finches which sound like acid jazz...). Cornell has some nice recordings.

How to photograph a goldeneye

2009-12-14T22:29:00.000-08:00

Winter ducks are settling in here at the lake. Some of them, like these scaups, will ham it up for the camera if you even LOOK like you might be scattering some breadcrumbs:

(Lady scaup: "Crumbs PLZ!")

(Dude scaup:"A bit full actually, but I'll loiter just in case.")
Canvasbacks will come up if there's enough safety in numbers:

And I got a very nice shot of this ring-necked duck and her blue striped bill:

But a few of the winter ducks are MUCH more skittish, almost impossible to get close to--especially for my little point n' shoot. They can tell if you are looking at them. They can tell if you're not looking at them, but you ARE pointing your camera at them. And they HATE it when you do that. It's like they think James Bond trying to find them and destroy their space satellite or something.

So... you have to stalk them. Out in the park there's not really any "cover" to speak of, so my method today was to try psychology.

1) Find some other ducky that's about as far away as the goldeneye is and use it to set the focus:

Thanks, Mallard.

2) Walk toward the goldeneye, but don't look at it. Look at whatever is farthest away from it:

3) No seriously. Do NOT look at the goldeneye. Walk forward nonchalantly, thinking about how much you don't care about ducks. And hold your camera at hip level (still keeping the focus button depressed...)

4) The goldeneye (here, the lady goldeneye, depicted by the lovely Xenia Onnatop) will swim away from you anyway, using their characteristic "Russian Submarine" posture:

5) At the last second, look at your viewscreen out of the corner of your eye and put the goldeneye in the frame. You might get lucky and get a shot that's at least good enough to show the Golden Eye.

"I AM INVINCIBLE!"

The same method can be used for buffleheads:

(Lady:)
(And dude:)

Winter is Cold

2009-12-14T22:21:00.000-08:00

Short walk in the park this morning, in between rainy days. I noticed something interesting about the squirrel that was looking expectantly up at me. Not the greediness--that's normal.

Check out the ears of this squirrel from a photo in May:

And then look at the ears of this squirrel from today:

I think they look much furrier! Fluff: it's nature's ear-warmers.

"NYEH!"

Fall at Mt Diablo

2009-11-08T08:55:00.000-08:00

Went out to Castle Rock at Mt. Diablo this past weekend. It's full of crumbling sandstone cliffs and raptor nests (also crumbling).

It's one of those weekends that make you love California so hard! We had a picnic under the oaks:

And from the bench we spotted nuthatches, bluebirds, oak titmice, golden crowned sparrows, acorn woodpeckers, scrub jays...

...even some far-off turkey vultures. Getting better at photos through binoculars...

Pyracantha adds some color. I'll have to come back here to check for waxwings.

Tom found some quite large acorns. Choadcorns.

Turns out there is a reason the trail is called "Shell ridge."

Maybe Rebecca can tell us all more about why these round chunks of sandstone are breaking off in rounded segments.

The Quest for the Holy Tarantula is at an end:

It was interesting to watch different people's reaction to the tarantulas. They ranged from "ew gross" to "woah cool" to "big deal." Knowledge levels also varied from "which end is the front?" to "mind the urticating hairs."

Joy Fall

2009-11-06T10:41:00.000-08:00

It's fall! Some birds are just totally in shock.
Heron: "DUDE it's NOVEMBER WTF!"

Migrant birds are returning to the lake. Here's a glaucous winged gull that attracted my attention with its strange yodeling call. It sounds quite different from a Western gull when claiming food. Or maybe only when it's claiming a bit of roast chicken someone dumped. I don't know whose action is more surprising: the guy who thought it would be fine to throw a chicken to the birds, or the pigeons who thought it would be fine to eat it. Blech, guys, srsly.

Ruddy ducks have arrived. These are easy to ID at long distances because of the white cheek, and the (usually) long pointy tail.

Ring billed gulls are back too and looking for action. "Hey, where's MY roast chicken?"

And of course scaups. I have vowed that this will be the year I learn to tell greater from lesser. I have long wondered why the majority of scaups I see at the lake are male. One theory I had was that females and males arrived and left at different times. The first one I saw this year was female:

Uccelli Roma

2009-11-04T09:36:00.000-08:00

Last month I went to Italy--Rome for a few days, then a week and a half in Sicily. I knew the birdwatching wouldn't be stellar, but I had hopes of seeing at least some common birds that were unfamiliar to me. Heck, even the house sparrow has an Italian version that's all redheaded and crazylooking.

In Rome, I found plentiful evidence that birds had been seen in the past, at least by sculptors:

Hmm, on second thought I kind of doubt anyone saw this whale-bird.

Aaaand unless there were some sculptors observing during the Permian (age of 8 foot scorpions), they probably never saw a peacock THIS big:

On Palatine Hill I managed to find some live-action birds doing a love scene:

Unexpectedly, there was also a small flock of parrots hanging out there. They reminded me of the parrots I see in the Presidio. I don't know my parrots, but I think this is probably a Monk Parakeet. What's the difference between a parrot and a parakeet? DNA. How could a parrot-keet live in a non-tropical location? Well, Rome's not exactly cold, and there's plenty of tourist trash to eat. Also the berries from this tree, which looks like it's a yew.

Hooded crows were also ubiquitous throughout Rome. In fact this was the first kind of bird I saw after landing--perched along the roadside enroute from the airport.

Once we reached Sicily, there was still more artistic evidence that sometime in the past, it was inhabited by grotesque, bug-eyed eagles:

And some human-swan horse-swan hybrids:

In search of actual, living birds, we journeyed to one of Sicily's giant regional parks: Madonie. On the way we stopped at a tiny town called Castelbuono, which was inhabited quite picturesquely by a flock of what I think were crag martins:

They taunted me, perching on nooks in the sheer wall and poking their little heads out.

Also enjoying the nooks of Castelbuono was a big flock of jackdaws. They look like stubby-faced crows. Later on, we saw them perched along the highway, hundreds of them, but all spaced out in pairs.
Another common bird was the collared dove, seen here mooning the photographer with its distinctive white tailfeathers.

Finally, we made our way to an actual wildlife reserve, Vendicari, where we hoped to see the thousands of flamingoes that winter there. Alas, they hadn't arrived yet, but we spotted a few other friends, including this guy, which I think is a redshank:

We didn't find my dream bird (the hoopoe). We asked our host at a bed and breakfast we stayed at about it, but he didn't know the word "upupo." Then I tried to describe it as similar to a parrot, with a crest. He thought we meant the "ghiandaia," (literally "acornist") (turns out that is a jay), and explained that during this time of year they are all up in the mountains eating olives. Something to look for next time, I guess!

The pelicans at home

2009-09-18T09:09:00.000-07:00

The newly-renovated boathouse/restaurant opened about a month ago, and I wondered what real estate the cormorants would stink up now that their old pier had been removed. Turns out they seem to have followed their old pier to the other side of the lake, where it's now sinking into the mud.

Here, various birds have had no trouble putting their feet up on the coffee table, and their poop all over the couch. Here we see a white pelican, likely on its way to the coast from breeding grounds inland; and double crested cormorants, which are common in summer but will probably leave the lake soon.

Though they nest in very different habitats, at this time of year the three species cross paths for an interspecific jamboree. And when brown pelicans come sit on the porch, they bring the moonshine. No. Not really. They just hum fragments of "Slough foot Sue..."

The brown pelicans have finished nesting in the islands of southern California and Mexico, and are now heading north...

...with an occasional layover on a crowded dock.

Unlike the white pelicans, brown pelicans hunt by diving from the air with a very impressive splash (which I didn't manage to capture.) Here's one post-snack:

It soon takes off again--

--and loops back around for another attempt. Come on, fishy!

Hangin' with Mr. Cooper's Hawk

2009-09-16T09:30:00.000-07:00

I spotted an exciting silhouette atop the bird dome this morning:

Periodically, I see a hawk buzz the pigeons inside, making them flap frantically from one side of the cage to the other. This is the first time I had my camera ready.

I'm not really sure what the hawk is thinking as it circles the cage. Does it think that it could really catch a pigeon if it could just get at the creamy center of the bird-cage truffle? Here it is perching on top of the keepers' entrance. "Ahhhh, for the keyring.... and thumbs. Thumbs would be good."

"Or maybe somebody made a mistake and left a panel open?

"Better check all the welds just to be sure."

Maybe it's just attracted to looking at the pigeons? Here it is taking a human's eye view of them.

They don't like that very much.

But the pigeons really HAAAAATE it when the hawk goes all like:

"Pant, pant. Hunting caged pigeons is harder than I thought. They have some mighty defenses."

I used the "burst" mode on my camera for the first time. I only got one good shot that way, but it was a quite artsy one:

So the key in telling a Cooper's hawk from a sharp-shinned hawk is that the former has a rounded tail and the latter a square tail. Also, Cooper's is slightly bigger. Here is another example of a bird where I just don't have enough experience to compare the two well. This tail looks pretty round... right? But then it also looks slightly notched, which is a character of the sharp-shinned.
This bird was larger than a robin, about crow-sized, which would seem to place it in the Cooper's category. But then the female is larger than the male in most raptors, so if it's a lady sharp shinned, it could be as big as a male Coopers'. Making things still more difficult, this is an immature (=brown 'n streaky) bird. I'm sure the birders monitoring the raptor migration over in Marin could tell easily, but I'm an undecided amateur even with this pretty clear photo.

Anyway, hawks are cool. Happy migration, friend!

Mergansers!

2009-09-14T11:40:00.000-07:00

Periodically I will see something unexpected at the lake, like these two mergansers. I've never seen a merganser in brackish water/marsh before, but here they are. They've been hanging around the mallards for a few days now.

Mergansers are fish-eating ducks; they have "sawbilled" beaks to help them grab the fish. The rearmost merganser in this shot has something red on its back, like a leaf is stuck to it or something.

There are two very similar species: the common and the red-breasted (aka more rare). I thiiiink this one is the common, because it has a fairly clear delineation between the red head and grey body, but having never seen the other kind, I'm not really sure.

Good OLD Lake Merritt

2009-09-07T09:05:00.001-07:00

The Oakland Museum of California has a pretty cool "virtual collection" of old postcards, photos, posters, and other ephemera. You can search it by Oakland neighborhood, so naturally I used it to see what Lake Merritt looked like back in the day.

1977

1985

One thing I noticed was that there are several duck species in these photos that I have never seen at the lake. In the picture below, you can see a few wigeon(s?) just underneath the swan.

And in this photo you can see an entire horde of pintails thronging to be fed.

1920

I'm wondering if old photos like these have ever been used to collect data on population size.

1922

1920-1950

1930

Farewell to Summer

2009-09-06T10:07:00.000-07:00

My brief summer blogging hiatus, caused by having a full time job, is now at an end; so is summer. The lake is showing all the signs of California fall.

Falling oak leaves and their accompanying smell are central to the show, but there are some prettier elements too; salt marsh gumplant, part of the sunflower family, is in full bloom. This plant looks a bit like a ratty old weed, but in fact it's quite important to marsh ecology. Highly salt-tolerant, it grows at the edges of marshes and provides food and shelter for various endangered marshbeasts, like clapper rails and salt-marsh-harvest-mice and creatures-from-the-black-lagoons. Also it apparently smells like Juicy Fruit.

Buckeyes are turning their candy-scented flowers into big chunky brown eyeball fruits which will drop to the ground just in time to catch the winter rains.

Naked ladies (Amaryllis belladonna) are blooming and dying. These are South African natives, but they titillate us all over the Bay Area too. They're "naked" because the leaves and flowers appear at completely different times; the pink flowers sprout from a pile of dried up dead stuff, generating their other nickname, surprise lily.

Morning glory has many species, some of which are native to CA and some not so much. The way to tell them apart is long and tortured and involves the word "glabrous," so you will have to enjoy this patch I found without knowing more than the family.

Autumn leaves might drift past Johnny Mercer's window, but here in Oakland it's more likely to be goose feathers. They're pretty much done shedding now; but can you believe they didn't reduce, re-use OR recycle their feathers? They just left them all over the beach. Litterbugs.

PAY HERE, BITCHAZ

2009-08-10T10:59:00.000-07:00

Oakland recently extended its pay-parking hours to 8 pm. And it looks like they hired some serious enforcers.

Summer Company!

2009-07-13T17:15:00.000-07:00

The solitary resident American Pelican had some company drop in for a few weeks:

I wonder if Pelican 1's presence attracted the others somehow. "Dudes, the cocktails at this bar are really good. You haaave to try the Brackish Algae mojito; can you believe it's muddled in a concrete trough? Soooo retro. "

Later I saw two of them swimming together, doing some "repeat after me" style foraging. First swim:

Then dabble...

They're so funny; they're like gigantic ducks when they do that. I wonder if their synchronized movements are related to breeding at all... the Western grebes do something similar, although their moves are clearly for style, whereas the pelicans could have been just eating.

Also, I noticed that their bumps are indeed gone, to the great keratin graveyard... this one just has a tiny trace of beak bump left:

On a slightly related note, I spotted a few other unlikely summer visitors the other day--a pied billed grebe, a ring-billed gull, and two coots. Where did they come from, where are they going? The Pelican has a diverse group of friends, that's all I can say.

More dead things, I am morbid.

2009-07-11T17:02:00.000-07:00

Another pleasant summer stroll in the park interrupted by a trail of tears. First, a solitary bit of wing:

And a picked clean wishbone:

Ten feet away, the head of the unfortunate pigeon, tossed aside like a candy wrapper.

And if this display of machismo and general shreddingness weren't enough, there was THIS alarming corpse nearby:

The only predatory bird I have seen at the lake is a Cooper's hawk. They definitely pick the feathers off their prey and eat the breast meat, but I have never before seen one rip the wings and head off. And they are not big enough to kill a Canada Goose! That would be like a chihuahua bringing down a sheep! Though I guess one might eat an already-dead goose? I'm thinking that something a little more butch has moved into the neighborhood. A red tail perhaps?

Crested Blue Swedish!

2009-07-09T16:33:00.000-07:00

I can't believe I haven't written about this yet. Now that summer is in full gear and the more exotic lake visitors are away, we have to make do with our familiar neighbors and check in with how they are doing. So, today's post is about a familiar friend: Crested Blue Swedish.

A Blue-Swedish is a type of domestic duck that has a grey-blue color; a crested-duck is another kind of domestic duck with a fluffy head tuft. There are several crested ducks at the lake but only one combines these two traits:

Creted Blue Swedish hangs out at the little beach which probably has a real name, but Tom and I call it Swedish beach. Blue Swedish has a mate, a white duck with a black beak. They're always together.

Looking at these two pictures, I noticed that Blue Swedish's plumage has changed somewhat over the years... the first picture is from 2007, and the one above is from this month. Weird!

Anyway, the two of them have a motley gang of friends, usually two other white ducks, a mallard, and a brown and white duck.

At one point we had an idea to make a "Wanted" style poster for Crested Blue Swedish... Have YOU seen this duck? It was a great "urban art" project idea that eventually petered out when we got distracted by the internet or something.

How does the sun cut his hair? Eclipse it!

2009-07-06T13:51:00.000-07:00

The thousands of geese at the Lake aren't the only ones getting a wardrobe makeover. Mallards also change their coats this time of year, and for a brief time they look terribly shabby and hardly any chic! I haven't gotten a great picture of it since, understandably, they like to hide from the paparazzi (and of course predators) during this awkward, flightless time.

On this mallard you can see that he's looking quite brown and scruffy around the eye, and it'll probably get worse as he continues to molt.

Pelicans are also supposed to have an eclipse plumage. Remember earlier when the pelican had that funny little head tuft? It has lost that, and is now sporting what looks like a bad case of head-mildew.

I remember reading that the beak bump falls off in one big chunk like a giant fingernail clipping. I'd love to find one of those lying around!

I wish they all could be California Gulls

2009-07-04T22:34:00.000-07:00

After 4 years of gull-watching by the Lake, I'm slowly getting better at telling them apart--at least, telling the "EASY" ones apart!

So here's a ring-billed gull. The key here is that it has a black beak stripe. Hey, if you liked that beak you shoulda put a ring on it. There's no mistaking this gull, it's a dead-ringer. Ha. Ha. But what's great about getting a freebie gull is that you can use it as your benchmark to compare other, harder gulls. Thus you can ask, is is larger or smaller than a ring-billed? Is it darker or paler? Mew gulls are about the same size, Western gulls, somewhat larger, and glaucous-winged gulls seems gigantic compared to this one. Other field marks are the yellow eye and legs.

Here we have giaganto gull, the Glaucous-winged. "Glaucous" means "cloudy" (like glaucoma) so it's kind of a romantic notion. "On wings of cloud..." The dirty reality is, look at the wingtips. Unlike other common Lake Merritt gulls, they are the same color as the back--light grey. It's like seeing them through a cloud. Or something. Other field marks to check: pink legs, dark eye. When young these dudes are also very pale. I think of them as "Vanilla."

Everytime I see this one, I sing to myself: "Oakland town's a dead-end world, East-End boys and Western Gulls [WEST-ERN GULLS doo dooo doo dood dooo d'do]". Here's where knowing the ring-bill well comes in handy. If it's bigger AND darker, then it's a Western. Also note pink legs and (theoretically) yellow eye (although this eye looks dark in the photo. GULLS IS TRICKSY)

The first two gulls I only see in winter. That's because in summer they go up to the arctic and have crazy orgies where they hybridize and make things all difficult for birwatchers trying to ID their hapa babies. Western gull is pretty much always around, because it breeds on islands in the Pacific ocean. With such a short commute, I guess it has more time for loitering.

This last gull is one I'm just getting to know. I recently realized that I have probably been seeing it all along and not noticing that it's a different species. Also, it's not supposed to be on the coast in summer. This one must have declined to go breed on a river island in Utah. I can understand that. Anyway, it's a California Gull. Can't you tell by the tiny bit of black there on the beak tip? And can't you see the red eye ring? HAHAHAHAHA. Ok the easiest way to tell is to look at the legs, and, again, compare to others. They're not yellow like a ring billed, not pink like a western. They're kind of bluish grey. And it took me a long time to figure this out because both of my field guides paint the legs far yellower. Sorry, Sibley, ya failed me on this one.

Anyway, I've only been noticing the California gull in the last few weeks, and I wondered if that's because it's only here in summer, or if I just never noticed it before. So I checked out ebird (which is SO FUN for anyone who likes Data with a capital D) and discovered.... INSUFFICIENT DATA!

I got curious and checked out the stats for all of Lake Merritt... and I found that there is INSUFFICIENT DATA for almost every species between April and August... even Canada Geese! I think this is because most people come to the lake in winter to see the cool winter ducks. But who'd bother coming out and writing down that they saw some lousy old gulls, geese, robins, and pigeons? Well, now that I know about this gaping hole in the data, I for one will be happy to sacrifice... for Science!

TURTLES!

2009-07-02T21:41:00.000-07:00

Sometimes turtles appear in the lake. It's a bad place for them, for it is far too salty, which I think I read causes them to have organ failure or something. I think if park staff find them they tuck them away in this little pond by the visitor center.

They're usually non-native turtles, like these two, which appear to be red-eared sliders. I'm not very good with my reptile ID, but if I'm right, this kind of turtle is a popular pet, until it gets big and poops in its aquarium one too many times. I guess then people think "water = turtle home" and dump them into the lake.

Guys. BRACKISH water. It has salt in it. These are FRESH water turtles. Guys.

Don't let this happen to your pet. Even if it is awfully colorful.

Baby Towhee

2009-07-01T15:05:00.000-07:00

A few days ago Tom and I heard some incessant tweeting coming from the parking lot across from our apartment. When we looked out the window, we saw a towhee running back and forth on the fence, flying down to the driveway and back up again. Eventually we were able to spot the cause for all the fuss:

I'd be freaked out too if my baby was in a driveway! This little guy looked a bit too young to fly, so we guessed it must have fallen out of a nest somewhere and hopped over to visit us. The internet informed us that in fact, birds will NOT reject their babies if you touch them. Various rehab sites recommended replacing the baby in the nest, or, if the nest could not be found, making a substitute nest and putting that in a tree.

We used a box that formerly contained a wedding gift to shelter the baby... and after multiple tries of getting the box to stay on a branch, we ducktaped the box to a tree. I have a newfound respect for birds' nest-making skills. The parents seemed a bit confused at first and continued to call, although it could have been because of the two cats who came over to investigate. Finally they must have found the little guy. And in the morning it was gone. Good luck baby towhee!

Pigeon babies

2009-06-30T09:28:00.000-07:00

Most people have seen a baby bird or two. They may fledge a bit early and sloppily make their way across your yard, or better still, maybe their n00b parents build a nest in a flowerpot on your porch or something. Pigeons, on the other hand, are very good at hiding their babies. This is mainly because they like to nest in crevices, or, lacking a nice cliff, the earthquake retrofitting gaps in freeway concrete. I was lucky enough to find a pigeon nest in the eaves of the Lake Merritt nature center and I attempted to document it, with limited success.

I knew that it must be around time for the baby pigeon(s) to hatch, so every few days I would check back at the nest to see if I could see any action. Usually, though, the nest would be unoccupied. If I hung around for a bit, I would see two pigeons, also nonchalantly hanging around, whistling and looking the other way...

A recent study indicated that mockingbirds can recognize individual humans who mess with their nests. I wonder if pigeons can do the same?

Anyway, I FINALLY caught one in the act, lasciviously regurgitating crop milk right in public. Yes, that blurry yellow thing on the right is the baby.

Well, I couldn't get any good pictures of the developing baby, but luckily, Wikipedia has some. And boy are they gross. Baby pigeons are even freakier than other baby birds, due to the developing cere, or "freaky bump on top"! What is that thing for? I'll get back to you.

Later, when Pigeon Jr. was almost ready to leave the nest, I got some better shots:

Check the landing gear...
Check the tail flaps...
...warm up the wings... and...

...FLAPPITY!
Uhm, yeah. False alarm. I'm not flying anywhere just yet.

Growing Pains: The luckiest dreamers who never quit dreaming, and also weren't eaten by seagulls.

2009-06-28T13:51:00.000-07:00

The goose babies are growing older! They've entered their awkward teenager phase, and they look just as gangly and rumpled as any other adolescent...

At this phase, just like human teenagers, some embarrasing anatomical secrets are showing--in the picture below you can see the ear opening (which is usually covered over by feathers).

I wouldn't be surprised if their voices cracked too...

This baby is showing off a very sassy wing position. Barbeque sauce sold separately.

Also like human teens, the babies are developing at different rates. This one has a fully grown in tail, but the wing feathers of a child:

...while this baby's tail is still growing in, but the primaries (those not-very-visible white lines on its side) seem to be going strong, and on its face you can see the goose equivalent of peach fuzz--the developing white chinstrap. AWKWARD!

Also like middle schoolers, they hang out in giant cliques.

And to finish off the baby update, here's a cast member of Ducks: the next generation

Ectoparasites, or Animals doing undignified things

2009-06-22T17:05:00.000-07:00

Humans are lucky in that we are mostly parasite free. If we do happen to get infested with tiny insect fascists, we can simply pick them out with tweezers, wash them out with shampoo, or defeat them with the help of the Russians.

Animals are not quite as nimble when it comes to eliminating political parties, but they do have a few tricks to deal with skin parasites. Basically, they keep themselves clean with nature's hairbrush: their mouths.

And sometimes they have to use nature's face-scratcher...

...and then we can laugh at them.

Seriously though, grooming is a big deal for birds and mammals, and I'm hoping to eventually do a more detailed post about parasites, grooming, and all the things birds learn about in the middle school locker room.

Natural Death, She Wrote

2009-06-18T11:24:00.000-07:00

A retired English teacher with an insatiable curiosity... where Murder is concerned. Whenever she walks around Glen Echo Cove, dead bodies inevitably materialize. Usually first detected by their powerful smell, they often yield intriguing clues as to their demise.

This rat, for instance, was covered in half-healed scabs... and ants. While the evil marauding ants are the obvious culprit, closer inspection reveals that the ants are innocent! The gesture of the forepaws, as though the rat is trying to block something terrible from its vision, indicate that this rat died from overexposure to a That's So Raven marathon.

Here, a seagull is discovered face down in the brine. Probable cause of death: Underwater Head Syndrome.

The leisurely walk concludes with a stop at the scenic docks. But what's this? Has this seagull been presented with a cement shoe retirement gift from the Lake Merritt Mafia?

Closer examination and a thorough questioning reveal the culprit and the murder weapon are one and the same.
Yes, it was Naked Barbie, on the pier, with the Naked Barbie. Who would have expected the murderer to be this week's guest star!? I *knew* it wasn't Professor Plum!

Duck-on-duck-on-duck action

2009-06-16T11:08:00.000-07:00

I caught these domestic ducks illustrating a word that rhymes with duck.

Run! Run to jump on the pile!

They don't even seem to care who's on the bottom.

Too bad there isn't a bird that rhymes with "orgy."

Speaking of sex with ducks, Tom found an entertaining music video about that very topic. It rhymes "puddle" and "cuddle," and like ducks themselves, it's cool with gay marriage.

From the embryonic whale... to the pigeon with no tail

2009-06-14T13:40:00.000-07:00

Notice anything weird about this pigeon?

Maybe this will help:

Poor little thing has lost its tail feathers somehow, so it's been relegated to the bird dome. Without a tail, it can't seem to balance, and so it spends its time falling back onto its butt, and flapping upright again. It would be laughable if it wasn't so pitiable!

Brown Blurry Birds 2

2009-06-13T10:55:00.000-07:00

I think there are a lot of fledglings out this time of year, floppily learning when to flee from nosy humans with cameras. This phoebe, happily, didn't seem to fear me:

Parents of fledglings are getting distracted too. I was walking in the garden when I heard a persistent cheeping coming from somewhere nearby. Turns out it was this little towhee with its mouth stuffed full of bug.

Was it bribing a fledgling to get off of Facebook and get some fresh air, out of the nest? I couldn't locate any other birds around, but given how hidden this one was, I wouldn't be surprised if I missed part of this story. Anyway it kept calling from this one spot, bug in beak, for several minutes. "Mmph! Mm mmmph!"

Here's another towhee chirping with glee as it triumphantly blocks me from getting a shot that isn't backlit:

I was also able to locate this chickadee from its calls. Sometimes you just hear them going nuts in the trees. This was either a confused baby that hadn't learned that low hanging tree branches are unsafe...

Or a parent bird trying to decoy me away from its precious babies. It worked, because I sure couldn't find the nest...

Finally, here is a slightly better picture of a goldfinch than the last one I took.

Squirrel Comedy

2009-06-11T10:49:00.000-07:00

Hey squirrel! Whatcha lookin' for there on that fence?

Signs of summer: "molten" geese, but no hot lava

2009-06-08T15:34:00.000-07:00

As if to flaunt the fact that feathers are unique to them, birds use their feathers almost constantly, mostly to fly away from people who are jealous of their featheriness and trying to take some for themselves. Although feathers are durable, all that evasive action takes its toll, and eventually the feathers get all ratty. The edges fray and the fibers don't clump together so well anymore. Birds that get their food from the local sandpaper factory need to replace their feathers constantly, but for most birds, the process happens one or two times a year. Some birds molt into and out of breeding plumage, like renting a tux for prom night. Others look the same before and after, replacing a few worn feathers at a time until they have an all new set.

Ducks and geese undergo "synchronous molting," which is something like going on What Not to Wear, where they throw all your old clothes away into a giant trash can, your closet is empty, and you feel Very Cranky. Geese take about two to three weeks to fill the metaphorical trash can with their old feathers, but you can bet that they are also Very Cranky while it's happening.

Each summer, the number of geese at the lake increases from a few hundred to almost 2,000, according to surveys by the Lake Merritt Institute. They come seeking to leave their gloppy green poop on our clean sidewalks. Also they need a safe place to hang out while Stacey and Clinton pick out their new outfits for them.

How can you tell if a goose is molting, or how likely it is to hiss at you and make fun of your glasses to hide its insecurity about being flightless? An easy way is to look at the butt. A goose which has shed its primaries will have a fully visible tail, and you can also see a white butt stripe as the goose shakes its booty. Two of the geese in the picture below are of the extra cranky no-primaries variety. The third goose, closest to the camera, has already grown new primaries, and they come to a point above the tail, giving its butt a kind of 1950s pointy Maidenform bra look.

Another way to tell whether a goose's feathers have that not-so-fresh feeling is to look at the color at the edge. A new feather will be uniformly dark; an old feather will have a pale and raggedy edge. You might have to click the picture below to see, but like a well-loved stuffed animal that is about to become Real, this goose has some ratty secondaries (and some new primaries).
Some geese have problems as young birds: their wingbones distort and their feathers grow in all crazy. This disease is optimistically called "Angel Wing" and is believed to occur when developing youngsters eat too much protein, e.g. Cool Ranch Doritos. Another argument against feeding birds human food...

Such birds are sad to watch, but overall their chances of survival at the lake are probably better than elsewhere--with islands to hide on and entire lawns of grass to eat, it's practically as cushy as a Motel 6.

And, as you'll see in the next post, there's WAY more hanky panky at the lake than in a lousy old motel!

Hybrid Love!

2009-06-06T17:43:00.000-07:00

Remember earlier when I wrote about the domestic-Canada goose hybrid pair? Well, it looks like they may have had some success in the baby department:

But wait! A THIRD goose is accompanying them as well! Which of these geese is genetically responsible for the babies? Until they make it onto an episode of Goose's Court, where Judge Goosy can require a paternity test, only they will know for sure!
Multiple adults caring for offspring is not uncommon in the bird world. (And in fact, not too long ago I posted about the group of 6-8 geese that seemed to be raising their goslings all together...) Sometimes one of the adults is a pair's child from a previous year. Other times, unrelated adults form cooperative groups. Recent studies that analyze the DNA of the young of supposedly monogamous pairs indicate that having a little something on the side is actually quite common in birds. More than half of a given clutch could be somebody else's! So, it's a strong possibility that this group of goslings are all candidates for My Two Dads. Either way, the young of such a group benefit from the extra Wii games and candy bars provided by a bonus relative.

Speaking of hybrids, I spotted this shocking scene taking place inside the Bird Dome:

Domestic-on-wild mallard action! But WAIT. That distinctive green head and yellow beak of the bottom duck signify a mallard--a MALE! Shouldn't he be on top? What's going on here exactly?

We can't know the sex of the white duck for sure, but cases of male-on-male duck action are documented in Blue Ducks and also, believe it or not, in alive-on-dead mallards, so this scenario is not that implausible. Some studies suggest that animals in captivity are more likely to engage in same sex coupling, perhaps as a stress release, possibly due to a shortage of the preferred sex, or because they're bored since they don't have cable in there. Or maybe they just like it that way.

Want more detail? Try this article from Scientific American:
Bisexual Species: Unorthodox Sex in the Animal Kingdom

As a side note, I installed Google analytics on my blog and found that I got the most hits on the day I posted the pigeon money shot. Wonder if this post will cause another spike? I might even reach a record *13* page views!

Never underestimate the importance of a body language (HA!)

2009-06-04T10:13:00.000-07:00

One topic that's more easily researched via the internet is the American Coot. Many of the papers available online were written by one Gordon G. Gullion, who studied coots back in the 1950s, right here in Lake Temescal and Jewel Lake (in Tilden). One of his papers that I got interested in describes the displays, or body language, or the coots. I started looking for these different supermodel poses on the coots of Lake Merritt and trying to capture them. Here are a few of the displays he describes:

1. Charging. One coot sees another one getting too close to its space, or its lady, or its bit of goopy algae. It raises its little neck feathers, puts down its head, and rushes toward the offending coot. FIERCE!

2. Paired Display, which Gullion says is a sort of pacification gesture that both coots do after the aggression is over: "Sorry I charged you, man."

"That's cool, that's cool. I was going back to my own side of the lake anyway."

Here's a link to another interesting article about coots.

In Which Night Heron Takes a Bath (courtesy of AA Milne)

2009-06-03T21:49:00.000-07:00

I happened to be contemplating the bird lagoon's algae, feather, and poo levels (=high) when I spotted this night heron doing something unusual. Not so much bathing as just.... standing. In a melancholy sort of way.

I think AA Milne can help tell this story, with Night Heron is playing the Part of Eeyore:

"Night Heron, what are you doing there?" said Rabbit.

"I'll give you three guesses, Rabbit. Digging holes in the ground? Wrong. Leaping from branch to branch of a young oak tree? Wrong. Waiting for somebody to help me out of the river? Right. Give Rabbit time, and he'll always get the answer."

"But, Night Heron," said Pooh, "was it a Joke, or an Accident? I mean - "
"I didn't stop to ask, Pooh. Even at the very bottom of the river, I didn't stop to say to myself, `Is this a Hearty Joke or the Merest Accident?'. "

"I just floated to the surface and said to myself, `it's wet'. If you know what I mean. "

"When stuck in the river, it is best to dive and swim to the bank yourself before someone drops a large stone on your chest in an attempt to hoosh you there."

"Oh, Night Heron, you are wet!" said Piglet, feeling him.

Night Heron shook himself, and asked somebody to explain to Piglet what happened when you had been inside a river for quite a long time.

"I don't hold with all this washing," grumbled Night Heron. "This modern behind-the-ears business."

Plants in a salt marsh

2009-06-03T09:03:00.001-07:00

A long time ago, Heidi asked me what kind of plants you'd expect to see at Lake Merritt if it wasn't all paved and landscaped.

I started collecting photos a while ago and came up with a few that are growing through the cracks: First, salt marsh gumplant, a cheerful looking weedish thing which apparently makes great stilts for marsh mice that don't want to get their feet wet at high tide.

Pickleweed. Shaped like a pickle, and salty like one too.

This weekend Tom and I went out to Middle Harbor Shoreline Park, a scrappy little parcel of beach that affords a great view of SF, as well as a few more salt marsh plants.

We found a species of buckwheat:

And a kind of aster, which I think is called "Seaside Dasiy."

And of course, what blog post would be complete without a bird skeleton?! We found an ex-cormorant. Cause of death: nosy photographers.

One thing you can see in this picture is the way the flight feathers are actually attached directly to the wing bones (not the skin). Those things are really stuck in there, together forever, huh?

Check it out, even with this crappy camera-phone picture, you can kinda see that the cormorant's eye ring is still in the socket. Cool.

Sunset Discoveries

2009-06-02T10:04:00.000-07:00

Just a little loop around the lake. Lots of blooming things:

A little wasp nest at the entry to the sensory garden:

The sun was getting low by the time we reached the other side of the lake:

Great blue heron out hunting:

And the goose family co-op, silhouetted against the city:
Last time we counted 33 goslings and 8 adults. This time 30 goslings and 6 adults. look at them all in a line!

And I think these might be the ducklings formerly of The Duckling Pile. They're bigger now, but see how long their tails look? I think that's because their primaries haven't grown in yet. Also, the center duck is lighter than the others, just as it was as a duckling.

Signs of summer: Ch-ch-changes

2009-05-31T09:40:00.000-07:00

Besides the hundreds of molting geese, there are other changes going on as spring turns into summer. Some are pretty, like butterflies 'n flowers:

Flowering buckeye looks like it just woke up and hasn't done its hair yet... but it smells great.

(Check out the bonus ants on this iris:)

Some changes are not as picturesque, like this ~~horrible sea monster~~ pile of algae. The Lake Merritt Institute explains that as the day length increases, algae begins to proliferate in the shallow water just offshore. When it dies and rots, it smells like you would imagine a ~~horrible sea monster~~ pile of algae would, plus it lowers water oxygen levels, so the city removes it with a special harvester boat just like... they would remove... a horrible monster... OK, I admit it's a bad analogy. Later in the summer, an even more annoying water plant, wigeon grass, will start growing like crazy. The city evidently removes literal TONS of the stuff during July and August.

Sheltering in all that algae are hundreds of cormorant snacks in the form of tiny baby fish. Cormorants, like pelicans, just HATE getting algae on their faces before a big date, so the fish are probably pretty safe hiding in there.

Speaking of cormorants, their numbers are increasing as summer approaches. A few of them are breeding in the dead trees on the islands, and their combined grunting makes the islands sound like they're home to a flock of arboreal pigs. Later in summer I'll probably be able to get some good pictures of them as they herd fish cooperatively.

Stumpy

2009-05-30T10:10:00.000-07:00

Sometimes you can get to know individual birds at the lake because of something distinctive about them. A lot of times it's an injury, like a missing toe. Several times in April, I spotted Stumpy the snowy egret, who is missing 3 out of 4 toes on the right foot.

Missing toes might be a big deal for a snowy egret, because they use their bright yellow feet to churn up the mud as they walk, scaring snacks out of hiding and into their waiting beaks. But I saw Stumpy foraging in the shallows and the stump seemed to work just fine as a churning device, and the remaining toe seems to be enough for balance.

There's also Stumpy the Night Heron, who's just missing the tip of one toe on the left foot. Kind of hard to see in the photo but enough to make this bird uniquely identifiable.

Having seen the way these guys fight, I wouldn't be surprised if a nasty peck from a rival caused this injury.

Brown Blurry Birds

2009-05-28T09:55:00.000-07:00

Believe it or not, there ARE other birds around besides geese and their babies. They're just much harder to photograph, what with that whole "up in a tree and totally backlit" thing. Sometimes they come down to tease me for a moment, letting me snap ONE out of focus shot before they're off. I think of these shots as less artsy and more just documentation of who's present in the park.

Here's a sassy little junco showing off a little-seen view of its tum:

And here's a goldfinch:

A common but shy towhee:

And something I haven't seen a lot of at the lake: a mourning dove:

It was closely following a pigeon, in what looked like a doomed love affair.

Sorry mourning dove, I know you two are both Columbiformes and all, but maybe try someone who's at least in your own genera.

Blackbrfffds and Diet

2009-05-26T15:41:00.000-07:00

One other interesting Blackbird fact I learned from Gordon Orians' Blackbirds of the Americas is that Blackbirds have a uniquely powerful beak. Most birds, somewhat like alligators, can bite fairly hard but are weak when it comes to opening their mouths. That's why Steve Irwin, the Crocodile Hunter, could hold the crocs' mouths closed with just his hands. Blackbirds are the opposite--they are great at opening their beaks, which is called "gaping." Since they're unlikely to encounter a spirited Australian who holds their mouths closed for fun, why do they have this ability? The answer is that they use their superpowers to pry open gaps in grass stems or curled leaves and pick out bugs from inside.

That's why when I saw this blackbird by the lake's edge, I was surprised to see it filling its beak with tiny yellow flowers from the burr-clover, Medicago polymorpha.

What was this bird doing? Eating the flowers? bringing them back for its young to eat? After I watched the bird, it flew across the lake and landed in a tree which definitely has a blackbird nest in it. I read about another potential explanation in a book called Wild Health by Cindy Engel. She mentions several studies which show some birds, including starlings, line their nests with fresh greenery, especially if they are re-using an old nest. The idea is that an older nest may have more parasites, and the green plants fumigate the nest for a new year of use. Do blackbirds re-use their nests? Birder's Handbook didn't say, so let's ask the blackbird:

"Mpph mmmph mmmph, mppph mppphhhh moppphh!"

Well, there you have it.

Forster's Terns Again

2009-05-24T15:28:00.000-07:00

I've been practicing my tern photography. Even though they are screeching past at rocket-like ninja speeds, I've figured out a few things that helped me get some slightly better shots.

First, the terns are somewhat predictable. They fly in big loops around a certain area (often the bird islands) again and again. So if you miss once, just wait a bit and you'll get a second chance.

Second, the camera's autofocus is way too slow. So to compensate, hold the button halfway and keep on holding it, locking in the focus at the right depth. Even if it takes 5 minutes for the tern to come back.

Third, do not attempt to photograph terns when there are geese nearby.

I also got some blurry photos that serve to illustrate how terns hunt:

Scope out the scene. Fly in a big loop.

Look straight down. There's gotta be a fish somewhere in all that algae.

Swoop down and investigate. Nope, that's not a fish.

Back up for another look. Hover. Oh THERE it is!

And SPLASH!

Gloat. Nyeh-nyeh, I got you fishy!

Ultimate Fluff Parade

2009-05-22T10:27:00.000-07:00

I thought there were a lot of geese around before, but MAN! Tom and I stumbled upon the opposite of an elephant graveyard: a gosling nursery! We counted 33 goslings total! So many we couldn't even get them all in the frame. How many can you find in this picture?

Here they are grazing happily:

But when they notice people getting too close, they run to mom for safety. "Mom! Hide us under your wing! We want to cuddle!"

"And also we'd like to use your back as a slide!"

Pelican Fishing

2009-05-20T09:41:00.000-07:00

I was lucky enough to catch the resident white pelican doing a little late-afternoon fishing.

I mentioned before that white pelicans usually fish as a flock, herding the fish into a tight school of easily scooped-up morsels. This one is all alone, but still manages to catch lunch. It uses its beak like a net, sweeping it in an arc and scooping up anything in its path. In the shallow water near shore, each time it scooped, the pelican scraped the muddy bottom and stirred up a lot of silt in the process. Was it searching specifically for bottom-dwelling fish? It didn't seem to mind eating a bit of mud in the process. I noticed that this pelican seems to be right-beaked: it always scooped to the right.

Got one!

The hazards of scooping are, of course, that sometimes you get a bit of algae stuck to your face.

Mystery Killer

2009-05-18T09:20:00.000-07:00

Something has been quite efficiently killing things around the lake recently. The rampage began with a hapless cormorant...

...followed by an eviscerated duck...

...and a raccoon suffering from a deadly bitch-slap...

...and then the killer even.... smashed a dumpster?

What creature could be so powerful, so monstrous, so savage as to tyrannize downy and metallic alike?!

I blame...

FERAL CATS!

Fluff Parade

2009-05-11T14:27:00.000-07:00

A fourth goose family with five little goslings was on a walk today:

Mini-honk!

Haha, look at this little one, stopped in its tracks. "Dad, did you just... cut one?"

"Ugh, seriously. Grass gives us SUCH indigestion. I'm just gonna go smell this flower now. Blech."

Aaaaand Lake Merritt is proud to announce a second family of six tiny ducklings! Each little tail is fluffier than the last!

Can you believe these babies are no bigger than a feather!??!

And the winner of this year's Darwin Award for most successful reproduction in a single event:
Can you count how many goslings this pair has?

Ok, enough babies! I have more pictures of dead things coming up next...

Surprise New Species!

2009-05-08T08:46:00.000-07:00

What's this? A Barn Owl at the Lake Merritt visitor center?

Hmm, that taxdermy job might fool pigeons, but it didn't fool me. And come to think of it, that pigeon nest is right around the corner of the building from this guy, so I'm guessing the pigeons weren't fooled either.

More Signs of Spring, or, a hodgepogerry of photography

2009-05-06T08:36:00.001-07:00

It's staying light in the evening now, long enough to walk around and get some good shots after dinner. Who's hanging out at the lake these days? (Besides me!?)

Forster's terns are still around and eating fish bigger than their heads! Look at the razor sharp tail on that ninja seabird.

Hummingbird that color coordinates itself with its perch:

Check out the lovely blue green face of this great egret.

And check out egret's supercool park bench hangout. I like its posture here--it had just flown up and landed.

It also comes with a very extendable head, and a bad urban attitude. It was actually taller than me when it did this:

Random turtle. They show up in the lake periodically. They may be washing downstream during the rains, or people may be releasing unwanted pets into the lake. Either way, brackish water is not good for turtles. At least this one made it to the beach:

For Heidi: here are the goslings I promised. This is the third group I've seen, and I think this pair is actually the two I made fun of earlier for defending the spot on top of the chain link maintenance cage. I don't know how you geese did it, but I think you did it. There are three babies; can you spot them all?

And buckeye is blooming now, an adaptation that lets a broad-leaved deciduous tree survive California's summer--it makes a very early effort to get pollinated before it runs out of water and sheds all its leaves around July:

Flounder and Scuttle: a true life tale

2009-05-04T21:57:00.000-07:00

Uh - well - first, uhh, this shark chased us - yeah - yeah! And we tried to - but we couldn't - and - grrrrrrrrr - and - and we - whoooaaaaaa - oh, and then we were safe. But then this seagull came, and it was this is this, and that is that, and...

AND THEN IT ATE ME!

As it turns out, Flounder was too big for Scuttle to swallow.

But, as we know, seagulls are flying (of course they were flying)... and they're out to discover... easy meals they can steal from their neighbors.

Filthy little hobbitses. They stole it from us.

Brewer's Blackbirds singing in the dead of night. Or more acurately, chirping all the darn time.

2009-05-02T10:24:00.000-07:00

There is a small colony of Brewer's blackbirds that nests at the Lake each year, along Lakeview avenue. Every spring, commuters on their way to BART have to pass by The Blackbird Tree and face the Wrath of the Blackbird.

Why do blackbirds attack people? "Mobbing" is an infamous behavior of many birds, including blackbirds, where they attack a predator, either individually or in groups. Thus, you might think that this behavior serves to drive the predator away, keeping the blackbird's babies safes for anothers days. However, in Blackbirds of the Americas, Gordon Orians makes a different argument. He notes that pecking people in the back of the head (or otherwise getting macho on a predator) is NOT correllated with extra success in the baby department. So why are they wasting their time? One possibility is that they are merely showing off their machismo for the benefit of any watching ladies. Another possiblity is that birds become agressive when they have a bad bit of territory (one with humans always tramping through it), and that those extra predators in the bad territory account for the lower nest success.

Why do the Brewer's blackbirds nest colonially? One answer I read about in Blackbirds of the Americas is that they like to have a lot of neighbors so that they can spy on each other and learn where the food is. If one bird sees its neighbor returning from the Kaiser building with a big fat beakful of bugs, it knows that's a good potential source to feed its own babies. Off it goes in the same direction.

Sightings: The mystery of the Forster's Tern

2009-04-30T16:55:00.000-07:00

New friends are showing up at the lake as spring turns to summer... I think this is a Forster's tern. Two years ago there were a ton of these guys hanging out at the lake all summer. I even saw a fledgling tern. Last year, I didn't see any! I wonder if they have decided to give the lake another try this year.

This is another bird that you might not notice right away (especially if you are expecting only seagulls). But you can often hear their distinctive calls, which they seem to make as they chase each other around (read "constantly.") If you get a closer look, you can see that they have forked tails, black heads, and wings so pointy they could be used as ninja stars.

Harder to capture on film is their hunting technique--they fly staring down into the water, and if they spot something, flip a 180 and plunge straight down into the water with a splash.

A rude cloacaning

2009-04-28T09:23:00.000-07:00

For weeks now, there have been signs that the pigeons of the lake are Up to Something Suspicious. There's been Neck Puffing... Obnoxious Cooing...

...Tail dragging... Circle Spinning...

But I never could catch the rascals in the act... until yesterday! BAM. Money Shot:

I saw these two covertly "Billing" each other, and my Pidgey-Sense started tingling. I barely had time to turn on my camera before the pigeons leaped directly from First Base to a Home Run. This tender scene lasted all of two cloaca-grinding seconds before they were back to pecking innocently at invisible seeds, nary a blush to be seen on their feathery cheeks.

Since the dude pigeons seem to court any lady in the area, I'm not sure when exactly love leads to marriage/baby carriage, but at some point, Birder's Handbook indicates that they do become monogamous and both pigeons incubate and care for their young.

Pigeons often nest on ledges, especially under roofs or bridges. They don't seem to mind tight spaces, and can even pile sticks right on top of those spiny things put up to dissuade them.

I don't think the eggs in this nest have hatched yet, but I'm keeping an eye on it; my book says it will take 16-19 days. The pigeon family is one of the few that produces "crop milk" to provide protein to their hatchlings. That might be one reason why they develop so quickly and can breed a mere 6 months after hatching--they drink their Milk! It does a pigeon body good.

I LIKE BABIES

2009-04-27T16:46:00.000-07:00

I found some more BABIES!

It looks like some Canada geese have managed to hatch some chicks this year. I saw one pair with a single chick...

And one pair with two chicks (only one of them is in this shot). Note the distinctive foot-hole one of the parents has.
I recently looked up the City of Oakland's report on Canada Goose management and learned that they are no longer trying to suppress breeding of geese (if they ever were), because the permanent resident geese don't create as strong a health hazard (=mounds of nasty poo everywhere) as the hundreds of migrant geese which spend summer at the lake.

Also, since they can't fly, the baby geese can only get on land in certain areas of the lake (like the beaches, and a few areas where the retaining wall is graded) and so that's where the babies are most likely to be found. These guys were hanging out in the boathouse parking lot.

Also found: one adorable DUCKLING PILE! These guys were sleeping in the shadow of a cement planter. I think it's the same little family of 8 I photographed earlier, with its single blonde member. They look a bit sleeker this week, less fluffy.

Naughty Squirrels

2009-04-24T10:34:00.000-07:00

Squirrels in the park get up to all kinds of mischief. First, they put their mouths on things you would definitely not let your toddler near. This one seems to have been better at finding the last of the Easter candy than a toddler, as well. Let's hope that chocolate isn't as bad for squirrels as it is for dogs.

Second, this squirrel appears to have set up an illicit course for drag-racing. Check out its sweet turbodiesel engine mods.

This squirrel hasn't done anything yet. But it has a glint in its eye.

And uh, this squirrel is guilty of excessive sass. And a blurry head.

My favorite picture of all: Squirrels and public drunkenness.
"What? me? No, I wasn't going to drink this! I was just... sniffing it!"

"Seriously! And after sniffing it, I was planning on throwing it away, to keep our children safe!"

::WINK!::

Sunset, Flowers, prettiness.

2009-04-22T09:31:00.000-07:00

Caution: walking around looking for birds can also lead to seeing other pretty things.

Wild onion. The taste is similar to a green onion, but the texture is much gummier.

I know this one is out of focus but it made the lights look extra cool that way.

Redbud is still blooming strong, not like those wimpy flowering cherry trees.

Someone's garden plot is going to have a lot of artichokes soon.

I think this is a flower fly, but it might be a bee of some kind?

Some cool things on the lake that are too far away to take pictures of.

2009-04-21T17:42:00.000-07:00

As I've already mentioned, my camera doesn't have a very powerful zoom. So any bird that's more than 100 yards from me comes out looking all blurry in photos:

There are at least 20 Western Grebes hanging out on the lake these days, but they just won't come close enough for me to get a good shot.

But they're doing the coolest things!

Their mating displays are basically long games of "Stop repeating me! Stop repeating me!"

... accompanied by some head puffing and running-while-flapping.

There are also still at least two eared grebe pairs hanging out on the lake. Could they be nesting? Last year I wrote down that I saw17 of them on April 4, and none after that. Here's a picture from someone with a cool camera:

Breeding Eared Grebe
Originally uploaded by Fort Photo.

And while I'm posting photos I didn't take, here's one of the Double Crest that gives the double crested cormorant its name.

Double-crested Cormorant, Morro Bay Heron Rookery, April 8, 2007
Originally uploaded by mikebaird.