On Sunday, 16 February I was hired to do some serious target birding with UK birder, Ian Merrill. We were originally scheduled to go out Saturday the 15th but heavy rain and wind gave strong reason to reschedule for Sunday, which was forecasted to be overall clear and sunny with no rain. It was a perfect plan as Sunday was a perfect "bluebird" type day with mostly sunny skies, little wind, and perfect temperatures.
I met Ian at 0530 since he had expressed interest in looking for some owls like BARN (he was interested in seeing the North American version), WESTERN SCREECH, and lastly--but most importantly--SPOTTED. We met up at my traditional meeting spot in north Arcata and took a quick trip through the Arcata Bottoms to look for Barn Owls, which we found one and got nice looks on the "V Street Loop," one of the most popular birding locations in the Arcata Bottoms. We then headed to a location in Arcata where I've had Screech-Owl and tried various call types but couldn't coax one out but did have a pair of GREAT HORNED OWLS duetting in the background while trying for it. We also dipped on SPOTTED in the nearest location where I know they occur. No calls were played for this species as this location as it does get some birding pressure since it is the closest known location where Spotted is found. We did have a "light" dawn chorus at the Spotted location with some VARIED THRUSHES doing some brief 1/2 songs and AMERICAN ROBINS flying overhead from their night roost.
After picking up Ian's wife Vic from the Best Western in Arcata we headed east to Maple Creek Rd. where RUFFED GROUSE has been seen lately. We drove the road to about 13 miles in and struck out on this round for the grouse and decided to move on to Blue Lake to look for a NORTHERN SHRIKE that was wintering along the Mad River and ranged over a mile along different areas along river so was difficult to find. To top it off this bird hadn't been reported since 25 January! Tough searching for the bird ensued, which we never found but we did enjoy the other birds that were seen along the way, like this immature (2nd year) BALD EAGLE below:
I met Ian at 0530 since he had expressed interest in looking for some owls like BARN (he was interested in seeing the North American version), WESTERN SCREECH, and lastly--but most importantly--SPOTTED. We met up at my traditional meeting spot in north Arcata and took a quick trip through the Arcata Bottoms to look for Barn Owls, which we found one and got nice looks on the "V Street Loop," one of the most popular birding locations in the Arcata Bottoms. We then headed to a location in Arcata where I've had Screech-Owl and tried various call types but couldn't coax one out but did have a pair of GREAT HORNED OWLS duetting in the background while trying for it. We also dipped on SPOTTED in the nearest location where I know they occur. No calls were played for this species as this location as it does get some birding pressure since it is the closest known location where Spotted is found. We did have a "light" dawn chorus at the Spotted location with some VARIED THRUSHES doing some brief 1/2 songs and AMERICAN ROBINS flying overhead from their night roost.
After picking up Ian's wife Vic from the Best Western in Arcata we headed east to Maple Creek Rd. where RUFFED GROUSE has been seen lately. We drove the road to about 13 miles in and struck out on this round for the grouse and decided to move on to Blue Lake to look for a NORTHERN SHRIKE that was wintering along the Mad River and ranged over a mile along different areas along river so was difficult to find. To top it off this bird hadn't been reported since 25 January! Tough searching for the bird ensued, which we never found but we did enjoy the other birds that were seen along the way, like this immature (2nd year) BALD EAGLE below:
Second-year Bald Eagle along the Mad River in Blue Lake, Humboldt County, CA.
After dipping on both the grouse and the shrike we felt like we need a bit of a "pick-us-up" kind of birding experience so we decided to head down to the Ferndale Bottoms to look for one of Ian's other desired birds, ROUGH-LEGGED HAWK. Ian was very keen on trying to see the North American subspecies of birds like Barn Owl, Rough-legged Hawk and Northern Shrike for the chance that they might be split into their own species at some point down the road. We all agreed that the best plan was to head to Ferndale for the Rough-legged and also maybe luck into the continuing adult WHITE MORPH GYRFALCON that had been causing quite the birding rage after being correctly identified on 6 February. This is the first Gyr to be found in California that wasn't a gray/brown morph immature and sent a wave of excitement through the CA birding scene with many birders traveling to Humboldt to look for this stunning raptor.
We drove straight from Blue Lake to Ferndale and made in about an hours time with a brief stop along Highway 101 so Ian could photograph some ALEUTIAN CACKLING GEESE that were near the road. We arrived at the Eel River Estuary Preserve around 1:30 p.m. and some satisfied birders that were just leaving reported that they had great looks at the GYR! After signing in we walked right up to the Gyr and had somewhat distant, but satisfying views of the bird. How often do you get to walk up to a white morph Gyrfalcon in California. Answer = NEVER! I got some poor digiscoped photos of the bird that you can see below:
After dipping on both the grouse and the shrike we felt like we need a bit of a "pick-us-up" kind of birding experience so we decided to head down to the Ferndale Bottoms to look for one of Ian's other desired birds, ROUGH-LEGGED HAWK. Ian was very keen on trying to see the North American subspecies of birds like Barn Owl, Rough-legged Hawk and Northern Shrike for the chance that they might be split into their own species at some point down the road. We all agreed that the best plan was to head to Ferndale for the Rough-legged and also maybe luck into the continuing adult WHITE MORPH GYRFALCON that had been causing quite the birding rage after being correctly identified on 6 February. This is the first Gyr to be found in California that wasn't a gray/brown morph immature and sent a wave of excitement through the CA birding scene with many birders traveling to Humboldt to look for this stunning raptor.
We drove straight from Blue Lake to Ferndale and made in about an hours time with a brief stop along Highway 101 so Ian could photograph some ALEUTIAN CACKLING GEESE that were near the road. We arrived at the Eel River Estuary Preserve around 1:30 p.m. and some satisfied birders that were just leaving reported that they had great looks at the GYR! After signing in we walked right up to the Gyr and had somewhat distant, but satisfying views of the bird. How often do you get to walk up to a white morph Gyrfalcon in California. Answer = NEVER! I got some poor digiscoped photos of the bird that you can see below:
As you can surmise from the low quality of this and the following photos that they were taken from a fair distance and since it was afternoon the heat haze was in full effect!
In the above photo you can see the black outer primaries, diagnostic for Gyrfalcon. This was the only time I was able to witness the bird actually flying around. What a powerful bird!
In this photo above you can see the strong dark/white barring pattern on the back of this spectacular bird.
After enjoying the Gyrfalcon for some time we continued on our quest to look for ROUGH-LEGGED HAWK. We saw many other raptors with a couple of WHITE-TAILED KITES, 6 RED-TAILED HAWKS, 2 NORTHERN HARRIERS, and 1 distant juvenile FERRUGINOUS HAWK but were having a hard time scraping up a "roughie." We started walking back to our Ian and Vic's rental car when lo and behold a beautiful adult ROUGH-LEGGED HAWK flew right over us at a pretty high altitude and was quickly heading east! Whew! The bird quickly moved east and we took our eyes off of it for a second and couldn't refind it! Nonetheless we got the main target.
After enjoying the Gyrfalcon for some time we continued on our quest to look for ROUGH-LEGGED HAWK. We saw many other raptors with a couple of WHITE-TAILED KITES, 6 RED-TAILED HAWKS, 2 NORTHERN HARRIERS, and 1 distant juvenile FERRUGINOUS HAWK but were having a hard time scraping up a "roughie." We started walking back to our Ian and Vic's rental car when lo and behold a beautiful adult ROUGH-LEGGED HAWK flew right over us at a pretty high altitude and was quickly heading east! Whew! The bird quickly moved east and we took our eyes off of it for a second and couldn't refind it! Nonetheless we got the main target.
Adult Rough-legged Hawk. Eel River Estuary Preserve 16 Feb. Digiscoped image highly cropped. Note the grayish head, the washed out belly band and the thin blackish bands in the tail which may point to this being a male.
While at the preserve we saw a couple of flocks of Aleutian Cackling Geese flying over, also.
After leaving the preserve we drove through the Ferndale Bottoms in an effort to look for maybe a closer FERRUGINOUS HAWK or another ROUGH-LEGGED. We didn't find a FERRUGINOUS but did find another adult ROUGH-LEGGED, this one being an adult male, also due to the mottled bib, and no fully dark belly band like on a female.. A couple of photos below:
After leaving the preserve we drove through the Ferndale Bottoms in an effort to look for maybe a closer FERRUGINOUS HAWK or another ROUGH-LEGGED. We didn't find a FERRUGINOUS but did find another adult ROUGH-LEGGED, this one being an adult male, also due to the mottled bib, and no fully dark belly band like on a female.. A couple of photos below:
After spending some time with this 2nd Rough-legged we decided that we should probably go back and try again for Ian's much wanted RUFFED GROUSE since we missed them in the morning. Did we get it?..........................................................................................................
YUP!! WE DID!! And as you can tell we got extremely close to the bird along the road judging by Ian's awesome photos below:
YUP!! WE DID!! And as you can tell we got extremely close to the bird along the road judging by Ian's awesome photos below:
By this time we saw the grouse it was getting late so we decided to call it a day and end on a high note. On the way back to the coast we stopped off at a beautiful vista along Maple Creek Rd. and got a nice group shot of us, post grouse success! Thanks to Ian for allowing use of some of his fine photos from the day here.
Species Name / Species Count: 49 species total
Cackling Goose (Aleutian) 200
Tundra Swan 20
Mallard 4
Northern Pintail x
Green-winged Teal x
Common Merganser 3
Ruffed Grouse 1 (lifer for Ian)
Great Egret 2
Turkey Vulture 14
White-tailed Kite 2
Northern Harrier 6
Bald Eagle 1
Red-shouldered Hawk 2
Red-tailed Hawk 9
Ferruginous Hawk 1
Rough-legged Hawk 2
American Coot x
Killdeer 2
California Gull 1
gull sp. 7
Mourning Dove 15
Barn Owl 1
Great Horned Owl 2
Anna's Hummingbird 1
Downy Woodpecker 1
Northern Flicker 6
American Kestrel 1
Gyrfalcon 1
Black Phoebe 2
American Crow 16
Common Raven 3
Black-capped Chickadee 5
Chestnut-backed Chickadee 2
Pacific Wren 2
Marsh Wren 1
Golden-crowned Kinglet 2
Ruby-crowned Kinglet 2
Western Bluebird 2
Hermit Thrush 9
American Robin x
Varied Thrush 15
European Starling 10
American Pipit 10
Yellow-rumped Warbler 4
Savannah Sparrow 4
Fox Sparrow (Sooty) x
Song Sparrow 2
Dark-eyed Junco 10
Western Meadowlark 5
Cackling Goose (Aleutian) 200
Tundra Swan 20
Mallard 4
Northern Pintail x
Green-winged Teal x
Common Merganser 3
Ruffed Grouse 1 (lifer for Ian)
Great Egret 2
Turkey Vulture 14
White-tailed Kite 2
Northern Harrier 6
Bald Eagle 1
Red-shouldered Hawk 2
Red-tailed Hawk 9
Ferruginous Hawk 1
Rough-legged Hawk 2
American Coot x
Killdeer 2
California Gull 1
gull sp. 7
Mourning Dove 15
Barn Owl 1
Great Horned Owl 2
Anna's Hummingbird 1
Downy Woodpecker 1
Northern Flicker 6
American Kestrel 1
Gyrfalcon 1
Black Phoebe 2
American Crow 16
Common Raven 3
Black-capped Chickadee 5
Chestnut-backed Chickadee 2
Pacific Wren 2
Marsh Wren 1
Golden-crowned Kinglet 2
Ruby-crowned Kinglet 2
Western Bluebird 2
Hermit Thrush 9
American Robin x
Varied Thrush 15
European Starling 10
American Pipit 10
Yellow-rumped Warbler 4
Savannah Sparrow 4
Fox Sparrow (Sooty) x
Song Sparrow 2
Dark-eyed Junco 10
Western Meadowlark 5
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