Itchy Feet

More mountain stuff

Tue, 7 May 2013 17:11:39 -0700

Yesterday it rained hard in the mountains, but today it was brisk and breezy with a broken cloudy sky and a high ceiling - perfect weather for being outside. I was doing some survey work above the Monte Cristo campground roughly parallel with the Angeles Forest Highway and north of Upper Big Tujunga Canyon Road. The chaparral is grown in nicely from the fire back in 2009 and the birds have returned. I spent most of my time in the riparian area upstream from the campground, but also stopped at the penstemon patches to enjoy the continuing hummingbird spectacle.

Apollo Swallow

Mon, 6 May 2013 17:08:23 -0700

This crazy-looking swallow was whirling around with Cliff, Barn, Bank and Northern Rough-winged Swallows yesterday afternoon at Apollo Park. It was strikingly obvious from a distance naked-eye with its pale head and back. The dark throat and pale forehead are characteristics of Cliff Swallow rather than Cave Swallow, but it was certainly interesting. It was pretty bleached out and perhaps missed some molt cycle somewhere.

Four days in Baja

Sun, 5 May 2013 16:28:02 -0700

A few years ago I received a grant from the USFWS Sonoran Joint Venture to conduct a population census of Tricolored Blackbirds in Southern California. This entailed driving around a lot in the foothills of Los Angeles County. It also meant rallying up some volunteers from local Audubon societies to canvas suitable habitat in places I didn’t have time to get to myself searching for Tricolored Blackbird colonies. This year, I got another grant but this time to do the same in Baja California. Since the volunteer aspect of it wasn’t going to pan out, I took it upon myself to find the colonies. Some surveys had been done before in 2007 and 2008, so I used that data plus whatever I could find on eBird and some cruising around on Google Earth to find places to visit. For four days Jackie and I covered a huge amount of area from the border to El Rosario. It was quite dry and most places that had had birds in the past were now dusty and unsuitable. We did find three colonies, however. One at El Rosario of about 20 birds, another at Ojos Negros also of about 20 birds and a third colony at Cienega Redonda near the border between Tecate and Mexicali of about 200 birds. Here are some photos of some stuff from the survey.

Some mountain stuff

Tue, 30 Apr 2013 12:48:15 -0700

As part of my regular survey work for the ____ Project I spend a lot of time in the San Gabriel Mountains along the Angeles Forest Highway, Upper Big Tujunga Canyon Road and a little on the Angeles Crest between Chilao and Barley Flats. Late April has been hot and dry, but the migrants are coming through and the resident species are singing loudly. There’s also a lot of nesting activity both for resident and newly arrived species - coinciding with the warmer weather and the current abundance of insects. Hummingbird numbers have also been impressive with the swaths of blooming penstemon and there seem to be a lot more Rufous Hummingbirds around than I usually see in late April. Here are a few photos of some things that are around.

Late April deep-water pelagic

Sat, 27 Apr 2013 12:47:45 -0700

After the Condor Express caught fire a couple of months ago, we did some scrambling to find a new boat to take us out deep in late April for all the fancy things that live out at the shelf line. Island Packers catamaran, the Islander, picked it up and we left from Ventura bound for the deep. The seas were pretty calm in the east Santa Barbara Channel and there were rafts of Common Murres and scattered feeding flocks of gulls, pelicans, and some Sooty Shearwaters. As we went west the seas became a little choppier, then much choppier as we cleared the lee of Point Conception and drove to the Rodriguez Seamount. In fact, it was downright nasty with a tight swell and wind blowing the spray all over the boat. That said, we saw the things we expected to see out there: Laysan and Black-footed Albatross, Scripps’s Murrelets, Red and Red-necked Phalaropes, Black Terns, Sabine’s Gulls, and others. Nothing “mega” but still good stuff.