So I went to San Diego to go to a baseball game with my dad! Since San Diego is an incredible birding hotspot, we got in a lot of birding as well. On the way there, our plane stopped in San Jose where I had a quick glimpse at lifer Vaux's Swift out the window. Unfortunately, it didn't return so I couldn't get a picture. San Diego is such a beautiful town! First we went to a seafood restaurant and enjoyed the birds there. Yearbird Caspian Tern: Yearbird Western Grebe: Yearbird Snowy Egret: Yearbird Western Gull: Black-crowned Night Heron: Then we went to Balboa Park where lifer California Towhee was abundant: Also these prehistoric looking Great Basin Fence Lizards were everywhere: Bushtits were fairly common as well: Yearbird Orange-crowned Warbler: Crummy photos of yearbird Black-headed Grosbeak: Yearbird Anna's Hummingbird: Yearbird Western Bluebird: Pacific-Slope Flycatchers were abundant: Yearbird Black Phoebe: Yearbird Wilson's Warbler: Also I noticed some Kingbirds flying around, mostly Cassin's but a special surprise mixed in! I got photos of both later. Yearbird Red-shouldered Hawk: Lifer Allen's Hummingbird: The next day we went to the Midway Museum! It was pretty amazing: Yearbirds Barn and Northern Rough-winged Swallows were flying around the carrier, and yearbird Common Loon was hanging out in the water nearby: Then we headed up to Cabrillo National Monument. While looking over at the beautiful Pacific Ocean, I spotted lifer California Thrasher messing around in the bushes. Got a quick photo before it disappeared: Yearbird Brown Pelicans with yearbird Heermann's Gulls and yearbird Brandt's Cormorants in the back: The Pacific Ocean: California Towhee: Faraway shot of yearbird Great Egret: Overall view of San Diego: A cool Coast Range Fence Lizard: Another California Towhee: Then we went to a small reserve. Snowy Egrets: Yearbird Willet: Yearbird Black-necked Stilts:
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Aright! I managed to get two old Trip Reports done. This one is for when my mom and I went to Seattle, WA, Coeur d'Alene, ID, and McCall,ID. That makes it a total of about 24 hours of driving over the course of a week or so, not including all the little things. We drove from home to Seattle, a 12 hour drive, and got to our hotel in Marysville. We went to a local Reserve and spotted a Willow Flycatcher: Some Dowitchers, probably Long-billed but they are notoriously hard to ID: And a cute little young Song Sparrow: A Black-capped Chickadee and Anna's Hummingbird: A White-tailed Deer: Great Blue Heron: Western Sandpiper: Least Sandpiper: Western Sandpipers: Western and Least Sandpipers: Western Sandpiper: More probably Long-billed Dowitchers: Western Sandpiper: Then we went to Edmond's Point closer to Seattle and got a bad photo of a Purple Martin: Large flock of Heermann's Gulls: Another Heermann's: Bad photo of Rhinoceros Auklets: Then we went to Ivar's, out favorite chowder place in the Pacific Northwest: Then we went to Top Pot, a great donut shop: The Space Needle: A Waterfall on the way from Seattle to Coeur d'Alene: Some neat views on the freeway: Ring-billed Gull at the edge of Lake Coeur d'Alene: Osprey: Female Western Tanager: Wild Turkey along Hayden Lake: Another Osprey: Lifer Pygmy Nuthatches: Views on the drive from Coeur d'Alene to McCall: Chukar: Yellow Warbler: Some pretty butterflies - Desert Marbles, a Common Wood-Nymph and a Skipper sp.: Another female Western Tanager: On the way back home from McCall, I stopped to try to find Great Gray Owls. Instead, we spotted this beautiful Ruffed Grouse on the road! Greater Yellowlegs, immature Red-naped Sapsucker and a distant Savannah Sparrow:
Finally, the day has come that I will finish this trip report! So in May of 2017 (Yes, I know that was almost a year ago), my family and I went to Astoria, Oregon for a 10 day trip. It's one of our most favorite vacation places! The whole atmosphere is just really nice. So now I'm going to have trouble remembering everything we did in chronological order, but here's a rough overview. After driving the 10 or so hours to get there, we checked into our hotel and enjoyed the view from the balcony: While looking out at the water, I spotted two Pelagic Cormorants, a beautiful west coast specialty that's distinguished by white rump patches. Then we went across one of Astoria's bridges and birded there for a little while, getting yearbird Common Yellowthroat: And getting to see some cute little Mallard ducklings with their mother: Also I got some good photos of a Barn Swallow and Song Sparrow: The view from the hotel with clear skies (a rare occurrence in Astoria). You can see the Jetty in the distance, just beyond which is the Pacific Ocean. A Bald Eagle soaring by the hotel: A lame Olympic Gull, super common hybrid between Western and Glaucous-winged Gull: Two massive cargo ships: The next day, we woke up to a Great Blue Heron sitting in the next-door pier And there was also a rare Palm Warbler flitting around on the pier: We rented bikes and went bicycling on the paths lining the Columbia River. Here's a spider on a stool: A Caspian Tern: View of the Bridge from the other side: A Sea Lion: Another presumed Olympic Gull: A Pelagic Cormorant showing off its glossy nature: Bad photo of a Golden-crowned Kinglet: Believe it or not, this is a Chestnut-backed Chickadee: Too bad that branch was there... Yellow Warbler: Evening Grosbeak: Pacific Wren: Some Bald Eagles soaring: Barn Swallow showing off its sheen: Bonaparte's Gull: The Pacific Ocean from the South Jetty. Last time I was here, it was a gale with extremely high winds. You can imagine how crazy that was! Lifer Semipalmated Plover: A couple Whimbrel: The sand flowing across the beach is mesmerizing: Wreck of Peter Iredale: A Pelagic Cormorant sitting on a pier next to the hotel: A pretty millipede: Some Brandt's Cormorants, distinguished by their blueish faces: A Ring-billed Gull at the Bowpicker, otherwise known as the best fish and chips in the states: Some of the usual fog: Great Blue Heron in fog: The bridge at Under-the-Bridge Coffee Bald Eagles sitting together. I believe we counted roughly 50 at this location: The tiny black-and-white bird in the foreground is a Black-bellied Plover. The white-rumped bird right behind it is a Brant. Kudos if you can find the Dunlin -- I'm not sure even I can find it: Red-throated Loon: Brant at the North Jetty: Red-necked Phalarope: Brown Pelicans: Brandt's Cormorant: Caspian Terns: Some cool skies: Common Murres, a Tufted Puffin, Harlequin Ducks, and a Bald Eagle at Haystack Rock: Song Sparrow in Seaside, Oregon: Some pretty cool sea life: On the walk to the Astoria Column, I got lifer Hermit Warbler and Black-throated Gray Warbler: An interesting subspecies of Steller's Jay with no white on the crown. The Column The view from the top: A cool beetle: Lifer Band-tailed Pigeon: Lifer Pacific-Slope Flycatcher Common Yellowthroat singing: Great Blue Heron: Pacific Wren singing from a branch: Wilson's Warbler: American Crow: Brown Pelicans diving for fish: Seal adorableness: A Harbor Porpoise: A Savannah Sparrow: Bald Eagle: Caspian Terns: Great Blue Heron: Franklin's Gull: Well, I'm pretty sure I got everything! I didn't include every single photo, so if you'd like to check out all of them, they're in the gallery. The next report will be on an August Seattle/Northern Idaho trip, hopefully that will come out soon, maybe even today!
I've been caught up in school so posts have been nonexistent. Hopefully I'll be regularly posting stuff soon. For now, here's a few from a trip late January to Silver Creek Preserve. There are more Golden Eagles up there this year! Beautiful Prairie Falcon: A "Gray Ghost", a male Northern Harrier: There were lots of Horned Larks on the way to Fairfield: Looking closer, I found lifer and rarity Lapland Longspur! (middle bird) Some Bohemian Waxwings in Fairfield: Great Blue Heron on the way out of Fairfield: In Triumph, I missed Rosy-Finches but did see this beautiful Northern Shrike! Hopefully more reports will be coming soon. I still haven't done one for Astoria, Oregon and Seattle from last year.
Here are some of the birds that aren't often seen. Here's a Red-breasted Nuthatch that's been at my feeders for a few days: A not very good photo of a female Red Crossbill. They like to hang out in the very tops of trees so photos of these guys are hard:
Snow is just starting to show up! Here are some Steller's Jays in the newly fallen snow. There was some glare on my windows, but they still turned out all right: Here is a Bald Eagle as well:
Here in Idaho, there's some insanely thick smoke and dust in the air, creating a sun filter: This one was taken with just my camera zoomed up, no filter. I tried to get the real colors in it: And then at night I was surprised by the full moon! Who needs Lunar Eclipses? As a side note, hopefully I can get some trip reports up here soon. I just started school, so I'm a bit slammed, but I'll try to get that done as soon as possible. Thanks for continuing to view my website even after ages of me not posting!
This morning I spent 6 hours birding! First highlight was the bird we first went looking for... lifer Greater Sage-Grouse! On the way back, I got some nice pictures of a Western Meadowlark: Then we spotted a little bird flitting around. It turned out to be county yearbird Spotted Towhee: I decided to go for Short-eared Owl. After 2 hours of searching around just to find the location with only the completely incorrect Google Maps, I gave up and headed out. On the way off of the country roads, I was not disappointed as I spotted lifer Burrowing Owl! Terrible in-flight shot:
Spring Break is almost here! I'm hoping to bird the Snake River and catch a few early birds (pun intended) down there. Also, it's shorebird migration! Which means I need to head to as many irrigation ponds as I can before it ends in May. Also, in mid-May, I'm heading to the Columbia River Mouth for a week long vacation. I've been there before but I don't think I've ever been as excited to go there!
I went to Arizona two weekends ago for a 4 day birding and spring training excursion with my dad! I’ve finally gotten around to putting up the trip report: Day 1 – Friday 10th Today’s the day we drive up to Boise to hop on the plane to Phoenix! On the way there, I spot yearbird American White Pelican. Nothing really happened until we landed about 4 hours later. On the way to the hotel, I grabbed a few shots to get yearbirds Northern Rough-Winged Swallow and Great Egret. Driving into the Hotel Parking lot, I grabbed yearbird Northern Mockingbird. I hear a massive exotic-sounding raucous going on… lifer Great-tailed Grackles! I was so excited about a bird that got to be soooo annoying as the trip went on. After checking in, we drove right to Desert Botanical Gardens. On finding that the fee to get in was a little too pricy for us, we drove out. While pulling out of the parking lot, I spotted lifer Cactus Wren and got a crappy through-the-windshield shot: We drove around the area and ended up getting out of the car and walking around for a while. Lifer Verdin was extremely easy to find but still awesome! We found some ponds and looked around there for a while. In the middle I spotted yearbird Ruddy Duck: Right on the shore amongst some coots we spotted lifer Common Gallinule! On the picnic benches half-submerged in the water there was lifer Neotropic Cormorant: Floating there was also yearbird Northern Shoveler with some crappy shots. While standing in the shade (out of the 80 degrees we were NOT used to), I spotted 3 Green Herons flying around on the far shore! Got crappy pictures not worth sharing. On the shore was yearbird Double-crested Cormorant: While on the path a flock of Gambel’s Quail scuttled across: By that time we were both extremely hot and decided to grab some dinner. The authentic Mexican food was delicious! Day 2 – Saturday 11th This is spring training day, so we only have the morning and late afternoon to bird. We decided to go to Gilbert Riparian Preserve, a place we hung out at for pretty much the entire trip since there are so many big shady trees. As soon as we stepped out of the car we could hear Hummers going everywhere. Lifer Anna’s Hummingbird: Continuing along one of the many paths in the Preserve, I was greeted with some shorebirds I hadn’t seen in forever. Yearbirds Black-necked Stilts and American Avocets, along with lifers Long-billed Dowitchers: I also found a Myrtle Yellow-rumped Warbler which I have never had good views of: Lifers Curve-billed Thrashers seemed to be everywhere: So were lifers Abert’s Towhees: Lifer Gila Woodpecker: I got some better Gambel’s Quail and Verdin shots: Yearbirds Cinnamon Teal, Green-winged Teal, and American Pipit: And then I found it – a PEEP! Right on the shore in front of me! I quickly grabbed some IDable shots before creeping towards the adorable little thing. Lifer Least Sandpiper! I am no longer the Queen of not seeing peeps! Great Egret with SO MANY SHOREBIRDS: On the way out of the Preserve I spotted yearbirds Snowy Egret, Western Grebe, and Ruby-crowned Kinglet: Then was the Cubs v Rockies game! Really awesome to see the World Series winners play ball right in front of you. The game ended up with the Cubs winning! We had some time after the game to return to Gilbert Preserve to try for the continuing Black-and-White Warbler. Unfortunately, I dipped but did get yearbird Osprey and Orange-crowned Warbler: I also got some good views of a Green Heron: And got lifer Black Phoebe! Day 3 – Sunday 12th Today is the day I get the entire day for birding! After a good diner breakfast, we decided to head out to Coon Bluff campground. On the way there lifers Phainopepla were EVERYWHERE: In the parking lot when we realized we needed a permit to park there and it was half an hour to the nearest bit of civilization, I spotted lifer female Vermillion Flycatcher! We decided to fudge the rules and park on the side of the road on the way there. While walking around the area I spotted yearbirds Turkey Vulture and Greater Yellowlegs: A male Vermillion Flycatcher showed up! We spotted a lizard jumping around in a tree: On the way back to the car there was lifer Ash-throated Flycatcher! We quickly grabbed a permit at the nearest Walgreens and headed to Saguaro Lake. There I heard yearbird Rock Wren and spotted yearbird Lesser Scaup: These giant ground squirrel things were everywhere: By that time we were both completely tired and done for the morning. We headed to In-n-Out (COME TO IDAHO PLEASE) and grabbed some fries and a malt. It was only 2:30 so we decided to head to Gilbert Preserve again and try for the Black-and-White Warbler. We sat on a bench and waiting for it to show up. Literally as soon as I sat down I spotted it! We got to watch it for about 2 minutes. Lifer Black-and-White Warbler: On the way back we watched a Thrasher cooling off in the dirt: I got yearbird Spotted Towhee on the way out. So many shorebirds!
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Youtube:The first Kestrel chick fed!
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