The First Rarity of the New Year

Our climate here can be a bit capricious. The fluctuations in our rainfall totals over the years reveals a truth about this state that many people don't realize. Water is the true gold of the State of California. After a series of very dry winters and an ongoing drought, we are seeing a return of the rain that used to be a characteristic feature during an average winter.

This year we are getting a bit more than our historic averages indicate. At my house in Napa we have already received over 27 inches of rainfall, just 2 inches shy of our yearly average and we still have 5 1/2 months to go before the end of the rainfall year. In the mountains the snow is accumulating and storing water for our spring runoff that should see water storage return to more normal levels. All of this is good news in the short term but all Californians know that a capricious climate is the normal here and our greatest challenge moving forward is adapting in an environmentally sustainable way to a "here today, gone tomorrow" mistress we call our water supply.

Red-flanked Bluetail

This past Friday we had a little lull in the parade of storms sweeping across the state and I took advantage of it to make a trip to Santa Cruz to try and get my first rarity of the new year. The Red-flanked Bluetail is an Eurasian species of flycatcher that has appeared on the North American mainland only 3 times previously. Wintering in Southeast Asia and breeding in a wide swath across Asia and into Europe, it is hard to imagine how this bird ended up in Santa Cruz. This is a question that most birders puzzle over and is one that will never be definitively answered. This bird was found on December 28th and seen by many observers over the course of the next several weeks. It appears to favor a thicket of willows and cypresses around a small footbridge at Lighthouse Field State Beach. I contacted Jeff to see if he was interested and arranged a plan to chase it. I picked him up at his home in Alameda and we drove over highway 17 to get to Santa Cruz, passing by several of the communities struggling to cope with the runoff from these storms. We went straight to Lighthouse Field to take advantage of the light and intermittent rain. It took us a little time to locate the footbridge that had been mentioned in so many of the ebird sightings and once we did we spent nearly an hour working around the area to try and locate the bird. At one point I had buried myself in a dense willow thicket and was pishing in an effort to elicit some response when I caught a little bit of movement down low and deep in the thicket. I only got my binoculars on it for a few seconds and the rusty sides and white throat made it clear that I was looking at our bird. I called Jeff over and we carefully worked the area with Jeff getting the best views from the other side of the thicket. I joined him there and we got some great looks at this distant wanderer. My pictures did not turn out but Jeff got some really great ones including the video that appears below.

After our find we headed back out to the periphery of the park to look for the Gray Catbird that had also been reported. I have only seen this species when I was on the East Coast and its presence here, although unusual, is not exceedingly rare. We have several of these birds turn up in California every year. After 15 minutes of searching we found him in a front yard tree across the street from the park. After living in the Santa Cruz area for nearly 30 years Jeff has a county list that exceeds 300 species. These two new species added to his list make him one of the top birders in the county.

After our success at Lighthouse Field we went back into downtown and celebrated with an excellent breakfast at the Walnut Cafe. From here on the rest of the day was gravy. We birded a few more areas at the western end of Santa Cruz and took in the awesome power of the storms from the coastal bluffs. We made our way north on Highway 1 to San Gregorio before heading east to cross the ridge back to the Bay. Our best stop along the coast was at Pigeon Point Lighthouse, here the sea foam was extensive and covering the rocks and bluffs as if it were snow. It took a little bit of careful searching but we found a small group of Surfbirds, Black Turnstones and Black Oystercatchers sheltering from the strong winds on the rocks below the bluff.

We ended our day trying for the Curlew Sandpiper that is wintering at Palo Alto Baylands. This bird is similar to a Dunlin with a few subtle differences. This was my first try for it and Jeff's second and we failed to find it amongst the thousands of shorebirds here. This was my first visit to the Baylands and it is a great place to look at birds. We had a nice Peregrine Falcon and a very flashy Sharp-shinned Hawk as well as the usual ducks and shorebirds.

Another great day out followed by an excellent burrito in Alameda. We may go back to see the Bluetail again if Michael comes down to try for it. We have a few sunny days ahead and who knows what these storms may have blown onto our shores.