To See, To Not See - That is the Question

Santa Cruz Sunset

There are no guarantees in birding. When trying to see a rarity, I always leave the house with a high level of hope but the reality is that more often than not, you don't see the bird you are looking for. Call it luck, timing, talent of the birder, karma, or the sometimes capricious nature of nature. The fact remains, sometimes you miss. Perhaps it was one of these reasons or maybe all of them that caused us to miss last Friday in Santa Cruz.

Last week I wrote about Jeff and me successfully chasing the Red-flanked Bluetail in Santa Cruz, CA. Well, this week Michael Morris came down from Eureka to have a go and Jeff and I were his guides. 500 + miles of driving for a single bird, no pressure. I won't keep you guessing, I saw the Bluetail, Michael and Jeff did not. My view was brief but there was no question about it. At the moment I saw it, Jeff and Michael were 300 yards away checking another thicket of willows. By the time they heard my calls and interpreted them correctly it was too late. The Bluetail had buried itself and did not make another appearance for us for the rest of the day. We returned three times to Lighthouse Field but it was all for naught.

So, there it is. Sometimes you see it, many times you don't. As a visual learner I thought it best to show the nature of this circumstance in a tabular format:

	Luck	Timing	Talent	Karma	Capricious Nature
Chuck	Yes	Yes	No	Undisclosed	Yes
Jeff	No	No	Yes	Undisclosed	Yes
Michael	No	No	Yes	Undisclosed	Yes

I don't know if this helps you understand our day in Santa Cruz but it does help me.  We did see some other good birds throughout the day including a very cooperative Peregrine Falcon at the lighthouse and a very nice Tennessee Warbler at Swanson Pond up the coast. Not our best day of birding but certainly not the worst. We were treated to a beautiful clear day that ended with a lovely sunset. The fact is, any time the three of us can get together for a day in the field is a good day for me.  We are planning a big spring trip together in May that makes a big circle of the Great Basin. I'm really looking forward to loading up the truck and taking off on this adventure thru the American West.

Peregrine Falcon

Splits & Merges - A New (Old) Bird to Count

Speaking of the capricious nature of things, the scientists who study birds can sometimes seem to be as unpredictable as the weather when deciding upon whether or not a sub-species is actually its own species or just that, a sub-species of another. I do not doubt that they base their decisions on sound scientific evidence and that they are correct in the end (my friend Paul calls these guys "The Blender Boys" because of what they have to do to look at a bird's DNA). If you keep a life list as I do the decisions these ornithologists make either give you a new bird to count or they take away a bird that you have previously counted as a separate species.

A few years back this happened with the Clapper Rail. Like all Rails the Clapper is a secretive creature that spends most of its time out of sight in the marshlands of coasts, bays, ponds, and inland waterways. My first sighting of a Clapper Rail was in Texas but I also recall seeing them in the Newport Back Bay and Arrowhead Marsh here in California but never made a record of them as I already had it on my life list. When scientists decided that the Clapper Rail was actually two separate species, Clapper in the east and Ridgeway's in the west it gave me the chance to add a new bird to my list. Over the last several years I have heard Ridgeway's Rails on a number of occasions but not seen them so this past week, during our King Tide events, I was determined to get a good look at one.

Jeff had told me previously that the best place to see these guys was back at Arrowhead Marsh near the Oakland Airport. So I let him know that I was headed there and he was able to join me. We hit the marsh right at high tide and it was not long before Jeff spotted one roosting up in a bush right on the edge of the marsh. As the tide began to fall we watched several Ridgway's Rails and Soras move out to the edge of the marsh and begin to forage. I was surprised at how easy they were to see given their secretive nature. We managed some good looks and got some good images as well. Lots of ducks and shorebirds can be found at this marsh as well and we put together a good list of sightings. Also there, buried in a group of roosting Godwits, Willets, and Black-bellied Plovers was a single Black Skimmer. These birds are being seen more and more in the Bay Area, yet another subtle sign that our climate is changing.

Ridgeway's Rail