First Rarity of the Fall Season

Local San Francisco birder Dominick Mosur got quite the surprise last week when he was birding a local patch near Stern Grove called Pine Lake. A bird never before seen in California popped up and said hello. The Slate-throated Redstart is a small warbler of Central and South America and only occasionally makes an appearance in the US, usually in southeast Arizona. This of course has caused a firestorm of interest in the birding world with people coming from all over the country to see it.

Here is an article from the SF Chronicle about the sighting.

I noticed the postings about this bird last week and thinking that it wouldn't stick around did not chase it. However, after several days of sightings I felt I had to give it a try so foregoing my usual Sunday morning bike ride I headed for southwest San Francisco.

I arrived at 7:45 and happened to run into Dominick as he was leaving. He was kind enough to give us directions to the spot where a few minutes later I joined a group of about 20 birders surrounding a willow thicket at the southeast end of Pine Lake. Over the course of my two hours at the spot I had two brief but good looks at the bird. Some of the other birders with large camera rigs were able to get good photos but I was not.

An excellent start to the fall season. Makes you wonder what else is out there!

Slate-throated Redstart (from Bird of the World)

A Lapland Longspur at the Dump

There is an interesting relationship between birds and garbage dumps. In some cases it is an active landfill where birds (especially gulls) can be found. For example, the Tamaulipas Crow can only be seen within the North American ABA area at the public landfill in Brownsville, Texas. I know, I've been there. But it is the increasingly more common occurrence of birds being found at what was once a landfill but is now capped over and reclaimed land. Some notable examples of this here in my home state are the following:

• The now world famous Arcata Marsh Project in Arcata, CA.
• The American Canyon Wetlands in American Canyon, CA.
• Oyster Bay Regional Shoreline Park in San Leandro, CA.
• Cesar Chavez Park in Berkeley, CA.

These are just a few of the many that I visit with some regularity here in Northern California. Some pretty nice places that cover over the massive amount of waste that we generate. We have since learned to hide our landfills farther away from urban centers in places that are not so environmentally sensitive. Sometimes I wonder if this is a bad thing as we seem to be more disconnected from our garbage and we really don't realize how much of it we create as we no longer have to look at it or smell it near our communities.

All that being said, I found myself at Cesar Chavez Park in Berkeley because of some ebird reports of Lapland Longspurs foraging in the grasslands that now cover what used to be a landfill. Danette and I had been doing some shopping in the area and she agreed to a quick stop to see if they could be located. Lapland Longspurs are sparrow like birds that are regularly seen during the winter months at a few locations around the Bay Area. This is another species that has always eluded my detection so I figured this was a pretty good chance to rectify the situation. As I walked over the grassy area spotting Meadow Larks, Pipits, and Savannah Sparrows, I spotted another birder with a large camera rig and checked in with him. Fortunately, he was camped out right in the middle of an area that they were frequenting and within a matter of minutes there they were. I had good looks at three of them as they foraged and managed to get a few pictures but lighting was not good enough to call them really decent photos. So there we are, Lapland Longspur, bird number 572. Slowly heading for 600.

First New Rarity of the Season

Bar-tailed Godwit

The day was unusually warm as an early October heatwave descended on the Bay Area. Looking across the Bay we could see two of the largest cruise ships I had ever seen docked in San Francisco. Glancing up we could see the Blue Angels practicing for their Fleet Week performance. And just a few hundred yards away we could hear the horn blasts and see the organized chaos that is one of the largest container ports in the world. Hardly the place where you would expect to find a rare bird. 

Middle Harbor Shoreline Park in the middle of the Port of Oakland seems a bit of an afterthought and is generally unknown to most people, but it does have a reputation amongst birders as being a good place to view a variety of different shorebirds. Word had gotten out on the listserves that a Bar-tailed Godwit was being seen here so I texted Jeff and he met me there and acted as my guide since he had seen the bird the previous day.

The Bar-tailed Godwit has been a problem bird for me. Two years ago one wintered in Emeryville and I tried numerous times to see it without any luck. Most recently, on our way home from the San Juan Islands, Danette and I made a slight detour along the coast of Washington to Tokeland to see one that had been there for at least six weeks - no luck. I was beginning to think that this was going to be my new nemisis bird. I can now rest easy in the knowledge that they do actually exist. Within one minute of setting up his scope Jeff found the Godwit on a sandbar in the harbor surrounded by a large number of close cousins, Marbled Godwits. For the next half hour we enjoyed leisurely views of the bird and took in the beautiful day around us.

The image above shows the Bar-tailed at the top just left of center. In this image you can see the size difference with the Marbled Godwits around it and see its paler color, heavier barring, and white supercilium. Those are Elegant Terns in the foreground - the "bad hair day birds."

A few more words about the Bar-tailed Godwit. It is widely held that these birds are the champions of non-stop migration. Each fall they leave Alaska and fly non-stop over the Pacific to New Zealand, a journey of over 7,000 miles accomplished over eight days, losing over half their body weight in the process. Astonishing! There is no way of knowing why the bird we saw is not on this traditional route, but we do know from previous records that their appearance on the Pacific Coast is not out of the question. Like many other bird species the Bar-tailed Godwit is in decline particularly due to habitat loss along the coast of the Yellow Sea where it depends on mudflats to feed during the return journey to Alaska.

This is a bird you can't help but to admire. If you'd like to learn more about this distance champion I would point you to this article from Audubon's "The Sketch."

Link to the google photo album of my images.