Another business trip to the San Francisco Bay Area in March meant another opportunity to add a couple birds to my CA statelist. The eBird CA Needs Alert included several possibilities in the general area, including several gulls like Glaucous and Lesser Black-backed, not to mention one real rarity – an adult Slaty-Backed. And then there was a Laughing Gull and several Black-legged Kittiwakes, though I didn’t need these species for my CA list. I really enjoy “gulling”, so this was looking like it could be a fun trip. Plus there was an Emperor Goose that had spent the entire winter at a golf course in the area. But none of the birds were in the immediate vicinity where I would be working, so it would be tough to squeeze in time to chase after these targets before or after work. So instead I decided to take most of a day off work, allowing me to bird a bit farther afield.
Now came the pick-and-shovel work of
researching the sightings. The Emperor
Goose seemed like it would be easy – a quick stop at the Sharp Park Golf Course
in San Mateo County would yield this rarity hanging out with a small group of
Canadas. (Though many of the eBird posts
incorrectly gave its location as the ocean beach nearby.) Most of the gull sightings were in several
locations around Half Moon Bay, like the Denniston Creek mouth, Pillar Point
Harbor, Pilarcitos Creek mouth, and Venice Beach, all also in San Mateo
County. And since gulls will move around
a lot, stops at each of these locations were likely in order. I’m not sure I ever found any specific
directions or locations for any of these hotspots in the eBird posts, but with
some GoogleMaps research I’m pretty sure I found each spot and was likely good
to go.
But just as my trip neared there were no
more posts of sightings of the Slaty-backed.
And then the posts of the Emperor stopped, including one on the
listserve where a birder specifically looked for the Goose unsuccessfully. At least posts for multiple first-year Glaucous
Gulls and Lesser Black-backs of all ages continued, including one post of an
adult Lesser with a photo of an extremely dark bird seemingly darker than the graellsii I’m used to seeing in the
East. And then came posts of a Gannet
being seen at Ano Nuevo State Park. So I
nixed my planned stop for the Goose, and decided to start at dawn at Denniston
Creek Mouth at the northern end of Half Moon Bay, work my way south gulling
along the way, and then eventually get to Ano Nuevo to try for the Gannet. Although that might only be a half-day of
birding, I had several conference calls I also needed to take for work that day,
so that would fill up my day.
My first stop was the spot described in
eBird as the Denniston Creek Mouth. With
my GoogleMaps research I could easily see the mouth of the creek just to the
west of Pillar Point Harbor, but wasn’t sure how to access it. I assumed the right approach was to scope it
from the western end of the parking lot at the harbor, so I arrived there
shortly before dawn to give it a try.
The tide was quite low, and there were about 300 gulls along the beach
and at the mouth of the creek actively bathing.
Plus there were many coming and going, so I was likely at the proper
spot.
Now the challenge was to sort through the
dizzying array of species (and hybrids!) to try to find my targets. Check out these phonescoped photos of a small
portion of the flock in the distance in the early morning sun.
The first target was Glaucous Gull – all of
the sightings had been of first-year birds so I needed to find a larger gull
which was mostly white with very white wing tips, and a dark-tipped pale bill. In the East a bird like that really stands
out. But on the West coast, finding a
very pale Glaucous among a sea of not-so-pale immature Glaucous-wings was a
much taller task. And then when you
throw in the pale, though admittedly smaller, Thayer’s into the mix, it’s an
even greater challenge. This flock
featured numerous immature Glaucous-wings and several Thayer’s, but I couldn’t
locate a Glaucous.
While poring through the flock I noticed a
second-year bird that caught my attention.
In this plumage the mantle is a reasonably uniform color like that of an
adult, but the wing feathers are mottled more like a first-year bird. The first thing I noticed on this bird was
its mantle which was much darker than the adult California and Western Gulls in
the flock. Now that it had my attention
I keyed in on size and shape – a bit bigger than California, and very
long-winged. I was starting to like this
bird for a second-year Lesser Black-back.
But if so, it might well be a bird of the intermedius race. I was only
able to watch it for a couple minutes before it either disappeared in the flock
or more likely flew off to the harbor. Although
I would have rather ID’d an adult Lesser, I was happy with calling this bird a
second-year Lesser Black-backed Gull.
CA was my 28th state for this
species (see my statebird map below) – not bad for a bird that not too long ago
was considered to be a rarity from Europe that birders would search for
principally in the northeast.
I spent more than an hour birding the creek area, and felt like I was seeing the same birds over and over again, so I decided to head south to the next locations. Though I admit I was a bit concerned whether I had effectively birded the adjacent eBird hotspot labeled Pillar Point Harbor. I assumed birds tied to the harbor hotspot were coming and going from the Denniston Creek mouth location, but with no details I couldn’t be sure.
A few minutes later I arrived at the Half
Moon Bay State Park, where after paying the $10 daily use fee, I parked in the
parking lot ready to make the walk north to the next two hotspots – Pilarcitos
Creek Mouth and Venice Beach. In my
earlier research on GoogleMaps I could see that these two locations were just a
couple hundred yards apart on either side of the mouth of Pilarcitos
Creek. That put them about a mile north
of the State Park parking lot, but I hoped that a 2-mile roundtrip walk on the
beach would be worthwhile. As I made my
way north I could see two flocks of gulls up ahead on the beach, so I was
optimistic.
For some reason it took me quite a bit
longer than expected to reach the gulls; maybe it was because I couldn’t find
any hard-packed sand to walk in. But when
I finally arrived I found just 100 gulls in a tight flock on the south side of
the creek mouth. And north of the creek
was an even smaller flock, and it was a bit too far for good IDs. A quick scan through the nearer flock didn’t
reveal anything of interest. But like my
stop at Denniston Creek there were always birds coming and going. So I decided that since I had dedicated so
much energy to birding this location, I may as well stay a while and hope that
a rarity would drop in. About 30 minutes
later a fisherman came walking south down the beach and flushed all the
gulls. And worse yet, he decided to fish
in the exact spot where the flock of gulls had been roosting. I waited a few more minutes but the entire
flock was gone. Ugh…
On my way back to the car I met up with a
local beachgoer who mentioned that all the rains that winter had actually
resulted in the mouth of the creek shifting nearly a half-mile to the
north. Another reason why it took me
longer to get there than expected. I was
feeling pretty sorry for myself during the long slow walk back when all of a
sudden I flushed a small shorebird practically at my feet in the soft
sand. Then with another step a couple
more flushed from underfoot – they were Snowy Plovers. I stopped and carefully scanned the beach and
counted 23 Plovers (plus 1 Sanderling), 1 bird each nicely resting in a
depression in the sand made by a footstep of a recent beachgoer. I took this photo of the birds on the beach
using my iPhone with no magnification – can you pick out the Plovers?
Plus I was able to get some phonescoped
shots of these cooperative birds, which turned out really nice if I do say so
myself.
A nice consolation for what was otherwise a
long and fruitless walk.
Next I was on to Ano Nuevo State Park to
try for the Gannet. Well actually I
wasn’t heading to the State Park itself, but instead to a pullout along Route 1
a short distance south of the park which would afford distant views of Ano
Nuevo Island. The Gannet was being seen
perched on the island among a colony of Western Gulls, and sometimes plunge
feeding in the cove near the island. But
I left out one key detail – the island was 2.2 miles away from pullout. (I said the views were distant!) Although viewing conditions were ideal, even
with my Swarovski maxed out at 50 power the gulls were just barely identifiable
specks. And although I spent 45 minutes
looking for a white speck twice the size of the gull specks, I couldn’t find
the Gannet among the gulls. Of course
the bird could have been out of view on the far side of the island, or maybe
off foraging somewhere else. Or maybe I
just wasn’t using enough imagination. In
any case, it was pretty disappointing.
It was now only mid-day, and I had a bit
more time before my next work call.
Should I spend more time trying to find the Gannet, go back to search
for more gulls, head somewhere else to bird, or just call it quits
altogether? Ending my birding day this
early was my least favorite option, especially since I had only found one of my
targets. And more scanning for that
distant Gannet wasn’t exactly my cup of tea.
Then I remembered Needs Alert reports of a reliable Red-naped Sapsucker inland
in Santa Clara County south of San Jose.
I hadn’t originally planned on trying for this bird since I had thought
I was going to spend the entire day on the coast. But since I had some time on my hands, I
decided to head inland to give it a try.
I was heading to Almaden Lake Park, and
specifically the southern end of the park to the Los Alamitos Creek Trail. The posts mentioned the bird was being seen
in pepper trees adjacent to the Arroyo Picnic area. In fact one even mentioned its “favorite
pepper tree”, with a photo showing the bird perched on a large branch full of
sapsucker holes. I wasn’t sure what a
pepper tree looked like, but I would think it would be pretty easy to find the
tree with all the sapsucker holes. After
about an hour’s drive I arrived at the park and just as I pulled into the
parking lot I could see the covered picnic area mentioned in the posts. Soon I was standing at the picnic tables
looking for trees with sapsucker holes.
But after a couple minutes of quick searching I came up empty.
Then I did a quick Google search for images
of “pepper tree” on my iPhone. And now
that I knew what pepper trees looked like, I realized there was a small grove
of maybe a dozen pepper trees between the parking lot and the picnic area. I had walked right past them! So I headed back to those trees and began to
find sapsucker holes in most of the trees.
And just a minute later I got a glimpse of a woodpecker flying between
the trees with large white wing patches.
With a bit of patience the bird came into view on a trunk above me and
it was indeed the Red-naped Sapsucker. If
I had completed my detective work properly and figured out what a pepper tree
looked like in the first place I may well have found the bird even
quicker.
Although it’s nice to get the Red-naped as
a winter rarity in central CA, I still need it in in its regular breeding range
in eastern OR and western MT – two areas where I still haven’t birded. CA is now only my 2nd state (in
addition to AZ) where I’ve seen all 4 Sapsucker species.
Once again I had some free time, so I
reached out to local birder Peter Metropulos who had given me some advice as I
was preparing for my trip. He offered to
do some coastal gulling with me late in the day, so we met up at Venice Beach
to try that area again. But this time we
met at the parking lot to Venice Beach, rather than taking the long hike from
the State Park. With a short walk we
were on the low bluff overlooking the beach and could see a small flock of
gulls a short distance to the north. So
we repositioned ourselves to be closer to the flock and soon were looking
almost right down on the birds. A first
scan didn’t reveal anything unusual. But
then we both almost simultaneously picked out a first year Glaucous Gull – in virtually
pure white plumage.
And then just a minute later I spotted this
second Glaucous, which was just a bit darker than the first gull.
Neither of these birds were in the flock when
we first arrived – with all those birds coming and going we were very happy
with our timing. CA was my 20th
state for Glaucous Gull, several as a winter rarity.
Later we found this dark gull which we
dubbed a “charcoal gull” – perhaps a Western Gull still in juvenile plumage? But who knows…
With 3 new CA birds my statelist now stands
at 387 – would be nice to get to 400 someday.
And I ended the day with 10 gull species which I believe is a personal daily
record. Sure was fun spending all that
time with those challenging gulls out West.
I said I love gulling…
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