California Birding

David Tinker, October 2001

Recently (October 1 to 15), Sheila and I traveled to California to visit our son and daughter-in-law and to meet our new grandson. A trip to California is always a great experience for an East Coast birder, and I thought I'd share this aspect of our trip. Our family lives in the Corralitos Valley, a rural and agricultural part of Santa Cruz county, south of San Francisco Bay and surrounded by rugged hills, at this time of year dry and brown. This is Coast Redwood country, and the flora adapts to the climate either by dormancy or, as in the case of Redwoods, by trapping water droplets from the frequent fogs. The weather is still warm and often hot in October, but birds here do migrate, and a number of species we saw during the summer on our previous trip were absent this time.

We arrived at night, so the first bird sighting occurred early next morning as I stepped into the garden, a number of Anna's Hummingbirds. The familiar calls of a thrasher were not from a familiar Brown but a California Thrasher, a big bold fellow with a spectacular curved beak. A Mockingbird arrived to sing from the top of a huge Holly in the garden - he was a familiar sight each day. Later on we took our grandson for a stroll up a wooded lane in the village, and spotted more thrashers and mockingbirds, Scrub Jays, a California Towhee, and a flock of the clown like Acorn Woodpeckers, who have a cache tree there: a dead pine in which they chop out holes used to store their acorns. They followed us along, perching on telephone poles and peering down comically. Back home in the garden, a Rufous-Sided Towhee skulked in the bushes near the feeder, and numerous White Crowned Sparrows. Later in the week a group of Band Tailed Pigeons, a lifer (L) for me, visited the bird feeder. Each night we could hear a Great Horned Owl calling nearby, and coyotes were hunting and calling near the village each night. As I mentioned, it's a rural area, and in fact Western Cougar are to be found in the hills round Santa Cruz.

In the afternoon we went over to the ocean, adding to our list countless Western, California and Heerman's Gulls, Common Cormorant, the ubiquitous Brown Pelicans, a Willet and a couple of Marbled Godwit. Large flocks of Brewer's Blackbird and Redwing Blackbird were evident, exhibiting the typical excited behaviour that precedes migration. Sure enough, a few days later they were gone, though we saw more Brewer's on a trip farther south. The western Redwings are slightly different from the Eastern race, in that the male does not have the yellow epaulet on the red wing patch. Their song is also just a little bit different. Also noteworthy were the numerous Monarch Butterflies, which have winter roosts in several Groves around Monterrey Bay. Lots of Crows are here too, as expected in an agricultural area. Walking back up the trail from the beach, we heard the familiar sound of a Chickadee, soon spotted, then a Black Phoebe (L).

Our next excursion was up to San Francisco, our first visit there. The city is as beautiful as everyone says. As usual, Rock Doves abound in the city squares, but I'm not too snobbish to count these as sightings. And, while visiting Washington Square to pay homage to Richard Brautigan (shame on you if you haven't heard of this 60's icon), we saw an immature Peregrine Falcon swoop down from the large church there and knock off a Rock Dove, which it proceeded to devour on the low roof of a public lavatory, before the astonished gaze of a group of school children. We saw other Peregrines during our trip, but this was the first.

We stayed that night in a classy B&B at Stinson Beach in Marin County across the Golden Gate Bridge, and stopped on the way back on Hawk Mountain on the Marin headlands, from which there is a spectacular view of the Bridge and the white city on its numerous hills. Far far below, over the swirling currents of the Golden Gate we could see another Peregrine, and numerous White Pelicans (L) flying out to sea. This is a good place to be during raptor migration, but only a familiar Redtail soared out from the mountains while we were there. We did see a troupe of California Quail wandering down through the scrub above us, always an entertaining sight.

My son Tim and his wife Julie are biologists working on the California Sea Otter project, a long term study of this striking and abundant mammal, so we had a cachet into many places not open to the public. The otters are easily seen along Monterrey Bay, but the population is declining for reasons that are not clear (hence the study). One cause is disease: Toxoplasmosis is an infectious disease caused, I think, by an ameboid parasite whose vectors are seabirds and the domestic cat. Large numbers of feral cats in the area spread the parasite in their droppings, and it spreads via birds to invertebrates and hence to otters, who usually die once infected. A really nasty parasite, Acanthocephalid worms (thorny headed worms) is spread by seabirds and the Mole Crab, a common crab on sandy beaches. Otters which eat this crab become infected, and the worms burrow out of the intestine into the peritoneum. The otters do not survive the infection, which is truly ghastly, unless they are fortunate enough to be captured by researchers and treated with drugs. It's all very worrisome.

On returning from 'Frisco, we went off with my son for a boat ride near Moss Landing and Elkhorn Slough, at the head of Monterrey Bay. As part of the study, Otters are radio-tagged by implanting a small transmitter in the abdomen, and often as well a device which records their travel and behaviour over a period of time. These otters were being re-captured to monitor their health and recover the recording devices, and we were off in our radio equipped Boston Whaler to try to find Otter number 411, who had so far evaded the recapture teams. It was not unwelcome that we had to search the Elkhorn Slough, one of the world's great places for shorebirds. Many species have migrated by October, but literally hundreds of Willets, Marbled Godwits, Dowitchers and Western Sandpipers were feeding on the mudflats, and numerous Great Egrets and Snowy Egrets stalked along the shore or in the wet meadows. Royal Terns and Common Terns were also abundant, and a Marsh Hawk quartered the grasslands not far away. This whole area is a bird preserve, with numerous places to observe from the shore or along board-walks, but a boat is the ideal platform. Farther up the slough hundreds of Brown Pelicans were in a feeding frenzy over a school of some kind of small fish - it was amazing to be right under a wheeling flock of these big birds, who were doing wing-overs and their spectacular nose dives into the water all around us - wham, wham, wham! Soon too, along the shore we spotted four striking black and white birds wading in the shallows - could they be .... YESSS, Avocets, not a lifer for me but seen infrequently enough to be very exciting.

We saw several Otters in the slough, but no luck on 411, so we ventured out into the open Bay. There we ran into a school of the spectacular Bottlenose Dolphins, who leapt out of the water and rode the bow wave of the whaler. A fresh breeze was making up and fog began to roll in; we were judiciously headed back to harbour when an alcid was spotted on a wave crest a couple of hundred yards away. As true birders we instantly forgot about safety and roared out to identify what proved to be a Marbled Murrelet (L), well worth the risk to life and limb! We didn't find 411 that day, but soon after he was recovered by a capture team off Monterrey harbour, and found to be seriously infected with Acanthocephalid worms, and also had a bullet in his shoulder. He is now enjoying rest, recuperation and veterinary care in Monterrey Bay Aquarium's Otter Hospital, and should, we hope, recover. He will be released in a non-beach area where he cannot find Mole Crabs.

Before leaving for our next excursion, we went hiking in Mount Madonna Recreation area in the Santa Clara County hills above Corralitos valley, a magnificent stand of Coast Redwoods preserved for all to enjoy. The sense of awe and peace in these forests is akin to the experience of a great cathedral, and one's sense of size and distance is lost in the presence of these giant trees. It is instructive that this forest has regenerated itself this century after extensive clear-cutting in the 1890's. Like most mature forests it is a quiet place, but we did spot Steller's Jays, a Fox Sparrow and an Oregon Junco.

Next we set off to the south for a stay at Piedras Blancas lighthouse, a research station closed to the public, where Tim and Julie work for part of each week. This is down the Cabrillo highway along the Big Sur Coast, where the adjective 'spectacular' acquires new meaning. Big Sur is Condor Country, though we didn't see any this trip. Piedras Blancas (White Rock) is a couple of miles from Hearst Castle at San Simeon, which we visited, but that is another story. The old lighthouse and coast guard station are on a treeless and dry point of land, covered with the ubiquitous Ice Plant, typical California ground cover. It is an invasive exotic succulent, originally native to West Africa. Piedras Blancas itself is a large guano-covered monolith off the point, home to lots of Common Cormorants, Brown Pelicans, and several hundred California Sea Lions, whose melodious (?) barking could be heard all night, along with the crrrruuuummmmp of the surf and the never ending wind. The beaches along the coves to the lee of the point were populated by Northern Elephant Seals, who lie about giving a credible imitation of Zuchini squash. The mature females are about half again as large as our common harbour seals, running 600 to 800 pounds, but the adult bulls (Beachmasters), who do not arrive from Alaska until December, are four times as big, going up to 3000 pounds! Harem life among the elephant seals can easily be observed throughout the winter, from parking areas along the Cabrillo Highway.

The day after we arrived I was left on my own while Tim went off to look for Otters and Sheila and Julie went in to tour the picturesque village of Cambria. After watching the Elephant Seals, I went along the coast to admire the Pacific rollers crashing in on the Beach, and to work on my invention of the "Spectator-Oriented Surf Description Scale", (SOSDS), which runs from "Choppy" through "Dramatic", "Awesome", and "Holy Cow" to the highest recorded value, "Terrifying". This day, the SOSDS index was in the Dramatic region of the scale. I watched numerous Turkey Vultures and Brown Pelicans riding the updraft of the strong winds, and also a female Sea Otter who was calmly eating a large crab in the boiling surf directly below my vantage point. Huge rollers crashed in, and each time, just before she was about to be crushed by the waves, she would duck and swim under the crest, emerging unphased from the foam to continue eating in a thoughtful way. After polishing off the appetizer, she dove several more times, bringing up Sea Urchins. I should say that I could see all this thanks to a pair of Canon 15X Binoculars with image stabilization that I borrowed from the research station. How I lust after binoculars like that, and how reluctantly I returned them after our trip!

When the Otter left I looked about, and soon spotted a raptor hovering in the wind. It proved to be a Black Shouldered Kite (L). I watched this bird repeatedly flying off on a sortie then returning to perch on a fence post, and while reflecting on its Kestrel-like flight, lo and behold a Kestrel appeared! Following this bird with the binoculars, but without leaving my seat, a Redtail Hawk came into view on a telephone pole out toward the gate. I must note that the Kite, Kestrel and Redtail occupied precisely the same fencepost, electric line and telephone pole each day for the next three days, obviously creatures of habit.

Next day we went to Hearst Castle, but the following day was a birding day. Tim and I went first to an abandoned Radar Station, now a private ranch, south of Cambria. The station is on a very high hill. While Tim was taking radio bearings on tagged Otters out in the sea somewhere, I had time to wander round, spotting numerous Western Meadowlarks in the arroyos and gulches of the ranch (and a lot of cows), and, most welcome, two Prairie Falcons (L) hunting along the ridges, like Brown Peregrines. We went in to the old radar tower buildings in search of a pair of Barn Owls which nest there. Unfortunately, we found both of the pair ... deceased. The bodies were collected for necropsy by a Vet at the University of Santa Cruz, but I strongly suspect that the rancher has been poisoning rats and mice round the place and the birds ate the poisoned rodents. He is really a very nice man, who loves birds and wildlife, and in fact has posted his property to prevent hunting. In this instance he just lacked the right knowledge.

Our next stop was another research station, Rancho Marina, which is also a site for a pilot project to eradicate the wretched Ice Plant and re-establish native grasses and shrubs. It has some very nice shoreline and Monterrey Pine stands as well. Lots of Brewer's Blackbirds, plus a Western Kingbird on a fence line, more Prairie Falcons, and a very nice view of a Red Shouldered Hawk, thanks to those wonderful binoculars. The chief biologist at the Rancho was recovering from hip surgery, but enthusiastically hobbled along the trail with us on crutches. It takes more than major surgery to stop a true birder! We scared up a Mule Deer and also a Red Shafted Flicker. The shore here is rocky, lots of tide pools - just like home on the Bay of Fundy. There were numerous Dowitchers, and one Semipalmated Plover who was extremely proficient at standing on one leg.

Then it was time to head for Corralitos, but on the way we stopped at a beach near Big Sur (to change Calum's diaper), and spotted three Whimbrels walking slowly and deliberately along the sand. We stopped at Moss Landing for a Mexican dinner (aaah, the Mexican food - supremo delight of any trip to California) and were treated to the comical sight of a Pelican trying to keep his balance on a telephone wire! Next day was to be our last, with a visit to the aquarium at the University of Santa Cruz (where we got real close to a pair of captive Dolphins), and on arriving home, two homely birds were the last sightings for my list: a Song Sparrow (whose song is easily recognizable, but nevertheless noticeably different from the eastern race) and a pair of Ravens flying by overhead.

Not a bad trip: most of our birding was casual, during sightseeing, dining and babysitting activities, but we still racked up 52 live species (including 4 lifers) and one dead species, and probably close to 10,000 individual birds (not counting blackbirds) in 12 days. Two mammals were also first-time sightings for us. The overall impression is that lots and lots of species are present and easy to see. Had we stayed a couple more days we might have picked up a Zonetailed hawk and a Say's Phoebe, both rare, at Rancho Marina, and on an earlier trip I saw tons more shorebirds and the unparalleled sight of a million Sooty Shearwaters out on Monterrey Bay (but that trip was earlier in the season). If you are a birder, go to California, at least once. You won't regret sampling the Mexican food, either!

Appendix: How do they capture sea otters? How are they radio-tagged?

I certainly wondered about this too. The capture team consists of two spotters in a boat (generally a Boston Whaler, which is a very stable working platform) and two to four divers in the water. The divers carry Wilson Traps, which are large conical cages constructed of wire and heavy mesh. At the top of the cone a collapsible mesh lid is held open by an ingenious spring mechanism that has to be armed before the divers go overboard. The trap is mounted on a battery operated electric motor and propeller with handlebars similar to a motorcycle, so that the divers can move it around underwater (the trap is maintained in a vertical position). When a desired otter is spotted resting (preferably sleeping) on the surface, the diver manouevres the trap underneath the otter, then shoots up, the cone bags the surprised otter, and the diver pulls a trip line which causes the lid to snap shut. This sounds easy, but I don't think it is. The really time consuming part of the captures is waiting for the otter to stop moving and feeding and fall asleep in a kelp bed. Re-captures of previously tagged otters are important to the study, but once an otter is captured, it is justifiably suspicious of Boston Whalers containing divers, and tends to move off. Thus the work involves a lot of long, frustrating hours locating and stalking the otters, often under sea conditions which are adverse.

Otters in the study are tagged either with colour-coded tags attached to the flippers, or with a small battery-operated radio. Otters groom a lot, so a radio collar is out of the question. The radio must be surgically inserted into the abdomen. Several veterinary surgeons volunteer their time for the project, and they have a mobile animal hospital/surgery in a large van which is parked nearby the capture site. Each radio emits a characteristic signal for up to 2 years. The otters are not harmed or bothered by their little implants.