The junco is two weeks behind last year's nesting. I hope everything is okay. She is used to my peering in and let me snap one photo today.
Leaving for Alaska so sad to be missing the hatching. Hope all goes well!
Last shot is a California Towhee in flight.
We spent the Fourth of July in Ventura. This was the last birding excursion before we leave for Alaska.
A glorious misty morning, we saw Western Grebes (Lifer) and a solitary Willet (Lifer). It was magical watching the pelicans! I took these shots with my pocket camera... which says something of how close we got.
Most shorebirds have headed to Alaska (we will follow them there).... there were a few snowy plovers and killdeer--and so many pelicans and western grebes out on the water (ocean and pond).
The junco laid three eggs. I am listening to a hawk fledging and her mother hunting outside (nest in oak tree behind our house?) They nest there every year. The junco nest was over two weeks late this year, compared to last year--sad that we will miss all the action when we are in Alaska.
Today we saw more Great Horned owls--two juveniles. Probably the babies of the mom we saw three weeks ago...
The highlight was seeing the Pin-Tailed Wydah. A bird found in Africa, it was a stunner!! Look at how he dances...
These birds are also brood parasites (speaking of which, we saw a cowbird that was getting fed by a song sparrow down by the lake in the Arboretum this morning (pics below)... first time to see the cowbirds working a song sparrow. Tracey saw one being fed by a junco. Sheesh.
American Robin above
Allen Hummingbird
Cowbird working it
"Of all bird songs or sounds known to me, there is none that I would prefer than the spring notes of the curlew . . . The notes do not sound passionate; they suggests peace, rest, healing joy, an assurance of happiness past, present and to come. To listen to curlews on a bright, clear April day, with the fullness of spring still in anticipation, is one of the best experiences that a lover of birds can have.” Edward Grey in the Charm of Birds
I did not know that curlews were famous for their haunting, lonely cries at night. And I did not know the important place they have in the British poetic mind. From mournful to ominous? The two most often noted sounds of their call are the “curlee, curlee,” from which it gets it name, and the hauntingly beautiful call heard most often in the breeding season – a bubbling crescendo that ends in a long note. It inspired Yeats to write of lost love.
O CURLEW, cry no more in the air,
Or only to the water in the West;
Because your crying brings to my mind
passion-dimmed eyes and long heavy hair
That was shaken out over my breast:
There is enough evil in the crying of wind.
Alex Preston, in his book As Kingfishers Catch Fire, writes:
TWO OF THE THREE or four Western avian extinctions since the Great Auk in 1852 were curlews. Fred Bosworth’s 1955 novel, Last of the Curlews, is written from the perspective of the final remaining eskimo curlew on earth as he undertakes his migration from the Canadian Arctic to the Pampas of Patagonia. Bosworth does his best not to anthropomorphise the bird, but the passages in which the curlew briefly meets and then loses his mate, as they fly over the Andes and up across the plains of the Midwest, are a kind of tragic road- trip, the birds’ fragile, wind-buffeted union beautiful and doomed. Equally powerful is Horatio Clare’s Orison for a Curlew, which sees the author set off on a hopeless quest in search of the slender-billed curlew. 1 This slim book, written in lapidary prose, chases the ghost of the vanished bird ‘of delicate appearance and mysterious habits’ through Greece and the Balkans, with Clare speaking to ornithologists and environmentalists whose valiant actions were too little, too late. It seems fitting, somehow, that the melancholy curlew, whose eldritch cry has stirred fear and sown sorrow over the centuries, should be amongst the avant garde of the great Holocene extinction event, its sad call an unheeded warning of the wave of extinctions to come. In the Old English poem ‘The Seafarer’, written deep in the Dark Ages, the anonymous author looks back on his life amid waves and sea-birds, driving the ‘foam-furrow’ far from home. The poet is an outsider, frozen and friendless, exiled to roam the icy and unforgiving oceans. The curlew is the spirit bird of the poem, its long sorrowful call lilting down through the wretched lines: 2 Hwilum ylfete song At times the swan’s song dyde ic me to gomene, I took to myself as pleasure, ganotes hleoþor the gannet’s noise ond huilpan sweg and the voice of the curlew fore hleahtor wera, instead of the laughter of men, mæw singende the singing gull fore medodrince. instead of the drinking of mead. The curlew is a bird of desolate places, of moors and bleak estuaries, of winter dusk and dreich weather. W.H. Hudson describes the call, which is a rising and desperate one, as ‘uttered by some filmy being, half spirit and half bird.’ Dylan Thomas addresses a herd ‘Ho, hullabulloing clan / Agape, with woe / In your beaks.’ Memories seem to cleave to the curlew’s call, so I cannot hear it without a rush of unhappy recollections, dark visions and regrets. It’s a bird best appreciated alone and sad-hearted. In one of Yeats’s most beautiful lyrics, ‘He Reproves the Curlew’, the mythical figure of Red Hanrahan finds the bird’s song tilts him into despair for a lost love.”
Today, was what birding is all about: out in the world, looking at the birds! We didn't get any Lifers, but we got great looks at some favorites! Look at those Brown Pelicans... I always thought they resembled DC-10's flying across the sky in formation --and it was only this recent trip out of to Ventura when I realized that they’re incredibly graceful in the air!
Our first stop was Ormond Beach, which Tracey and Dai had uncovered. Not only did they meet the caretaker, Walter, but they also saw an Ibis.... The area is behind a chain-link fence, like the Settling ponds. But Ormond Beach is a bird hotspot... and despite the "view" of the gas-fired power plant (Tracey calls it "scenic"), the area functions as an important conservation area for Snowy Plovers and Least Terns. According to Wikipedia, the area was having issues with a very large homeless community (the issue was human waste and crime), but we saw no sign whatsoever of any problem. We got to chat with Walter (learning of his health issues and recent fall), and also chatted with a few people from the Nature Conservatory...
Most of the shore birds are long gone...
Ormond Beach Power Plant slated for removal in near future
Walter lives on site.
We saw Killdeer, song sparrows, American Goldfinches, and a Savannah Sparrow as soon as we arrived.
Walking along the muddy stream, there were not a lot of birds, other than this Great Blue Heron below.
We ended up down on the beach where we saw the most beautiful sight of three Long-Billed Curlews in the surf.
Next stop was the Settling Ponds--another very industrial site, located adjacent to the water treatment facility... again behind a chain-link fence. We saw wonderful mallards and Pie-Pilled Grebes, my favorites: Ruddy Ducks and snowy egrets and a great blue heron...
And finally, it was back to Santa Clara's Estuary, where we walked with the Ventura Audubon group last month.
Marbled Godwits
Illegal drone scares terns, which abandon 2,000 eggs on Bolsa Chica nesting island
Drones and off-leash dogs are a growing threat to birds at the Huntington Beach reserve.
News.
Marbled Godwits
Beautiful Cormorant in the water...those eyes!
American White pelicans
Snowy Egret
Brown Pelican
Horned Lark
Cormorant
Long Billed Curlew
Green Heron
Bee passes by the precious Least Tern babies
Great Egret
With babes
Splash! A Tern Dives
People were all out to see the Least Tern nesting area
The nests were behind a gate
“IT HAS BEEN CALLED “the most common bird you never heard of.” The Horned Lark breeds on mountaintops, in low deserts, and all across the American prairie. In winter, it frequents plains, shores, and farm fields. And unlike most New World birds, it ranges widely in Eurasia. Yet most ordinary folk—normal people, nonbirders—just don’t know the bird. Horned Larks don’t come to birdfeeders. They eschew parks and neighborhoods. And they’re flighty, often staying hundreds of feet ahead of human intruders upon their domain. Although the act of simply seeing a Horned Lark requires little effort, the feat of correctly identifying one is something of an accomplishment. The Horned Lark is a birder’s bird. A huge part of the experience of birding is the thrill of discovery. Keep at it for a while, and you might register a bona fide ornithological discovery: a first nesting record for your state or province, for example, or a new field mark for separating one avian species from another. The vast majority of your discoveries, though, will be entirely personal: realizing that there are owls on your property, or that eagles migrate over your neighborhood each year, or that thousands of Horned Larks swarm the pastures, cornfields, and waste places around the outskirts of town. Eventually and inevitably, the birder comes to take the Horned Lark for granted. Once you know they’re there, Horned Larks are everywhere. Objectively speaking, they’re as beautiful as when you first encountered them, with their ornate facial markings and tinkling call notes, rising up in front of you. But they become frankly commonplace after a while. Perhaps, but there is something else: Years, even decades, after our first encounter with the species, it is an inspiration. We never forget that initial wonder, that moment of awareness that this world of ours is full of undiscovered wonders and blessings.”
How to Know the Birds: The Art and Adventure of Birding by Ted Floyd
I cried when I saw my first owl.
It was our second attempt to find her. We heard that a great-horned owl had made a nest at the LA Arboretum. When we asked the first day, we were given very detailed and careful instructions of how to find the owl. We looked so hard, but no luck. We heard from others that the fledglings had left the nest and that owls destroy their nests after one use. WE had no idea if this was true or not, but we figured we were too little, too late.
Back the next day--hot on the trail of the Scaly-Breasted Munia-- we were told that the owls had not left. In fact, a photographer had been there that very morning to capture the owls. So, we raced off--hoping against hope.
This from Hansen's Field Guide to Birds of the Sierra Nevada:
Lord of the night. Roosting in seclusion, deep within shaded forests or sheltered in a cranny high on a cliff face, this sturdy, full body, and fearsome predator possesses the erect ears and focus glare of an enormous cat. Daylight elucidates a large, motionless form the color and pattern of autumn wood. The bane of the songbird world; uproarious commotion and agitated notes erupt upon the disclosure of this ominous carnivore. Face set within a slowly swiveling turret, it’s stares down through narrow eyes of sleepy in difference. This look of calm and passivity is deceptive, for when dusk settles, this powerful figure moves forth into darkness to seize and spirit away prey, be it the size and gravity of a cat, or the insignificance of an annoying bird to hurls insert insults by day.
++
My first owl, nothing could have prepared me for the sight of her! Hansen describes it so beautifully. When she opened her eyes-- with great indifference looking down at us, I was surprised to feel tears spilling down my cheeks... I am not sure if I imagined it, but I think she also unfurls a dark foot.... from beneath a thick hem of feathers...
What a majestic and awesome bird!
This all reminded me of my favorite book on owls, Wesley the Owl. I loved meeting the author when she visited our bookclub at Caltech.
My next dream is to see a baby barn owl!
From the Hidden Life of Owls:
“INSIGHTS FROM AN OWL › Keep only what is useful. Regurgitate the rest. › Be patient. Eventually something will move. › Learn through play. › Only one out of four or five tries yields a mouse. Never give up. › Accept help when it is offered. › Adapt to stay resilient. › Travel every four to six months. › Take time to sit and observe. › Death is a necessary ingredient in life. Accept the transformation. › Never foul your own nest. › Parenthood is temporary. › The Great Gray Owl does not see what the Great Horned Owl sees. Perspective is everything. › Withhold judgment. Nature does not take sides. › Where you live is not nearly as important as where you are alive.”
— The Hidden Lives of Owls: The Science and Spirit of Nature's Most Elusive Birds by Leigh Calvez
See Brain Pickings: Of Owls and Roses: Mary Oliver on Happiness, Terror, and the Sublime Interconnectedness of Life
“The world where the owl is endlessly hungry and endlessly on the hunt is the world in which I live too. There is only one world.”