Terns at Cayucos Pier

Anchovies have been running on the San Luis coast, and with them come the terns. Pelicans and gulls also showed up for the banquet, but mostly terns. Swarms of Forster’s, Elegant, and Caspian Terns all over the place feasting on the little fish. We’ve had some great closeup looks at them from the Cayucos and San Simeon piers.

A Forster’s Tern diving for an anchovy. Forster’s are distinguished from the other tern species present by their smaller size and orange legs.

Just before impact. The birds hit the water hard enough to completely submerge for a couple of seconds. Most dives were unsuccessful—only about a quarter ending in a fish.

An Elegant Tern wheels around, homing in on a likely target.

Maybe the same bird. This time with a fish.

A Caspian Tern with a nice sized fish. These are the world’s largest terns, distinguished from Elegant by size (not always that easy) and the big, honking bill. As you can see above, Elegants’ bills are, well, elegant.

And then there’s this little guy. It’s a Black Tern, a petite, mostly inland species not normally found in our area. The species doesn’t feed like the others. Rather than diving for fish, it snatches insects from the air or picks small scraps from the water’s surface. There was only a single individual present, and despite its distinct appearance and behavior, it wasn’t easy to pick it out from the hundreds of other terns. We only spotted it with the help of a friendly fellow birder we met on the pier. (And, yeah, it’s not black. This is a molting adult. Adults in full breeding plumage are indeed mostly black.)

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Goodbye to another National Pollinator Month

June is National Pollinator Month. This year’s been a good one for butterflies. None of these are particularly rare. Just beautiful.

Lotus Hairstreak on Black Sage. Most of these photos were taken here in Los Osos or in nearby Montaña de Oro State Park. None of the IDs are guaranteed—I’m not much of a lepidopterist.

Gray Hairstreak on some sort of thistle.

Some sort of duskywing on some sort of dandelion relative, shot somewhere in Utah .

Mating Marine Blues. The dorsal wing surfaces are blue—only the not-blue ventral surfaces are visible here.

An orangey Red Admiral on nettle (?).

Yellowface Bumblebee on Deerweed, both extremely common here in coastal San Luis County. Yeah, I know that bees are not butterflies.

Straw—an acquired taste

We’re back from a two week road trip through the interior West—Nevada, Utah, Wyoming. The trip was full of wonders, geological and biological. Southeast Utah was especially impressive—loaded with red rock canyons and cliffs. Also, as it happens, loaded with Mojave Desert Tortoises*. One morning in a state park near St. George we ran across four of them right on the trail in the course of an hour-long walk. Two things surprised us. First, we could hardly believe how oblivious the turtles were of us. One even nonchalantly tried to climb over my foot. The other surprise was the tortoises’ dining preference. They eagerly consumed dried out grass—essentially straw—while ignoring the abundant green herbaceous plants nearby. Maybe the green plants contain compounds (alkaloids? tannins?) that give the turtles indigestion.

Pretty yummy. Get a load of that ancient, placid visage. “I’ve been doing this for millions of years, what of it?)

On to the next tuft or grass.

We’d hiked the same trail on the afternoon before the morning these pictures were taken but saw no tortoises. They were all holed up in their burrows at the bases of creosote bushes to avoid the mid-day heat. These guys spend up to 95 percent of their lives underground, emerging to forage, mate, and what-have-you only when conditions are right—neither too hot nor too cold; the preferred range being similar to what humans like. Desert Tortoises are a model of adaptation to harsh conditions. In addition to all the above, they can go as long as a year without drinking.

*Also known as Desert Tortoises. In 2011 the single species Desert Tortoise (Gopherus agassizii) was split into Mojave Desert Tortoise (Gopherus agassizii) and Morafka’s Desert Tortoise (Gopherus morafkai). (The advent of DNA analysis has generally given the splitters an upper hand over the lumpers.)

A backyard rumble

We’ve had a pair of Redtail Hawks in the eucalyptus grove in our neighborhood for several weeks. Yesterday afternoon we heard a commotion in our backyard—a gang of crows were mobbing the hawks in our neighbor’s pine tree. Not sure what precipitated this. I figure either the hawks had tried to raid a crow’s nest in the pine or they were trying to establish their own nest there—to the crows’ obvious consternation. The whole thing lasted for several minutes, allowing me to run into the house and grab my camera.

Never seen a crow look so vicious. I think the hawk was already missing those tail feathers prior to the fracas.

The crows were persistent—both of the hawks finally gave up and left.

An eight-legged friend

This little jumping spider (genus Phidippus) popped out while we were cleaning up the backyard. These guys are bold, intelligent (for an arthropod) and reportedly makes good pets, able to recognize their owners. We’re very fond of spiders in general, and especially jumping spiders.

I think it’s a California Red Jumping Spider, Phidippus adumbratus. About the size of a thumbnail. Pretty cuddly, huh?

There are a lot of reaons to love spiders. They provide natural insect control. They’re an important food source for birds. And they’re ubiquitous—so easy to find and study.

Weird and beautiful birds of Manialtepec Lagoon

We recently returned from a two-week trip through Mexico—Puerto Escondido-Oaxaca-Pueblo-Mexico City. We had a great time, notwithstanding some questionable dining decisions that resulted in some serious food poisoning. We bussed between cities—Mexico’s bus system is well-developed and the deluxe busses are quite comfortable—more so than economy airline travel, and you get the added bonus of viewing the scenery. Highly recommended.

Manialtepec Lagoon, about forty kilometers from Puerto Escondido, is a well-known birding hot spot. Shallow, brackish, and mangrove-rimmed, it’s loaded with wading birds, kingfishers, hawks, and assorted beauties and oddities. We spent a morning motoring around the lagoon with Eco Adventures Puerto Escondido. Here are some of the more photogenic species we saw:

Wood Stork, aka (at least to me) Undertaker Bird. These were common all over the lagoon. They’re widely distributed through South America up through the southeastern US. I’d see them regularly when I lived in Florida.

A pair of Groove-billed Anis. Something in the way these weird, clumsy birds regarded us made them seem like some sort of strange primate instead of bird. Maybe it’s the way they preferred to climb around the vegetation rather than fly. Again, a common, widely distributed species.

Northern Jacana. Check out that gigantic foot that it’s using to walk across floating vegetation.

A not very cooperative Crane Hawk—it took five minutes of waiting to get it to move so that that red eye was fully visible. These birds are unique in having long, “double jointed” legs that they use to reach into tree crevices and cavities to capture prey.

A prehistoric looking Bare-throated Tiger Heron.

Purple Gallinules are widespread and supposedly rather common in the southeastern US, but I never saw any in the decades I spent in Florida.

A White-fronted Amazon eyes us from the treetops. These smallest of the Amazon parrots are, like most parrots, highly social, so we were surprised to see this lone individual.

Vermillion Flycatcher. A widely distributed, not uncommon species—we’ve seen them in Texas and California—but so gorgeous.

Maybe you’re thinking, “wait a minute–that’s a Robin.” That’s what I thought when I spotted this bird near the beach in Puerto Escondido. Yes, it is a Robin, but not the familiar visitor to US backyards. Look at its shoulder and back—the same rufous color as its breast. Our US Robins have brown shoulders. This is our Robin’s tropical (or at least semi-tropical) cousin, the Rufous-backed Robin. The largely Mexican species ranges a little way into the southwestern US.

Right on cue

Last week we had our first post-solstice rainfall and suddenly the cheerful, optimistic sound of courting Pacific Tree Frogs emanates from every water body, permanent or temporary, in the neighborhood. They’re everywhere—creeks, ponds, vernal pools, puddles, backyard water features…

I shot this gorgeous little fellow in a Contra Costa County vernal pool. Actually, not sure if it’s a fella—can’t tell the sex from this photo. They’re sometimes called Pacific Chorus Frog, and are in fact a type of chorus frog (genus Pseudacris) rather than true tree frogs in the narrow sense (genus Hyla). This one is about two inches long, average for the species.

These frogs are the most abundant amphibian throughout the West Coast, but they’re surprisingly inconspicuous outside the mating season, which lasts from late December all the way through August. It’s surprising that they can survive central California’s six to eight month summer dry season in such numbers, since, like most amphibians, they have to maintain moist skin. We’ve even heard them making their so-call “land calls” late in the dry season in seemingly impossibly dry chaparral habitat—tough little guys.

‘Tis the season

For wintering birds. Many northern breeders find Central Coast winters quite accommodating.

A juvenile Common Loon eyes me at Elkhorn Slough, north of Monterey. Loons spend the summer breeding season in boreal forest lakes and ponds. You can see this bird’s legs set far back on the body, a configuration that makes loons very clumsy on land.

A Lincoln’s Sparrow strikes a cute pose in our backyard. These birds, which nest in alpine forests as nearby as the Sierras, can be distinguished from similar sparrows by the buff-colored sides. They’re reputed to be difficult to spot, due to a tendency to hide low in thick brush. They’re also supposed to be infrequent visitors to backyard feeders, so we were quite pleased to see this one.

Both of these birds, photographed at our local Sweet Springs Nature Preserve, are Greater Yellowlegs. The darker plumage of the bird on the left is quite unusual, at least around here. Greater Yellowlegs breed in Canadian wetlands and winter as far south as Patagonia, so the birds you see here—likely remaining here for the winter—have spared themselves several thousand hard and perilous miles of travel. This raises the question of why some birds migrate thousands of miles further than other members of their species. As far as I know the primary reason is to hedge their bets. Birds in Patagonia will be immune to a potential disaster in Los Osos, and vice versa. But what do I know.

Yeah, okay, these birds are year-round residents, but this female Western Bluebird and male House finch begged for a golden hour photo.

Nonchalant cat(s?)

We were walking the Bluffs Trail in Montańa de Oro State Park on Halloween morning. Rounding a bend, Marla and I were shocked and more than a bit thrilled to spot a bobcat standing on the trail about fifty feet ahead of us. It stood gazing intently into the bushes for a few moments and then casually disappeared into the brush.

Maybe hearing a bunny in the brush?

Three weeks later we ran across what we assumed was the same animal near where we’d seen it on Halloween. This time it was walking toward us. We froze as we watched it stroll nonchalantly right past us, coming just a few feet from Marla. Just after it passed us it quietly disappeared into the brush, having not even bothered to make eye contact.

Apparently this kitty had something besides us on its mind. Face looks different from the first photo, don’t you think? Click and zoom for a better look.

On examining the photos from both encounters we have tentatively decided that it was two different animals. Striping on the faces, both above and to the side of the eyes, looks different. Could be different lighting or different fur ruffling, but I’m sticking with the conclusion that it was two different animals. Click on the photos and decide yourself. Given that bobcats tend to be solitary and territorial, seeing two different animals in the same area suggests that one may be the offspring of the other. Both looked pretty mature though, so, as that lovable old sage Mister Natural is fond of saying, who knows?

Just the other day we saw a third bobcat on the trail just above our house, about four miles as the crow flies from our previous encounters. This frequency of encounters over the last couple months is in sharp contrast to our previous experiences—no sightings over the four years we’d been hiking the area. So what’s going on? Wildlife dogma says that when you see a wild animal acting unusually bold it is likely that the animal is not well. The ranger at MDO that we talked to assured us that this is not the case in this instance. So maybe there’s been a bobcat population explosion. We had an unusually wet winter a couple of years ago, which resulted in abundant plant growth followed by what appeared to us as a population explosion of rodents, rabbits and other herbivores. Could be, as in the famous lynx/snowshoe hare boom-bust relationship, bobcats have had unusual reproductive success this year? To quote Geoffrey Rush in Shakespeare in Love, “It’s a mystery.”

A hare’s inner life

One of the best-known works of Renaissance giant Albrecht Dürer is entitled “Feldhase,” German for “Field Hare,” or “Young Hare.” The painting is praised for its precise rendering of the fine texture of the hare’s coat. For me, the attraction is the way the work provides a glimpse into the hare’s inner life—a certain serenity tempered by apprehension.

Dürer’s “Feldhasa.” The model is a European Hare, Lepus europaeus What’s it thinking? Maybe thoughts to its days as a kit, with an omnipotent mother and lots of siblings, many long gone from this earth. Or maybe contemplating its own mortality….

And my version, a Black-tailed Jackrabbit, Lepus californicus, photographed at Monterey County’s Lake San Antonio Park:

Expressive eyes characteristic of hares, but in this case rather more anxious than Dürer’s model, probably owing to the nearby bipedal ogre pointing a camera. It’s not all that anxious though—it can bolt away at up to forty miles per hour if it wishes. Jackrabbits are among North America’s quickest land animals.

Jackrabbits are a type of hare. In case you didn’t know, hares are not rabbits. The two groups are closely related but differ in morphology and behavior. Hares tend to be lankier, have longer ears, are solitary, and bear fully-furred, open-eyed young. Most rabbits are social animals and all bear naked, blind young.

To paraphrase Basho: Nothing in the eyes of the jackrabbit indicates the time of its death.

Posted on a lazy, wet afternoon…