Rustic Bunting....The San Francisco Treat! (13-16Jan2015)

I have been eying the Rustic Bunting found in San Francisco for over a month hoping it would still be around when I needed to go for a scheduled work function.  As luck would have it, the bird has stayed true.  I made it into San Fran early in the afternoon on Tuesday and after checking in to my hotel, I hopped on the Subway and headed straight for the Rustic Bunting spot in Golden Gate State Park.  San Francisco has a really great transit system.  For the next three days I rode around all over for $2.25 a pop.

The Rustic Bunting was reported to be hanging out near a brush pile at the edge of some recreation fields.  I was not prepared for the scene I found.  There were people everywhere, vagrants, hippies, dog walkers, bikers and other athletes enjoying the fields and I thought to myself how could some Asian Vagrant choose this mayhem as his new home.  I spotted a couple birders and walked over.  Within 2 minutes we had the bird in a mixed flock of Juncos!  Unfortunately the pictures came out horrible because the light was poor.  Don't worry my devoted readers, I went back next day for morning light.

I decided to find myself some more birds for the rest of the afternoon and as luck would have it the San Fran Botanical Garden right next door was having a Free Day!!  This luck would continue for me all week long.  I would have paid the $7 anyway but it was nice none the less.  What an awesome garden right in the center of San Fran, not quite as good as the Los Angeles Botanical Garden but a close second.

I love me a Bushtit!  Even better a tree full of them.

Golden-crowned Sparrow

Certainly and aptly named bird when the sun is hitting his dome just right.

Western Scrub Jay.

I couldn't believe my luck finding a Varied Thrush on my first day!  Turns out it was not luck, Varied Thrush are having an incursion year in Northern Cali.  I went on to see about 20 more.

This is the best picture I could manage of a Pygmy Nuthatch.  They were just as hyperactive as their Brown-headed counterpart and tended to stay at the top of the highest trees.

Varied Thrush - I was sorely disappointed in how my pictures came out after I got a chance to see them on my computer.  I was so close and in such good light for most of these that I thought I would have amazing captures.  I blame the camera.  It is really old and the autofocus doesn't work much.  Once the bonus comes in this year I am going to invest in a better camera.

Another view of a Varied Thrush.

Townsend's Warbler - I saw tons of these and they were even more bold than the Yellow-rumps.

Anna's Hummingbird - I believe that I only saw Anna's on this trip but they were everywhere.  Allen's and Rufous I think are only in Northern Cali in the summer.

California Towhee.

Another Anna's hb.

Brewer's Blackbird

eBird flagged my Acorn Woodpeckers, which was weird because I saw 4-5 of them.  This one had one behind him which is why it looks like he has a red patch on his back.

Next day, I had several hours free in between work functions and made it down to the Rec Fields again to try and get a better picture of the Rustic Bunting.

White-crowned Sparrow - there was a huge flock of White and Golden-crowned Sparrows but the Junco flock was not around.  I was joined by a nice lady that flew in from some Midwestern state specifically to see the bunting and we waited.... and waited.  Some nice distractions while we waited...

Steller's Jay

Dark-eyed Juncos out West look totally different than our Slate-colored ones.  This was a "black-headed" or Oregon Junco.  I knew once we started seeing Juncos that our Bunting friend would make an appearance.

Rustic Bunting - he just sat here stock still for 15 minutes.  In fact he was so still it was hard to believe it was a live bird. Maybe someone was playing a trick on us and put a fake bird on the ground when our backs were turned.

We inched closer and took more photos.  If I had a decent camera this bird would have been crushed!  We were 10 feet away.

Eventually he flew up into the tree.  Now if anyone thinks I was being irresponsible getting close to this bird, keep in mind there was bums laying in the grass 20 feet away and people throwing balls to their dogs all around us.  This bird does not seem to have such a problem with people.

I still had some time so I hopped back on the Judah Line of the metro and rode it to the beach - Ocean Beach. Wow, the waves were awesome.  Years ago I would have thrown my binoculars aside and rented a surfboard. Now it seems birding is my passion and there were plenty of new birds to be had on the beach.

Common Raven - they were so abundant on the beach, there was more Ravens than Gulls.

Check out that honker.

Heermann's Gull - kind of the opposite of a Laughing Gull with a white head and dark belly.

Mew Gull - Life Bird!!

Another Mew - note the dainty bill.

Immature Heermann's

California Gull - Mews and Heermann's in background.

Ocean Beach is an important beach for Snowy Plovers. I ran into a couple biologists doing surveys.  Good thing because I may have overlooked them.

Snowy Plover

I worked my way North along the beach to the famous Sutro Baths.

This picture does not give you scale, but these waves were huge.  Double-overhead as surfers say.

Looks like these guys are Butt Buddies.  Par for the course in San Francisco.  Don't get me wrong, I have no problems with that.  In fact I love the liberal aspect of this city.  Wilmington needs to be more open minded and accepting of alternative life styles in my opinion.

The rocks had all kinds of birds and made me wish I had a scope.  If you look closely you will see tons of white-winged gulls.  Mostly Glaucous-winged but possible Thayer's.

Black Turnstone

Surfbird

Probably a Glaucous-winged Gull.

Last day in San Francisco was pretty much birding all day before my red-eye flight back home with some conference calls and emails between.

First stop was Spreckles Lake in Golden Gate Park as I had seen reports of Eared Grebes.  I was not disappointed.

Eared Grebe

Western Gull

American Coot

Pied-billed Grebe

I think this might be a Thayer's Gull.  Any gull experts out there?  White edging on primaries and they are a little darker than body. Dark eye and mostly dark bill.  It could be a dark morph of a Glaucous-winged.  It's bill may be a little too big for a Thayer's? It seemed it was smaller than the near by Glaucous-winged and Westerns but that could have been an illusion.

Glaucous-winged adult - gray primaries.

Another Glaucous-winged

Western Gull for comparison.

At first I thought another Glaucous-winged. But then I noticed primaries were darker and legs a darker pink.  The primaries are way darker than the mantle.   The bill is difficult because it is not juvenile or adult, something in between.  However, it does look more slender than the Glaucous-winged.  This looks good for a 3rd winter Thayer's in my opinion. However, I would love readers to weigh in.

My head was spinning after scrutinizing all the gulls, so I moved into the woods.

Dark California morph of the Red-tailed Hawk.

I took about 100 photos of this Brown Creeper but none of them came out because he never stopped moving and the light was poor in the understory.

I love a Black Phoebe.

Eventually I worked my way back over to Sutro Heights and Sutro Baths Seawatch.  I saw plenty of Common Murres in the distance but nothing I could get a picture of.  Then I heard the distinct call of an Oystercatcher.

Heavily cropped Black Oystercatcher.

At Sutro Baths, there were a couple ducks.

Ring-necked Duck

Not a bad place to spend the day.  Sutro Baths - an infinity pool for ducks.  Unfortunately no murrelets.

When I see beautiful scenes like this on my travels it makes me think of my wife and how I wish she could be there.  Is that a heart shaped hole in the rock?

Anna's HB

 Anna's are cool because they have bling on their gorget AND forehead.

I walked so far along the cliff walk I ended up around the North side of the peninsula looking at the iconic Golden Gate Bridge.  I don't carry a normal lens so this is as pulled out as I could do.

My kids would have loved this labyrinth.  There were Harlequin Ducks off this point but too far for pictures.  I never did find a close murre or murrelet. The Brandt's Cormorants were also too far for pictures.

California Towhee

Coastal sub-species of the Western Scrub Jay - they are brighter on the coast.

Chestnut-backed Chickadee - My last California bird was one of my favorites albeit a very unsatisfactory look.  He was way up in the canopy of a Eucalyptus.  It seems I had been looking in the wrong place all along, I had been paying more attention to conifers.

After a great dinner (Felafel) at a Greek street vendor I made my way to the airport and my red-eye flight home.  I managed to sleep for a couple hours but it did not prepare me for the news when I landed.

Of all the flights on the board, mine was the one cancelled.  After discussing with US Airways my options, I decided to rent a car and drive home.  Although it was only 7 am, US Airways could only get me on a 4pm flight.  I decided driving would be way faster.

Once I got on the road, I decided why not see a couple birds on the way home.  My theory was this would keep me awake, I was only on about 1-2 restless hours of sleep and the drive is about 4-5 hours home.  A short diversion brought me to Winston-Salem and a quick stop to see the Cackling Geese on Research Parkway.

Canada Geese with Cackling in center of frame.  Zoom in and see proportionally smaller bill and rounded head.

Closer view

So strange to see so many Cackling Geese at one time.  There was 8-10 in this flock.

Next stop on the way (sort of) was Lake Townsend for the Sandhill Cranes.  I could not see them so I started to drive back to the highway when I saw a birder on the side of the road.  He told me where the cranes were and even drove back to show me.

Excuse the weird angle, I digiscoped this from the man's scope. Hard to make out from this iPhone pic, but there is 3 Sandhill Cranes at the end of this creek off the side of Lake Townsend.  Very strange!  I usually think of Sandhills in fields.

Last stop was a long shot, my good friend the American Bittern at Prairie Ridge Ecostation in Raleigh.  Last year it took me 3 times to get him.  This time I was luckier and capped the week off nicely with some great looks at the bittern.

I was chatting away on a work call when I found him next to the small pond.  He froze for about 5 minutes and finally decided I was not a threat and proceeded to catch fish.

I am absolutely exhausted.  From these posts you would think it was all fun and no work, but all of this was worked into an already packed schedule for work including an Investigator's Meeting, about 3000 emails and 50 phone calls.  Hard to believe it when I say I need a vacation.  That being said, I count myself lucky that I can work from anywhere and can bird while I work (sometimes).

Great times.