As 2015 winds to a close, I finally find myself with time to share some sightings I've had in my pocket for a month or two!
Our little suburban-yard-on-a-peninsula has been doing an amazing job of attracting birds, and I love seeing the feathered creatures that show up to pick over the dirt/weeds or grab sunflower seeds from our feeders. Since about November (when I took most of these pictures), the cast of characters has stabilized, and I've gotten to know some of these northwestern birds pretty well.
Red-breasted Nuthatches are so dainty -- especially compared to the White-breasted Nuthatches I'm much more familiar with. We don't have any White-breasted Nuthatches in our yard, but we do get frequent visits from their smaller, fairy-like cousins:
This fellow posed for me before diving down to grab a sunflower seed; nuthatches are so pointy:
And they get extra adorable when all puffed up:
Seed obtained, it's off to a nearby pine tree for processing:
Black-capped Chickadees are often around:
But Chestnut-backed Chickadees are especially frequent visitors. I love these little birds in their fancy brown vests:
Down on the ground (but sometimes bold enough to come up to the feeders), we get lots of sparrows. Our Dark-eyed Juncos are of the Oregon sub-species, with their brown bodies and coal-dipped heads:
The Fox Sparrows here are also different from the eastern version of this species; they're darker ("Sooty," as the subspecies name says):
I think Fox Sparrows have the handsomest triangle-patterned breasts:
These are almost certainly my favorite sparrows around here; they're big and bulky and beautiful, and they're super fun to watch as they dig up the ground:
The totally new sparrow for me is the Golden-crowned Sparrow, another bulky-looking bird that's often running over the ground in our yard:
Golden-crowned indeed, although these winter adults and juveniles are pretty plain compared to the adults in their summer breeding costumes (which I've not yet seen in person):
Even in the winter, I think these sparrows are quite handsome:
As for finches, House Finches stop by every few days:
But our most constant finch visitors since about mid-November are the Pine Siskins:
What beautiful yellow highlights you have in your wings, fancy bird:
These little birds are extremely bold -- we can easily stand inches away from them as they eat from our window feeders -- and they're also incredibly bossy. (The Pine Siskins who showed up at our feeders last winter in Ohio were the same way.) If one of our siskins wants to eat from the feeder, it will invariably scare off other birds (including other siskins) who want to try to grab a seed. Some siskins are almost always around -- we often have one bird camped out at each of our three feeders -- but a few times so far we've gotten some big flocks of siskins coming through our yard all at once. Paul took this video of one of our Pine Siskin fiestas in early December; I'm sure traveling in a big flock like this has its advantages, but it sure doesn't let anybody get food easily from our small feeders:
It's been such a treat to get to know our November and December yard birds. Who knows what birds will show up in our yard in the new year!
Oof, did all of September just go by? Things are pretty hectic around here right now, so I'm just grabbing whatever scraps of time I can find to be outside (and it's not nearly enough). Fortunately for me (because I need nature to be happy), our neighborhood birds have become an ever stronger presence in our yard over the past month. Yellow-rumped Warblers -- with yellow throats, here in the west -- have been foraging in the pine trees over our house in the evenings, the Black Phoebe continues to hunt in our back yard, and I even looked outside the other day to see a Northern Waterthrush (a rare bird for this area) poking through my little aphid-filled garden.
Even better, the birds have found our window feeders! When we put the feeders up a couple of months ago, I was pretty skeptical that any birds would find them at all, since our house is relatively exposed, without a lot of low trees or bushes to attract passing birds and help direct them to the feeders. Plus, Tufted Titmouses have historically been the birds to first discover our window feeders in Connecticut and Ohio, and we don't have any titmouses here in Northern California! But as it turns out, our Chestnut-backed Chickadees are an equally exploratory and adventuresome species. These handsome little birds discovered the feeders a few weeks ago, and now we get daily visits. Sometimes they bring along the Black-capped Chickadees (who I've noticed tend to forage higher up in the trees in our yard, while the Chestnut-backs do more work around our fences and buildings), and most recently a few Red-breasted Nuthatches (wonderful squeak toys!) have shown up as well. Birds! Up close!
This Chestnut-backed Chickadee sat at one of our feeders, chirping and snacking, for several minutes the other day while I snuck around outside with my camera:
I love, love, love, these birds with their fancy brown vests! How do you make a chickadee even cuter? Dress it up in a little coat:
Sorry, Black-capped Chickadees, you're wonderful as well, and I love having your familiar faces around, but in this particular yard, the Chestnut-backed Chickadees are the biggest characters:
Keep coming back for more seeds, fancy birds:
While I'm already here, here are some pictures from the scattered moments I've had outside over the past several weeks. This Chestnut-backed Chickadee was looking a bit more natural (and very fluffy) in the eucalyptus trees next to our driveway:
In the first week of September, on a walk through the dunes, a hummingbird (I'm not sure of the species) zoomed out next to the path and posed for a few pictures:
I love the flashes of green on the back of its little head:
Way back in mid-August, I watched a bunch of American Crows picking through some beach-goers belongings at Big Lagoon County Park. These crows know how to find food:
Next to the lagoon, a Great Blue Heron was perched in a tree, not the kind of setting I'd expect for these birds:
If you're wondering, yes, everywhere around here is awesome.
And here we go! I'm excited to say that for the next year or so, I'll be living and working in Humboldt County, California, all the way up in the northwestern part of the state. Think Pacific Ocean, giant redwoods, moderate temperatures year round.... This is a huge change from anywhere I've lived before, and it's kind of amazing.
In the week and a half since we arrived at our new home, Paul and I (along with my parents, who generously helped us move) have briefly visited a broad range of nearby natural places; our goal has been to get a basic idea of what's around here so we can explore them in more detail in the months to come. Basically, this is the tourist phase. So here's a sampling from our preliminary adventures in this new and exciting place. Consider this a teaser of things to come!
We're living on a peninsula between the Pacific Ocean and Arcata Bay, which means that just a few minutes drive from our house (or a 20-minute walk), we have vast expanses of beach:
We spent some time walking among the dunes and beaches at the Humboldt Coastal Nature Center and the nearby Ma-le'l Dunes, and I was pretty impressed with this alien landscape:
There are so many specialized plants on the dunes, with lovely flowers and interesting growth patterns, and all of them are entirely foreign to me. I'm looking forward to getting more familiar with the plants in my new almost-backyard. Here's some Yellow Sand-verbena (Abronia latifolia) and Purple Owl's Clover (Castilleja exserta) to get things started:
I was happy to meet lots of White-crowned Sparrows who were raising families in the dunes' shrubby growth, since I'm at least passingly familiar with these birds from back east. This adult was chirping through a beakful of caterpillar:
A juvenile White-crowned Sparrow made an appearance as well:
I've never before lived in a place where Common Ravens are actually common, so it's pretty cool that I've already seen these birds several times around here. This raven sat on a tower near the nature center and made a weird gurgling sound that we thought at first might come from some sort of amphibian:
Another raven showed up on the same tower an hour or so later; with those bits of pink skin at the corners of its beak, I'm guessing this is a juvenile:
At the shore, there were even more things to see. Look, waves!
A big flock of Marbled Godwits was working over the wet sand:
I guess there are some tasty critters in there:
This godwit walked along the beach then did a double-take and rushed back to a spot it had just passed:
It pushed its beak deep into the sand and pulled up... I'm not sure what kind of creature:
It was a big prize, whatever it was, and the godwit had a bit of a hard time swallowing it:
But it got it down eventually. I have to say, I'm impressed by these birds' skills at hunting out such buried creatures:
One of the most amazing sights on the beach the day we visited was the hundreds of washed up By-the-wind Sailors (Velella velella), beautiful blue jellyfish-like creatures (actually colonies of hydrozoans) that float across the open ocean with the help of their stiff "sails":
I think I knew such creatures existed, but I'd certainly never seen one before, and apparently they only wash up on shore under certain unusual conditions. What an amazing encounter!
So we've got easiest access to sandy beaches and dunes, which I'm sure will provide us with tons of entertainment. Driving north up the coast, the shoreline becomes more rocky and intense. We explored a bit of Patrick's Point State Park, which features some dramatic cliffs along the ocean:
Big rocks just offshore are obviously popular resting spots for birds (like the assorted cormorants on the left):
There are a lot of ocean birds here that I'll need to learn. Small groups of Common Murres (this group accompanied by a cormorant) flew over the water and fished in the waves:
A family of hyperactive Chestnut-backed Chickadees was busily eating seeds from the conifers in the park:
It's so cool to see chickadees in these new costumes; I think the chestnut vest is very handsome indeed:
And it's nice to see a Turkey Vulture's familiar face (these big birds are all over the place out here):
This super fuzzy bee was feeding from almost-as-fuzzy Salal (Gaultheria shallon) blossoms:
And on a stone/sand beach neighboring Patrick's Point, we found a small grasshopper (possibly in the genus Microtes) with some of the best camouflage ever. See it?
How about now?
I especially love the grasshopper's patterning from above:
OK, beaches and dunes and rocky shores are all amazing, but here's maybe the coolest part about our new home: A half hour drive gets us to the Redwood National and State Parks, which protect over 40% of all remaining old-growth Coast Redwood (Sequoia sempervirens)forests. Some of these trees are really ancient (upwards of 2000 years old), and these are the tallest trees in the world. I mean, that's pretty awesome. For our first foray among these ancient trees, we walked the Lady Bird Johnson Grove trail, which features old-growth redwood and Douglas Fir trees; these aren't the biggest examples of these trees (because the trail is at a higher elevation than some other parts of the forest), but they're still pretty darn tall:
We spent a lot of time just looking up and marveling at these giants:
I absolutely loved wandering through this forest:
There were lots of interesting flowers growing on the forest floor. Here's a carpet of Two-leaved Solomon's Seal (Maianthemum dilatatum):
And a lovely mixture of Redwood Violet (Viola sempervirens) and Western Rattlesnake Plantain (Goodyera oblongifolia) -- my first northwestern orchid (although it's not blooming yet):
A warbler (Wilson's Warbler, I suspect, although I didn't get a good enough view to confirm that ID) quickly crossed our path with food for its family:
And that's it so far. I've got tons of new animals and plants to learn about (my Western North America bird book should be arriving any day now) and so many new environments to explore in more detail. I can't wait!
