Reconnected

[akirlu]

Hal and I are back in Seattle after a long weekend in Gualala, on the California coast. We went to drink scotch, socialize, and generally celebrate Art Widner's 90th birthday by having a Ditto. The weather was generally glorious and the absence of both internet and phones made it seem like a real vacation. I find I'm still mostly in my visual head -- I seem to have settled there sometime during the house hunt -- and so the writing words thing still feels awkward, even now that I'm back online. Pictures failing to be caught by thousand wordses. Is too much, even to sum up.

We drove both up and back. Fractals would have been discovered a lot sooner if Cambridge U. were located on the upper California coast.

Snapshot: Sarah running hell for leather along the tide line, chasing waves and pausing to dig madly under flotsam and dislodged kelp. This is the picture of canine joy.

Snapshot: A 7-foot, chartreuse green Shrek among the chainsaw-carved, redwood burl Saskwatchi at a roadside store, tucked into yet another of many dangerous curves along 101. This is the picture of up-to-the minute tourist tat.

Snapshot: Ian Sorenson kvetching about, and eventually disbelieving the sea otters that dove before he looked. This is the picture of Scottish outdoorsmanship. (The picture of American outdoorsmanship was just down the balustrade: Jack Bell swearing up and down that the several buzzards launching from the cliff just up the estuary were in fact golden eagles.)

Actual pictures, mostly taken by Hal, will be up on Flickr by and by.

Comments

[jackwilliambell.livejournal.com]

There were buzzards, yes. But the golden eagles I first saw were, in fact, osprey. So there!

[holyoutlaw.livejournal.com]

The birds we thought were grackles are, upon perusal of Field Guide to Birds, actually Brewer's Blackbirds. And the birds we thought were cowbirds are female Brewer's Blackbirds. The gulls were mostly Herring Gulls; the gray, mottled ones were immature. (These are the birds that were close to the Breaker's Inn.)

We also saw several white herons in the marshes along the roadside, but I never got a picture.

I look forward to Hal's pictures. Yeah!

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

Yes, I understand there were ospreys about, but if you were conflating the buzzards that *I* was seeing when I spotted the otters with something you saw earlier, the something you saw earlier was almost certainly more buzzards. Ospreys have significant amounts of white on their breast, belly, and the undersides of their flight feathers. The birds wheeling around over the estuary where all dark colors.

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

We saw some of those white birds as well. I *think* they're Great Egrets, just because they're so damn' big. Egrets of some sort, anyway. I have absolutely no idea whether the dashing shorebirds at Van Damme State Park were curlews or sandpipers (or even plovers) though. And I can't, by and large, tell one species of Pacific coastal gull from another. But yes, the mottled ones are juveniles.

[holyoutlaw.livejournal.com]

I think you're right -- the marsh birds were egrets.

Most of my allegations of species come from Field Guide to Birds, western region, by Donald & Lillian Stokes.

[albionwood.livejournal.com]

Hey! Did you at least wave as you drove by? I'm in Albion...

This comment trail is hilarious, btw. I take you you all are new to this birding thing?

"Dashing shorebirds" at Van Damme - likely sandpipers, probably Sanderlings or Western S. (If they were in small flocks that chased waves in and out, Sanderlings. Curlews are huge and have a completely improbable bill - there's no mistaking them for anything else. The only likely plover is Killdeer, which are usually in ones and twos, making a distinctive cry.) Gulls - you undoubtedly saw both Herring and Western Gulls, distinguished mainly by the color of their legs and feet. Egrets - both Great and Snowy are seen regularly hereabouts; Great are commoner and bigger.

Golden Eagle is unlikely (though not impossible) at Gualala (they are mostly an inland bird), but certainly not in groups - they will be solitary now. Some Ospreys still around, though many have headed south. Lots and lots of Turkey Vultures ("buzzards" in West Coast dialect) - big, all-black, no neck (see icon). Other big dark birds you might have seen along the coast include Brown Pelicans (huge flying dinosaurs) and cormorants (rapid wingbeats, tend to fly low over the water). And of course those damned immature gulls, all of which look pretty much alike to me.

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

Do you know, I didn't twig on the Albion connection at all, either time we drove through? The closest we came to waving was making jokes about perfidy. Mea culpa.

I take you all are new to this birding thing?


I dunno about the rest of these bozos, but for myself, I am not a birder at all. It's more that, in the interest of accurate and detailed reportage, I like to know what I'm looking at, so I'll go look things up from time to time. I also have a little trouble smiling politely when my native guide to the Avebury environs solemnly explains that the shrub with the juniper berries on it is a yew. I'm funny that way. But I do know a hawk from a handsaw, and I can certainly tell the difference between a pelican, a cormorant, and a turkey vulture. Jesus wept.

The shore birds at Van Damme looked a bit like sanderlings, but they had much more strikingly contrasty markings. Judging by the pictures, and my recollection of their call, I would say they probably were in fact killdeer. Thanks for the suggestions!

[albionwood.livejournal.com]

You're welcome! Sanderlings and other common sandpipers tend to be rather nondescript grayish birds; if it had striking contrasty markings, Killdeer is more likely. The Killdeer call is unmistakable, and they are often extremely vocal - annoying, even.

What day did you go by perfidious Albion?

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

We blew through Albion on late Monday morning, and paused at Van Damme just long enough to air out the dog and take a few pictures.