mjm@oliven.olivetti.com (Michael Mammoser) (02/23/90)
This past weekend the Santa Clara Valley Audubon Society conducted a field trip to Morro Bay and the Carrizo Plain in south-central California. The two day trip was one of the best that I have ever attended; acquiring one new life bird (Sage Sparrow), three new state birds (Royal Tern, Greater Roadrunner, Mountain Plover), and a total of 150 species. Saturday morning was a little wet and drizzly when we met at Morro Rock, an immense rock that juts a couple of hundred feet into the air with a circumference of maybe a quarter mile, that sits at the edge of the ocean. As I got out of the car, the songs of Canyon Wrens drifted down from the rock. As one looks up at the rock, the habitat seems perfect for these wrens, but looking around at the ocean and the bay, they seem so out of place. Other nesters on the rock include Double-Crested, Brandt's, and Pelagic Cormorants; Western Gulls; and a pair of Peregrine Falcons. I don't know how the gulls could nest there with the falcons, because every time one of the falcons flew around the rock, a cloud of Western Gulls would rise up crying in alarm (reminded us of Hitchcock's movie, "The Birds", which I understand was filmed here). Before we left Morro Bay, we saw enough of the Peregrines that some birders jokingly referred to them as "junk birds". Morro Bay itself sported some interesting birds. Four Oldsquaw swam by us at the boat docks, two Royal Terns sat on a sand bar across the bay, a Cattle Egret worked along a pickleweed island, and a flock of about 200 Brant loafed and fed off the end of the island. Working through the state park along the southeast edge of the bay, we stopped at a eucalyptus grove that contained a Great Blue Heron rookery. Not only were there herons on some of the nests, but a Red-Shouldered Hawk sat on a nest in the next tree, while an Allen's Hummingbird sat on a nest just over our heads. It was a breeding bird atlasser's dream come true. We moved on to Laguna Lake Park in San Luis Obispo, getting a chuckle out of a city bus that was labelled "SLO Transit". At the park's lake we watched bread being fed to a flock of domestic geese that contained a couple Canada Geese and a Ross' Goose. It was great being able to study the Ross' from a distance that was too close to even focus one's binoculars. We continued south to Oceano and a portion of Pismo Beach State Park, which was a lagoon surrounded by lush riparian habitat and a campground. The riparian produced numbers of warblers; Yellow-Rumped, Orange-Crowned, Townsend's, Wilson's, and Common Yellowthroat. A male Rufous Hummingbird posed right in front of the group, turning this way and that to show himself off. But the real surprise came from the campground, where we found a beautiful male Summer Tanager and a Great- Tailed Grackle. At a nearby sewage pond a Blue-Winged Teal mingled with a flock of Cinnamon Teal. At day's end we had compiled an impressive total of 134 species, with a fair number of rarities and specialties. Although the rain fell intermittently throughout the day, by the end the sun was shining and we were all feeling rather pleased. And there was still another day. On Sunday morning we met at a pullout on highway 58 that headed east towards the Carrizo Plain and the Nature Conservancy land therein. As we drove, Yellow-Billed Magpies started dotting the landscape and we had to stop at one point to watch a couple of Golden Eagles soaring in the distance. At another point, a Prairie Falcon was flushed off of telephone pole by a Red-Tailed Hawk and took off low and fast across the fields, eventually joining in a little one-on-one with a Northern Harrier. Another reliable spot produced Ferruginous Hawk, Lewis' Woodpecker and a large flock of Band-Tailed Pigeons. At a small farm we inspected a large flock of blackbirds, finding Tricoloreds but missing the Yellow-Headed that had been staked out a few days earlier. As we arrived at California Valley, it was understood that we would have to limit our birding of the Carrizo Plain to the main road, as the dirt side roads were quaqmires from the rain of the past couple of days. This meant that we probably would miss a staked out flock of Mountain Plover. From the top of an observation hill, we scanned the not-so-dry bed of Soda Lake for the small group of Sandhill Cranes that were there a few days ago. Alas, they were not to be found. So we moved up the road to a stand of sagebrush, where the leader was sure that he could raise a couple of Sage Sparrows for those of us, myself included, for whom it was a lifer. As we moved into the sage pishing, the sparrows hopped up to the top of the bushes and were quite cooperative, giving us very satisfactory looks through both binoculars and scopes. Since the side roads were basically off-limits, we realized that this day trip would be cut short. So a couple of us decided to return to the Bay Area by-way-of the Panoche Valley, just southeast of San Francisco Bay. We hoped to get here the Mountain Plover that we missed on the Carrizo Plain. As we drove up over the hills that separated the Carrizo Plain from the central valley and Interstate 5, a Greater Roadrunner sat on rock sunning itself. Coming down out of the hills into Panoche Valley, a couple of Mountain Bluebirds sat on the fenceposts not more than 30 or 40 feet from the car. The overcast skies created the kind of light that provides excellent color saturation and the bluebirds were absolutely vivid. In the valley itself, a hail storm started as we scanned the flat fields for signs of Mountain Plover. Finally, we found a flock of about 40 birds that were quite close to the road, and we watched while being pelted with pea-sized hail stones. As we drove out of the valley on the way home, we used the extraordinary light to get some excellent parting looks at Lewis' Woodpecker and a Ferruginous Hawk. We also added a Phainopepla to the trip list. All field trips should be this good. Mike SPECIES LIST Common Loon Pacific Loon Red-Throated Loon Clark's Grebe Western Grebe Horned Grebe Eared Grebe Pied-Billed Grebe American White Pelican Brown Pelican D-C Cormorant Brandt's Cormorant Pelagic Cormorant B-C Night Heron Cattle Egret Snowy Egret Great Egret Great Blue Heron Ross' Goose Canada Goose Brant Mallard Gadwall Green-Winged Teal American Wigeon Northern Pintail Northern Shoveler Blue-Winged Teal Cinnamon Teal Ruddy duck Canvasback Lesser Scaup Surf Scoter Oldsquaw Common Goldeneye Bufflehead Red-Breasted Merganser Sora American Coot Black Oystercatcher American Avocet Black-Necked Stilt Killdeer Mountain Plover Black-Bellied Plover Marbled Godwit Whimbrel Long-Billed Curlew Willet Spotted Sandpiper Black Turnstone Surfbird Dunlin Sanderling Least Sandpiper Heermann's Gull Bonaparte's Gull Ring-Billed Gull Mew Gull California Gull Western Gull Glaucous-Winged Gull Forster's Tern Royal Tern Caspian Tern Turkey Vulture Golden Eagle Black-Shouldered Kite Northern Harrier Red-Shouldered Hawk Red-Tailed Hawk Ferruginous Hawk American Kestrel Prairie Falcon Peregrine Falcon California Quail Band-Tailed Pigeon Rock Dove Mourning Dove Greater Roadrunner Great Horned Owl Swift sp. Anna's Hummingbird Rufous Hummingbird Allen's Hummingbird Belted Kingfisher Northern Flicker Acorn Woodpecker Lewis' Woodpecker Downy Woodpecker Nutall's Woodpecker Black Phoebe Say's Phoebe Horned Lark Tree Swallow Violet-Green Swallow Scrub Jay Steller's Jay Yellow-Billed Magpie American Crow Common Raven Wrentit C-B Chickadee Bushtit Red-Breasted Nuthatch House Wren Bewick's Wren Canyon Wren Ruby-Crowned Kinglet Blue-Gray Gnatcatcher Western Bluebird Mountain Bluebird Hermit Thrush Varied Thrush American Robin Loggerhead Shrike Northern Mockingbird California Thrasher American Pipit Cedar Waxwing Phainopepla European Starling Hutton's Vireo Orange-Crowned Warbler Yellow-Rumped Warbler Townsend's Warbler Wilson's Warbler Common Yellowthroat Rufous-Sided Towhee California Towhee Savannah Sparrow Song Sparrow Sage Sparrow Dark-Eyed Junco White-Crowned Sparrow Golden-Crowned Sparrow Fox Sparrow Lincoln's Sparrow Western Meadowlark Red-Winged Blackbird Tricolored Blackbird Brewer's Blackbird Brown-Headed Cowbird Great-Tailed Grackle Summer Tanager House Sparrow American Goldfinch Lesser Goldfinch Purple Finch House Finch