After the summer birding doldrums we finaqlly gor some time around the holidays to get some trips in. We spent a few days at Vandenberg Air Force Base looking for some local rarities in the area.
We caught up with a wayward garganey at a local city park in Santa Maria. It was a male in eclipse plumage which required no searchin whatsoever. When we pulled up in the park there were two other birders right in front of us pointing cameras at something. Tuens out the bird was no more than 50 feet from where I parked. When we saw it Heide remarked "That's it?" Being in eclipse plumage the duck was very drab and sported a muted gray pattern. I was most struck by the small size of the bird. He was virtually dwarfed by the Mallards he was associating with. The duck was about the size of a small teal. This bird was at Waller Park in Santa Maria. This is a very nice park with ponds linked by a stream and a wide variety of birds. There were the usual Mallards as well as a Wood Duck, Canada Geese, at least three Cackling Geese, domestic ducks and geese as well as two interesting duck hybrids. One seemed to be a GadwallXMallard hybrid and the other looked closer to an American WigeonXMallard hybrid. I will have those photos up soon. Also at the park was a reeded marshy area in one of the ponds. Blackbirds, Marsh Wrens and Common Yellowthroat were present. We missed a Swamp Sparrow spotted by another birder earlier in the day. A round of pishing failed to bring it out into the open.
The next day we chased a juvenile Yellow-crowned Night Heron at the State Park marina up the coast a little in Morro Bay. This bird was not as easily found as the Garganey but wasn't too difficult either. Heide finally spotted it in the Eucalyptus trees near the east end of the marina, exactly where others had reported it. Again, this bird was in very drab juvenile plumage and blended in with the tree rather well. We took some photos and then hiked around the boardwalk path next to the marina looking for a Nelson's Sparrow that had recently been seen there. The tide was not on our side, being all the way out so no luck on that Sparrow either. We found several Sooty Fox Sparrows though. Upon reviewing the photos I almost thought one of them was a Thick-billed Fox Sparrow but alas, no. Just a Sooty with a largish bill as confirmed by a couple of biologist friends of mine. Later we visited Ocean Beach Park. This is a county park where the Santa Ynez River meets the sea. It is uniquely situated on a narrow strip of land and riverfront between the north and south sections of Vandenberg AFB. We have found the birds here to be fairly tolerant of people and we got some up close shots of Mew Gulls, Long-billed Dowitcher, Greater Yellowlegs and Least Sandpiper. Heide's eagle eyes spotted a Virginia Rail that made some forays into the open. A bit later we found that it was actually a pair of Virginia Ralis. The river held a variety of Ruddy Duck, Western Grebe, Eared Grebe and a possible Clarke's Grebe but he stayed really far out on the river and I never got a good ID on him.
The last day of shooting we visited Wall Beach on Vandenberg AFB and found a particularly cooperative Snowy Plover, Black-bellied Plover and Sanderling. I usually see Sanderlings in groups but this one was completely by himself. He was fairly cooperative also. Later we drove up Honda Ridge Road on the South Vandenberg complex. We took some sunset and low light photos as well as experimented with some star photography. We were having problems with extraneous light from nearby towns, a trio of offshore oil rigs and lioghts around the nearby Space-X and NASA launch pads. The best image we got shows the lights from the oil rogs in the distance and then a streak from Amtak's Coast Starlight train as it passed by.
We returned home for Christmas then spent a few days over New Year at Fort Bragg. We did the 2.5 mile hike each direction up to the pygmy forest at Jug Handle State Reserve. This was the first time we had tried this. While it was not a very streuous hike I wished we had started earlier so we had more time on the way back down for photos. This Reserve is on both sides of Hwy 1 just south of Fort Bragg and Heide and I have passed it by several times. On our last trip o Fort Bragg we visited the seaward side of the park and got some nice photos of a Pacific Wren and Golden-crowned Kinglet but we didn't have time for y=the hike up the hill on the east side of the highway. This time the hike was my main objective. The trail is 2.5 miles uphill and you return on the same trail. It takes you through different "steps" within the forest... Bishop Pine, Coast Redwood grove and Pygmy Forest. We got a couple of usable shots of a pair of Pileated Woodpeckers after bouncing around the forest a bit. Ever notice how the bird you're trying to photograph is always on the opposite side of the tree from you? Anyway, the forest was filled with several varieties of Mushrooms, mosses and ferns. It's a beautiful hike. The most interesting thing, hoe=wever, is the pygmy forest at the top of the trail. Due to shallow soil that has been leached of all its nutrients and a cement-like hardpan 18 inches under the soil all of the trees and plants here are severely stunted. Cypress trees that normally grow 100 feet tall only grow ten feet or so. The ground ois covered with Reindeer Lichen and the landscape has a very surreal quality. The California Conservation Corps had built a boardwalk through this part of the forest because the groundcover here is very fragile. While this is a beautiful boardwalk it is, sadly, in need of repair. There is the occasionally missing board so watch where you are walking. Whenever we do this again we will start much earlier to allow more time for photo stops and bring water.
Heide's main objective for the trip was to experiment with some long exposure shots on the ocean where you get the water to look very "misty". We scouted locations looking for off shore rocks that would create the wave action we were looking for. Since we didn't have any neutral density filters with us we would have to do this in the evening to get a long enough shutter speed to create the effect. The first day we were foiled by a very low tide and very smooth seas. The second day we found a suitable location and got set up before sundown. There was a very large rock topped with Iceplant just offfrom where we stood and we both noticed something sitting in the iceplant but couldn't make it out so Iwent back to the truck for the binoculars and the BIG lens. It's a good thing I did because the object turned out to be a Peregrin Falcon sitting on the Iceplant scoping things out. Judging by size I believe it was a female and she stayed put a very long time, only taking flight after it was too dark to photograph her anyway. What a bonus! Afterward we started messing around with the slow exposures. There still wasn't much surf and it was sort od a "low" high tide but it was enough to create the effect as you can see in one of the photos I posted today.
We returned ome again and went out to Yolo County to our favorite hawk watching spot to see what was there. We usually see a lot of Red-tailed Hawks aa well as Feruginous Hawks and the occasional Rough-legged Hawk. This winter, as it was last winter, there are sheep grazing in part of the field. We did spot four or five Feruginous Hawks and a great many Red-tailed Hawks. I thought I had spotted a Rough-legged but when it took off it was evident that it was a Feruginous with an interesting head pattern... very light like a lot of Rough-legged Hawks. Anyway, everything was very far out in the fields and we didn't get much in the way of photos. Heide got a male Northern Harrier in flight andf I got a Red-tailed Hawk perched in a tree. This is also a pretty good place to consistently find Yellow-billed Magpies as well and I picked up a 'just OK' shot of one.
Anyway, back to making a living this week. Sorry about the long post but it's been a while since I posted and I wanted to catch up. My New Year's resolution is to try to upload to this site and Facebook more regularly and post on this blog a lot more frequently. Keep a watch on the opening slideshow as this is where I post new pics and I will have more over the coming days as I wade through all of the photos we took on these trips. Happy New Year everyone! -Randy