AMB Class #7 and Solo Birding: The Jaeger Master Show

It's October 7, and we gather for class at a new location, the Audubon offices at Chatfield.  This is in deference to the undeniable change of seasons, and the fact that the Nature Center - a delight, with the garage-style doors that leave the room open to nature and birdsong to underscore our lessons - is unheated, and the water is already turned off.  We've lost something in ambiance while gaining a bit in heat and light; the space is more cozy (that's politically-correct speak for "a bit crowded") than our old digs, and I already find myself looking forward to spring when we'll move back to the Nature Center.  But mostly, it feels like a rite of passage:  we've survived the first part of our AMB journey, and we're moving into a new stage.

Consistent with the new stage is a new speaker tonight:  Doug Kibbe.  I've been on several field trips that Doug has led, so although the surroundings are new, this feels a little like old home week.

That's the good news.  The bad news is that, although I like Doug and he's shown me a bunch of cool birds in the last year, I'm not all that excited about tonight's subject:  Grebes, Loons, and Cormorants.  I can't tell you why.  Maybe I'm a little burnt out.  The homework, reading, record-keeping, along with the field trips and other requirements of this program:  exhausting.  Despite my best efforts, I feel like I'm slowly and surely slipping backwards.

Back to good news:  Doug does not disappoint with his presentation.  Why was I not jazzed coming into the lecture?  Silly me.  Where our last guest lecturer was full of energy and enthusiasm, Doug is full of knowledge and a sly, subtle, smart-assed humor.

We get great stuff on loons (birds I have little experience with), and grebes (more experience, but as always, I learn new stuff in the hands of an expert), cormorants (really, only one species in Colorado), pelicans (American White are common in Colorado;  I've seen Brown outside Colorado, but tonight I learn that they differ from the white birds in that they are plunge divers), terns (lots of species, but I can't help thinking that my Florida friend Melissa knows so much more about terns than I do that I'll never catch up), and jaegers.

Jaegers?  What the heck?  By the time we get to jaegers, I'm done for the day.  My brain is full.  Jaegers are not birds that are common in Colorado.  I figure if I tune out a little bit now, it won't really matter.  I mean, really:  when will I get a chance to see a jaeger? 

Fast forward about a week.  Unlikely as it seems, people are reporting a Pomarine Jaeger at Chatfield State Park.  I am still not a convert:  I figure that it's only the experts who are reporting the jaeger.  I have an incredibly busy week.  I don't think that I'd have a snowball's chance of seeing the bird, so I kind of ignore all those cobird messages, and I read through the ebird postings with a kind of jaundiced eye.  Really, what's the point.

But on Friday morning, after the bird - the jaeger - has been reported at Chatfield for close to a week, Doug Kibbe sends me a message.  "You haven't seen the jaeger yet, have you?  You should get down there."  And he proceeds to give me advice on where to see it.  He assures me that there will be lots of other birders down there to guide me should I need help in finding it.

So I blow off an afternoon training thingy at work Friday afternoon in favor of a long lunch hour that I'll spend driving to and from Chatfield.  I have no delusions that I'll see the bird, but I feel an obligation to make an effort.  

As soon as I drive into the park, I start to see birds.  Nothing rare or unusual, but birds in larger quantities than I've seen for a while.  It snowed overnight, and the sun has been busy this morning melting the white stuff.  I get out of my car at the fisherman's jetty - the place Doug directed me to visit - and there are birds all around.  Canada Geese, Black-billed Magpies, Northern Flickers.  There are lots of birds.

But there isn't a single, solitary person here.  I'm here to see a rare bird.  And I'm completely on my own.  My chances of seeing this bird just went from slim to, well, less than slim.  Oh boy.

But as I walk out onto the jetty, I hear birds and see movement.  There's an entire flock of LBJs.  I stop to take a few photos, and I really don't know what they are.  I figure that I'll puzzle this out later.

But I remember my mission, and I continue out to the end of the jetty.  I have my still-very-new-to-me-scope, and my camera, and my binocs.  It seems a little silly to have all this stuff, but you never know.

I look out over the marina, and see scads of gulls and cormorants.  I raise my binoculars to check for the jaeger;  no expectations.  I scan the field, and there in the midst of all these white gulls is a very brown gull-like bird, slightly larger.

Oh.  Heavens.  That can't be the Pomarine Jaeger, can it?  That would be WAY too easy.

So I set up my scope, and get a better look.  Whoa.  Now I desperately wish I had paid closer attention in class.  What are the field marks for the jaeger?  How can I know for sure what I'm looking at?  Damn.  That class was not even two weeks ago, and now I wish I could do some time travel.  I don't have any notes with me, and I really don't want to take my eyes off this bird.  Is it?  Really?

I take a few photos, but it's a lousy angle, and quite far away. I've just bought the digiscope adapter for my camera and scope, and have it along.  I fumble putting the thing together, and when I get it set up, I take the world's worst photos with it.  I'm cold - it's only 47 degrees out here, and I left my gloves in the car, not expecting to stay long.  I finally give up on the digiscoping, and disassemble the entire mess, and put my camera back together.  I go back to watching the brown bird - the presumed but unproven jaeger - through my binocs.  It was preening when I first saw it, and since then, it's had its head down, sleeping.

But now it raises up and stretches its wings.  LARGE wings.  Oh my.  This might make a decent photo.

So I raise my camera, and the bird stretches its wings again, and I miss the photo op, but then the bird is airborne.

Oh my.

This is the Pomarine Jaeger - I don't know how I'm so sure, but still I'm sure - and it's flying directly in front of me.

Oh my.  Oh my.  Oh my.

I'm shaking from cold and excitement and nervousness;  somehow I know this is my one shot at this bird.  I snap off photo after photo, knowing that most will be out of focus, throwaways.  But still, I get some fabulous views of this graceful creature.  It flies like a raptor, nice slow wingbeats, and seems very focused on heading across the reservoir.

Oh my.

This creature disappears out of my view.  I stand there a few minutes longer, hoping that it will come back, but I know it's gone.  I think of Anne Lamott's prayers, and I whisper thankyouthankyouthankyouthankyou, over and over again, and then I remember the other prayer:  Wow.  And again and again.  Wow.

I grab my scope and start the walk back to my car.  I feel starstruck.  So it's a bit amazing that I even hear the chips, or see the motion, but there's that small flock of sparrow-ish birds again.  So I stop and take a few more photos, first deciding that they're Chipping Sparrows in non-breeding plumage, then thinking that they are American Tree Sparrows, then giving up and thinking I'll just have to figure it out later.

And I also think I'm going to have to pay a lot closer attention in class next time.  You just never know what rare bird might show up here, and I'd sure hate to miss the next one.