AMB Class #11: Gulls (really, it's not all that boring, I promise)

It's inevitable that we'll have a unit on gulls.  After all, they are everywhere you look.  Parking lots, bodies of water, flying overhead.  They sit in large groups, in long line-ups, and have an unmistakable shape and wing-beat when overhead.  They are in songs (Jackson Browne, in Sky Blue and Black, "of the seagulls circling the sand") and books (oh, those days of Jonathan Livingston Seagull) and logos around the globe.  They are, perhaps, the most ubiquitous of birds.

Front Range of Colorado,
from Aurora Reservoir

So why, then, do most birders cringe when they hear of gulls?  Or to say, quoting an expert birding friend, "I don't do gulls"?

Never mind all that.  Gulls are pulling me in.  I've spent some time this winter staring at thousands of gulls at Aurora Reservoir, searching - unsuccessfully - for a couple of rock stars of the gull world in Colorado:  a Slaty-backed Gull and an Iceland Gull.  Did I mention "unsuccessful"?  On the positive side, I've seen a few Lesser- and Greater Black-backed Gulls, along with the more plentiful - in Colorado, anyway, Herring and Thayer's and California.  It goes without saying that I've seen lots of Ring-billed Gulls, the default gull in our state.

Aurora Reservoir
January 2014

Ring-billed Gull
Denver, CO

So I enjoy the reading assignments on the gull unit.  And yes, dear AMB mentors, some of us do read the optional readings, especially the great stuff in one of my favorite resources, "Identify Yourself".  Bill Thompson III, the author of this delightful tome, takes gull ID to its simplest.  He says that there are just two things you need to know about gulls.  First, there are only three basic kinds of gulls:  large, medium, and small.  Second, gulls all start out brown and end up gray or black and white.

Wow.  That makes it pretty simple.  Okay, maybe it's not that simple, but it makes for a nice framework for studying these birds.  

Herring Gull
Denver City Park 2012

Our gull expert and guest lecturer on the topic chooses a different way of distinguishing gulls:  Nick Komar presents profiles of gulls from the most common in Colorado to the least.  Our four most common gulls are the Ring-billed, Herring, California, and Franklin's.  

Herring Gull (Juvenile, or I should say 1st or 2nd Cycle, but I'm still figuring that out.  Suffice to say:  not adult)
Florida 2011

California Gull
Point Reyes National Seashore (CA) 2013

Franklin's Gull
Denver City Park 2013

Franklin's Gulls
Nebraska 2012

Uncommon but expected in Colorado are Bonaparte's, Lesser Black-backed, Thayer's, and Glaucous.  

Bonaparte's Gulls - with bubblegum pink legs and heads tucked
Chatfield State Park 2012

Rare but regular:  Black-legged Kittiwake, Little, Sabine's, Mew, and Great Black-backed.  Lucky for me, I saw at least one of these in Alaska a few years back, and was also lucky to have somebody ID it for me at the time, when I had even less of a clue about birds - and gulls, specifically - than I do now.

Black-legged Kittiwake
Kenai Fjords, AK 2011

Then follow the very rare in Colorado (Laughing, Iceland, Glaucous-winged, and Western), and the vagrants (Ross's, Ivory, Black-headed, and Slaty-backed).  Now, I may not have seen all of these birds in Colorado, but, again, my travels have served well for at least a few species:

Laughing Gull
New Orleans, LA 2012

Laughing Gull 1st or 2nd cycle
New Orleans, LA 2012

Laughing Gull ( adult)
Florida 2011

Glaucous-winged Gull
Kenai Fjords, AK 2012

Western Gull
Point Reyes National Seashore 2013

Western Gull (1st or 2nd cycle)
Point Reyes National Seashore 2013

Nick gives us details of the various gulls, and the field marks, and all manner and kind of other information on the different species.  As happens quite frequently in these classes, my brain fills up quickly, and I'm left just completely overwhelmed.  I figure that I'll have to rely on notes and books, and study at a later date.

Of course, when the later date arrives, I've forgotten far too much of what I've learned, and so, as I do so frequently in similar cases, I turn to my photos for a review.  I'm kind of amazed and overwhelmed that in such a short time birding, I've captured images of so many different gulls......and the odd and wondrous thing is that - at the time - I had no idea how remarkable some of these birds were.

Gray-headed Gull
South Africa 2013

Lava Gull
Galapagos 2013

Swallow-tailed Gull
Galapagos 2013

AMB Requirement #2: Identify and list at least 200 bird species in Colorado

Okay, I'll admit, I'm greedy.

This requirement would, in the grand scheme of things, be no big deal.  For me or for anyone else in the AMB program.  After all, with the amount of field trips and all the expert eyes looking for birds, you'd have to just plain not be paying attention - or perhaps the apocalypse would come - to not reach 200 bird species during the year we're in the program.

I mean, I came into the program with well over 200 species in Colorado.  I suspect most - if not all - of my classmates were in the same boat.  But as I prepared for the program, I set a goal to reach 200 species while *in* the program.  It just seemed like a good idea at the time.

Then......as things got rolling and I was racking up the species, I decided I wanted to reach that 200 mark by December 31.  Something about wanting to check things off,  complete the requirements.

I got close, but no cigar.  At the end of 2013, I had 191 species.

That was okay. It just meant that in 2014, I was really itching to get to 200.

And so it went.  I got some new gulls early in the month (Glaucous and Great Black-backed).  On our last class field trip, I got a White-winged Scoter:  a fine bird and a good look at it.  A little more than a week ago, I got a Gray-crowned Rosy-Finch.  It was a great bird, but from a long ways away, and on a feeder, and on a snowy and windy day, and there were no great photos.

And I was still a bird away.

On January 13th, we had a class on gulls.  Appropriately enough, I went to Chatfield State Park before class (class is in the Audubon center at Chatfield), and saw three California Gulls on one of the not-completely-frozen quarry ponds there.  Bird #200!

But then I got home and checked my records.  Dang.  I already had this bird during the AMB timeframe, back in the fall.

So on January 14th, I followed my instinct (and instructions from many more skilled birders who have come before me) and went again in search of #200.  It turns out that #200 is a bird I've seen before - just not in the AMB program.  And it took some walking and looking and searching, which makes it rewarding.  And - to dramatize things a bit - I had a perfect shot lined up of the female of this species, and it was a brilliant look (and a bit more difficult to ID).  But then, a woman on the other side of the river - the South Platte, on the north side of Denver - let her four dogs loose on the sandbars, and my birds all flew.

Lucky for me, I got this one shot before they were all gone.  I present my 200th Colorado bird in the AMB program:  a beautiful male Barrow's Goldeneye.

Thankfully, I'm done with this requirement.  Unless, of course, some other crazy thing enters my mind, like trying to see exactly how many Colorado birds I can see during the class year.  Not that I'm competitive or anything.  Hmmm.  I wonder if they have records of most birds seen during an AMB year?

AMB Field Trip #10: Raptors & the Great (Horned) Owl Controversy

A few days after our raptor lecture, our class reassembles for a raptor field trip, starting at Barr Lake State Park.  The weather forecast has been for decent temps, but with huge winds - something we've had all too much of already this month - out on the plains.  But happily for all of us, the huge winds do not materialize.  It is, in fact, a perfect Colorado bluebird day.

But, of course, there are no bluebirds today:  it's January!  And our target is raptors, along with anything else we might come upon out on the prairie.  

As if on cue, as we're assembling at the nature center at Barr Lake, Bald Eagles - one at a time, either five or six, depending on how lucky you are - do a flyby overhead.

Bald Eagle

That's the good news, and perhaps one of the least contested moments of the day.  The truth is, mere moments after we've started on our journey out of the park, we spy a raptor sitting in a tree on the shore of the lake.  The bird is too far away to see clearly without a scope, but it flies before we can get a scope on it.  Most of the experts in the group call it a Ferruginous Hawk, which seems pretty darn cool, since it's still a new and exciting bird for me.  But one of my carpool mates insists that it's simply a Red-tailed Hawk - and won't be convinced otherwise - and the controversies of the day begin.  Who knew that something like birding - a thing that outsiders regard as a passive hobby - could lead to ferocious competition?

Happily, our next several birds are ones we reach agreement on more easily.  There's a hawk that everyone agrees is a Ferruginous.  By the way, "Ferruginous" comes from the Latin ferrigineus, resembling iron rust in color;  this bird does not disappoint.

Ferruginous Hawk

And then there are multiple birds that everyone agrees are Rough-legged Hawks.  Another factoid:  Ferruginous and Rough-legged Hawks were originally considered one species.  Both have feathers all the way down their legs to their toes (Golden Eagles are the only other raptors to also have feathered tarsi - that's birdspeak for a bird's feet).

Rough-legged Hawk

Rough-legged Hawk

There's a Great Horned Owl in a tree in the distance that only a few of us see.  There are tons of Red-winged Blackbirds (admittedly, not raptors) in trees along the way.  There are hundreds of Horned Larks and Meadowlarks gracing the side of the road.

Rough-legged Hawk

So it's an incredibly birdy day, and that is excellent news.  But we also have a huge group today, and huge groups are unwieldy, especially when split into 6 cars, all stopping along the side of mostly 2-lane roads with little in the way of legal pull-offs.  It's an exercise that requires coordination, and today, for reasons unfathomable to me, most of the cars are not participating in the walkie-talkie sharing of information that's really necessary to make these trips the best they can be.

I'm lucky to be riding with one of the trip leaders: Joe Roller, a Denver birder who has been doing this stuff since he was a boy.  The other leaders are Doug Kibbe and Mackenzie Goldthwaite.  Kez is one of the mentors in the program, and Doug is one of the guest lecturers/trip leaders.  The good news is that both Joe and Doug keep up a steady stream of shared information.  One of the things I love best about Joe is that even though he knows so very much about birds, he's a realist, and reminds us over and over that there are just some birds that you will never see well enough to identify.  

By late morning we're on rural roads that are on the back side of DIA (Denver International Airport).  We avail ourselves of roadside facilities (ahem, perhaps not really intended for public use, but open and clean and a godsend), and use the time to stretch legs and watch Horned Larks in the open fields next to us.

Horned Lark

One of our crew has a scope set up on a bird in the air, and then there's a flurry of excitement as a positive ID is made:  it's a large bird, not a raptor, though.  It's a Sandhill Crane!  Totally unexpected and out of place in Denver in January.  We're excited to watch it, but it fills me with uneasiness.  Tina - who was my mentor for the first several months of the program - once offered up her views on the out-of-place birds that birders get excited about chasing.  She said, "you know, these birds will all most likely die, as they are in the wrong place at the wrong time.  Birders love to see them, but it's not usually a good thing for the birds". 

Sand Hill Crane

Sand Hill Crane

I watch this bird as it flies in circles - and it does fly in circles, as you can see from the photos - and worry that it is lost and can't find it's way in the world.  Add to that the fact that it's flying in the DIA area, and I worry that it will have an unintended encounter with a plane.  Everyone else in my class is dancing with joy and calling this the "bird of the day";  I'm silently crying and praying for this creature's safe passage.

Down the road a bit, we have our biggest controversy of the day.  In a copse of large, barren cottonwoods at a 90-degree turn in the road, one of our group spies a Great Horned Owl.  

First owl, everyone agrees is a Great Horned Owl
(photo credit & copyright:  G. Hart)

We all stop to look at it, and then someone discovers another owl.  When I see it, I think "how cool - a Long-eared Owl!"  But, of course, I know nothing about owls, really, and soon I'm being schooled by others.  This is also a Great Horned.  But then, maybe no.  One of the experts says it's Long-eared.  Others say Great Horned.  I start to think perhaps I should take some photos - foolishly, I've left my camera in the car just now - and then the bird in question flies away.  Thankfully, others in the group have photos to share.

The controversial owl
(photo credit & copyright:  Cynthia Madsen)

We'll find another owl in the distance when we get in our cars and turn the corner;  nobody is certain whether it's the controversial bird, but there is agreement that this is yet another Great Horned.  At the time, we end the moment as a house divided.  There is a small (and credible) force calling the bird Long-eared, and a larger contingent calling it Great Horned.  For me, it goes into my ebird list as "owl sp".  (For folks new to birdspeak, that means I've identified it as an owl, but the "sp" is short for species, and it indicates that I have not been able to identify the specific species.)

We cover a lot of ground on this field trip;  too much, perhaps, for such a large group.  But we encounter lots of fun birds, many new for the year.  Highlights of the rest of the day - as we cross from Adams and Denver Counties into Morgan and Weld - are a huge flock of Wild Turkeys assembled in a farm field, far off the road, and a smaller flock of Brewer's Blackbirds.  But that's after we've stopped for lunch at a rest stop along the way, enjoying the sunshine and gorgeous weather.  There are a few birds at the rest stop, ones we would expect there:  a few House Sparrows, an American Robin or two, and even a flyover by yet another adult Bald Eagle.  But as we leave our lunch stop, one more unexpected bird is foraging along the wayside.

AMB Class #12: Raptors

Oh Raptor Day!  Callooh!  Callay!  (All due apologies to Lewis Carroll.)

Our first post-holiday-break unit in the AMB program is Raptors, and boy is it timely.  On my last CBC (Christmas Bird Count) in the Barr Lake area, we had tons of raptors.  Tons!  Er, I mean, Tens!  

But with birds this large, it may be easy to see how their numbers might seem uber-large.

And the problem (well, MY problem) has always been how to call a large soaring bird anything other than Red-tailed Hawk?

Various friends - mentors, friends, well-meaning neighbors, etc. - have been trying to help me out by pointing out features of these large birds for some time, but the distinctions have not been sticking.  Maybe now, through the AMB program, I can get it.

One can only hope.

During class on January 6th, our raptor expert is Jeff Birek.  He's an Outreach Biologist for the Rocky Mountain Bird Observatory (maybe one day we can talk more about this organization, but for now, I'll just echo what Jeff told us:  it was founded in 1988 and has 45 FTEs and roughly 75 seasonal hires.  This seems like a grand thing to me:  all these people working on bird conservation issues, in addition to all the people who volunteer for RMBO).

And, like all our speakers, Jeff is clearly an expert in his field.  I am, as always, blown away by the quality of speakers this program serves up.

Jeff's first job is to define "raptor".  In the context of this unit, it means birds with hooked bills, powerful talons, and keen eyesight or good hearing.  The focus of the unit is diurnal raptors (diurnal, for people new to birdspeak, means "active during daylight hours"), so for now, we'll exclude owls.  We'll also exclude ravens, since they have pointed - not hooked - bills, and perching legs.  We'll also exclude vultures, as they may have the keen eyesight and hooked bill, but lack the powerful talons (after all, those talons aren't so necessary when your prey is served up dead).

Magnificent Frigatebird.  Sadly, not in Colorado.

After the introductory stuff - including not only the descriptions above, plus great factoids (raptors typically soar on thermal updrafts, and in the soaring, they use less energy than I use sitting here typing out a blog entry;  raptors don't migrate over water because you don't get thermals over water - with the exception of Swallow-tailed Kites who somehow *do* find thermals over water;  Magnificent Frigatebirds are the birds with the lowest wing loading of all birds, so they soar effortlessly) - we get into the meat of the thing: specific ways to ID raptors in the field.  That's a good thing, as our Saturday field trip is exactly on that point:  identifying raptors in the field.

After the lecture, to drive home the point of how difficult raptors can be to ID (it would be tough enough just to differentiate species if they did *not* have such variations as dark and light morphs), I have my own solo difficult-ID experience between our class session and our field trip.  I'm in Denver, but birding in an area that's a little sketchy - the Platte River at Globeville, where a Red-breasted Merganser has been reported.

And there, standing in the middle of the river, under an overpass, is a hawk.

I'm amazed.  This seems like crazy behavior, so I try to get around the bird for a better look but by the time I find it, it's flown and landed in a tree (more where I would expect it).


What the heck is it?  

I'm hoping for something less "usual" than a Red-tailed Hawk, so I check out every field mark I can identify.  The back has a lot of white, there is not a red tail, and there's no distinctive belly band - at least not one that i see until I later download my photos.

But still, I can't make it into anything else (try as hard as I might), and finally I send my photos off to an expert birder friend for ID.

It's a young Red-tailed Hawk.

On one hand, I'm disappointed that I didn't find something a little more rare, but on the other hand, I'm thrilled that this was the ID that I had guessed.  I'll have to wait for our field trip the coming Saturday to see a raptor that is not a Red-tailed Hawk.

And in the meantime, I'll have to keep looking for that Red-breasted Merganser.

AMB Requirement #12: Participate in at least one Christmas bird count........

.....and at least one Fall or Spring Count.

Well, I had such a grand time on my Fall Count:  I knew that I wanted to do at least one (and probably more than one) Christmas Count.

So I did three.

Which, if you're not a birder, might seem like a lot.

But the birders know: it's just a drop in the bucket.  This stuff is addictive.  

Why?  I wish I could tell you.  Maybe because everyone is so focused on seeing every single bird possible that each outing turns into a bird-a-palooza.  Maybe because the great birders turn out for the events in droves, and I'm finding that the best way to learn is by hanging out with the great birders.  Maybe because it's a pretty damn fine excuse to dispense with all the holiday hoopla and commercialization and just get out there and enjoy nature.

Or maybe it's just because of the birds.

My first Christmas bird count is at the start of the CBC (that's "Christmas Bird Count") season, on December 14.  I responded to a query that Doug Kibbe sent out, asking for volunteers for CBCs that he was leading.  I thought the Pueblo count on 12/14 sounded like fun, so I volunteered.  He said, great.  Cool!

Then he said, we need to meet at Castle Rock at 5:something on Saturday morning.

I thought, Oh Crap.

But I couldn't gracefully get out of the thing, so there I was, setting my alarm clock for 4 a.m. (which, in case you haven't been up at 4 a.m. lately, is dark, dark, dark), and heading south.  I met Doug and Sue, another fool - er, um, I mean volunteer - in the parking lot of Lowes.  I pulled in first, then a car pulled up, and I thought, great, we're all here at the same time.  But no.  It was somebody else.  Then somebody else, and somebody else.  At first I thought hunters, but nobody was really outfitted for hunting.  Then I got scared and thought "drug deal".  But pretty soon - within minutes, actually - there were too many people to be a drug deal.  Then - duh - I realized that it was the early crew showing up for work at Lowes.  All this in a few minutes.  Still, I was relieved when Doug and Sue arrived.  Whew.  Time to go see some birds.

And the birding was fabulous.  We covered the Pueblo State Wildlife Area, where the only remaining scariness was the presence of duck hunters (and the fact that at least one wanted to impress us and fired off a number of shots, too close for this reporter's comfort).  

The thing that had attracted me to Pueblo - the fact that the area is just far enough south to have different habitat and different birds - paid off in three new life birds:  Northern Shrike, Juniper Titmouse, and Thayer's Gull.

Sadly, I do not get usable photos of any.

But I do get nice views of a Ferruginous Hawk 

and a Rough-legged Hawk

I also get some nice looks at "year birds" (birds I have seen before, but not yet this year), like Canyon Towhee and Golden Eagle.  So by day's end, I'm thrilled with our count, even if it's not a super photography day.

My second Christmas Count is post-Florida, post-Christmas, but decidedly cold Christmas-like weather:  January 1.  I've chosen to be a part of a team led by Marilyn Rhodes and Bob Santagelo here in the heart of Denver, where I live.

What I didn't count on - what nobody really counted on - was the snow.

We all (a good-sized group - maybe 20 or 24 to start) meet up at Denver Botanic Gardens to start at 8 a.m.  That seems eminently reasonable, given that it's New Year's Day.  But as we gather, it starts to snow.  And then it snows some more.  And it just won't stop.  Brrrrr.

People tell me that the Botanic Gardens are usually a good birding spot. But maybe not so much in the snow.  We go next-door to Cheesman Park, which might be dead, too, if not for this gorgeous juvenile Cooper's Hawk that someone in our group spots right off the bat:

(Here's an AMB tip:  we know it's a juvenile because of the striping.  Adults are barred - in other words, the strips are horizontal.  On juvies, the striping is vertical.)  Unfortunately, that's one of the few good looks at birds that we get all day. Later, we'll pick up a few ducks at Washington Park:

Common Mergansers
You can tell the female is a Common by the white chin/neck - if the males (a dead giveaway) were not right there.

And a few other species:

Crow, with Fish;  why wouldn't this be a Fish Crow?  After all, I saw lots of Fish Crows last week in Florida.

My CBC teammates will only let me count this as an American Crow, not a Fish Crow.

And I'm willing to accept that not everybody loves gulls, but, really, on a day that is mostly cloudy and cold and snowy, when we get a moment of blue sky and sun, who can argue with this Ring-billed Gulls taking top billing?

In case you want to play "name that bird" at home, note the yellow legs, ringed-bill (okay, that's kind of cheating), and light eye of this bird.  It will at least steer you along the right path to a gull ID.

Finally, as if two CBCs are not enough, in addition to my week in Florida, where the only thing I did was bird (well, and maybe eat and sleep) (on further reflection, nope, pretty much just birded, eating and sleeping were tough to come by), I signed up for yet another bird count on Sunday, January 5.  It seemed like a good idea when I signed up, but then - after making the commitment - I looked at the forecast.

Oh dear.  What have I done?

It's gotten frigid in Colorado again, and this count - the Barr Lake Count - is out northeast of Denver, where urban ends and plains begin.  That means cold, snow, cold, snow, wind.

I think about just not showing up, but since I've already had one cold-weather-dropout in the AMB program in early December, that feels wrong.  And when I check the temp when I get up on count day, it's a balmy 12 degrees at my place.  That's actually 20 degrees warmer than it was on the AMB test that I skipped.  What's a girl to do but to put on the ski clothes I planned to wear that day (6 layers on top;  I'm not exaggerating, and I'm not sure it's enough), and head north and east?

Once again, I'm on Doug Kibbe's team, and that feels pretty comfortable to me;  he's a fun guy.  I'll admit to hanging back when Doug asks for volunteers to do the walking part of our territory.  Normally, I'd be first in line for getting outside and walking rather than driving.  But when it's barely ten degrees (yeah, it's a bit colder out here than at home) with the wind whipping and snow falling, I'm not ashamed to admit that I'm a wimp, and I let some of my (much-admired) teammates take that route.  That means that I'm teamed up with Doug and Judy (yep, that's right) for the driving part of this count.

We leave the Stone House at Barr Lake, and I'm expecting a dead day.  But oh, holy moses, am I wrong.  To start out with, we get a Rough-legged Hawk.  Doug makes me ID the bird, in the distance, and I have a memory of him noting - on the Pueblo count - that Rough-legged Hawks are the only raptors that hover.  Thank heavens I've remembered that fact.  Then we happen upon a field that has some black birds.  A flock of black birds.  In fact, a huge flock of black birds - that we determine to be Red-winged Blackbirds, as the entire flock - we estimate it at 2500 birds - flies over our vehicle.  Oh wow.

And that's pretty much the way the day goes:  raptors and large flocks of birds.  We see three Bald Eagles, two Great Horned Owls (one flies right over my head!), a couple of Northern Harriers and a couple of American Kestrels, twelve Red-tailed Hawks, and eight Rough-legged Hawks, including one dark-morph.  We see a flock of 600 or so Horned Larks;  I've never seen anything like that, and the bonus is that we see a couple of Lapland Longspurs in the mix.  We see - mixed in a large flock of Canada and Cackling Geese - a single Great White-fronted Goose.  We see plenty of American Robins and Blue Jays and a smattering of other ducks and small birds.

Of course, the photo ops are incredible, but I've left my camera at home, thinking that the weather isn't suitable for photography.  Chalk one up for the Boy Scouts and Always-be-prepared.

When we wrap up the morning's birding back at the Stone House, we run into a few of my AMB classmates and friends, and we have friendly exchanges about what we've seen in the morning.  I'm actually sad that I have to leave for other commitments now;  who knows what birds are out there, waiting for me to find them.   As I drive off, away from all the birding activity, I wonder if maybe - just maybe - there isn't another CBC left that I can take part in.  After all, it's really only early January.  Surely there are more counts to do?

How I Spent My Christmas Vacation

The AMB schedule has been intense, and it will be intense again soon, but there is a heavenly break in December of four entire weeks.  Four weeks!  Life is good.  I love the learning and the speakers and the field trips and all, but what a joy to have four entire weeks to myself!

So, of course, because I'm looking for a break from all of this, I head to Florida to spend Christmas week with my friend Melissa.  I may have mentioned that Melissa was responsible for getting me interested in the birding nonsense as well as the photography nonsense.  It was a similar trip two years ago that led me to where I am now, and that might best be described as bird-obsessed.  Yes, two years ago, I was a complete neophyte and was taken in by the big and beautiful wading birds.  They are, as we all know, the entry drug of birding.

This year, Melissa has prepared an itinerary so intense that - by the end of the week - I'll be praying to get home just so I can get some sleep.  And have a meal that isn't shoveled down between birding locations.

And mind you, that's not a complaint;  not by any stretch of the imagination.  Because, friends, Melissa led me to 11 new life birds:

Short-billed Dowitcher (sandwiched between two Willets)

Muscovy Duck

Monk Parakeet

Nanday Parakeet

Common Eider

Wilson's Plovers

Snowy Plover

Swamp Sparrow

Black-and-white Warbler

Blue-headed Vireo

Dunlin

.....and countless year birds..........

Wood Stork

Florida Scrub-Jay

Royal Terns (the guy in the back is the youngster, relentlessly begging the parent for food.

Sandwich Tern

Limpkin

Roseate Spoonbill

Little Blue Heron (juvie)

........as well as fabulous photo ops of other birds..........

Pileated Woodpecker

Boat-tailed Grackle

Red-shouldered Hawk

Common Gallinule

Osprey (with lunch)

Burrowing Owls

Northern Cardinal (female)

Tufted Titmouse

Bald Eagle

Anhinga

Of course, there were a few on my target list that were "guarantees" that we didn't see:  Piping Plovers and Red Knots and the much-heralded and much-reported Bar-tailed Godwit that's been hanging around Fred Howard Park for many weeks now.  But who has time to bemoan the missed birds?  After all, that just gives me something to go back for. 

Plus, I can't be worried about the ones that got away, not when it's my turn to plan an itinerary for when Melissa comes to see me next summer, and I get to share all the mountain and western birds with her.  Oh wow, where to start?  Well there are Black-capped Chickadees, and Mountain Chickadees, and Clark's Nutcrackers, and Steller's Jays, and both Western and Mountain Bluebirds, and .................