Oh, great. I'm really, really behind on posts now. Sorry, but I'll have to post the months of October and November quite briefly despite all the good birds I got to see. Now, I still have to finish up several days in September...
On Sunday, September 28th, I tried again for the Sabine's Gull at the Sunnyvale WPCP (water pollution control plant) after my theater class. At 1:15, we parked under one of the pepper trees there. My mom decided to stay in the car and sleep, so I set out all on my own, promising to be back in about 45 minutes.
I followed the same trail as yesterday. When I was at the first right turn, I met a birder who told me some of the best news I would undoubtedly hear this year - a jaeger had been found on Pond A4, which was very close by! I thanked him, but decided to go for the Sabine's first, and then try my luck with the jaeger, which he said was probably a Parasitic.
It turned out to be a beautiful day as I walked toward the radar station - not too hot, not too cold, and wispy clouds filled the azure sky. I met three birders who, as I neared the channel between the two ponds, told me that they had successfully found the Sabine's Gull... some fifty feet past the start of the channel! I enthusiastically thanked them and set off to find my first yearbird since September 1st.
I wasn't disappointed. Right near the first fountain in the channel, I spotted a tiny gull (much smaller than I had thought) paddling around. Sure enough, with those scalloped, gray upperparts and small, black beak, it was an immature Sabine's - a code five! It was very cooperative, and posed nicely for photos:
It even did something I hadn't noticed until I looked back over the photos in the car:
Having never been on a pelagic, I've never seen this pelagic gull, which apparently isn't all that rare inland, but rare enough to merit a code five. My only regret is that I didn't get to see the famous M-pattern on its wings...
Heading back to the car, I caught up with the three birder's I'd met earlier. We chatted a bit, and it turned out that two of the ladies were visiting from Ohio, and one lived here. I also found out that they were going to try for the Parasitic Jaeger on A4, so I went to the car to ask my mom for some more time.
As I walked to A4, I kept a sharp eye out for Tricolored or the rarer Yellow-headed Blackbirds among the Red-wings, and Virginia or Ridgeway's Rails, in the the reeds to my left. I did hear a Sora for the first time ever, though. However, I had no luck with the other rails or blackbirds. Upon arriving at A4, I thought the jaeger would be waiting for us on the island (on the left in the photo). How wrong I was... The clouds created some breathtaking scenery, and I also saw American White Pelicans, an Eared Grebe (FOS), Forster's Terns, and a Greater Yellowlegs on or near the pond.
Luckily, my birder-companions had a scope with them. Even with that, it took us about thirty seconds to locate the jaeger sitting far out on the water. Even with 200x zoom on our optics, we couldn't make out sufficient details to ID it 100% - we could only say it was a juvenile. We observed it and took some photos. Parasitic is the most common inland, so we suspected it was probably one.
Suddenly, we realized that the jaeger wasn't there anymore. We then hear something calling from over the water, and saw the jaeger mobbing a Forster's Tern. We watched in awe through our binoculars as it made the poor tern drop its fish, and then snatched it up when it almost hit the water! I got some shots of the jaeger as it was landing back near its preferred place on the pond.
The bird didn't look very bulky to me, and seemed pretty good for a Parasitic with the well-defined edge to the primaries. When I got back home, expert opinions by county birders using Steve Tracey's great photos confirmed the jaeger as being a juvenile light-morph Parasitic, giving me my second code five of the day!
As I was walking back to the car, I found a Sora in the reeds, but it escaped deep into them as soon as it detected me. Overall, it was a very successful day, being the first (and probably only) time I got two code fives the entire year in one day, with both of them being lifers!
Summary:
Birds seen: 37
New birds: 2
Big year count: 183
P.S: On September 29th, I visited Edenvale Garden Park, where I was greeted by a Pacific-slope Flycatcher, two Townsend's Warblers, and a Black-throated Gray Warbler! Definitely an underrated birding spot...
Good birding,
Sergey Pavlov
On Sunday, September 28th, I tried again for the Sabine's Gull at the Sunnyvale WPCP (water pollution control plant) after my theater class. At 1:15, we parked under one of the pepper trees there. My mom decided to stay in the car and sleep, so I set out all on my own, promising to be back in about 45 minutes.
I followed the same trail as yesterday. When I was at the first right turn, I met a birder who told me some of the best news I would undoubtedly hear this year - a jaeger had been found on Pond A4, which was very close by! I thanked him, but decided to go for the Sabine's first, and then try my luck with the jaeger, which he said was probably a Parasitic.
It turned out to be a beautiful day as I walked toward the radar station - not too hot, not too cold, and wispy clouds filled the azure sky. I met three birders who, as I neared the channel between the two ponds, told me that they had successfully found the Sabine's Gull... some fifty feet past the start of the channel! I enthusiastically thanked them and set off to find my first yearbird since September 1st.
I wasn't disappointed. Right near the first fountain in the channel, I spotted a tiny gull (much smaller than I had thought) paddling around. Sure enough, with those scalloped, gray upperparts and small, black beak, it was an immature Sabine's - a code five! It was very cooperative, and posed nicely for photos:
It even did something I hadn't noticed until I looked back over the photos in the car:
Having never been on a pelagic, I've never seen this pelagic gull, which apparently isn't all that rare inland, but rare enough to merit a code five. My only regret is that I didn't get to see the famous M-pattern on its wings...
Heading back to the car, I caught up with the three birder's I'd met earlier. We chatted a bit, and it turned out that two of the ladies were visiting from Ohio, and one lived here. I also found out that they were going to try for the Parasitic Jaeger on A4, so I went to the car to ask my mom for some more time.
As I walked to A4, I kept a sharp eye out for Tricolored or the rarer Yellow-headed Blackbirds among the Red-wings, and Virginia or Ridgeway's Rails, in the the reeds to my left. I did hear a Sora for the first time ever, though. However, I had no luck with the other rails or blackbirds. Upon arriving at A4, I thought the jaeger would be waiting for us on the island (on the left in the photo). How wrong I was... The clouds created some breathtaking scenery, and I also saw American White Pelicans, an Eared Grebe (FOS), Forster's Terns, and a Greater Yellowlegs on or near the pond.
Luckily, my birder-companions had a scope with them. Even with that, it took us about thirty seconds to locate the jaeger sitting far out on the water. Even with 200x zoom on our optics, we couldn't make out sufficient details to ID it 100% - we could only say it was a juvenile. We observed it and took some photos. Parasitic is the most common inland, so we suspected it was probably one.
Suddenly, we realized that the jaeger wasn't there anymore. We then hear something calling from over the water, and saw the jaeger mobbing a Forster's Tern. We watched in awe through our binoculars as it made the poor tern drop its fish, and then snatched it up when it almost hit the water! I got some shots of the jaeger as it was landing back near its preferred place on the pond.
The bird didn't look very bulky to me, and seemed pretty good for a Parasitic with the well-defined edge to the primaries. When I got back home, expert opinions by county birders using Steve Tracey's great photos confirmed the jaeger as being a juvenile light-morph Parasitic, giving me my second code five of the day!
As I was walking back to the car, I found a Sora in the reeds, but it escaped deep into them as soon as it detected me. Overall, it was a very successful day, being the first (and probably only) time I got two code fives the entire year in one day, with both of them being lifers!
Summary:
Birds seen: 37
New birds: 2
Big year count: 183
P.S: On September 29th, I visited Edenvale Garden Park, where I was greeted by a Pacific-slope Flycatcher, two Townsend's Warblers, and a Black-throated Gray Warbler! Definitely an underrated birding spot...
Good birding,
Sergey Pavlov
Love that third shot of the Sabine's! ;) And nice pics of the jaeger too! Nice pelagic duo in a day.
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