End

Here are the final San Francisco images from the trip... I might finally get out and do some proper UK birding now.

The house finch popped up in front of us while watching golden-crowned sparrow at the yatch club - a very dapper bird.

The red-shouldered hawk was, presumably like me, was dipping varied thrush in the Strybing arboretum in Golden Gate Park.

The black phoebe was near the rose garden in Golden Gate Park and was one of the final images taken on the trip. The walk in the park was quite productive, with townsend's warbler, hermit thrush, american wigeon, red-tailed hawk, common yellow throat, chestnut-backed chickadee and pygmy nuthatch also noted. I had hoped for a few more duck species, but I suspect the weather was too nice to draw them in for food hand-outs.

All in all a great end to a winter trip - roll on the next one...

Another Occidentalis

A gull this time! Western gull is a very stocky bird with quite a heavy bill (I reckon it could do some damage...) - it was probably the most encountered gull species on the trip, both at Santa Monica and San Francisco. Whilest staying in Los Angeles I would often seen small groups of this gull heading back to the coast as dusk approached.

Given it's abundance I was able to get a nice selection of images including several age groups - presented here are a juvenile/1st winter, 2nd winter and adult. Interestingly this species has plumage variation between northern and southern birds, with the latter having a darker toned mantle. Given the tone of the adult in the image above I'm guessing that this particular bird was "southern".

Ring-billed & California

Ring-billed gulls are frequent vagrants to the UK, although my home county of Northumberland has not had many (rather amusingly the first bird I saw in the UK/Northumberland was in company with a laughing gull larus atricilla at Newcastle General Hospital many years ago...). I love the yellow iris with piercing black pupil!

California gull seemed to be less abundant at Santa Monica than RBG, and ony a few photographs were obtained. The winter adult featured here shows the relative long winged profile, dark iris and grey-green legs.

Only Occidentalis

First week back at work since the trip is now complete, so in effort to stay awake and finally get the body clock back to the UK timezone (a week of night shift has kept me in virtual Pacific time!) I've not gone to bed this morning and started ploughing through some more photographs.

Today's selection will take in the remainder of the Santa Monica images and onto Hawaii.

First up here is western grebe - this lone bird was photographed off the end of Santa Monica pier, dodging the many fishing lines. Many more were observed off San Francisco (Maritime National Historic Park, Crissy Field etc), none of which were as close as this bird. Regretfully for me, no clark's grebe were seen for comparison.

Heermann's

I've a bit of a soft spot for heermann's gulls - they're a very attractive species. On the trip birds were seen at Santa Monica and San Francisco - all the images here are from the former destination. Heermann's gull is almost exclusively coastal in all seasons, with the wintering rage extending up the California coast just north of San Francisco.

The dark brown immature bird is almost skua-like in plumage and was a bold as the waders on the shore. It's the first immature heermann's that I'd seen and none were encountered further north in San Francisco.

The non-breeding bird was on the pier (head-shot photograph), waiting for food hand-outs no doubt.

Several breeding adults were also present - I love the plumage - airbrushed qulity to the grey body and white head, vibrant red bill - very striking!

Limosa Close-a'

One of the striking features of birding west coast America is the tameness of shorebirds - great for photography - find a suitable spot, sit down and let the birds walk past merrily feeding, oblivious (or simply bold?) to the presence of humans!

This very active marbled godwit is a prime example, photographed on the beach at Santa Monica on December 31st. The image was taken using the 100-400mm lens. The godwit was feeding alongside a single willet and some wave dodging sanderling, with several pacific diver, surf scoter and brandt's cormorant offshore.

A venture onto the pier revealed several chip scavenging heermann's gull (there'll be some images of this attractive species later) and a single western grebe.

Bay Area Birding

Spent an hour or so at Hauxley NR today - located at the top of Druridge Bay - both bean and white-fronted goose had been reported on the 20th. Alas, there was no sign of either - just a large group of grey-lag and a few canada. Red-breasted merganser and goldeneye were about the best I could manage and with rapidly fading light (and a hungary stomach) I headed back home.

One advantage of quiet winter afternoons is the increased time available to browse through some older photographs - so keeping with the theme of the last post, here are a few more from California in May 2006, all were taken using a Canon 10D with a Canon 100-400mm IS lens - from the top down: steller's jay (pacific form - interior west birds have white forehead markings rather than blue, this bird was at Yosemite), western scrub-jay (Golden Gate Park, San Francisco), heermann's gull (a personal favorite!, this bird was at Seaside on Robert's Lake), black phoebe (Golden Gate Park, San Francisco) and finally dark-eyed junco ("oregon" form, this bird was at Presidio, San Francisco).

California Dreaming

It's cold and dull in the north-east of England - time to reminisce to sunnier days... I spent a very pleasant two weeks in California during May 2006. The brandt's cormorant was photographed at Monterey - I love the blue on the throat patch! This bird was one of many nesting on the harbour walls near Tinnery Row. Could not spend too much time there though - they're very smelly!!

The acorn woodpecker was at Yosemite and was very abundant throughout the trip. In Carmel most of the telegraph poles were riddled with stored acorns.

Two hummingbird species were photographed in San Francisco - allen's and anna's. The anna's hummer was photographed at Crissy Field - a wonderful reserve founded upon an old airfield site that was flooded to create a small wetland. Ah, sunshine...