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.

Cold

It certainly is. Arrived back in the UK on Sunday 11th mid afternoon and spent the rest of the day trying to get back into "normal mode". Retired to bed early evening and woke up at 03.30 - jet lag has set in!

Ok, down to business - here's a rough list of the species seen while I was away. Departed UK on 29th December for 2 nights in Los Angeles - birding was restricted to a morning at Santa Monica beach, then onto Hawaii (the Big Island) for seven nights at the Hilton Waikoloa Village. During the stay on Hawai'i we were able to take a full day excursion with Hawai'i Forest & Trail to the permit only Hakalau reserve - more on this great biring day in another post. Departing Hawaii on the morning of the 7th we headed to San Francisco for 3 nights via a few hours stop over at Honolulu on Oahu.

I've taken a heap of photographs, these will creep onto the blog over the next few weeks.

The unofficial "list", probably with spelling mistakes etc:

1. great white egret



2. american crow



3. anna's hummingbird



4. black phoebe



5. yellow rumped warbler



6. western gull



7. western scrub jay



8. bushtit



9. house sparrow



10. starling



11. mourning dove



12. sanderling



13. brewers blackbird



14. heermann's gull



15. double crested cormorant



16. brandt's cormorant



17. pacific diver



18. surf scoter



19. marbled godwit



20. willet



21. brown pelican



22. glaucous-winged gull (SM/Hawaii (Waikoloa imm on 3rd Jan, rare but annual on Big Island)/SF))



23. herring gull



24. forster's tern



25. california gull



26. common myna



27. nutmeg mannikin



28. spotted dove



29. zebra dove



30. pacific golden plover - unbelievably common and tame on Hawaii: car parks, grass verges on roads, garage roofs.... !



31. saffron finch



32. wandering tattler



33. black-crowned night heron



34. japanese white-eye



35. yellow billed cardinal



36. northern cardinal



37. african silverbill



38. bristle-thighed curlew (star bird on trip, single at Waikoloa throughout stay - oblivious to humans, many, many photographs taken!!)



39. short-eared ("hawaiian") owl - seen at close range on Saddle Road



40. ring-necked pheasant (inc green morph)



41. erckel's francolin



42. skylark



43. hawaiian hawk - pale and dark morph seen



44. wild turkey



45. kalij pheasant



46. red-billed leiothrix



47. house finch



48. yellow fronted canary



49. 'elepaiao - ridgwayi form



50. 'omao



51. 'akepa



52. 'amakihi



53. hawaiian creeper



54. 'apanane



55. 'i'wii



56. nene



57. java sparrow



58. ruddy turnstone



59. hawaiian stilt - 5 on pools north of hotel



60. grey francolin



61. red-vented bulbul



62. red-whiskered bulbul



63. red-crested cardinal



64. mew gull



65. ring-billed gull



66. western grebe



67. orange-crowned warbler



68. red-masked parakeet



69. great blue heron



70. greater scaup



71. ruddy duck



72. bufflehead



73. pied billed grebe



74. eared (black-necked) grebe



75. killdeer



76. least sandpiper



77. song sparrow



78. white-crowned sparrow



79. goldened-crowned sparrow



80. california towhee



81. american coot



82. snowy egret



83. northern mockingbird



84. red-winged blackbird



85. mallard



86. canada goose



87. chestnut backed chickadee



88. american robin



89. common yellowthroat



90. townsends warbler



91. ruby crowned kinglet



92. dark eyed junco



93. hermit thrush



94. raven



95. red-tailed hawk



96. red-shouldered hawk



97. american wigeon



98. pygmy nuthatch



99. red-breasted nuthatch

Annoyingly 'akiapola'au was only heard in Hakalau.