From the Pacific Coast to the Center of the State

Point St. George Wildlife Area

Being birders, we got up at an ungodly hour and drove to the wind swept sea cliffs of Point St. George near Crescent City, California. It was dark as we sat in the car and discussed which birds we might see. A poor homeless man was sleeping in his car next to us in the parking area to this birding site. Our movement and our lights woke him up and he suddenly drove away. We do not usually interact with the strange people we meet while birding. We leave them alone and we wish to be left alone.

The Wind

The wind was cool with heavy gusts. We stood on top of a huge grassy butte which stretched out into the ocean. The birds were just waking up among the rocks and sand beaches below. We used our spotting scope on top of the hill to identify birds. The one of us with the scope would holler diagnostic descriptions to the one with the bird guide, yelling over the sound of the wind. The wind was never so strong that it disturbed the balance of our spotting scope. On some birding trips, one of us has to hold down the legs of the spotting scope to steady the scope and keep the view of the bird through the scope from vibrating violently. The wind this morning was very strong. Robert needed a muffler for his neck. Berry thought gloves would have been a good idea.

Bewick's Wren

• Western Sandpiper
• Bewick’s Wren
• Black Turnstone
• Surf Bird
• American White Pelican
• Brown Pelican
• Western Gull
• Black Oystercatcher
• Double Crested Cormorant
• American Coot
• Red Necked Grebe
• European Starling
• Brewer’s Blackbird
• Common Raven
• Great Blue Heron
• Turkey Vulture

Lunch in Weaverville

After eating breakfast at the hotel, we said goodbye to the Pacific Ocean and headed east toward the mountains and into the large forests of north central California. Again, we encountered the narrow, winding roads talked about in an earlier post. We had lunch in the small mountain town of Weaverville. Robert ordered chili with onions rings, only to discover too late that there was no meat in the chili. Berry had an open faced turkey sandwich. We kept driving and came to the the Trinity River and its reservoir behind a dam in the Shasta-Trinity National Forest. The drought in the western United States is severe. Here are some photos of the reservoir so low that the boat ramp is out of the water. Thirty feet out of the water.

Lewiston Lake

The river below the dam had plenty of water. Berry found a boat ramp with blackberries and a wild apple tree. The birding here was fantastic with many interesting birds. We finally saw the Bald Eagle right above our car. We saw three Mute Swans in Lewiston Lake in California, that is one yesterday and three today. We kept checking the identification of each of these very carefully, because none of them are supposed to be here. Our life bird of Lewiston was the Bullock’s Oriole.

• Canada Goose
• Bullock’s Oriole
• Common Merganser
• Yellow Rumped Warbler
• Mute Swan
• Scrub Jay
• Great Egret
• Bald Eagle
• Red Shafted Northern Flicker

Redding

Our day ended in Redding, CA. There Robert bought a pair of tennis shoes and Berry replaced a leaky styrofoam cooler. We are both exhausted. We just birded the northern California coast from San Francisco to Crescent City and next we will bird our way back down the center of the state. Thanks for enjoying our birding adventures with us.

Robert and Berry

photos courtesy of wikipedia, bshelton

Northern Most Point of our Birding Vacation

In Eureka

Breakfast at Kristina’s was steak and eggs with A1 sauce for Robert and scrambled eggs and bacon for Berry. Breakfast is one time on a birding vacation when it is not the journey, but the destination.

As we drove down highways, through thick, forested stretches of Redwood, or down country roads, looking for birds, we got into a thousand interesting philosophic discussions. What was the source of all the homelessness in the Pacific Northwest ? We see a lot of homeless men and women in northern California. Why do the local girls here wear their hair in ratty, unattractive gnarls painted sky blue, flamingo pink or just plain orange ? Even little old ladies here dye their hair bizarre colors. And why do restaurants always fry seafood items, instead of baking them or broiling them or poaching them ? It is easier, of course, to bread something and fry it, but our preferences ran from being covered in nuts and broiled to my favorite being poached carefully in white wine. The discussions went on in the car between the pauses to look at birds.

Humboldt Bay

At Humboldt Bay National Wildlife Refuge, we saw one of the best birds of the day. This was the Chestnut Backed Chickadee. We stopped the car on a downhill slope because the tree beside us was buzzing with life. There were fifty of these little chickadees eating berries off this tree. We see the Black Capped Chickadee in the eastern United States and the Carolina Chickadee at home in the South. This was a Chestnut Backed Chickadee.

Patrick's Point

At Patrick’s Point State Park, we saw a Golden Retriever walking with its master through the fern strewn Redwood forest. When we first saw the light brown dog, Berry thought it was a Mountain Lion. There are warnings everywhere in northern California for the dangers of Mountain Lions, which eat you, the dangers of rutting Elk, which gore and stomp you and the dangers of Tsunamis (this is an earthquake zone ), which drown you. They put signs at the high water limits of hypothetical tsunamis from hypothetical earthquakes. In the middle of all the excitement, we found a pair of Brown Creepers climbing a tree trunk.

Crescent City

On Highway One outside of Crescent City, a California Highway Patrol cop turned his lights on to signal me to pull over and let him by. I did so and he roared forward, but it really spooked me. The squad car roared around a truck and arrested a third car in front of the truck. Just as this was happening, a group of young teens standing on the shoulder of the highway tossed a skateboard at the truck in front of me. The large wheels of the truck crushed the skateboard for them. We had to dodge the remains of the destroyed skateboard which tumbled across the highway. It was a weird birding interlude.

We took a well needed afternoon nap at a nice hotel in Crescent City, California. It was listed in our GPS as a Hampton Inn, but when we got here it was something different. Using the spotting scope from the balcony of our room, we saw seals playing in the water near boulders in the ocean, poking their cute noses up for air, then descending again. On shore there was a squirrel so still that Berry thought it was a statue. Brown Pelicans were floating sleepily on the waves. Then Berry spotted three grebes, which led to a discussion of the difference between the Clark’s Grebes and the Western Grebes. The three in front of us in the Pacific Ocean were Western Grebe because their beaks were grayish, not yellowish.

Robert and Berry

photos courtesy of utahbirds, wikipedia

Ukiah Sewage Treatment Plant

Ukiah, California has a really cool sewage treatment plant. You may ask why we might want to go to a sewage treatment plant. In the process of sanitizing raw sewage, the treatment plant fills large pools with already filtered water in tailing ponds , in which microscopic matter settles slowly to the bottom of the pool. The water is green with algae and the organisms which eat algae. Ducks, herons, geese and grebes are all attracted to the biologically healthy aspect of these places. Bodies of still water attract ducks. So, we always look for these tailing ponds in every city, wherever we bird. One of the best is in Aransas, Texas, where we saw an alligator underneath the boardwalk.

We drove to the Ukiah Waste Water Treatment Plant immediately after breakfast. We carried binoculars and our spotting scope into the plant gate. They ask that you sign in, which we did. Then, we made our way back to the four large tailing ponds. There were hundreds of birds there. They each can be placed into these specific groups.

• Blue Wing Teal
• Green Wing Teal
• Ring Necked Duck
• Scaup
• Black Scoter
• Common Merganser
• Killdeer
• Double Crested Cormorant
• Eared Grebe
• Pied Bill Grebe
• American Coot

In the rear of the treatment plant, behind the tailing ponds and behind a chain link fence, there were blackberry thickets and mature pear orchards. All this along a wooded stretch of the Russian River. The fruit attracted various birds, such that the leaves were a-twitter with activity. We edged ourselves closer to the fence. It was delicious.

• Yellow Rumped Warbler
• Black Phoebe
• Tree Sparrow
• Turkey Vulture
• Nashville Warbler
• Black Throated Gray Warbler
• Fox Sparrow

This afternoon was travel time. We drove north from Ukiah, California and finally to Eureka, California. This journey was a dizzying series of zigzags and cutbacks on the highway in the mountains. If another car got in front of you, the convenient turn-outs were designed to allow other cars to pass. One selfish driver today had a train of eight other cars behind it. Back and forth. Up and down. The cars seemed to be painfully hooked together because the one driver refused to pull over.

Here are some photo graphs from our birding journey so far. Please enjoy them.

The is a shot of the Golden Gate Bridge from the north side near Sausalito.

This is Robert in front of an enormous Redwood tree in Austin Creek Natural Area.

This is Berry standing beside a huge Redwood tree in the Cazadero woods.

We took a picture of the very large Elk in Point Reyes State Park. We took the photo from the safety of our car.

This is Arch Rock in the ocean near Point Reyes State Park. Remember, we are birders and not photographers.

This is the "Blow Hole" rock formation at the Russian Gulch State Park. Berry almost fell in.

This is a sea cave also in the Russian Gulch State Park. Berry tried to push Robert in.

This is the Chandelier Redwood Tree, which cost five dollars to see. We thought it was a rip off, because there are other, better and larger, holes cut into other Redwood and Sequoia trees further north. Probably five bucks, too.

Robert and Berry

photos courtesy of rfowler, bshelton

Seven New Birds

We left Bodega Bay and birded the convenient coastal turn-offs along Highway One. This part of the coast is referred to as the Pacific Sonoma Coast and extends all the way up to the Oregon border. We saw our first life bird of the day, while it was sitting on the overhead wires along the highway. A group of Ringed Turtle Doves was sitting with several Mourning Doves and Eurasian Collared Doves, both of which we see often at home. The Ringed Turtle Dove is very pale and its white tail is diagnostic.

We continue to be awed by the beauty of the Pacific Ocean with its waves crashing over the large boulders of the northern California coast. On top of one of the rock formations, we saw a faint outline of a bird that was not a gull or Pelican. Once we pulled out the spotting scope, we were delighted to see that it was a Black Oystercatcher, our second life bird of the day. The oystercatcher scampered down the side of a boulder to nibble at tiny creatures in the seaweed next to the sea water. We have seen American Oystercatchers in Florida many times, but Black Oystercatchers are unique to the Pacific coast.

In that same turn-off, in the vegetation, we saw a bird that led to a debate. Berry saw the pink color of its lower breast. Robert noticed the diagnostic black undertail coverts and a black supercillium streak. It turned out to be our third life bird of the day, a Says Phoebe.

We picked up our fourth life bird at another of the coastal turn-offs while driving through a campground. Right before an early morning jogger scared them away, we saw three beautiful California Quail walking out of the underbrush. While we were admiring the teardrop shaped tassel on its head, a jogger with no birding etiquette jogged by and, of course, the quail fled into the woods. We saw them again later in the day.

After stops at several of those really convenient turn-offs, we decided that we needed gasoline and supplies from a grocery store. We turned inland and drove about 12 miles down narrow, wet, winding roads to a Safeway Grocery Store in the woods. We got what we needed and left the store headed to the Austin Creek Natural Area. This is a 600 acre forest of large, ancient Redwoods. These amazing trees were very tall and enormously large in circumference. We walked around the floor of the forest amid the undergrowth of large ferns. We drove to a “pond” at the top of a mountain, only to find that, due to the severe drought in California, the pond was absolutely dry. We probably should have gotten a hint of this type of disappointment when we had earlier walked past the nearby dry creek bed. Everywhere there are drought warnings about using water.

Next to the amazing Redwood forest, there are thousands of hippies, artist types and other people living in rabbit hutch like houses among the Redwood trees. They have spray painted everything. Tie dye t-shirts and peasant skirts abounded. The only road in led carefully between the huge trees and the tiny tree houses with no room to spare. One fellow has a chair lift to get in his house. We can not report any life birds from the Redwood forest, but the cultural side trip to this corner of the forest was well worth it.

On the way to back to the Pacific, we stopped at Cape Fear Cafe for a nice lunch of smoked salmon for Berry and tandoori chicken salad with cranberries, carrots and caper berries for Robert.

We pulled into the Fort Ross Historical State Park around 3pm. We wanted to use it for birds, not the historical presentation. After parking the car, we hiked along the cliffs overseeing the ocean. We found there many of the usual birds we had been seeing all week. There was a boulder with about ten Black Oystercatchers. We saw Double Crested Cormorants and Pelagic Cormorants. One of our favorites is the off season version of the American Goldfinches. We usually see them in their mating feathers. In September we see them in their duller, less distinctive feathers.

We made our way to a small collection of picnic tables. Across the opening there were bushes that had berries on them and bushes that had sweet red flowers on them. We sat down right there and were treated to our final three life birds of the day. The Stellar’s Jay, the Anna’s Hummingbird and the Black Chinned Hummingbird. Wow! Here is a photo of Anna's.

Normally, on vacation, we just start looking for a hotel room and dinner around 5pm, after birding. One hotel owner told us that all the hotel rooms “in the Valley” are booked a year in advance at this time of year. Again, to emphasize. All hotel rooms up and down the coast were full. All of Napa Valley was celebrating its harvest of grapes. We were forced to drive inland about 50 miles to find a room. Fifty miles does not seem like a lot, however, when the roads along the side of mountains contained dangerous hairpin turns and S curves cutting back every few yards in the pitch black darkness, traveling just 50 miles and dodging herds of mule eared deer grazing in the darkness takes about 2 hours.

We scarfed a Mexican dinner in a city called Boonville, and finally, snagged the last hotel room in Ukiah.

Robert and Berry

photos courtesy of wikipedia

North to Bodega Bay

We woke up this morning after a restful night in Novato. The complimentary breakfast offered in the hotel was not to our liking, so we grabbed coffee at McDonald’s and headed about 15 miles to the Point Reyes National Seashore, in Marin County, California.

Our first stop along the road was at the cute little Tomales River. Here we saw three large Turkey Vultures dozing in a tree. We saw three cute little River Otters in the water. They dove and looped around each other, playing in the water. In the Reyes Wildlife Area we saw American White Pelicans paddling together in a line, which scares up fish, which are promptly gobbled by the pelicans. All day long we saw hundreds of Common Ravens, Great Egrets, Double Crested Cormorants and Sanderlings. We found a Chipping Sparrow in the underbrush, several Ospreys and a Prairie Flacon.

Berry identified the Brewer’s Blackbird, which was a life bird for us. We found the Heermann’s Gull, which was another life bird for us. Turkey Vultures and Elegant Terns we have seen many times before. The crashing waves of the blue water of the Pacific Ocean on the rocky shore in the northern California are truly awe inspiring.

We drove to the small town of Inverness. I pulled off the road and stopped behind a general store. We aimed my spotting scope at the water, where we spotted a Mute Swan with two Grebes in the middle of the bay. This was significant to us, because according to the Sibley bird guide, the Mute Swan is actually a very rare visitor to northern California. The Mute Swan is usually seen in the eastern United States. Both of us are certain in this identification. We surmise that this single Mute Swan got off of his migration path somewhere in Canada and migrated anyway, ending up in front of us in California.

We stopped at a hundred birding sites during the entire day. At one stop, we spotted a single gull. It turns out that this gull was a hybrid of the Western Gull and the Glaucous Gull. We saw the Red Tailed Hawk, the Red Shouldered Hawk and the American Kestrel.

Not only do we enjoy the birds we see, but we also enjoy the other animals seen along the way. At Point Reyes we saw the California Mule Deer, a herd of large Elk with impressive racks, two skinny little Coyotes and a herd of shaggy Highland Cattle.

Around 2pm, it dawned on us that we had not eaten lunch, because we were having so much fun. We drove back to Inverness and ate lunch at Vladimirs’ Restaurant. The food was interesting because they served dishes of Czech origin, but we both thought the quality was lacking. The rye bread was certainly not as good as Robert makes at home. The czech dumplings needed salt, the brown sauce was bland. Berry thought the sweetened Czech coffee with chocolate was wonderful. Robert was frankly outraged when the waitress said at the end of the meal that they took only cash. Poor Robert had used his credit card everywhere in Iceland. But, here, no.

After a long morning and lunch, we began our drive north on Highway One, heading to Bodega Bay. We stopped at a small nature reserve along the way and identified the American Goldfinch and the Black Phoebe. Bodega Bay was covered in whitecaps. The Bodega area has many different habitats. Huge windswept cliffs, the roiling ocean itself, long fertile mudflats and thickly populated reed beds.

Our first stop in Bodega Bay was a large mudflat, where we saw a large number of shorebirds. Our favorites were the large flocks of Marbled Godwit. As we continued toward the ocean, we encountered large flocks of hungry Common Ravens. The White Crowned Sparrows and the Red Tailed Hawk we often see back in Tennessee.

Our final birding stop of the day was a huge peninsula called Hole-in-the-Head. The gale strength winds there were very strong. Walking along a steep path along the high rocky cliffs was actually dangerous. Berry looked at the Pelagic Cormorant and correctly identified another life bird. Bodega Head, at the end of the main road into the area, is a popular whale watching spot in winter, when Gray Whales migrate back and forth, from Alaska to Mexico and back. We did not see any whales in late September.

One final bit of local trivia that we learned was that Bodega Bay’s claim to fame is that Alfred Hitchcock directed his film, The Birds, in Bodega Bay in 1963. Neither of us were attacked by birds in Bodega Bay.

Robert and Berry

photos courtesy of wikipedia

Birdically Interesting Highway One

We woke up this morning in Oyster Bay to a soft rain which stopped before we were ready to leave. Robert wanted to dial into a work teleconference. During the conference call we ate a continental breakfast of bagel with cream cheese, fresh fruit and hot coffee.

After the conference call we went to San Bruno Mountain in a suburb of San Francisco and drove slowly to the summit. There we saw our first life bird of this trip, the red shafted Northern Flicker of the western United States. We have seen the yellow shafted Northern Flickers in our own backyard in Memphis. The markings of the two Flickers are very similar. We identified the red shafted Northern Flicker by its beautiful red tear drop shaped markings under each eye. Unmistakable.

Other birds we saw at this site included several House Finch in a bush, a pair of Fox Sparrow on the road, a Western Scrub Jay at the top of a Dogwood tree and several rather pale breasted American Robins.

We were still getting into our groove, what we usually do on vacation, so, on the way to Golden Gate Park, we stopped to get a white styrofoam cooler, some drinks and some munchies. Traffic quickly became an irritation as we got into downtown San Francisco. Golden Gate park was too crowded with cars and people for birding, which requires relative solitude and quiet. We made our way to Stow Lake at the famous Presidio Park. There, at the little Stow Lake with its red Chinese style pagoda, we saw many Mallard male and female either sleeping or dabbling peacefully in the water, Ring Billed Gulls perched on a log, a Pied Billed Grebe diving in the deeper water and a Black Crowned Night Heron hiding in a tree along the bank.

Leaving San Francisco we drove across the famous Golden Gate Bridge. There were thousands of tourists standing on this bridge. We drove across the bridge and turned to Sausalito. This is is a very touristy town, which reminded us of Gatlinburg in Tennessee. We ate lunch at a crab shack, then headed northwest toward the Pacific Ocean to continue our birding adventure.

We drove northwest along the Pacific coast to the Marin Headlands and Fort Cronkite. We walked to the lighthouse there along a tremendously steep path. We walked on the brown sand there and identified the Western Gull.

We continued driving along the birdically interesting Highway One.

• Brown Pelicans
• American White Pelican
• Wimbrel
• Black Crowned Night Heron
• Belted Kingfisher
• Willet
• Long Billed Curlew
• Black Phoebe
• Acorn Woodpecker
• Bar Tailed Godwit
• Common Raven
• Red Head Duck
• Blue Wing Teal
• Cinnamon Teal

Mule Eared Deer were munching their way through the gorse in the area around the lighthouse. Seals lounged on rocks in the water near the lighthouse while Sea Lions played in the water.

We enjoyed a lovely Italian dinner of Rigatoni Bolognese and Pork Chop Milanese in Novato, California.

Robert and Berry

photo courtesy of wikipedia

To Bird Around San Francisco

Robert and I hugged Cosmo the Dog and told him goodbye. He was going to the doggie spa at the Pleasant View Kennel. Robert's sister drove us to the airport in Memphis in a snappy rental car; her own car was in the shop. Memphis airport is almost deserted.

The first leg of our cross-country journey to San Francisco was an uncomfortable flight in a smallish plane into the Houston traffic jam that they call the airport. We ate lunch inside the airport. Berry was served a bowl of unintentionally cool potato soup and Robert ate his way through too many onion rings. It is so much easier and healthier to cook and eat at home.

We then left on the second leg of today's long journey, a three hour flight which crossed the enormous Grand Canyon, soared over the Rocky Mountains, then landed in San Francisco around 5:15 pm. It had to happen; Robert's duffel bag was not on the luggage carousel with Berry's. He waited in line behind an Australian with a broken suitcase handle and finally was told that the duffel bag would arrive from Houston on a later flight. We decided to wait at the airport.

After getting the bag and fetching a rental car, we chose to stay the night in San Francisco. We found a room at the Inn at Oyster Bay on the southern San Francisco Bay. We ate Halibut and Red Snapper for dinner and retired to our room to write our blog post.

Robert and Berry

photo courtesy of wikipedia

Sunday

Berry spent the afternoon glued to the hammock in the backyard. When I joined her, we saw a beautiful Ruby Throated Hummingbird (Archilochus colubris), checking all along the back of the house for sustenance.

Berry and I were walking the dog at 8:40pm and we heard the distinctive hooting call of the Barred Owl (Strix varia).

Robert and Berry

photos courtesy of wikipedia