Category: Blog

A Day in Casablanca to Recover

Eurasian Thick-knee

My trip to Morocco is off to a fine start, with new experiences and new species. The flight from Seatac the Seattle-Tacoma, WA airport to Charles DeGaulle Airport in Paris was long but uneventful. Delta did a good job of providing vegan meals for me, and we got in at about 8 AM after a 10 ½ hour flight “losing” 9 hours enroute due to time-zone changes. Bruce and I wandered around the airport and tried to rest until or flight to Casablanca left about 12:40, arriving about 2:50, going one time zone back. Customs was an endurance effort, with a 2+ hour cramped line with masses of people, and we saw the customs employees need to exercise great patience as angry parents shouted and pushed and shoved while a trio of young attractive women tried to cut in line, and we all inched our way forward.
After getting our luggage, getting a SIM card for our phones, and buying data and voice time we caught a cab to the Best Western Hotel Toubkal in downtown. We had dinner and managed to stay awake until maybe 8:45 PM and slept well in our twin beds until jet-lagged morning arrived about 3-4 AM and we waited for daylight. This AM we had a good breakfast at the hotel, and went to Par Sindbad near the coastline where a large overgrown abandoned parking lot and entertainment park recommended by Michael Carmody provided an introduction to common Moroccan birds.

A Glossy Ibis, the species of ibis seen in the eastern U.S. flew directly overhead.

Shortly after arriving a pair of Eurasian Thick-knees flew in, a species Bruce had seen in Lesvos, Greece but were a lifer for me. They were a very exotic shorebird to find on our own. We added about 28 more species not including another 2 or 3 left unidentified. Here are a few photos I like best.

Spottles Starlings *Sturnus unicolor* here are very similar in appearance and behavior to the European Starlings that were introduced to the U.S.
I love seeing different doves and pigeons, and this Eurasian Turtle Dove *Streptopelia turtur* was a lifer for me this morning.
Blackbirds *Turdus merula* are common species throughout Europe, as well as in Morocco, and this male and female gave a good comparison showing the sexual dimorphism.
We saw several Sardinian Warblers *Sylvia melanocephala* this morning.

Stay tuned for more Moroccan birding adventures over coming days. Good birding. Good day!

Notes Related to The Bird Banter Podcast #12 with Michael Carmody


In The Bird Banter Podcast Episode #12 host Ed Pullen and Legacy Tours owner and guide talk about Michael’s career as a bird guide in Mexico, his “”patch” as well as around the world. Michael leads several trips a year to Mexico, specializing in showing birders the endemic species of Mexico, as well as trips to other parts of the world.
We spend a good part of the episode talking about the upcoming trip to Morocco that Ed as well as Bruce Labar from TBBP Episode #3 are taking with Michael as the guide. Here is a map of the route we will be taking. Morocco Route

This is going to be what Michael calls a “B” type trip. This means it will be primarily a focused birding trip, but we will have some time in various places to enjoy the local culture and sights. Sounds like fun to me.

Here is a link to Legacy Birding Web Site.

I am hoping to make recordings for TBBP while in Morocco and if I can find decent WiFi publish periodic updates on the podcast.

Good Birding. Good day.

Notes Related to TBBP Episode #11 with the Birdchick.


The promised You Tube video of the Dusky Grouse we discuss in the episode.

Sharon Stitler goes by her birding moniker “Birdchick” and her Birdchick Podcast was the first podcast of any type I listened to ever! It was a real treat for me to have her as my guest on The Bird Banter Podcast Episode #11. She is knowledgible, eloquent yet casual and doesn’t take herself too seriously. A great guest and I think you’ll love hearing her story.

Check out the Birdchick website. You can even watch her bathtub episode there!

I learned the difference betweek standup comedy and improv theater. She does improv.

Here is a link to the phone-skope adapter store for the one she uses.

Please leave comments with any suggestions for future guests on the podcast, or things you’d like to hear about.

Good birding! Good day!

Highlights of an Early Spring E. WA Trip

I found Mountain Bluebirds pretty much everywhere in proper habitat this week. They are one of my favorite birds.

Last week I spent at Lake Chelan in Eastern WA, and got out enough to pick up most of the FOY specialties best seen at this time of year east of the Cascades. I talk about this trip briefly in the intro to The Bird Banter Podcast Episode #10 with John Sterling. Here are photos from the trip managed to capture.

This Loggerhead Shrike who posed on this roadside sign was the only LOSH I saw all week.
This male Dusky Grouse was very hormonally possessed, preening, calling and attacking my car and even pecking at my shoes!
Once I found good sage habitat a bit south of Chelan, this on the Moses Coulee Road, Sage Thrashers seemed to be singing everywhere.
Sagebrush Sparrow was tougher to find, but this one finally popped up.
Say’s Phoebes were essentially everywhere it seemed.
TV
Vesper Sparrow

A good week and good birds.

Note Related to TBBP #10 with John Sterling.


John Sterling started birding at age 11 in California, during what I’ve always considered the golden age of modern U.S. birding, where a generation of young birders took birding to a new level. They explored known birding spots, and discovered many new hotspots. Looking for and chasing vagrants became a key part of the birding game in those days, and many California and ABA first species sightings were discovered. John, with the support of his Dad and many of the California birders of his youth, became a key part of that renaissance.
Don Roberson’s site Who Was Who in California Birding: 1965-1989.
He tells us about his remarkable career as a field ornithologist, with stories of the American tropics, California birding, research in the northern boreal forests, and his recent trip to China.
Here are photos from John’s web site of his trip to China last month. Here are his photos from the trip I went with him to Kenya in 2016.

Cocha Antshrike photo of a female from The Internet Bird Collection website gallery.

Here is a link to Cornell’s Neotropical Birds telling the story of the Cocha Antshrike that John was involved with the rediscovery of in the 1980’s in Equador that he talks about in the episode.

Brewers sparrow is the species I talk about in the introduction, and play the song from the Sibley App at the end of the episode. These are among the more drably marked LBJ’s (little brown jobs) we see in WA, and I don’t have any great personal photos, so here is a pic from the same site as the Cocha Antshrike above. Here is a link to the site for reference.

Brewer’s Sparrow photo, credit on link above.

Please leave comments below if you have any questions or suggestions.

Thanks.

Good birding. Good day!

Notes Relating to TBBP Episode #9 with Shep Thorpe


In The Bird Banter Podcast Episode #9 with Shep Thorpe we discussed the upcoming Moses Lake area WOS Annual Conference. A few factors to consider include:

Adams, Grant, Franklin, Kittitas and possibly Benton and Douglas Counties will be included in some of the field trips, so county listers take note, you can bulk up your WA county lists.

You can read about a typical Okanogan winter trip on the ABC site at http://abcbirding.com/jan-2019-north-central-trip/

The Billy Frank NWR where Shep leads Wednesday walks is a great birding spot. Here is a link to the eBird hotspot. If you look, you’ll see that Shep is the #1 eBird lister for this hotspot.

You can check Shep’s eBird Proile here.

More details to follow.

Golden Eagle; Up Close

An adult Golden Eagle seen today on Gorge Rd, Chelan, WA.

Golden Eagles are a species that is always special to enounter, but where most enocounters are of distant birds. They live in remote areas, and are often seen soaring high in the sky, or perched on a cliff so far away that the first question is whether I’m seeing a bird, not what species is the bird. Today on Gorge Road near Chelan, Washington when I stopped see if I could see the Chukar that were calling, a Golden Eagle was perched in a nearby tree.

I walked along the dirt road to get a better angle when I noted a path to an overlook of the canyon that was shielded by a rocky outcropping. I walked to a spot where the GOEA was maybe 30 yards away, and where I was mostly shielded from view for photos.


Sometimes when you just get out birding special things happen.


Good birding! Good day!

The Bird Banter Podcast #8 with Bill Tweit.

The Bird Banter Podcast Episode #8 with Bill Tweit

In this episode host Ed Pullen talks with Bill Tweit about his birding experiences, especially with Westport Seabirds, and how it came to have the longest continuous database of pelagic seabirds in the world.  Bill is a great birder, first rate scientist, and wonderful story teller.  Enjoy the episode.

Annotated links to things discussed in the podcast:

On the bird banter website you can see photos from the Westport Seabirds Pelagic Trip discussed in this episode as well as read an account of the trip.   

Go to the website of Westport Seabirds to schedule your Washington Pelagic Trip, to look at historical sightings or to learn about pelagic birding off the Washington coast.    

Here is a place to look at the undersea topography off Gray’s Harbor, WA, i.e. Gray’s Canyon and the continental shelf areas discussed by Bill in the podcast.  Map of the ocean floor off WA coast 

This site discussed the current population and population trends for Short-tailed Albatross  Current data on STAL population 

Here is information about the AIS tracking system for boats at sea.    

Here is a site talking about techniques for setting long lines to reduce albatross entrapment 

Photo of adult with golden nape plumage Bill talks about on the podcast:   

A link to an online version of the 1909 Status of Washington Birds by Dawson & Bowles 

Here is a link to the ABC Birding Club website, the group mentioned by Bill and Ed near the end of the episode.  Ed is the webmaster of the site. 

Check out the blog post with photos from the pelagic trip discussed here: 

Westport Seabirds Pelagic Trip 3-16-2019: A Three Albatross Day!

Three species of albatross together. Laysan (the black and white bird at the lower left), Short-tailed (with the huge pink bill) and our common Black-footed Albatross on the top.

We had 2 (two!) Short-tailed Ablatross with a flock of over 100 Black-footed Albatross and at least 5 Laysan Albatross, for the albatross trifecta. The overall trip was very good, great weather, relatively calm seas, unusual for a March trip, partly sunny skies, and an extraordinarily talented group of leaders and participants on this boat. Still, the story of the trip was that we had 2 individual Short-tailed Albatross, of a species where in my lifetime there were only an estimated 40 or so birds living, none of them adults of this species. These birds nest exclusively on islands off the coast of Japan, and were nearly hunted into extinction by the late 1930’s when a total hunting ban started to be enforced. The population declined from millions of birds in the 1800’s, with a documented 5 million killed over 17 years in the early 20th century for their eggs, oil, and feathers.


Now per Bill Tweit, who is going to be my guest on The Bird Banter Podcast this week, the population has increased to approximately 2400 birds. So we saw just less than 1/1000th of the birds on earth together yesterday!


These are really big birds, making our common Black-footed Albatross seem relatively small in comparison, and have an outrageous bubble-gum pink bill that identifies them at a glance if seen well. I even recognized It was al first-time sighting before the trip leaders called it out by the huge pink bill.

We also had about 8 Laysan Albatross on the trip, with 5 in the flock by a fishing boat where the flock of albatross was located. These are themselves uncommmon birds in Washington and off the continental U.S. I saw my lifer ALAL only 2 years ago on a repositioning cruise, and my WA state bird last spring on a Westport Seabirds trip. To see 8 on one trip was really extraordinary.

To top off a terrific trip was a Manx Shearwater seen early in the day, 12 miles off shore on out way out. It was distant, giving good looks for maybe a minute as it flew away from the boat, much to distant for photos.

BLack-legged Kittiwake

Four Tuften Puffins, over a hundred Black-legged Kittiwakes, and good numbers of Northern Fulmars, Cassin’s Aucklets, and a surprisingly few Sooty Shearwater rounded out the species list.
This for a birder and a lister like me was an epic trip, great long looks at a rare and endangrered albatross made for a memorable day.

Oh! We also saw Fin and Gray Whales.

It was also Ken Brown’s birthday, see The Bird Banter Podcast #2 and #6 for more with and about Ken.
Good birding! Good day!

The Bird Banter Podcast Episode #6: Ed Takes Ken Birding

Ken Brown and I went on a 6-day trip to Southern California. This trip was exactly the opposite of most of our prior trips together, when Ken did most of the planning and led the trips. I have spent some time in recent years in the area, and so planned and led this trip, with the goal of helping Ken see the area specialty birds, both native and introduced exotic species. I discuss the trip in the last episode of The Bird Banter Podcast, and here áre some photos of the trip.

One of the more recent exotic introduced specise to be accepted as “listable” by the ABA. Eguptian Goose.
A Brown Booby from our fowl weather pelagic on Saturday out of San Diego.