Birds I'm Watching: Unusual Heermann's Gull

On a recent pelagic birding trip I got to see many of the local birds that stay mostly far out to sea--birds that we rarely get to see on or from dry land. In particular, there was an unusually large number of Storm-petrels (four species--Ashy, Black, Wilson's and Fork-tailed Storm-petrel). Four birds were new to me--Cassin's Auklet, Rhinoceros Auklet, South Polar Skua, and Sabine's Gull, bringing my life list to 416--a small number, but not bad for only about four years of serious birding and birding done mostly in one area.

There have been a number of Blue-footed Boobies in the San Francisco Bay area this autumn, including around Bodega Bay, the area we set out from. We saw nothing so rare as a booby, but we did get to see an unusual variant of the Heermann's Gull, which is a fairly common visitor in Sonoma County during autumn migration and over the winter months. A few of these birds have a white patch in the wings that is not normally present and that I'd never seen before. I've heard various estimates of the frequency with which the variation occurs, ranging from one in a hundred to one in a thousand. I don't know, but I thought this bird very interesting. This particular individual has white in the secondaries, not just in the upper primary coverts, which is where the white normally occurs in birds that show this variation. Happily, the water was comparatively calm on this (my second) pelagic tour. On the first one, the water was so rough that many on the boat were sick the whole time, including me.

For more about bird watching in Sonoma County, see my website Sonoma County Bird Watching Spots

Birds I'm Watching: Carmel, Monterey, San Simeon (December 29, 2011-January 1, 2012)

On a short trip at year-end, showing around friends visiting from Japan, I went to Carmel, Monterey, and San Simeon, going to the Hearst Castle for the first time in many years.

I got up early to do a little bird watching each morning. I enjoyed seeing Heermann's Gulls at all three locations, in both breeding and non-breeding plumage. These are birds that have already left our area (Sonoma County) for the year and that rarely show up there in breeding plumage with their snowy white heads, scarlet bills, charcoal backs, and jet black legs. These are among the most beautiful of the gulls.

At the Best Western Hotel a few miles from San Simeon, I took an early walk on the beach and was rewarded with one of those memorable birding moments: At one point I could see two Wrentits, a Song Sparrow, a Lincoln's Sparrow, a Hermit Thrush, a Snowy Egret, a Spotted Sandpiper, a Yellow-rumped Warbler, a Say's Phoebe, and a Black Phoebe without turning my head. The Say's Phoebe posed for me (left). Other birds I saw included Least Sandpipers, Marbled Godwits, a lone Black-bellied Plover, the Heermann's Gulls, American Crow, and American Pipit. One strange sight was numerous Great Egrets apparently standing on the water, well offshore. They were actually standing on kelp mats, hunting for fish. I've never seen Great Egrets out at sea before.

For information about bird watching in Sonoma County, see my Website Sonoma County Bird Watching Spots.

Birds I'm Watching: Shollenberger Park, Petaluma (August 5, 2009)

I made my first visit to Shollenberger Park, in Petaluma, today. "Park" is a misnomer. It's just a marshy area and ponds surrounded by a dyke with a path, but clearly an excellent place for birding. Even at this time of year, with comparatively little water, I saw Black-necked Stilts, Avocets, White Pelicans, Coots, Ring-billed Gulls, Heermann's Gull, Snowy Egrets, Great Egrets, a Black Phoebe, a Common Tern*, Mute Swans, and Greater Yellowlegs--not to mention at least two species of smaller sandpiper-like bird I couldn't identify. This last (the Greater Yellowlegs) was a first sighting for me as an adult. At first I took these to be Willets, but a more experienced birder wandering by set me straight.

Having seen them both now at close range, they are very easy to distinguish, but from a distance they can look similar. The key is the yellow legs (the Willet has bluish-grey legs) and the plumage on the  Yellowlegs is a little darker and more distinctly patterned, especially the wings. If you can see the birds fly, they are easy to tell apart because of the black and white on the underwings of the Willet. This is a place that will be great to visit over and over again. I can see that after one visit--and it's only 20 miles from home. I wonder what other birds--migrants perhaps, an occasional visitor from the east--are in the area? There are some in particular I'd very much like to see.

[UPDATE: Went back again two days later. Saw the same birds, but also a Bonaparte's Gull, a first sighting for me, and Killdeer and Mockingbirds--the latter eating blackberries. So that's about 15 species I've seen at Shollenberger Park in my first two visits, a mere 8% of the 195 that are said to be present there at some time or another. I look forward to visiting again later in the year.]

*Reading this ten years later, as a more experienced birder in this area, I note that the bird I took to be a Common Tern very likely was some other type of tern, as Common Tern is fairly unusual here.