29 June 2024
This is a slow time for picking up new year birds. I have already seen most of the locally breeding species, those I have yet to see are hard to find, and there are few vagrants. But there are a few vagrants. Rose-breasted Grosbeaks have been appearing in the region all spring; most have been a bit too far or remained too short a time for me to pursue them, but a second report of one on Gazos Creek Road, near where I saw the Northern Parula, suggested one may be lingering there. A whale carcass at Gazos Creek State Beach further inclined me in that direction: it might attract some rarities. A report this morning of an Eastern Wood-Pewee in Davenport, which is on the way to Gazos Creek, settled the matter and I was off. This would be the first record of the species in Santa Cruz County, and for me the first ever seen in California as well as a first for the year.
Other birders were at the Eastern Wood-Pewee site when I arrived, but I could hear it call before they even had a chance to confirm that it was still present. They did point it out to me, perched high in a eucalyptus. From what I could see it could easily have been a Western Wood-Pewee, which is what one would expect here, but the call identified it. The situation did not lend itself to a photo other than the bird in silhouette. Neither did it lend itself to a good recording; I could hear it perfectly well, but wind and noise from a busy road made it beyond the ability of my phone to capture the bird’s calls in any recognizable way. After a bit the other birders left, the bird stopped calling, more birders arrived and I assured them the Pewee was still here, but I headed on to Gazos Creek. An eBird checklist may be examined here: https://ebird.org/checklist/S184697626.
It was a day made to drive people to the beach: a Saturday in the summer, very hot inland, cooler, but still pleasantly warm, on the coast. Gazos Creek Beach is relatively far from San Francisco and the cities that surround the bay, but even it had a fair number of visitors. Some of them were deliberately chasing the gulls on the beach. Others had dogs off leash (which is supposed to be illegal in a state park, but the law seems never to be enforced) that chased the gulls. It is one of those things I do not understand: it is okay to harass birds on a beach in ways that would never be okay for other wildlife. (I may have harped on this subject previously.) The whale carcass turned out to be little more than a pile of skin. Still stinky though, and some of the gulls were picking at it when they had a chance. There were a few hundred Western, California, and Heermann’s Gulls, but I did not detect any rarities among them. A Black Oystercatcher walked by, a bit unexpected on the sandy beach. Some Surf Scoters were out on the ocean, and a few Brown Pelicans flew by. The eBird list is at this address: https://ebird.org/checklist/S184698122.
Up Gazos Creek Road, Swainson’s Thrushes and Warbling Vireos were still singing with some vigor, but in the early afternoon most of the other birds were rather quiet. I saw or heard most of the species I had seen on 31 May, but not the Northern Parula (which seems to have left that night) or a Rose-breasted Grosbeak. eBird: https://ebird.org/checklist/S184698398.
One new species today, Eastern Wood-Pewee, zooming the total up to 349 for the year.
This is a slow time for picking up new year birds. I have already seen most of the locally breeding species, those I have yet to see are hard to find, and there are few vagrants. But there are a few vagrants. Rose-breasted Grosbeaks have been appearing in the region all spring; most have been a bit too far or remained too short a time for me to pursue them, but a second report of one on Gazos Creek Road, near where I saw the Northern Parula, suggested one may be lingering there. A whale carcass at Gazos Creek State Beach further inclined me in that direction: it might attract some rarities. A report this morning of an Eastern Wood-Pewee in Davenport, which is on the way to Gazos Creek, settled the matter and I was off. This would be the first record of the species in Santa Cruz County, and for me the first ever seen in California as well as a first for the year.
Other birders were at the Eastern Wood-Pewee site when I arrived, but I could hear it call before they even had a chance to confirm that it was still present. They did point it out to me, perched high in a eucalyptus. From what I could see it could easily have been a Western Wood-Pewee, which is what one would expect here, but the call identified it. The situation did not lend itself to a photo other than the bird in silhouette. Neither did it lend itself to a good recording; I could hear it perfectly well, but wind and noise from a busy road made it beyond the ability of my phone to capture the bird’s calls in any recognizable way. After a bit the other birders left, the bird stopped calling, more birders arrived and I assured them the Pewee was still here, but I headed on to Gazos Creek. An eBird checklist may be examined here: https://ebird.org/checklist/S184697626.
It was a day made to drive people to the beach: a Saturday in the summer, very hot inland, cooler, but still pleasantly warm, on the coast. Gazos Creek Beach is relatively far from San Francisco and the cities that surround the bay, but even it had a fair number of visitors. Some of them were deliberately chasing the gulls on the beach. Others had dogs off leash (which is supposed to be illegal in a state park, but the law seems never to be enforced) that chased the gulls. It is one of those things I do not understand: it is okay to harass birds on a beach in ways that would never be okay for other wildlife. (I may have harped on this subject previously.) The whale carcass turned out to be little more than a pile of skin. Still stinky though, and some of the gulls were picking at it when they had a chance. There were a few hundred Western, California, and Heermann’s Gulls, but I did not detect any rarities among them. A Black Oystercatcher walked by, a bit unexpected on the sandy beach. Some Surf Scoters were out on the ocean, and a few Brown Pelicans flew by. The eBird list is at this address: https://ebird.org/checklist/S184698122.
Up Gazos Creek Road, Swainson’s Thrushes and Warbling Vireos were still singing with some vigor, but in the early afternoon most of the other birds were rather quiet. I saw or heard most of the species I had seen on 31 May, but not the Northern Parula (which seems to have left that night) or a Rose-breasted Grosbeak. eBird: https://ebird.org/checklist/S184698398.
One new species today, Eastern Wood-Pewee, zooming the total up to 349 for the year.