24 hours in Pt. Reyes

I met up with Ken to head up to Pt. Reyes to meet up with some UC Berkeley folks for 1 day of adventure in and around Pt. Reyes National Seashore. We planned to do a little small mammal camera trapping, birding, herping, and mammaling(?).

Since this is supposed to be a camera trapping blog I will start with a few pictures from an old barn where the targets were mice and small carnivores. In one night the only guy to show up was a Peromyscus maniculatus, Deer mouse. Handsome fellow. The scat on a board we found didn't seem to entice anyone.

On the mammal front, on a lead from Christian (a different one) we staked out a structure within Pt. Reyes at sunset trying to grab a few pictures of a gray fox in the after sunset fading light. Considering the photography conditions I'll take this photo 8.5 times out of 10.



The benefit of hiking with a herper is that we are looking down a lot. It means we can miss a lot of birds because they tend to be up, but in this case it allowed us to find this little owl. I first noticed the large amount of whitewash on the trail, which made me look up into the darkness of a tree overhanging the trail and see a little ball of puff 10-12 feet off of the ground. Again the photography conditions were brutal (This was the catalyst that pushed me over the edge to buying a monopod currently in route).

!!!LIFER ALERT!!!

A Northern Saw-whet owl. If I am being honest with you, we mis-ID'ed this one in the field though. We thought it was a Pygmy Owl until looking at the photos at home (and adjusting the exposure a bit). It just seemed so small IRL. Does it still count after being misidentified in the field? We'll have to ask the birding rules committee. Either species would have been a (non-heard-only) lifer so real-time excitement was not diminished.

Zoom in on that mess.

Don't forget to look down sometimes and then back up when you see a whitewash.

On CTC's secondary brand - the herping - it was amazing. We found ~25 snakes and I had two of the best cover boards of my life. But before those we saw a couple of Thamnophis elegans garter snakes on a short hike including one sad DOR youngster. I still don't have a macro lens for my newish camera so herp photos are limited and taken on my phone.

The first snake under a board was a 2-3' Pacific Gophersnake - Pituophis catenifer catenifer that I didn't manage to take a picture of because seconds after I lifted that board, screams from another board being lifted gave a hint to at least 8-10 Pacific Ring-necked Snakes, Diadophis punctatus amabilis. Here I hold 3 of them in my hand at once. Most were in shed, which seemed slightly curious.

Under the next board was a smorgasbord of snakes. I think we got 2 of 3 species of garter snakes but in the chaos and fleeting looks as snakes darted in every directions I can't be 100% sure.

(1) Aquatic Gartersnake -Thamnophis atratus likely integrades in Marin County.

(2) Coast Gartersnake - Thamnophis elegans terrestris. There may have been some integrades with Mountain Gartersnake - Thamnophis elegans elegans because some of the individuals we saw had a lot of blue and almost no red at all to them, but I am not really sure if that is the best field mark for determining subspecies, certainly not better than location that suggest T. e. terrestris.

(3) California Red-sided Gartersnake - Thamnophis sirtalis infernalis. I believe this is the one we dipped on, but it might have been in there as there were some snakes with a lot of blue like I said above (but not a lot of red).

Garter snake IDs were incomplete because under that same board there were better snakes to grab including several Western Yellow-bellied Racer, Coluber constrictor mormon.

But the real winner and Snake O' the Day was a male Northern Rubber Boa - Charina bottae. What a treat!

Other mammals seen were loads of Tule Elk, distant coyote, a bobcat, and several raccoons.

At Bolinas Lagoon we didn't spot any otters but the Harbor seals were making noise and a Clark's Grebe was looking regal.

All in all a fantastic 24 hours in Pt. Reyes.

Ballad of the Booby

an August in twenty thirteen
the blue-footed boobies
journeyed north for the anchovies
word came they were all juvies


a terrible birder joined the quest
anxious for a brief glimpse
Bodega! Reyes! The City!
denied in each instance



a guano rich rock in Marin
the final chance for the success
highway one hugs the winding coast
he, oddly free of stress


then at mile nine - quick over a fence
sharp shrubs, slick sediment
left his clothes torn with hands bleeding
damn all impediment!


at the edge where spray could be felt
rest along a rocky rise
binoculars out on the search
relentless scans tire eyes


to the north a lonely fisher
while straight a-west booby
"nay, there two clearly on Gull Rock"
the birder cried with glee

after an hour he was sated
steep hike up, yet peppy
a glorious success today
what could halt this jolly?


there at the top - two old birders
with scope trained obscure
"come have a look" they said with grins
without sweat, a sight pure

Wintering Say's Pheobe

I've have been waiting for the Say's Phoebe that over wintered on the UCSC campus the last two years to show up and was starting to think it might have met its maker. Finally on Christmas Eve, as I was leaving the lab I saw a Say's Phoebe in the usual spot. I don't know that this is the same individual for sure, but I like to think it might be.

As you can see from one of the photos it likes to perch and hunt from a fence right next to the road so I get to do some road birding on my way into and out of campus every day.

In 2012-2013 I saw a Say's Phoebe in this spot as early as November and then saw it pretty regularly (several times a week with a 40 second search as I drive by, so pretty reliably) until February.

In the 2011-2012 Winter I saw one in January through February 2012.

We'll have to wait and see who leaves the UCSC campus first this Winter, me or the old Say's Phoebe.











On a totally separate note, it has been a while since I have posted at the Flickr rework has made it really difficult to embed photos using hmtl into a post. Looks to be the new frames feature. I'm also not super happy with the apparent loss of the old organization tab in Flickr. I'll need to spend some time with the new lay out to try and figure it all out and hopefully I will grow to like the changes, but as of now, get off my lawn Yahoo.

UPDATE: After posting this I started reading some Flickr forums and realized that the new Beta photo page is fucked if you want old school html embedding. So I opted out of Beta until they get it fixed and reembedded the images in this post. I also found the old batch organizing tool which is now called Organizr and is in a submenu rather than the header. Damn Flickr.

Just a couple of birds

The Aplodontia set didn't only get rodents large and small. No, unfortunately not mustelids, but it did get a few birds.

I present them with little commentary for your viewing pleasure.

Swainson's Thrush, Catharus ustulatus. First time on camera trap for CTC

House Wren, Troglodytes aedon. Also first time on camera trap for CTC

Crop of above image. This is where the lack of a good angle on the bill led me astray. I thought I saw a lack of yellow on the base of the lower bill which caused me to prematurely eliminate House Wren. But after Seagull Steve corrected me I can now see that this bird has House Wren jizz written all over it. 

The trouble with IDing birds by camera trap is that you might get only one image and be lacking angles to key features used to properly ID the bird. The nice thing about IDing birds by camera trap is that they cannot fly away while you are trying to ID them. I have also found that it is a way to get images of some of the shyer species that like to stay deep in the brush. I have never made a set specifically for passerines, but it might be something to try in the future.

Thanks as always to Seagull Steve for ID confirmations and corrections.

Now all you Americans, be good and go VOTE!

Desert Freaks

Zzyzx

Creative Commons photo by Flickr user slworking2

Yeah that is right.

Not a misspelling.

West coast desert rats know it well.

Or maybe you saw Swingers and or some other Hollywood flick where the protagonists head from LA to Las Vegas. I doubt you saw the misspelled Zyzzyx Road, staring Katherine Heigl, considering its US gross was $30.

Yes 6 people saw this movie in the theaters.

I wish I was one of them, but sadly it was only showing in Texas. Netflix?

Or maybe you saw Zzyzx, the correctly spelled version. Another low-budget thriller set in the Mojave. Yeah, didn't think so.

Zzyzx is a California State University University of California research station in the eastern Mojave desert.



The research center is home to Vermillion Flycatchers in the Summer. I have not seen one mostly because I suck at birding. It is also home to the Mohave Chub, Gila bicolor mohavensis, an endangered fish. I have seen one Mohave Chub in my life. It was in the beak of a Kingfisher. Obviously a Kingfisher that doesn't give one shake about the law. Damn Rebel.

Sometimes in the desert you run into bizarre hippie shrines. Considering Zzyzx used to be a "health spa" it is not surprising that one can find shrines in the area. This one is just north of Zzyzx Rd. You can even see the road in the second photo. We were not looking for shrines but lizards. Sadly it was overcast and very few lizards were out. Though that beats 2010 when it was raining on our last day and we had to call off the Zzyzx portion of Mojave loop.











That is one of the many eponymous Soda Lakes of California. How many are there, does anyone know? Gotta be a handful.











Maybe this Summer I will try and make this a proper panorama shot.

Notice the AWESOME donuts in the dry lake bed.  I hope the guy that did that impressed the girl.

And I hope she gave him herpes.






If you can't tell why this shot is the best of the series then you need to change your priorities.

UPDATE: This is the last of the posts form our 2011 trip