Out of thin air

 

Cathy mentioned she's been seeing some Red-necked Phalaropes (Phalaropus lobatus) at Salmon Creek, so I went for a short walk there before work this morning (26 August 2021).  It was foggy and gray with hardly any wind, and perhaps that was a setup for an interesting feeding behavior.  

Although I'm used to seeing phalaropes picking insects (or other invertebrates) out of the water or off the surface, this morning many of the phalaropes were snatching flies out of the air!  In the photo above, can you see the fly above the phalarope's bill?

Here's another phalarope leaping into the air to catch a fly, ballet-style:

 

 

And a couple more:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Such an interesting behavior to watch.

 

At the other end of the day, after work, I stopped to look at some shorebirds on the mudflats in Bodega Harbor.  The sun was out but it was very low on the horizon — beautiful conditions, and more phalaropes!

 

 

 

 

 

A nice way to start and end the day!

At the creek

Adrian posted some nice shorebird sightings from Salmon Creek last night, so I went for a short walk there this morning (29 August 2020).

A few examples:

 

 Baird's Sandpiper (Calidris bairdii) trying to land in a patch of Ditch-grass (Ruppia maritima)

 

Pectoral Sandpiper (Calidris melanotos) on the opposite shoreline

Red-necked Phalarope (Phalaropus lobatus) preening in the creek

Red-necked Phalarope (Phalaropus lobatus) feeding near shore

Watching and listening

I heard through the grapevine that Evening Grosbeaks (Coccothraustes vespertinus) had been seen in Bodega on Sunday, so I stopped by to look around today (1 January 2019).  

I got lucky and found a few fairly quickly.  Although they were feeding among dense branches, here are a few photos for the record.  I was also able to record their call notes, so check out the audio files below. 

Occasionally the grosbeaks would fly down to Salmon Creek for water:

 

 This one was tugging on strands of lichen:

 

Close-up of the large bill:

 

And of a male eating a seed (Box Elder?):

 

It was a fairly quiet day, so I managed a couple of quick audio recordings.  The first file documents the typical call notes, while the second file is an interesting variant.  [If you can't see the audio files in your e-mail message, click on the title of this post above to go to the NHBH website.]

The typical call note is sometimes written as peeer or cheer.  [Note that there's also a frog calling (ribbit) in this recording.]

 

Now here's the second call type.  This two-syllable call note was from birds perched and foraging in a tree.  It sounds a bit like chew-ee:

We don't get to see Evening Grosbeaks often in Sonoma County, so watching and listening to these birds was a nice way to start the new year.   I'm looking forward to more natural history adventures in 2020!

P.S.  Tom Hahn has confirmed these as Type 1 Evening Grosbeaks.  These birds are usually in the Pacific Northwest and Northern Rockies, but occasionally move south.  Click here for more info about the different Evening Grosbeak call types.

6 in 48

Just a quick picture of Salmon Creek viewed from the Bodega Highway (opposite Valley Ford Road) around midday today (26 February 2019):

 

About 6 inches of rain have fallen in Bodega Bay during the last 48 hours.  This brings the annual rainfall year total to ~32 inches.

River from Hawaiʻi

Okay, so that was some rain today — an impressive atmospheric river event!  I drove out to work at the coast around 8 a.m. this morning, but it was a little sketchy — lots of water on the roads.  After looking at the precipitation pattern, it makes sense that the creeks were overflowing at that time.  Here's the rainfall data from the Bodega Ocean Observing Node:

 

Note the peak around 5-6 a.m., and that around that time it rained ~1 inch in 1 hour!  The total for the 24 hours around this morning's rain event was ~4 inches (!). 

I decided I didn't want to drive through more water on the way home.  So I took a few quick wave pictures for the record, and then headed east.  The offshore buoy was reporting swells of ~16 feet this morning.

 

 

On the way home, I stopped briefly in Bodega to take a few photos of Salmon Creek where it crosses under the Bodega Highway.

Here's the view looking downstream:

 

And two views looking upstream:

 

 

 

In the view above you can see that the water level in the creek was quite high relative to the road.  This photo was taken ~9:30 a.m.

More rain is coming tonight, and there's a Flash Flood Watch in effect until 10 a.m. tomorrow, so watch the forecasts and stay safe!

The fourth Zonotrichia

 

Harris's Sparrow (Zonotrichia querula), spotted in the village of Salmon Creek on 3 January 2015.

This is a rare bird in Sonoma County, especially along the coast.  There are only about 18 records listed in the Birds of Sonoma County, and of those, only one is from Bodega Bay (in November 2004).  Interestingly, what appears to be a different Harris's Sparrow was documented at the Bird Walk Coastal Access Trail in late November 2014.

Harris's Sparrows breed in the forest-tundra zone of northern Canada and winter in the central Great Plains.

Note the black crown (with scaled patterning), black chin, pink bill, brown cheeks with a dark postocular (behind-the-eye) spot or chevron-shaped marking, and long tail.

Although this photo lacks something for scale, this is large sparrow.  At 18-20 cm (~7.5 inches) long, it is noticeably larger than its relatives in the same genus (White-crowned Sparrow, Golden-crowned Sparrow, and White-throated Sparrow).

I introduced the other three Zonotrichias in April 2012 — to compare, you can review that post here. 

P.S.  Many thanks to Peter for alerting me to the presence of this handsome bird!

 

Almost

Well, I was a little hesitant to post these photos.  They're not the best.  But it's my first Gray Hairstreak (Strymon melinus) on the Bodega Head peninsula, and I haven't posted a butterfly picture in a while — so here we go!  (If I get better images in the future, I'll add them, too.)

You know how it is sometimes — this butterfly was always at an odd angle, or some of its features were hidden behind flowers, or the light was too bright or too dark.

In the picture below, almost the entire butterfly is visible, but not quite.  At least you can see its striped antennae with black-and-orange tips.

 

In the next photo, once again the butterfly is almost out in the open, except for one flower.  But this is a fairly decent view of the pattern on the underwings, which is important for identifying hairstreaks.

 

Next, the butterfly is almost in a good position.  But the "tails" are quite visible at the trailing edge of the hindwings — these thread-like "tails" or "streaks" are the origin of the name "hairstreak."

 

And yes, in the following image the butterfly is almost front-and-center.  But the open wing position still gives you a feel for the dark blue-gray color of the upperwings.

 

So there you have it.  Marginal shots of a Gray Hairstreak.  A good record for the village of Salmon Creek, though.  Photographed on 16 August 2014.  

And to end this post, here's a truly marginal shot:

 

The is the hind margin of the Gray Hairstreak as it walked away.  I liked how you could see the small rounded "flares" of the hindwing and how they might almost appear to be eyes when viewed by another animal.

Nesting along the creek -- confirmed

This is a follow-up to the post a few days ago about Common Mergansers nesting along Salmon Creek.  I inquired whether anyone knew if mergansers had actually nested along the creek somewhere.  Thankfully, Skip Hand responded and also shared this wonderful picture:

 

Although this image is from June 2011, it documents an adult female with a brood of very young Common Mergansers resting on a log in Salmon Creek.  The ducklings in Skip's photo are too young to fly, providing strong evidence that the mergansers nested somewhere nearby (or at least upstream).

Common Mergansers are cavity nesters, often utilizing old holes made by Pileated Woodpeckers.  They will also nest on the ground in rock crevices, hollow logs, or holes in the ground.

Females incubate their eggs for ~28-35 days.  After hatching, the young only remain in the nest for 24-48 hours.  They are then led to the water by the female.  The female broods the young for the first few weeks, but they can swim and dive within 1-2 days after leaving the nest.  Although the juveniles form cohesive broods, the female usually leaves them before they can fly at approximately 30-50 days after they hatch.

It's valuable that Skip had photographic evidence of Common Mergansers nesting along Salmon Creek — but he didn't just document them, he also captured a beautiful image of the habitat and a glimpse into "family life" along the creek.


P.S.  Facts above from The Birds of North America account by Mallory and Metz (1999).

Nesting along the creek?

Do you remember the post about Common Mergansers cruising Salmon Creek in late April?  You can review those images of adult mergansers here.

In that post I mentioned that Common Mergansers had been documented nesting along the Russian River and Austin Creek.  Tonight I saw something that made me wonder if the adults I saw in the spring nested somewhere along Salmon Creek?

This flock of juvenile mergansers swam past me towards the mouth of Salmon Creek.  How many do you count?

 

I counted ten individuals.  (Common Mergansers regularly have broods of 9-12 young.)  

You can compare these birds to the adults in the April post.  One of the features that identifies them as juveniles is the buffy stripe or line below the eye.  The next picture is a slightly closer view that allows you to see the striped faces of the juveniles.  (Note also that the juvenile birds have paler bills than the adults.)

 

Perhaps someone knows more about whether Common Mergansers may have nested somewhere along Salmon Creek this year?

Along the banks of the creek

Scott reported 14 Red-necked Phalaropes (Phalaropus lobatus) at Salmon Creek yesterday, and I'll admit, when a phalarope is nearby, it's hard for me to stay away.

At the end of the day today (9 May 2014), I made a brief stop and spotted three phalaropes feeding along the sandy banks of the creek.

 

In phalaropes, there is reverse sexual dimorphism — the males and females are distinct, but the females are slightly larger and are more colorful than the males.

Although I don't have a lot of practice separating male and female phalaropes, I'm pretty sure this is a male and female (below).  The female is in the background, with a more distinct white eye-spot.  The male is in the foreground; his eye-spot connects to the red neck patch.

 

Here's one more picture of the male for comparison:

 

Somewhat surprisingly, I posted a little more information about Red-necked Phalaropes on this same date in 2012.  To read that post, click here.

Breach!

Six inches of rain have been recorded by instruments on Bodega Head during the last 2 days.  And I've heard upwards of 10 inches of rain were measured further inland.  No wonder the mouth of Salmon Creek looked like this today!

 

I don't know exactly when the creek broke through the beach, but the flow this afternoon was impressive.  There were standing waves near the opening to the ocean.  This view is from the south side of the creek looking north.

 

Further back towards the village of Salmon Creek, the creek bank was carved out dramatically and large chunks of sand were slumping into the creek.  It reminded me of calving glaciers.

  

It was hard to predict exactly where it was going to happen next.  But developing cracks in the sand provided hints.

 

I tried to record the sound of these dramatic splashes.  Here are two examples.  (Remember to turn up your volume.)


creek calving1 by nhbh

 creek calving2 by nhbh


And even further back, there were some quieter spots with nice swirling eddies.  (If you listen closely, especially with headphones, you can still hear the rumbling waves of the ocean in the background.)

creek eddies by nhbh
 

Resting among the Ruppia

I haven't had a chance to post these images, so here are a few from Salmon Creek on 14 September:

 

Red-necked Phalarope (Phalaropus lobatus) resting among Ditch-grass or Wigeon Grass (Ruppia maritima).  Can you spot the flies on the surface of the water?

 

Every now and then, the phalaropes would wake up, reach out, and snatch up a nearby fly.  In the picture above, the phalarope's bill reminds me of chopsticks as it delicately holds a fly.

 

Landscape photo, showing a phalarope using a piece of driftwood as a wind shelter.  Can you spot the phalarope?  

It's just to the left of the largest piece of driftwood in the center of the photo.  There were at least 4 phalaropes in this area that day, and each one chose a different piece of wood to shelter behind.

Alongshore

Congratulations, Dr. Kerry Nickols!  A few images of the coast to help celebrate her Ph.D. and to inspire thoughts about the Coastal Boundary Layer!  (First three from Bodega Head, last two from Big Sur.)