8-Jul-04

REPORT ON ‘BIG DAY’ FOR THE TORGTUGUERO FUND-RAISER, DURING GODWIT DAYS IN ARCATA

April 18, 2004

Your counters: C.J. and Carol Ralph, Pablo Herrera, and Jim Tietz

For the second year, we bring to you a “bird-a-thon” during the Arcata bird festival, called “Godwit Days”. Again we took on their Sunday “Big Day Challenge” as our fund-raising venue for funding our interns on our great research project in Costa Rica. We boarded a bus at the somewhat relaxed hour of 7 a.m., planning on returning at 5 p.m. VERY relaxed by most “Big Day” standards where they often run for 24 hours!

After some nice coffee and food provided by our own Redwood Region Audubon Society and its cheerful “Godwit Café” hosts, we were off. Although the mood started out relaxed, the anticipation soon began to rise as we started to recite our plans to see the more difficult species over the course of the day… “…a quick stop at The Marsh, with this weather Purple Martins are sure to be at there, then we find the Common Moorhen…then to Elkhead for seabirds…Tufted Puffin?...hmmm…could be tough…”

This big day was definitely a fun one. As you may recall, last year we set a record by 11 species with 129 species, 11 more than the previous high for a Big Day on Godwit Days. We didn’t think we’d be so fortunate this year as to break this effort, as last year we had along with us the star birder, Ken Kaufman. This time we did have several great local birders, including Jim Tietz, Pablo Herrera (our Costa Rican coordinator), along with Carol, C.J., and a busload of keen-eyed Big Dayers.

The weather was certainly a lot better than last year when we had quite a bit of rain: today, we had just a few showers and it got downright sunny by afternoon!

We got off to a terrific start by going to the nearby, world-famous Arcata (the city’s motto: “flush with pride”) Marsh where in the ‘water’ treatment ponds we found all the swallow species that we could expect to find and the ‘usual’ plethora of marsh birds. The swallows had spent the night roosting in the cattails at night and we expected them to be taking a quick breakfast, flying low over the water to feed. An impressive 50 Purple Martins were on the power tower. Pablo also found an American Bittern here, which was the first of three that we would see that day.

We quickly took off about 15 miles north up to Elk's Head, just north of Trinidad where the Sitka spruce forest meets the cliffs and ocean. A light rain greeted us, and the wind picked up, reminding us that it WAS April, and it was still cold. We scanned the offshore rocks and foaming surf, picking up the usual residents of the chilly north Pacific. Our next stop was the Luffenholtz Beach lookout. This was very productive and we started adding species rapidly like Rhinoceros Auklet, Marbled Murrelet, Red-throated Loon, White-winged Scoter and several other seabirds. Much to our delight the rocky headlands produced the birds of that special habitat, the Black Turnstones, lots of Surfbirds, and the (decidedly) odd oystercatcher or three. And speaking of odd, a flock of American Crows flying up the coast included a partial albino with white wing feathers in its wings!

Moving down to Clam Beach, where the coastal sand dunes stretch some 25 miles to the south, we met two biologists, Jason and Heather, who were checking on the rare and cryptically sand-colored Snowy Plovers. Somehow we had managed to stay on schedule and with their expert help, we spotted the adult near its nest, wire-enclosed to protect it against ravens and other hooligans, such as the 4-wheeled kind.

It was time to head inland, so we zipped over along the banks of the Mad River to the Blue Lake (no, no lake in Blue Lake) Cottonwoods, where we found some more landbirds. Despite its great conservation value, the area is replete with gravel miners (who own it), and today, folks with a chainsaw and a couple of ATV riders, making it a bit hard to hear bird songs. We found two species here that are difficult to get elsewhere though: Bushtit and Bewick's Wren. After a brief look, we went up the Mad River to the presently mothballed fish hatchery. Here, the habitat is not quite as good, but without the two-stroke engines, we got several needed landbirds like Warbling Vireo, Nashville Warbler, Brown Creeper, and Bullock's Oriole. A very thorough scan of the river bar brought us Spotted Sandpiper, Belted Kingfisher and a stationary Green Heron that took people both patience and a bit of imagination for everyone to separate its juvenal plumage from the vertical branches its roost tree.

As it was approaching lunch, we headed back to the Arcata Marsh to have a look. At the biggest pond, Klopp Lake, we should have been able to find the shorebirds roosting out the high tide. Instead, we found that a young Peregrine Falcon had taken up residence, making the neighborhood somewhat less desirable for some birds….but we did need the Peregrine!! Happy indeed that we had seen it, we also knew that more shorebirds would be available farther south along Humboldt Bay. One amazing spectacle over lunch was seeing a cloud of around 3,000 Marbled Godwits several miles away swirling in a tight flock to evade something; probably another peregrine.

After an excellent boxed lunch, we drove south along the east shore of Humboldt Bay to Field's Landing where we could see an impending rain squall approaching from the southwest, but (while it was still dry) we, especially sharp-eyed Jim and Pablo, quickly ticked off all the bay birds we needed including some Ruddy Turnstones (a good bird for this time of year).

A little further south at the main unit of the Humboldt Bay National Wildlife Refuge, it started really coming down as soon as we arrived, and the wind increased. Still, our spirits remained undampened (although those without raingear did not), and we all spotted quite a few new birds here, such as Lesser Yellowlegs, Pied-billed Grebe, Lincoln's Sparrow, and Northern Pintail. An additional 40 Purple Martins were here, again, occupying a power line. After an hour of tramping around in the rain, the rain began to ease to drizzle and showers. We were able to tick off many species in this wonderfully-varied refuge of sloughs, fresh-water marshes and ditches, agriculture fields, and newly-growing riparian habitat along the slow-moving Salmon River, where we have one of our banding stations.

Time was getting on towards 4, so we got on the bus and drove out to the overlook at Table Bluff, looking for the last look at ocean birds, and then back around towards the Ferndale ‘bottoms’ making a few more stops before 5. As the seconds ticked down to the deadline, Carol spotted an ambitious Sharp-shinned Hawk swooping on some godwits. It was quite a fitting climax to the day.

We finished the day with our list at an impressive 129 species, amazingly, the same as our record-breaking total of last year! We returned to the restaurant for a post-Godwit Days celebration with food and drinks, and found that, amazingly, the Saturday group had also beat out last year’s record, and (slightly sadly, but not really!) edged us by a few species at 132. They did have somewhat more sunny weather, but the showers may well have brought out birds for us as well! It was an excellent day, with an equally impressive total of bird species and memorable events that we all will long remember.

2004 Big Day Species List:

Canada Goose

Brant

Gadwall

American Wigeon

Mallard

Blue-winged Teal

Cinnamon Teal

Northern Shoveler

Northern Pintail

Green-winged Teal

Ring-necked Duck

Greater Scaup

Surf Scoter

White-winged Scoter

Bufflehead

Common Merganser

Red-breasted Merganser

Ruddy Duck

California Quail

Red-throated Loon

Pacific Loon

Common Loon

Pied-billed Grebe

Eared Grebe

Western Grebe

Brandt's Cormorant

Double-crested Cormorant

Pelagic Cormorant

American Bittern

Great Blue Heron

Great Egret

Snowy Egret

Green Heron

Black-crowned Night-Heron

Turkey Vulture

Osprey

White-tailed Kite

Northern Harrier

Sharp-shinned Hawk

Red-shouldered Hawk

Red-tailed Hawk

American Kestrel

Peregrine Falcon

Sora

American Coot

Black-bellied Plover

Snowy Plover

Semipalmated Plover

Killdeer

Black Oystercatcher

American Avocet

Greater Yellowlegs

Lesser Yellowlegs

Willet

Spotted Sandpiper

Whimbrel

Marbled Godwit

Ruddy Turnstone

Black Turnstone

Surfbird

Western Sandpiper

Least Sandpiper

Dunlin

Short-billed Dowitcher

Long-billed Dowitcher

Ring-billed Gull

California Gull

Western Gull

Glaucous-winged Gull

Caspian Tern

Common Murre

Pigeon Guillemot

Marbled Murrelet

Rhinoceros Auklet

Rock Pigeon

Band-tailed Pigeon

Mourning Dove

Vaux's Swift

Allen's Hummingbird

Belted Kingfisher

Downy Woodpecker

Hairy Woodpecker

Northern Flicker

Pacific-slope Flycatcher

Black Phoebe

Warbling Vireo

Steller's Jay

American Crow

Common Raven

Purple Martin

Tree Swallow

Violet-green Swallow

Northern Rough-winged Swallow

Bank Swallow

Cliff Swallow

Barn Swallow

Black-capped Chickadee

Chestnut-backed Chickadee

Bushtit

Red-breasted Nuthatch

Brown Creeper

Bewick's Wren

Winter Wren

Marsh Wren

Golden-crowned Kinglet

Ruby-crowned Kinglet

American Robin

Wrentit

European Starling

Orange-crowned Warbler

Nashville Warbler

Yellow-rumped Warbler

Townsend's Warbler

Common Yellowthroat

Wilson's Warbler

Savannah Sparrow

Song Sparrow

Lincoln's Sparrow

White-crowned Sparrow

Golden-crowned Sparrow

Red-winged Blackbird

Brewer's Blackbird

Brown-headed Cowbird

Bullock's Oriole

Purple Finch

House Finch

Lesser Goldfinch

American Goldfinch

House Sparrow