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During the fall thousands of Sooty Shearwaters congregate beyond the crashing waves of the rugged California Coast. Photo by guide Micah Riegner.

September is a delightful time to bird Central California and this year was no exception. From the Bay Area, we shot over the Sierra and explored the rich habitat diversity that California has to offer, from reedbeds to redwoods, rocky shore to rolling hills, salty seas to tufa towers, and found some remarkable birds along the way. In the Sierra, the game birds stole the show, with Mountain Quail at Donnell Vista, the Greater Sage Grouse at Bodie, and the Sooty Grouse above Lee Vining. It was also a great tour for woodpeckers, with White-headed and Black-backed at the top of the list. Black-footed Albatross, Sabine’s Gulls and all three Jaegers appeared for our pelagic trip as did Humpbacks and Northern Right Whale Dolphins well offshore!

As the morning fog dissipated off San Francisco Bay, we scanned Byxbee Marsh for Ridgway’s Rail—a bird restricted to Salicornia meadows in the Silicon Valley. It didn’t take long before we found one, then two, strutting along the mud: a fine start to a fine week of birding. From Byxbee, we closed in on Don Edwards National Wildlife Refuge to check out a juvenile Ruff that was lingering for the past 4 days. The bird was still there, in its warm butternut plumage with crisp hazelnut streaks.

Our second day, we ascended the Diablo Range and traversed the Central Valley to Sonora (not the state in Mexico). The first bird of the day was Yellow-billed Magpie. These fancy corvids barely occur outside the Central Valley, making them one of the only California endemics. At Del Valle Park, we had fabulous views of Golden Eagles sitting on some Gray Pines, and a pair of California Thrashers singing away from a Sycamore. After ascending the Oak Savannah, we entered the Chaparral, a unique biotic community characterized by low, densely packed shrubs. Here we met Bell’s Sparrow, a recent split from Sagebrush Sparrow--its sister counterpart on the other side of the Sierra. Bell’s has darker plumage and lacks the dorsal streaks of its sagebrush counterpart. After several minutes of waiting, we finally locked onto the bird that alighted atop a shrub, pumping its tail like an Empidonax flycatcher. We had other stops that afternoon for Lewis’s Woodpeckers and Lawrence’s Goldfinch, two iconic birds of the American West.

Calaveras Big Trees State Park is an astounding place, supporting a grove of Sequoias, some of the largest trees in the world. We perused the grove in the early morning and amassed a hefty list of woodpeckers (7 species to be exact) including Pileated, White-headed, and both Red-breasted and Williamson’s sapsuckers! There are probably few places in North America where you can see that many woodpeckers. We also glimpsed a few Pacific Wrens mouse-ing their way through the understory ferns, occasionally perching out in the open for a millisecond or two. After a delicious Mexican lunch, we spent the afternoon looking for Mountain Quail, a bird we all yearned to see. No luck with the quail, so we returned to Sonora for the night.

The next day proved to be “quailier.” We stopped at a campground on our way to the Sonora Pass and there they were, Mountain Quail crossing the road! At least 7 scuttled through, ducking into the Ceanothus shrubs on the other side. The views were fleeting, leaving much to be desired. Thank goodness we came across them again while we were at Donnell Vista overlook, this time right in front of us on the trail! We watched one strut across the trail, and stand on a boulder before joining the rest of its covey in the drainage below.

The dawn light warmed our chilly backs at South Tufa as we watched hundreds of Eared Grebes on Mono Lake. In the sage flats above the lake we saw a few Sagebrush Sparrows and a loose flock of Pinyon Jays. After breakfast, we worked some of the migrant warbler flocks nearby and visited a spot for Black-backed Woodpecker, a bird I really hoped to see. Like Three-toed, these rather uncommon woodpeckers turn up at burn sites to take advantage of the rich assortment of grubs that proliferate in the dead trees. The site we visited hadn’t burned, but there were quite a few dead trees around. It didn’t take long before Tom heard the soft tapping of a woodpecker. We approached the sound, and there it was, an adult male Black-backed Woodpecker!

From the Mono basin we drove east to the ghost town of Bodie, where we spent the afternoon exploring the town and birding the Sage flats. On our way in, we were delayed because a pair of Greater Sage-Grouse was right off the road. On our way out, we came across another 20 birds moving gracefully through the sage, and watched them for several minutes. Check out my video below.

Before the tour I asked Tom about our chances for Sooty Grouse—he said chances were slim and that it has been years since anybody has seen it on the tour. That said, before returning to the coast we spent dawn in the hills above Lee Vining. We drove around a bend, and three Sooty Grouse were frolicking on the road in front of the van! We all slipped out of the van and had marvelous scope views of the birds as they picked through the gravel.

The next day we embarked on the pelagic trip. Onboard were numerous oceanic bird experts: Tom for one, who is the Albatross, as well as Chris Benesh, Alvaro Jaramillo, and Steve Howell, who had just published his Oceanic Birds of the World field guide. As we puttered out of the harbor, Surfbirds and Black Turnstones scampered over the wet boulders. Before we were even out of the bay, we saw our first Sooty Shearwaters: 5,000 of them in a big raft. It was a bonanza! These chunky shearwaters breed on islands in the Southern Ocean and make the journey across the Pacific to the rich waters off the California Current in the fall. As we neared the continental shelf, things got even more exciting as Humpbacks and Pacific White-sided Dolphins made their first appearances. Soon after that some Northern Right Whale Dolphins joined in the mix and there was just too much to look at! We circled back to shore by late afternoon, having seen dozens of Arctic Terns, droves of Sabines Gulls, a couple Black-footed Albatross and a small group of Buller’s Shearwaters.

We wrapped up the tour by birding the coastline down to Santa Cruz, where we saw a lingering Red-footed Booby, Wrentit and some other odds and ends. Oh, and we saw some big trees; I think they're called Redwoods. Many thanks to all of you for a great week of birding. Tom and I thoroughly enjoyed it, and we look forward to seeing you again soon!

Micah

KEYS FOR THIS LIST
One of the following keys may be shown in brackets for individual species as appropriate: * = heard only, I = introduced, E = endemic, N = nesting, a = austral migrant, b = boreal migrant

Micah's watercolor study of Greater Sage Grouse

After seeing Sooty Grouse and Thick-billed Fox Sparrow we headed back down the hill to Lee Vining. Photo by guide Micah Riegner.

Guide Tom Johnson managed to photograph this Sooty Grouse as it strutted across the road.

Red-breasted Nuthatches were probably the most common land bird of the tour. Guide Micah Riegner photographed this one at Inyo Craters.

Red-footed Booby and Ruff were two rarities we saw on the tour. Photos by guide Tom Johnson.

Northern Right Whale Dolphins stay well offshore and often accompany pods of Pacific White-sided Dolphins. Guide Tom Johnson photographed these on the pelagic trip.

ADDITIONAL COMMENTS

Totals for the tour: 218 bird taxa and 23 mammal taxa