2018 Christmas Bird Count #4: Western Sonoma County (12/30/18)

This past Sunday, we participated in our fourth and final Christmas Bird Count of 2018, Madrone Audubon Society’s Western Sonoma County CBC.

We headed out before sunrise and by the time we passed the mouth of the Russian River, the fog was sitting low and the sky was beginning to glow.

Nine of us met at 7:30 AM at the Salmon Creek Ranger Station. Ken Wilson of Talon Tours and Becky Olsen, the leaders of Area 14, split us into two groups to cover the northern and southern sections of the territory.

Our team’s first stop was behind the ranger station near the mouth of Salmon Creek to look and listen for any early morning passerines.

During last year’s CBC, Ken located a Barn Owl tucked into a small cypress grove. We crossed our fingers this year and as we tiptoed around, he spotted one flying through the grove once again.
 
As we poked around some more, Becky laid eyes on our only Lincoln’s Sparrow for the day and a Peregrine Falcon zipped by low over the dunes scaring up hundreds of nearby gulls who escaped unharmed this time.
 
A lone American Pipit let out its name-saying call before landing on the bank. This turned out to be a nice find as it was our only pipit for the day.

The weather improved and the sun came out as we moved up the coast. To be honest, none of us were too disappointed the other team had already counted these distant gulls out on the beach!

As we scanned the sea for cormorants, loons, grebes, gulls, scoters, and alcids, Ken picked out a distant but beautiful male Black Scoter that gave us great scope views. Thanks, Ken, you rewarded us with a lifer on CBC day!!

This Black Oystercatcher was in a loose group with 16 others, noisily flying from rock to rock.

While scanning for raptors along the headlands, we spotted this handsome coyote. He was quite relaxed, and we enjoyed watching him for five minutes while he meandered about, scratched himself, and eventually even laid down to bag some rays.

As the morning went on, the wind really picked up and made scoping increasingly difficult.

The blustery gusts kicked up many soaring birds and provided us with neat looks at the undersides of several, like this Glaucous-winged Gull, Turkey Vulture, and Common Raven.

There’s always some time for goofing off during a CBC. Miles felt the wind and seized the opportunity. How’d he do?

Sometimes while birding we end up doing a little dogging on the side. We were beyond thrilled to see these two doggos in extremely rare plumage… we’ve never seen these eye-ring colors on dogs before!!

We met up with the other team for lunch at Duncan’s Landing. Spirits were high as we shared stories of birds seen so far, and Steve warmed our cold hands and bodies up with a hot coffee beverage.

One of the most fundamental benefits of birding is that it gets you outside. It’s always nice to take a break from the narrow focus of binoculars and zoom out to simply appreciate the surroundings. What an incredible lunch spot!

After lunch, our team stopped at a nearby picnic area to poke around the cypress trees. We found our first Chestnut-backed Chickadees of the day and these cartoonish mushrooms. Miles wondered if it would give him a Super Mario-style power-up.

We moved on to a nearby coastal neighborhood and explored along Calle del Sol and Sierra Grande streets for songbirds and raptors.
 
This beautiful Ferruginous Hawk flew directly above the car.

We call this portrait, “Raven With Hot Dog.”

The trees along Sierra Grande proved the most productive of the day for passerines. Here we tallied: Hutton’s Vireo, Red-breasted Nuthatch, Ruby-crowned Kinglet, Wrentit, Northern Mockingbird, Pine Siskin, Hairy Woodpecker, Nuttall’s Woodpecker, Northern Flicker, Orange-crowned Warbler, and Townsend’s Warbler.

It was here we also tallied three Golden-crowned Kinglets. These little birds are so elusive, we were happy to get even obscured photos of one!

As we walked down Sierra Grande, our team was quite surprised to see a kingbird sitting conspicuously on a post along the street. We checked the field marks – yellow up to the throat, thick bill, all-brown tail lacking white edging – it was a Tropical Kingbird! What a delight to pick up a rare bird on a CBC day!

The bird was cooperative, and we enjoyed watching it for some time.

All in all, Area 14 tallied 79 species, and the entire Western Sonoma County CBC had a preliminary count of 177.
 
What an enjoyable day it was – great birds and great company. This was our fourth and final CBC for the year. It’s so fun cramming intensive day-long birding sessions into the last weeks of December in the name of citizen science. We’re already looking forward to the 2019 Christmas Bird Count season!
 
To learn more about the CBC, visit the National Audubon Society’s History of the Christmas Bird Count page.