Again once I was a child rising up in California’s San Mateo County within the 60s and 70s, my household would often drive 45 minutes west and south to Bean Hole State Seashore. Even now, I bear in mind my mom commenting how that goofy English title sounded a lot extra romantic in its unique language: Arroyo de los Frijoles. Little did I think about that sometime I might dwell a lot of my life in that very same Spanish language.
There are various lovely seashores alongside the San Mateo County coast. What makes Bean Hole stand out is that together with a relatively pebbly seashore, it additionally has some fantastic tide swimming pools stuffed with very accessible marine life. As for birds, properly, I wasn’t paying a lot consideration again then. Nonetheless, I’ve very fond reminiscences of the occasions we spent there.
Shifting to the current, whereas I used to be on the Sequoia Audubon Membership journey I described final week, I discussed to one of many organizers that I hoped to see some ocean birds passing by the coast, as these would give me my greatest probability at lifers for this area. She, very kindly, instantly began determining how she might make this occur. And the day after the outing, she despatched me a really attention-grabbing listing for a current day on the coast, together with the e-mail for the observer, one Peter Metropulos.
I had deliberate on turning up for a brief fieldtrip with SAS on one of many much less attention-grabbing seashores on Sunday, beginning at 10 a.m. However nobody would miss me at our short-term residence right here, if I left sooner than the required 9 a.m. So, with out an excessive amount of optimism, I wrote Peter a message to see if by any probability he could be doing a seabird watch that morning. And, to my shock, he rapidly wrote again to ask me to accompany him on an already deliberate outing that morning. The place? Why, Bean Hole, in fact. I used to be completely satisfied to inform him I knew precisely the place it was.
I’ve by no means had the privilege of occurring a pelagic journey (an ocean boat journey for the needs of seeing seafaring birds). And in Mexico, we dwell a four-hour drive from the ocean. So I knew nothing about watching seabirds from the shore, both. However after simply two and a half hours with Peter, I do know a lot, way more about this artwork.
Peter says that he doesn’t care a lot for guiding teams. However he was definitely affected person with me. He identified the variations within the day’s 5 gull species, all of which flew pretty near the bluff from which we watched. I now know that Western Gulls are massive and have very darkish wings with massive white “mirrors” on their black wingtips. California Gulls are additionally massive, however have considerably lighter wings with barely noticeable mirrors. The a lot rarer Glaucous-winged Gulls (lifer!) look very washed out, or “ghostly”, as Peter stated. The handfuls of Bonaparte’s Gulls (lifer!) that flew by on their method north have been a lot smaller, many with black heads, and flew very similar to terns or swallows. And to my shock, the one gull of the day that I already knew properly was maybe the day’s largest rarety, as a Franklin’s Gull had by no means been reported at this website. Happily, I managed a good picture to show its passage:
Peter instructed me that he doesn’t hassle with figuring out immature gulls. I like this man.
A bit farther offshore, coastal California’s three cormorants all made an look: Many Brandt’s, a handful of Pelagics, and two Double-crested Cormorants, extra typically discovered inland. The primary are darkish with solely a lighter chin, the second have a noticeably white patches beneath their rump, and the latter have a lot orange on and round their payments. After all, I had identified none of this when the day started.
The identical goes for the three species of loons flying by. The various Pacific Loons (lifer!) flying north could be grey above, with a contrasting black patch on the throat. The few Crimson-throated Loons (lifer!) lack that darkish throat patch, and would possibly even present a lightweight patch there presently of yr. Widespread Loons, which weren’t in any respect frequent, distinguished themselves with a splendidly clear black-and-white sample, together with a black, black head and neck ring. Frankly, I leaned loads on Peter for the ID of the primary two species. You’ll be able to see on this picture that the Pacific Loons wer properly past optimum photographic distance.
After which, too far out for any chance of images, got here the actually great things: Peter rapidly instructed me that the two-toned footballs on the market have been Widespread Murres. Lifer!, and my first member of the auk/puffin household. It took me some time to maneuver past the “I feel I see it… Perhaps…” stage. However ultimately I had seen sufficient Murres to detect a pair that regarded solely about half-sized. Peter shouted “Oh, good! I had hoped you’d get to see Marbled Murrelets!” (Lifer!) These fascinating little birds prove to spend most of their lives appearing like typical seabirds, however they nest within the crowns of old-growth timber in Pacific Northwest forests.
And eventually, I additionally managed to find the black birds with white wing patches he saved mentioning. These have been Pigeon Guillemots, a basic auk. I actually want I might present photographs of those final three species, however geez, they have been removed from shore.
The day was rounded out by many, many Brown Pelicans, two Black Oystercatchers (lifer!), a number of Surf Scoters (aka Browsing Geese), and a Purple Finch I used to be lastly capable of distinguish from California’s ubiquitous Home Finches (lifer!, as a result of it sang). Add these to 1 very wild California Sea Lion, and I had fairly the morning. Many because of my unbelievable host, Peter.
