Category Archives: Travel

Gone Birding In Panama

March 19, 2018TravelKate St. John

Keel-billed toucan in Ancon, Panama (photo by Billtacular on Flickr, Creative Commons license)

On a birding trip to Panama:

This morning nine friends and I are on our way to a week-long birding trip at the Canopy Tower in Panama. I’m sure to see many Life Birds including this colorful resident with blue feet, the keel-billed toucan (Ramphastos sulfuratus).

Panama is best known for the Canal that links the Atlantic and Pacific oceans but there’s a lot more to it than that. Directly south of Pennsylvania, it’s the narrow land bridge that links North and South America though the country itself runs east-to-west.

Smaller than South Carolina, Panama hosts a population of 4 million people and 987 species of birds. Its biodiversity comes from its location as the crossover zone where north meets south, and its elevation change of 11,400 feet from the mountains to the sea.

Map of Canopy Tower visit, 19-26 March 2018 (from the Canopy Tower)

The Canopy Tower is well situated to see a rich variety of birds, butterflies, mammals and plants. Located on the Pacific (southern) side of the country near Panama City the tower was built in 1965 for communications, air traffic control, and defense of the Panama Canal (the Panama Canal Zone was a U.S. territory until 1979). The FAA and the Panama Canal Commission abandoned it 30 years later but Raúl Arias de Para had a better idea. The tower is so tall that you can see above the canopy of trees. And that’s where the birds are. In January 1999 he made it a birding destination.

The checklist for our short trip contains more than 470 species of birds. I can hardly wait! Here’s a preview.

Video of Canopy Tower 2017 courtesy of Victor Castroverde.

I’ll be too busy to blog at the Canopy Tower so I’ve left my laptop at home and written all 7 days of articles in advance. I’ll check my blog once a day but I won’t login to Facebook. (Note! As always, if you want to reach me the best way to do it is to leave a comment on my blog.)

This week I’m mostly off the grid while my husband holds down the fort at home. I’ll see you when I return to my computer on Monday morning, March 26.

(photo and maps from Wikimedia Commons. Click on the images to see the originals.)

Day 1: Fly to Panama City. Birding at the Canopy Tower and Gamboa.

Flashy Hummingbirds In Winter

February 9, 2018Songbirds, TravelKate St. John

One of the cool things about visiting California in January was seeing hummingbirds in the winter. On field trips near Chico I saw Anna’s hummingbirds flash their red faces in the sun.

Anna’s hummingbird (Calypte anna) is found year round in many parts of California. The rainy season triggers breeding so they nest from December to May. Though there’s snow on the mountains in January, the manzanita that blooms at lower elevations attracts these tiny birds.

Often an Anna’s will stake out a bush, watching and waiting to chase off other hummingbirds. His forehead, face and gorget flash a warning red, “This is mine! Stay away!”

The video from Cornell Lab shows how flashy this hummingbird can be.

(video about iridescence from Cornell Lab of Ornithology)

Smaller Than A Kinglet

February 4, 2018Songbirds, TravelKate St. John

Bushtits near a puddle (photo by Melissa McMasters via Wikimedia Commons) — Bushtits (photo by Melissa McMasters via Wikimedia Commons)

This tiny bird is the only member of its family (Aegithalidae) in the Americas. Smaller than a warbler, the bushtit’s closest relatives live in Eurasia.

Bushtits (Psaltriparus minimus) are western birds that tend to stay put, though some move downslope for the winter. At this time of year they flock like chickadees, flitting, chattering and hanging upside down to glean insects and spiders from the trees.

When I saw them in California my first thought was “brown chickadees.” This closer look shows why.

Bushtit (photo by Alan Vernon via Wikimedia Commons)

In February the flocks break up into pairs and the couples spend four+ weeks weaving a foot-long tubular nest like the one shown below. With a hooded entrance at the top, it is far larger than one bird needs but is big enough to hold the whole family and their friends on cold nights.

Bushtit nest (photo from Wikimedia Commons)

Listen for bushtits calling as they follow each other from tree to tree. (recording of American Bushtit by Kristie Nelson, xeno-canto XC363349)

So tiny! They are smaller than kinglets.

(photos from Wikimedia Commons; click on the images to see the originals. Audio from Xeno-Canto XC363349 by Kristie Nelson)

Scenes from the Central Valley

February 3, 2018Travel, Water and ShoreKate St. John

Snow geese flying at Sacramento National Wildlife Refuge (photo by Broken Inaglory via Wikimedia Commons, Creative Commons license 3.0)

A week ago I was at the 19th annual Snow Goose Festival in Chico, California. Located in the north Central Valley, it’s a great place to see birds in January. 44% of the waterfowl in the Pacific Flyway spend the winter there! Here are some impressions from my trip. (Note: bird photos are from Wikimedia Commons.)

What attracts so many ducks and geese to the Central Valley? It’s obvious from the air. The land is flooded with shallow ponds (rice fields) and wetlands.

Rice fields seen from the air approaching Sacramento Airport (photo by Kate St. John)

In winter a million geese come to stay: greater white-fronted geese, snow geese, and some Ross’s geese. Ross’s geese look the same as snow geese but they’re smaller and hard to pick out. At the Festival I learned an easy way to identify a Ross’s goose in flight: Look for an obviously small goose in a V of snow geese. Ta dah!

The most plentiful duck in winter is the northern pintail, far outnumbering all other species. Scanning the thousands of ducks at Llano Seco, the majority were pintails with American wigeons and northern shovelers mixed in. Mallards were rare.

Northern pintails (photo by Alan Schmierer via Wikimedia Commons, Creative Commons license)

In January the flowers bloom because it’s the rainy season. These pipevine flowers were in Upper Bidwell Park.

Pipevine flowers, host of the pipevine swallowtail (photo by Kate St. John)

At Lime Saddle we saw the upper reaches of the Feather River, now a tributary inside Lake Oroville reservoir. When the reservoir is full, the water reaches the tree line. It’s low now; perhaps they’re being cautious. Last year the spillways broke and forced the evacuation of 188,000 people.

Very low water - almost none - on the upper reaches of the Feather River at Lake Oroville, 27 Jan 2018 (photo by Kate St. John) — Low water on the upper reaches of the Feather River at Lake Oroville. Route 70 bridge in the distance. 27 Jan 2018 (photo by Kate St. John)

At Lime Saddle we hiked near the flume, a man-made canal that bypasses Lake Oroville reservoir. Because I’m from the East, California water rights are strange to me. Just as in the early days of cell networks when each carrier erected its own tower, water-owners in California build their own watercourses to separate their water from other uses.

Hiking by the Flume near Lime Saddle (photo by Kate St. John) — Hiking along the Flume near Lime Saddle (photo by Kate St. John)

Just before sunset white-faced ibises fly in to Sacramento National Wildlife Refuge to roost.

White-faced ibis in flight (photo by Andy Reago & Chrissy McClarren via Wikimedia Commons)

And after sunset the ducks and geese leave the refuge to go feed in the rice fields at night, thus avoiding the hunters.

Sunset at Sacramento National Wildlife Refuge, 26 Jan 2018 (photo by Kate St. John)

A beautiful end to my trip in California’s Central Valley.

(bird photos from Wikimedia Commons; click on the images to see the originals. All other photos by Kate St. John)

Crater From The Air

February 2, 2018TravelKate St. John

Meteor Crater, Arizona, as seen from 36,000 feet (photo from Wikimedia Commons)

Flying back from California last Sunday I had a window seat on the south side of the plane. Over Arizona I noticed a pockmark on the landscape. Gee, that looks like a meteor crater. Well, it is.

Arizona’s Meteor Crater is the first place where scientists recognized that an impact from outer space had made a crater on earth. It’s also called the Barringer Crater because Daniel Barringer hypothesized it was made by an iron-rich meteor. He bought the crater in 1903 but found no iron at all (it had vaporized on impact). The family still owns the crater.

From the outside on the ground, the crater looks like a hill. At the rim it’s a deep hole. But to me it’s most impressive from the air. Here’s a closer in-flight look from Scott Manley on YouTube.

Earth has other meteor craters but they’re usually eroded and obscured by vegetation. Here’s one I saw in Canada while on a flight from Europe.

Lake Manicouagan reveals its eroded impact crater , Quebec, Canada (photo from Wikimedia Commons)

The Manicouagan Crater in northern Quebec (45 miles wide!) is revealed by the Manicouagan Reservoir it now contains. In 1998 geophysicist David Rowley hypothesized it’s one of a chain of five impact craters caused by a comet or asteroid that “bounced” over North America and Europe as it hit our planet.

From the airplane window I can see what hit us from the air.

(photos from Wikimedia Commons; click on the images to see the original. Video from Scott Manley on YouTube)

Sparrow With a Golden Crown

January 28, 2018Songbirds, TravelKate St. John

Golden-crowned sparrow in Richmond, CA, Nov 2016 (photo by Becky Matsubara via Wikimedia Commons)

Female house sparrow? Nope. When you see her in real life, this bird is way too large to be a house sparrow. This is a golden-crowned sparrow (Zonotrichia atricapilla) photographed in November in California.

Golden-crowned sparrows breed from Alaska to British Columbia and spend the winter west of the Cascades and Sierra Nevadas from southern British Columbia to Baja, Mexico. At the Snow Goose Festival my location finally matched their range.

Sometimes golden-crowned sparrows hang out with their close relatives, white-crowned sparrows (Zonotrichia leucophrys) shown below. I used to think white-crowned sparrows were large but golden-crowned are larger.

White-crowned Sparrow (photo by Chuck Tague) — White-crowned Sparrow in the eastern U.S. (photo by Chuck Tague)

Their golden crowns can be subtle at this time of year but the color intensifies as the breeding season approaches. In spring the male’s head has a bright yellow patch surrounded by black as shown in the Crossley ID Guide below.

Golden-crowned sparrow from Crossley ID Guide via Wikimedia Commons

I saw these birds for the first time at Bidwell Park in Chico, California (“Life Birds”). Even the boring ones were wearing faint golden crowns.

(golden-crowned photos from Wikimedia Commons; click on the images to see the originals. White-crowned sparrow by Chuck Tague)

Reaching For A Drink

January 27, 2018Songbirds, TravelKate St. John

Wrentit leaning for a drink (photo by Gregory "Slobirdr" Smith via Flickr, Creative Common license) — Wrentit leaning for a drink (photo by Gregory “Slobirdr” Smith via Flickr, Creative Common license)

Here’s a California bird that lives year round in coastal scrub and chaparral.

About the size of a black-capped chickadee, the wrentit (Chamaea fasciata) usually skulks in dense thickets so he’s hard to see. But this one came out for a drink and Gregory “Slobirdr” Smith captured his acrobatic stretch.

Male and female wrentits sing all year long. If you hear this song you might find the bird. (recorded by Michael Lester Xeno-canto #XC312612).

p.s. Wrentits are uncommon to rare in California’s Central Valley. You have to go up-slope to find them near Chico.

(photo by Gregory “Slobirdr” Smith via Flickr, Creative Commons license)

Only In California

January 26, 2018Bird Behavior, Birds of Prey, Songbirds, TravelKate St. John

Yellow-billed magpie, San Benito County, CA (photo by J. Maughn via Flickr, Creative Commons license)

There are three species of magpies on earth but this one, the yellow-billed magpie (Pica nutalli), lives only in the open oak savannah of central and southern California.

Even though barn owls (Tyto alba) occur worldwide this video could only happen there.

Like all magpies the birds are brave and relentless. One of them pulls the owl’s wing!

What are the three Pica species? Eurasian (Pica pica) in Europe and Asia, black-billed (Pica hudsonia) in western North America, and yellow-billed (Pica nutalli) only in California.

(photo by J. Maughn on Flickr, Creative Commons license; click on the image to see the original. Video by Charles Sullivan on YouTube)

p.s. Yellow-billed magpies are hard to find near Chico, California ever since West Nile Virus came through. I was afraid I’d never see one but J. Maughn (his photo is at top) suggested looking at eBird for recent sightings. Ta dah! I went to a place near Big Chico Creek where magpies had been seen this month and found a pair building a nest. Life Bird!

In The Ferruginous Zone

January 25, 2018Birds of Prey, TravelKate St. John

Ferruginous Hawk, Arizona, 7 Feb 2009 (photo by Dominic Sherony via Wikimedia Commons)

Five years ago at the San Diego Bird Festival I had three target Life Birds: white-tailed kite, mountain bluebird, and ferruginous hawk.

I saw white-tailed kites on the Festival field trips. I missed mountain bluebirds that year but saw them in Montana in 2016. But the ferruginous hawk, pictured above, is still on my target list.

On the spur of the moment I used up my Southwest Airlines points to fly+drive to Chico, California for the Snow Goose Festival of the Pacific Flyway. Right now I’m where those hawks spend the winter — in the “ferruginous zone.”

On Throw Back Thursday, read more about this big western hawk at The Color of Rust.

I hope to see one.

UPDATE 26 Jan 2018: Hooray! I did see one at Lassen Road, Tehama County, California.

(photo from Wikimedia Commons; click on the image to see the original)

Where Peregrines Nest in the Wild

September 14, 2017Nesting & Courtship, Peregrines, TravelKate St. John

Precipice Trail, Acadia National Park (photo from Wikimedia Commons)

This year, for the first time since 1984, my husband and I aren’t at Acadia National Park this month but I think of it every day. If I was there I’d be stopping by the base of this mountain to scan for peregrines. It’s one of the few wild places where I know they nest.

On Throw Back Thursday here’s a description of the peregrines’ wild nest sites at Acadia with news from 2010:

Where The Peregrines Nest

(photo of the Precipice Trail at Acadia National Park from Wikimedia Commons; click on the image to see the original)

Outside My Window

A Blog of Birds & Nature with Kate St. John