Western Bluebirds in OC

The OC Parks Wildflowers Blog just posted about Western Bluebirds and had a link to this LA Times Article.

I have seen these bluebirds at places like O'Neill Regional Park. They're beautiful birds.



This little tidbit from the article caught my attention:

...visiting boxes can be rewarding in itself. Sully Reallon, 80, of Capistrano Beach marveled at how people-friendly the bluebirds are. "I can take that box, pick the mother up, count her eggs, stroke her head, put her back in the box and close the door," he said. "They don't mind at all."

The OC Parks blog post said Yorba Regional Park had quite a few nestboxes. Peters Canyon Regional Park also has many.

Happy Birding!

A Conspiracy at the Mudflats

My daughter pointed out that the water level was noticeably higher when we arrived at the Newport Mudflats on Thursday. It is one of the few remaining estuaries in California, and I had read that several times, but it wasn't until today that I actually learned what that really meant.



After some searching, I found a lab manual from Fullerton College discussing the ecology of this area and here are some interesting things it says about this area:

...an estuary is an embayment along the coast of an ocean, with a generally steady supply of freshwater washed down from rivers. An estuary is a sort of mixing zone where water from the sea and water from the land meet each other.

The water environments in Upper Newport Bay are always changing. For example, during a flood tide (when the tide is coming in), sea water pushes into the bay, raises the water level and salinity, and changes the water temperature. During ebb tide, sea water retreats, the water level and salinity are lowered, and water temperature changes again. Tides strongly influence activity in the estuary. Each day, the bay experiences two high tides and two low tides.

The zone where these two water resources meet and mix is called the Null Zone. It consists of brackish water — less salty than sea water, and more salty than freshwater.

You can read the rest of the manual here. So interesting to read after knowing it first.

There were many shorebirds - I recognized willets, there were probably sandpipers, dowitchers, and godwits as well.



And here is a 'conspiracy' of black skimmers - the only bird in the US with a bigger lower mandible than upper. They drag their lower bills through the water to catch small fish.





Mudsnails...




We found a bunch of these Bermuda Sorrel - aka Bermuda Buttercup, African Woodsorrel, Sourgrass by the head of the trail where we park. The kids love the sour taste of their stems.

Barn Owl Webcam at Starr Ranch

My friend Johnna just gave me a heads up on Starr Ranch's Barn Owl webcam that is broadcasting a nest of 5 barn owl chicks right now. Amazing! If you have enough time to watch, you'll see the parent fly in with a rodent every now and then to feed the chicks.

This is my catch up on all my pictures post. Excuse the randomness.

The beach after the heavy rains we had here. See the pack of terns that blended themselves in with the seagulls? They're the "coolest" looking birds in my book.



This was from last week at the beach, a much warmer, nicer day. This lady found this grebe in the water, she thinks it was hit by a wave or sick. She also thought it might have been an immature bird based on its size. It was a rare treat to see it so close and my daughter got to pet it.



This was the sunset that day - Valentine's day. We watched the sun sink all the way into the sea together. Beautiful. And if you look along the horizon you can see Catalina's silhouette. What a blessing to live in this beautiful place.




Here's a dumpy, stinky looking gutter by us. Most times when we poke around in it, people passing by make comments like "Ewww!" or "Yuck!" It is. But it's a treasure to us, a whole world in and of itself.



Look closer, look at what's just hatched! Tiny baby tadpoles :)



And this was the best find of all - a sac of frog eggs! We've raised frogs from tadpoles we caught, but never from this!!



Speaking of frogs, we went to the stream by us last week and the kids found this: A Giant Water Bug! It eats frogs, fish, snakes, snails, insect larvae, etc. It can deliver a pretty painful sting with its beak so it's also known as the "toe-biter" and it flies! To think these were in the stream all those times we walked through there!



Here's some fresh poison oak just sprouting along the side of the stream.

Hawks at Gum Grove

There's so much fun in being able to identify something you see, or hear in this case, in nature. Last week as we headed down our usual path at Gum Grove Park in Seal Beach, we heard these hawks calling to each other. We'd heard them a few times before and had even seen them perched on one of the branches high up in the Blue Gum Eucalyptus trees.




Whatbird.com has some good audios of bird calls and after listening to a few; the Cooper's hawk, the Red-tailed hawk, it led me to the Red Shouldered Hawk, BINGO! The call matches our mystery hawk's exactly :)

Wetlands

Happy New Year!

We've had a stretch of wonderfully warm weather here in Southern California, it's been in the high 70s for long enough that we've been heading out in t-shirts without bothering to check the weather report.

This week our nature study group headed out to the Bolsa Chica Wetlands, a conservancy that is home to many migratory birds.

There was visibly more algae in the water than usual, which the "Amigos de Bolsa Chica" website said is typical in the Spring with warmer water. Perhaps the algae doesn't know it isn't Spring yet?



I just love this sign!






The kids love it here too - although they often scare the birds away with their loud voices :)



My friend Arica took this one - reminds me of an Ansel Adams.



In the afternoon, the marine layer began rolling in. Fog always makes a place seem so dreamy to me - like in fairy tales. I love it.





On our walk back, we found three Great Blue Herons perched in the same trees where we saw their nest in the Spring. Jen thought they must be the young birds still sticking close to the nest. Can you see all three?



Here's a picture I took of the nest back on Feb. 28, 2009. It looks so messy and loose to hold such big birds. I could still see the nest there in the same tree, but I neglected to take a picture of it this time.





To another year of exploring divine nature!

I launch my bark on the unknown waters of this year,
with thee, O Father, as my harbour,
thee, O Son, at my helm,
thee, O Holy Spirit, filling my sails.

~New Year prayer from The Valley of Vision

Iridescence

My husband found this lifeless hummingbird on the street in front of our house today. What a treat! We've always been curious about their brilliant feathers, but have never been able to see them for more than a moment and never close up. He brought it in for us to take a look at and the feathers are nothing short of magnificent. Another one of God's creations that you can't help but just stand in awe at.

Here's what it looks like from the side...




Here's what it looks like head on...



The color is just brilliant. We had to move it back and forth several times to believe our own eyes. I believe it's a male Anna's hummingbird since the iridescent coloring extends to its forehead. If you notice in the picture above, there is some threadlike material coming from its beak, maybe its beak got stuck because of it and it starved to death.

Now look at the body feathers, they look dark and dull from this angle...




From here, they are iridescent green.




So how does it work? Here's an explanation from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology:

Structural Colors

Adding to the diversity of avian colors are colors produced by the structure of the feather. The best known example is the gorget (throat feathers) of many hummingbird species. The iridescent colors of the gorget are the result of the refraction of incident light caused by the microscopic structure of the feathers. The refraction works like a prism, splitting the light into rich, component colors. At certain angles little or no light is reflected back to the viewer and the gorget can appear black. As the viewing angle changes, the refracted light becomes visible in a glowing, shimmering iridescent display.

It also says that during the dive display, he plummets in a near-vertical dive, which on sunny days, the dives are oriented so that the sun is reflected from the iridescent throat and crown directly at the object of the dive.