USA trip, day 16 - 9th February

I skipped the plenary session today. It was a public debate between two persons who sit on the opposite side of the fence on whether Brown Pelicans should be declassified as an endangered species. This was experimental as something to do at a PSG conference. Nobody seemed to be talking about it afterwards, so I wonder if it worked out OK.

I did some emailing etc and went through my talk again. Going back to the meeting rooms, I hit a bit of a purple patch with the local birds. This included Bushtits (just like Long-tailed Tits back home), a Downy Woodpecker, Chestnut-backed Chickadees, a Pine Siskin, a couple of Western Scrub Jays and a target species for me, Townsends Warbler! There was also a Say's Phoebe in the grounds, though it didn't look much like the book illustrations.

My talk went well, although if I'd had 20 minutes, I'd have missed out fewer important facts. Linda's talk went well, and attracted quite a bit of interest. She was nervous, although I only knew because she told me so.

At the end of the final session on "seabirds at sea" methods, there was a spontanious discussion about survey methods from ships. There are a lot of different methods being used in the Pacific, and while people want to standardise, they are reluctant to let go of their old methods. We're so lucky to have standardised our methods in Europe before too many projects started.

It's strange at these conferences. Once you've given a talk to a group you don't know well, all the doors suddenly open. I guess its a bit like an "ice-breaker".

George spent the day in Monterey, including a morning at the aquarium. It sounds a truly amazing place.

USA trip, day 15 - 7th February

The conference started full swing. After introductions, there was a plenary session from Henri Weimerskirch which was an intense presentation of data comparing forganing strategies of seabird species between the tropics and temperate zones. It was a bit of a shock for me to go from thinking about edging skis to lots of detailed technical information. His was one of a number of papers describing sexy work derived from attachments of data loggers, satellite tags and other gizmos. One speaker in the session questioned how many people are doing the basics of checking the impacts of the devices on the seabirds themselves. Not many is the unfortunate answer.

I got to see a bit of the grounds and took a look at the beach (George had taken a walk along the beach during the day). There were a few waders on the rocks, including Surfbirds, Black Turnstone, Glaucous-winged Gull. The grounds had a number of Acorn Woodpeckers flying about, squawking like parakeets. Some deer, presumably Mule Deer, which seemed very tame, and a Red-shouldered Hawk which seemed oblivious to people watching it, perhaps enjoying the attention.

I didn’t join the social events in the evening, and instead went through my talk a couple of times in preparation for tomorrow.

USA trip, day 14 - 6th February

We got up to the shock of wet roads and pavements. Does that mean it’s been snowing in the High Sierras? We were too late after dawn for Burrowing Owls, so gave them a miss (sorry Nancy).

We drove around the Yolo farmlands looking at the many birds of prey perched on telegraph posts or hunting over fields. These were White-tailed Kites, Red-tailed Hawks and American Kestrels with the bonus of a Cooper’s Hawk. We went to the spot where apparently Mountain Plovers occur regularly each winter. After searching lots of ploughed fields we gave up. The only other species of interest were a couple of Golden-crowned Sparrows, a Ruby-crowned Kinglet (without a ruby crown) and some Yellow-billed Magpies.

At midday, we broke off to drive into San Francisco where we were to meet Linda Wilson, a work colleague who is also going to the Pacific Seabird Group Annual Meeting. We found ourselves ahead of schedule for our rendezvous time, so made a quick stop near Oakland Marina to look at birds in San Francisco Bay. There were some birds of interest there, including Clark’s Grebe, Slavonian (Horned) Grebe, Greater Scaup, Forster’s Tern, American Wigeon, Bufflehead and Redhead.

We picked up Linda from her hotel near Union Square, and drove down Highway 1 to Monterey. It drizzled for most of the journey south, but in spite of that, the coastline was beautiful. We also drove past a number of sites we birded in during our last visit to the region in 2003 (or was it 2002?). We arrived at the conference centre at Asilomar, which is on the headland to the west of Monterey. It consists of a number of timber buildings all set in grounds with Monterey Pines set back from a beach. The layout was a b it confusing in the dark, but we managed to find where we went for the evening meal, and to catch a coach for an evening social at world-famous Monterey Aquarium.

This was a great venue for a social event. There are a number of imaginatively presented tanks containing various fish and jellyfish. The jellies, in particular, were beautifully illuminated to bring out the beauty of these creatures. Pride of place went to a huge tank with Yellow-finned Tuna, Hammerhead Sharks and Ocean Sunfish. I kept looking at a join in the glass and hoped it wouldn’t suddenly burst open, I’m sure the fish would have been thinking the same thing.

USA trip, day 14 - 6th February

After checking out from the Montbleu, we set off at 10:30 to drive to Sacramento through the beautifully scenic Sierra Mountains. About 2 hours later, we arrived at the Vic Fazio Yollo Wetland Preserve, adjacent to the Interstate 80 Sacramento by-pass. This is a huge restored wetland created from flooded farmland. Most of the preserve is available to hunters during part of the winter, but that season had now finished. Visitors can drive around a gravel track around a small part of the site at any time of year.

This place was fantastic with tens of thousands of waterfowl, mainly American Coots, Northern Pintail, Northern Shoveler, Ruddy Ducks, Buffleheads, Cinnamon Teal and Green-winged Teal. We notched up a reasonable list of species during the afternoon, and I won’t bore people with a full list. The key species we saw were American Bittern (cracking close views – the book describes them as ponderous, but I’d say that conveys too much urgency); a stunning Red-shouldered Hawk which seemed oblivious to us watching it from the car; several Violet Green Swallows; two Golden-crowned Sparrows among the many White-crowned, Savannah and Song Sparrows; American Pipits; Greater Yellowlegs; American White Pelican; Tricolored Blackbird; several Northern Harriers hunting incredibly close to the track; Black Phoebes and Yellow-rumped Warblers (“Budder-burts”) everywhere. The reserve is renowned for its wintering geese, but t-shirt weather for us meant geese wintering further north.

As the sun started to set and we made our way out of the reserve (we could easily have spent a lot longer there), swarms of Brewers Blackbirds were streaming across the wetland, obviously to some huge, no doubt very noisy and smelly mass roost. It was an awesome sight.

We went into Davis to find a motel. We ate at the Caffe Italia. Several times during this trip, I have thought of American friends and birds I have seen with them, or places I know they have visited. UC Davis is where Nancy Harrison studied for her Doctorate. I remember her telling me about nearby Burrowing Owls, and I hope to see them tomorrow morning in the Yolo farmlands.

USA trip, day 13 - 5th February

Our final day of skiing. Not quite perfect blue skies, but still plenty of sun. We got to the lift reasonably early again, seeing some Steller's Jays from the car on the way.

It's a testament to Heavenly, that most of the pistes are looking good. They've been making snow overnight here (from their own reservoirs) and grooming the slopes ready for the next morning. They've had to close off more of the expert skier slopes through lack of snow. We slowed down on the skiing mid morning as the spring conditions turned snow to slush, and gave up by midday.

What do I think of skiing at Heavenly? I think it's great, and I know that a lot of the resorts around here have suffered far more from the warm and dry conditions. It would have been good to have had more difficult trails to progress to, but that wasn't possible. I'd like to come back, and I'd stay at the Montbleu again.

We took our skis back to George's Ski Hire. I was a bit concerned because I'd gone over a few unmarked rocks and scratched the underside of the skis quite badly in places. No problem at all. Compare this to Banff, where they have charged me before now for leaving small scratches on skis. So full marks to George's Ski Hire for their excellent service.

We're busy packing this afternoon, ready to set off tomorrow. We'll probably eat in Heavenly Village tonight. The plan is to go to some of the wetlands and farmlands around Sacramento tomorrow, where we hope to see a lot of geese, birds of prey, and who knows maybe some wintering Mountain Plovers. Pleeeeze!

George has been farting non-stop since we got back - no idea what he's been eating. Went down to the swimming pool and hot tub (maybe George could come in use there) to relax before going out. A woman came up to us and asked if George and I were twins. WHAT ??!!

USA trip, day 12 - 4th February

Had a great meal at the hotel's main restaurant Ciero. Not cheap, but great food.
Got to the slopes early this morning, and it was well worth the effort. The chairlifts from the Nevada side start earlier than those from California side, so we managed to get to some of the better trails before the crowds arrived. The pistes were nice and smooth and we could throw ourselves about and get some speed up. Fab. After 10 a.m , we took a break, did a couple of runs, then a rather long break. It was really warm today and people were basking in the sunshine in t-shirts.

Skied a bit more, but the snow was turning into slush in places, and there were a lot of nasty ice patches to negotiate, so we returned to base and went back to the hotel.

We decided to go to find a Superbowl party. There's a big sports bar here, so we figured this is where it would be at. What a disappointment, there were a few folks watching the big screens, but they were playing poker on machines on the bartop at the same time. George mentioned how rarely he'd heard anyone swearing after deciding to go back to the room. Later, a few Chicago Bears fans came to the bar, and they made up for the lack of swearing we'd heard so far. One guy (who could get a part-time job as a fog horn if need be) kept yelling at the Chicago quarterback "You Suck", sounding more like something out of Beavis and Butthead (without the laugh). After the game was over I returned to the room past a stream of disgruntled Chicago fans streaming from the theatre where you could hear lots of cheering Indianapolis fans - so that's where the party was!

USA trip, day 11 - 3rd February

Clear blue skies again! George thinks a Blog is something you would find up your nose.

We did the usual ski runs, and being the weekend, the slopes were very crowded and soon got icy. One of the small pleasures of skiing is sharing a chair lift with other skiers and riders. Sometimes it's difficult to get more than a grunt out of your fellow passengers, but others can be quite chatty. A guy today had been to the island of Islay a couple of years ago and had sampled and clearly enjoyed a lot of the whiskies there. He had left his two children at the ski school for the day so was now off the leash and going skiing in all the places he enjoyed.


We stopped again again at midday and went birding in the afternoon. Rik kindly texted through the score from the Calcutta Cup - how sweet to avenge our defeat of last year. It's the day before the Superbowl and that's all you hear about at the moment.


We went to somewhere called Fallen Leaf Lake in the afternoon. We'd tried and failed to find it in fading light on our day off. It was worth the walk and beautiful. We saw a small family party of Oregon Juncos and I pished in some cracking Red-breasted Nuthatches - it's remarkable how birds in N. America respond to this noise. The nuthatch sat on an exposed branch, calling just like a Zebra Finch at me and tapping on the wood.



The weather forecast tonight said the weather system is going to break down and allow snow showers though to the Sierra Nevada, and probably high winds on the coast - that threaten the pelagic birding trip we've booked out of Monterey next Sunday.