It's back

The blog is back! I'm not sure how easy it will be to do this, cos I doubt internet access is going to be so readily available.

Been in London for a couple of days before setting off and went to a show last night. It was a toss-up between "Wicked", which is a musical based on the story of the Wizard of Oz from the perspective of the Wicked Witch of the West, and Porgy and Bess. Went for the latter it was the music, and a special offer what done it! Really enjoyed it so happy with the choice, although Wicked is getting rave reviews.

This followed a successful day's birding on Hampstead Heath. We enjoyed great views of a Green Woodpecker. We also Chiffchaff, Willow Warbler, Blackcap, Swallow and Wheatear which were handy early year-ticks.

Today we did some shopping, annoying security guards in Soho and had lunch at a South Indian veggie restaurant in Drummond St. Am now sitting in a hotel room in Crawley watching a programme about tigers being poached from reserves in India. Ian and Sue mentioned this after their recent trip. Still pretty shocking.

Off to the airport tomorrow and meet the rest of the folks. I still can't believe I'm going!

Ireland 43 England 13

I just watched Ireland play us off the park at rugby. We can't even complain that the crowd was disrespectful at the new venue. We was well and truly gubbed!

USA Trip - day 20, 14th & 15th February

Well, the return to Aberdeen went pretty smoothly. I returned the car OK and there were no unexpected surcharges. We checked in with United Airlines very efficiently, and went to have some breakfast.

Blogging at Asilomar

I phoned mum and dad to congratulate them on their wedding anniversary today. Ah, I hear you say, they got married on Valentine's Day! All's well at home, which is good to hear.

I then had one of those moments I realised something stupid I had done. I'd bought a nice bottle of wine to take back, and put it in my hand luggage. Of course, they are not allowing you to take unchecked liquids onto flights and there would be no alternative, but to surrender the bottle at security. Stoopid stoopid stoopid. The cleaner in the restaurant was very grateful for the free bottle of wine.

Well, so much for the sham of security. There was no exit scan of my fingerprints or my eyes. No customs to check on what I may have imported, and the only emigration control was done by the staff from United Airlines. Hmmm.

It was a long flight, in which the only relief from the child from hell came from in-flight movies. Any attempts by parents to control wayward child brought on ear splitting shrieks (similar in frequency and effect to a dentist's drill). I enjoyed The Prestige (Scarlet Wotsername), The Fastest Indian (Anthony Hopkins) and what I saw of Volver (Penelope Cruz).

We had a reasonably short turnaround at Heathrow, in which I had another "Stoopid Stoopid Stoopid" moment when I realised that we had to try and take the duty free we'd bought in San Francisco through security for the Aberdeen flight. This time, we felt there was too much to lose, so we wrapped the bottles in our coats and checked another bag into hold luggage. The pace seemed like 90mph at Heathrow. It didn't matter where I stepped or stood, someone seemed always to be rushing to get past me. Maybe I was dozy and jet-lagged, but I don't think so. The flight to Aberdeen had another child from hell. George's brother Stuart met us at the airport (which was freezing, especially with our outer coats in the hold luggage) and kindly took me home.

Everything was fine at home, no problems, and Ben and Hannah had kindly taken mail through to the kitchen. Jacko from next door brought round a box of wine which had been delivered while I was away. Something to quell the post-holiday blues.

USA trip, day 20 - 13th February

I really don't want to leave here. There are deer grasing outside the room and a Dark-eyed Junco singing its heart out. Its so peaceful among the pines. I could easily get used to this.

Breakfasted, blogged then picked up Linda to return to San Francisco with a rather large detour via the Panoche Valley. We got there with assistance and occasional hindrance from Homer Simpson. The route there took us through rough chapparal habitat. We saw Nuttall's Woodpecker, Oak Titmouse, Spotted Towhee, Western and Mountain Bluebirds and Yellow-billed Magpie, among plenty of other birds. Possibly the best thing we saw was a pair of Acorn Woodpeckers next to their store tree. The bark was riddled with hundreds of holes, most of which had a single acorn inside. The woodpeckers were busy tending their harvest and adding new acorns to the stash.

The Panoche Valley proper was a flat plain with dry rough grassland, and apparently home to a substantial flock of Mountain Plovers. They are supposed to be here all winter, but the last report was back in December. We tried this and a number of potential places with no luck. There were numerous Savannah Sparrows all along the fence lines, acting for all the world like Meadow Pipits. Say's Phoebe seemed to be reasonably common too. We saw a cracking Golden Eagle next to the road which took off and flew over our heads. This signalled the time to break off and head up to San Francisco.

We dropped Linda off at her hotel, but not before I drove the wrong way up a one-way street. Oops. Actually, I was surprised by how the chaos I caused seemed to cause so little animosity. We checked into a Holiday Inn near Fisherman's Wharf, found an Italian Restaurant for a meal, then watched a film (Black Dahlia).

USA trip, day 19 - 12th February

After breakfast, went to The Nature Conservancy’s check-in to see if Malcolm Hodges was attending the conference. One of the women knew Mal, but confirmed he wouldn’t be coming. Oh well, worth a try. While blogging, I was sat near to one of their directors (D Robertson - I read it on his name badge) who was having loud phone conversations with members of the board, coaching their contribution to the next board meeting.

We took a slow drive down the coast, through Carmel (stopping at a couple of birding sites) eventually to Big Sur. We went for a walk in the Andrew Molera State Park, getting as far as the beach, but unable to reach it to walk on. The main interest here was hummingbirds. We saw a glorious male Allen’s Hummingbird which must have just arrived, and a Anna’s Hummingbird which was doing it’s huge J-shaped display flight. Repeatedly, it flew vertically into the air, like a Harrier jet, then plummeted downward before curving round and upwards, giving a short “peep” call at the bottom of the “J”. I don’t know how they find enough energy to live at this time of year, let alone do this display flight sequence.

The woods were full of wintering warblers, mainly Yellow-rumped with a few Townsend’s and lots of Ruby-crowned Kinglets. Other additions to the trip list here were California Towhee, American Robin and some Wrentits.

This stretch of coast is famed for its scenery. Almost as beautiful as the west coast of Scotland I’d say. There are a lot of big, exclusive houses with “fuck off” signs posted all around. We drove through Carmel, expecting to see Clint Eastwood wandering about town. It was full of large houses with ocean views and lots of artistic shops. The paintings on offer in art shops are a bit in your face for my liking. There didn’t seem to be anything subtle in the way of artistic expression.

On the beach at Carmel, an excessively blonde woman was having her photos taken by a dirty old man. She was getting into it, pulling pose after pose for the camera. I don’t know who was getting what out of this photo shoot, but I guess it is to be expected in a part of the world where appearance is everything.

We got back to our sanctuary at Asilomar in the late afternoon. I’m sitting here writing this on the balcony of the room in fading light, listening to the ocean waves washing over the beach. The only thing missing right now is a large gin and tonic.

Had an excellent meal at a restaurant called The Fishwife. Excellent food, and a waitress who certainly knew how to describe the food in a gravely east coast accent.

USA trip, day 18 - 11th February

We got up frighteningly early to go down to Monterey fish dock to join an all-day pelagic trip. Monterey Bay contains a deep underwater canyon, which means cetaceans and seabirds typical of these very deep waters pass close inshore. A whole industry has sprung up around showing these to the public. Our trip was a specialist seabirding trip, so leaders were throwing bits of anchovy and popcorn overboard to attract a big gull flock, and hopefully other goodies. There were a few folks from the conference on the trip, including some of the leaders, mixed with some birders, including some Brits.

It was quite a good trip in the end, although a long day battling against the swell and movement of the boat. There were a few folks making their own contribution to the food going over the side for the gulls. I saw two new cetacean species – Grey Whale and beautiful Dall’s Porpoise along with Risso’s Dolphins, a lonely White-sided Dolphin and a Humpback Whale at the end. Of the seabirds, Short-tailed Shearwater, Pink-footed Shearwater and Thayer’s Gull were new for me, and there were also lots of Common Murres/Guillemots, Kittiwakes, Ancient Murrelets, Rhinocerous Auklets, a few Sooty Shearwaters and Black-footed Albatross. One of the albatrosses was ringed. Such is the power of modern digital photography, within minutes, Steve Howell got a photo, blew it up to zoom right in on the ring, and the details logged of the bird, probably ringed as a chick about 20 years ago on Tern Island in the mid-Pacific. A lot of these guys use digital SLR cameras with about 300 – 400mm lenses with image stabilisation. They then fire off about 10 shots in a rapid burst, and pick one or two of these, deleting the others.

I spoke a bit to Peter Pyle, who co-ordinates the at sea surveys for US Fish and Wildlife. He was sufficiently impressed with my talk that he’s considering changing their whole programme to adopt these standards. I think it was their group I felt had furthest to go to catch up with other groups. Maybe standardisation here is not going to be such a big effort.

Sandy Bartle and Peter Pyle

After getting off the boat, George and Linda wanted to do a bit of present shopping. I scanned around the harbour and managed to pick out two Harlequin Ducks we’d been looking for, without success, from the boat. They were a pair, and the adult male was a wee beauty, like a small child had been given a full palette of paints to colour in a drawing. A Townsend’s Warbler flew into a tree in the parking lot to seal off a really good day.

When we got back to Asilomar, there was another conference checking in from the American Nature Conservancy. I wonder if Malcolm Hodges is at the conference. Fell asleep within minutes of getting back to the room in spite of a beautiful sunset.

USA trip, day 17 - 10th February

Mike Harris did this morning’s one-hour plenary session on “Common Murres” and proceeded to spend much of his time struggling not to call them Guillemots. As ever, Mike was lucid and interesting to listen to, his slides easy and quick to understand. During the talk, Rik texted me to inform me of the final score in which Scotland beat Wales in the rugby (Mike is an avid Wales rugby fan – in his vast collection and library of bird books at home is one non-bird book – Barry John’s autobiography).

After this, I took a bit of a break and did some birding with George along the shore towards Point Pinos. One of the first things we saw was a Belted Kingfisher among the rock pools. In the bays were a few Sea Otters, some wrapping themselves in kelp so they didn’t drift away while trying to sleep. They are the cutest creatures on earth, and possibly they know it. There were some Western Sandpipers feeding along the shoreline. I tried to have a go at separating them all from Semipalmated Sandpiper, to which they are almost identical. Not easy, as they seemed to lack the fine breast streaks typical of this species at this time of year. I could just about see that the bill tips were too fine for the latter species though. Just offshore were a couple of winter adult Rhinocerous Auklets. Difficult to see, but the bill was too long to be Cassin’s Auklet, and also the latter species suffered a huge crash in the last couple of years, so is very difficult to see in their typically offshore habitat. On the way back to the room at Asilomar, we saw a Hermit Thrush next to the road.

After lunch, I went to a few more talks and got chatting to Doug Forsell, who was one of the original Alaska seabirds-at-sea crew. He’s nearing retirement and wants to sell the house, buy a boat and use it to travel the world. I can understand that. It chucked it down with rain in the afternoon.
There was a Mexican banquet in the evening, which served great food, followed by awards for best student talk and poster and two awards – one for outstanding achievement to Ed Melvin, who has done so much work to get fishermen to change their practices to stop mortality of seabirds in gill nets, and now doing the same thing for longline fishing. Quite humbling really. The lifetime achievement award went to Mike Harris. Overall, the whole awards thing went on a bit long as rather too many people seemed to want to get in on the act. As soon as this was over, the tables were cleared and a latino band played some great music, and lots of people were up dancing. What an excellent end to the conference.