Grand Teton National Park

The oxbow of the Snake River, with Tetons looming.

Waking up early in the morning, I left the campground in Yellowstone's Grant Village (not great, but I've seen worse) and headed south for Grand Teton National Park, just a short drive south from Yellowstone's southern boundary. Still high on geyser fumes and megafauna sightings, I really had no idea what to expect in Grand Teton, aside from the amazing scenery the Tetons themselves provide. I was hoping for some more birding opportunities...everything in Yellowstone is so frakking distracting that its hard to get down to business and actually find some birds.

Like Yellowstone, you may traverse the park in a big loop of sorts, which is what I ended up doing my first day...but not before finding my lifer Three-toed Woodpecker at Signal Mountain, mixed in with a massive mixed flock. The experience caused me to vomited violently for a substantial amount of time, particularly when it landed about 12 feet away at the base of a tree. Observing your first Three-toed Woodpecker is a very intense experience, you see. Of course, I didn't have any kind of convenient photography machine with me at the time, so I was free to fantasize about having a camera in hand (and to continue vomiting in ecstasy). I did get a couple record shots eventually, but I only saw one other on my trip.

A juvenile Hairy Woodpecker woodpecking.

A female-type Northern Flicker pauses. Why are they called flickers anyway? I think kinglets should be called flickers. These should be called Anteaters...thats not taken, is it?

Composing myself, I continued up Signal Mountain, where the internets had informed me Dusky Grouse could be found. After aimlessly walking around a lookout/vistaish area with a few tourists, a woman walked up and proudly announced that there had been a grouse sitting only a few feet off the trail, but that her dog had stressed it out and said grouse had wandered off into the underbrush. A nearby know-it-all who had the definite air of a used car salesman proudly announced that it had been a Sage Grouse, but I knew otherwise...

Since I had already set up camp and dicked around Signal Mountain, by the time I got back to the main park road it was bloody hot, ruling out any kind of fun/productive hiking, so I decided to attempt to see as much of the park as I could. Mainly, I spent time taking Teton pictures and cursing the heat and the wind, and wondering if the giant, fuck-off wildfire (pictured below) was going to crest the mountain and burn us all alive. Much-touted Mormon Row was....well, a bit underwhelming, but pretty cool nonetheless, and I did run into some more bison, Pronghorn, and a Black Bear that day, among other things. The birding was solid in the morning, I just wish I had more time to bird! The main eyesore of the area is the hideous Jackson Hole Airport, which is pretty much inside the park for some reason...aside from that, humbling views and wildlife were easy to come by. 

Enough rambling for now...life is Weird...be prepared.

Three-toed Woodpecker. What a crippler.

Turns out I did see a Dusky Grouse that day. A motor vehicle had murdered it. 

Moose moose moose moose.

Fire. Glad I wasn't stuck on the other side of that hill.

POLLINATION.

Tetons. Grandiose.

This year has largely been dominated by Swainson's Hawks for me, so I'm not going to stop posting pictures of them. This one is blinking its nictating membrane.

Passions Just Like Mine

The Glory Days Of Fall, written by one Felonious Jive, is up now at 10,000 Birds! Please go birding as much as you can this week, especially if you live in California...the consequences of staying in could be dire. I managed an American Redstart, Olive-sided Flycatcher and MacGillivray's Warbler in one of San Francisco's tiny, scummy parks this morning, so who knows what else is out there?

Your picture of the day is one of the noisy Red-shouldered Hawks that live at San Francisco's Lake Merced.

It's Not Hell On Earth, It's More Like A Dream

This will be the last Yellowstone post for a while I think. Here is an elk making a face at the nearby horde of tourists.

I discovered yet another new species of chipmunk. This type completely lacks forelimbs and locomotes the forest like a small Tyrannosaur.

A Red Crossbill ravages some fir cones.

Is nice, no?

A studly Mule Deer. He's probably shed his velvet by now and spends his time getting in fights and being incredibly horny.

American Dipper revisited, in less atrocious lighting.

Looking towards the Yellowstone River from the Mud Volcano area. Steamy.

Norris Geyser Basin. Some of these pools will not only melt your face, but your entire body...literally.

White-crowned Sparrow juvie.

Bison are capable of many things...this one is caught in the rarest of buffalo acts, being cute.

Buffalo watchers going apeshit.

Deer penis. It's something to think about.

Sunset through a geyser filter...and that was my last day in Yellowstone. Up next...Grand Teton National Park.

Radio Towers Conspire To Dance Again

Anna's Hummingbird.

Good Wednesday to you all. I finally finished my Winging It article that I've been working on since June (how embarrassing!), so hopefully that will mean a mild increase in BB&B posts. I certainly have no shortage of photos to sicken the world with. It will also hopefully be one less excuse for staying indoors and not birding. Living in a city with a million wonderful distractions can have that effect, from time to time. I'll head over to Heron Head Park this afternoon though.

My year list has grown to a corupulent 496, which I'm positive is the most species I've ever seen in one year...a small achievement in the the eyes of mice and men, but a good thing nonetheless.

Anna's Hummingbird. This one is a young male (he was singing).

It's really difficult to concentrate on writing at the the moment. I have made the grave mistake of rubbing an eyeball with a finger apparently covered in jalapeno juices, and even blinking is extremely painful. It brings me back to the time I got pepper sprayed during a Marbled Murrelet survey (to my credit, that was an accident). If you are the masochistic type go ahead and give yourself a good spray, it will bring a kind of pain that you could not have possibly imagined before....

Do birders have a tendency towards masochism? Perhaps a study by the Human Birdwatcher Project is in order.

Right. Before I got back to The City, I made a brief stop in Ventura, CA and did some half-assed birding and photography, which you see here today. Next time...one more round of Yellowstone!

Allen's Hummingbird. Female? Young male?

Same bird.

Heermann's Gulls.

Willet noms.

Willet socks.

I Am A Babbling Brook, You Are A Pile Of Bricks

San Francisco has terrible shorebirding. In loving memory of  places that do not have this problem, here are some Wilson's Phalaropes. Photographed at White Lake, North Dakota.

Hello adoring nerds, and welcome to another Monday. A lot of great things have been said about Monday...for much of the Western World, it is the doomiest day of the week. The reasons why need not be explained. Unless you have Mondays off, only a true pervert would take pleasure in going back to work, rather than (*gasp*) take pride and pleasure in their free time. Sure, some people love their jobs, but...that's not many of us. Of course, I am not aiming this at those of us who get paid to look at birds, or those that subscribe to the Perpetual Weekend way of life....we are The Chosen Ones, and we should not let people forget that.

As you read this, I am clearly not working. I am out birding San Francisco. "The City" has its fair share of birders and hotspots, and what it lacks in quality of spots (it doesn't offer any one place that sucks in vagrants like an Arcata Marsh or a Huntington Central Park), it makes up for in quantity and coverage by good observers. So here's to crossing fingers for a Cerulean Warbler or a Red-flanked Bluetail. Good luck navigating your Monday, you must stave off The Doom...or all will be lost. Only when you are living your final days in a nursing home, many years from now, will you realize that you took a very wrong turn on that fateful day...September 19, 2011...the day you chose a career over happiness. Wage slavery over life list. Death over life. The day the music died...

And so much for that. It's September, go birding!

Yellowstoned

A Swainson's Hawk stoops on some fuzzy, unsuspecting prey.

I have discovered a new species of mammal: I give you the Flying Chipmunk. What they lack in altitude they make up for in speed.

Jesus. These things are built like tanks. Or tanks are built like bison.

Cool beans.

Common Mergansers get free access to Yellowstone's excellent fishing and facemelting geothermal features.

Otherworldly goodness.

Meet the friendliest American Dipper in the world. Being a wise bird, it knew how to stay in  the shittiest light possible. Life is pain.

Big Cone. The biggest geyser cone in the park.

A family of Grizzly Bears working on a bison. So sick. 

I'm Not A Loner Or Anything, But I Think I Like Being Alone: A Bird Blogger Tells All.

Hello. And welcome to another fascinating installment of our birder interview series, presented by the Human Birdwatcher Project. It has always been a mission of BB&B to discover The Truth About Birdwatchers...why they do what they do, why they are largely socially crippled, and why they have such poor taste in fashion. Today we take a new direction and sit down with not only a birder, but a bird blogger. Speaking from experience, this truly takes the nerdiness to practically lethal levels, and so it is my pleasure to present someone who pulls it off with grace. Jen birds, photographs and blogs from Portland, Oregon, and is at the helm of the wildly popular I Used To Hate Birds. Please visit her site and gawk at some of her fantastic photos when you get the chance....and so without further delay, I give you the interview. All photos provided by the blogess herself.


So Jen. Just to be clear to everyone, we actually have never met, so I really don’t have any inkling about what you’re going to say. BB&B is taking a big risk here. Anyways. Who are you? What do you do for a living?

Who am I? Well... I’m a week shy of my 33rd birthday, a month shy of my 10-year Portland anniversary.  My friends and I moved here on a whim from Boston, but I’m originally from Connecticut.  I manage a doggie daycare here, where I work as few hours as possible to ensure plenty of time for doing stuff that’s way more fun.  But at the same time, my job is rad.  When I was 10 I wanted be a veterinarian or own a pet store. I think if I had known about dog daycares, I would have picked working at one over anything else.  Dogs rule.  “Dog” was actually my first word.


My first word was "Pyrrhuloxia". From the evidence I’ve been able to piece together, you are a birdwatcher. Can you admit to this? Your blog is titled "I Used To Hate Birds", which seems to be the best name for any bird blog out there, with the possible exception of "Bourbon, Bastards and Birds". I assume you actually used to hate birds to some degree, or exercised some strong indifference….why the turnabout? And how did you come to be a birder?

I’d admit to watching birds, sure.  The blog title came from a couple things.  When I was in middle school I had a parakeet I named Mr. Weatherbee (I was a big Archie comics fan. Yeah.)  He was cool.  Then I got him a lady friend, Betty.  Then she killed him.  It made me hate birds as pets.  

As for wild birds, I was always indifferent despite my mom’s attempts to point out interesting ones on the feeders.  I think a main turning point for me was buying a sweet little Canon Powershot camera when I briefly defected to Philly.  I started taking pictures of everything.  When I finally returned to Portland I started to really appreciate all the awesome parks I visited with my dog Jake.  There’s only so many photos you can take of your dog (ok, that’s a lie) and one day I saw an Osprey up in a tree.  I had no idea what it was but I took a million photos and looked it up when I got home.  I watched them all summer long and eventually started taking pictures of other birds, mostly herons and egrets and bigger stuff. Then on a whim, I visited Ridgefield National Wildlife Refuge, where a nice older man lent me a pair of binoculars to view some Sandhill Cranes.  They blew me away.  It was pretty much all over after that.

Since you are a relatively recent convert, you actually have access to your pre-birder memories (most birders are super old and can’t remember if they took their medication or not). Back in the bird-hating days, how do you think you would describe the average birdwatcher? How would you describe the average birder now?

I don’t even think I knew there were birdwatchers before.  I mean, I knew there were people like my mom...she had feeders and a bird bath and a Peterson’s field guide where she marked the pages of birds that would visit. I didn’t think there was much more to it.  

Now?  I don’t even know. There’s definitely a fair share of creepy older men, like the one that tried to get me to get into his car for a better view of an owl.  But there’s also plenty of perfectly nice, semi-normal people who can understand basic social cues.  

I get the impression that you don’t hang out with other birders very often. Why? Do you hate them? Or are you one of those socially inept, recluse types?

Ha.  Maybe a bit socially inept, but mostly just shy I think.  Plus I like birding by myself.  I’m not a loner or anything, but I think I like being alone more than most people.

What do your friends think of your birding/blogging habits? Are you celebrated? Persecuted? Both?

Ya know, I didn’t share my blog with any of my friends for a pretty long time.  Once in awhile I would throw a photo I liked on Facebook just to gauge their reactions and it was always pretty positive.  Now most people know about my obsession and I’ve gotten all good responses.

The only reason we are in contact at all is because of the internets. Yup, those Craigslist personals really bring people togeth….oops I’m thinking of someone else. Ahem. What we both have in common is that we are both bloggers, who are birders, who take bird pictures, which combines 3 different types of nerds into one super nerd. Can you tell us about why and how I Used To Hate Birds came about? What we can expect in the future?

I started my blog for one main reason: to share the birds I was seeing with my mom.  It seemed like the easiest way to show her stuff.  Plus I thought it would act as a good journal so I could remember when and where I saw cool birds.  That’s how I use it now.  I’m a terrible bird note taker... I have a book where I try to write down sightings, bird descriptions, etc., but it’s just so much easier to write it in the blog.  The downfall is that it might be a bit boring for other people at times.  I get that.  But the blog is for me, first and foremost.  Sorry, mom.

Have you found that having a blog helps you network and connect with people? Or do you feel depressed and isolated because you are now officially a blogger?

I definitely feel connected to a lot of people because of having my blog.  Even people who don’t comment or “follow” me will sometimes mention a post I wrote and I’ll be like, wait, what, you read that??  It’s weird putting something out there and never really knowing who is looking at it...  

You have a lot of birds to see. Any birding trips in mind? Any grail birds?

I always have tons of trips in mind... Alaska is a frontrunner.  I completely romanticize it though, and am afraid it won’t live up to my expectations.  This fall I have a vague idea of a mini southwest U.S. roadtrip, but who knows.  No grail birds...pretty much any bird I haven’t seen yet causes chronic drooling.

Have you discovered your spirit bird yet? Any candidates?

I want a spirit bird.  I’m afraid the closest thing I have is the Bald Eagle which is just so fucking cliche and lame.  But right before I REALLY got into birds I decided I needed a tattoo of an eagle catching a fish because I had only seen them a handful of times, and they always left me in awe. The day I went to get the tattoo finished it was like 20 degrees and my dog Jake begged me to go to the park.  I was freezing and cranky but while he was running around on the beach, a pair of eagles came flying over and just started swooping around in front of us and over us. As usually happens now, I just wasn’t cold anymore.  It was awesome.

What do you think makes a good soundtrack for birding? I usually don’t put on Chronic 2001 while birding by my lonesome.

Well, I’ll tell ya what.  When I was in Hawaii a few weeks ago, I was getting ready to walk from my hotel in Waikiki to the top of Diamond Head, with stops in Kapiolani Park and the beach.  It was about a four hour adventure.  I made a really good playlist for the walk; I still think of Sonic Youth when I look at my photos of the Pacific Golden-Plover. Here’s the playlist:

1. Fuego!- Murder By Death

2. Hell or High Water- William Elliott Whitmore

3. Forever Young- Alphaville (cheezy, I know, but my favorite song ever since I was 14 years old)

4. Tomorrow, Wendy- Concrete Blonde

5. Someone Like You- Adele

6. Telephone- Lady Gaga (fuck yeah, get over it)*

7. Get By-Talib Kweli

8. In The Aeroplane Over the Sea- Neutral Milk Hotel

9. Unfulfilled- Quicksand

10. Tell ‘Em- Sleigh Bells

11. Death Valley ‘69- Sonic Youth

12. Wolf Like Me- TV on the Radio

13. Break My Stride- Matthew Wilder

Portland, Oregon. Most people my ageish associate it with a television show, hipsters, strip clubs, bars, rampant drug use and someone named Mary Coolidge…not birds. I’ve birded and barred there a little bit, but…what is it like being a birder in Portland? What are the crucial spots?

Being a birder in Portland is pretty awesome.  Easy access to the Pacific Ocean, Mt Hood, the Willamette Valley, the weird high desert of central Oregon, Mt St Helens, just sooooo many different habitats.  Of course, within Portland city limits are tons of amazing parks too. My favorite is Kelley Point Park, where the Willamette River meets the Columbia. It’s where I first saw that Osprey as well as those Bald Eagles.  Plus my dogs love it.  

Any other blogs you want to give props to?

BB&B, duh.  Seriously, though, there are so many great local blogs: Nature Nut Notes, Pacific NW Backyard Birder, Slugyard, Bound To Bird, Fledgling Diaries, NW Bird Blog...there are more that I’m forgetting I’m sure.

And now for the final wisdom….if you had to predated on by a particular bird, what would it be?

This question has been keeping me up at night.  I don’t want to be pecked to death by a grackle.  I don’t want to be drowned and shaken by a bittern.  I don’t want to wrestle a heron.  I don’t want to be snatched by an eagle or an owl.  Fuck, I don’t know.  I always thought death by mountain lion would be best.  Just snap my neck and get it over with.


*The undedited video for "Telephone" is one of my favorite music videos of all time. I say that without irony. - The Editor

Yellowstone National Park

Bison are easy to see in many parts of the park. They are massive, bizarre animals that you would not want to get charged by. Their low, rumbling groans seem more at home in Jurassic Park than Yellowstone.

Yellowstone River.

Green-winged Teals in eclipse plumage.

Not exactly a Yellowstone specialty, but here is an American Robin with gratuitous earthworm.

Pollination Party.

An Elk family. Notice unabashed ear-nibbling. 

This big bull elk was in a state...itchy antlers? The velvet was just beginning to shed. I can't imagine lacking fingers to scratch an itch.

Barrow's Goldeneye juvenile. Or eclipse male? I've never seen them in the summer before.

Besides its scenery and wildlife, Yellowstone is legendary for its geothermal features. They are incredibly striking. This spring is at West Thumb Geyser Basin. More pictures soon!