There are people that like cities and the rush of the humanity but I like the places that gets me close to nature. Baldwin Creek and 4mi Beach is such a place for me. This is where Baldwin Creek meets the ocean and it's about 4 miles north of Santa Cruz, CA. This area is know for being a gull roosting spot with at time 5000 or more on the beach.
The times I hear of a rare bird in my area I get excited especially when it is a lifer. So when I heard a report of a Painted Bunting in San Benito County just over the Santa Cruz County line I went for it.
It's always exciting to find a rare visitor to your area but when you also get the opportunity to observe behavioral interactions the encounter becomes even more special. I was leading a Santa Cruz Bird Club field trip along the north coast of the county when I got a call from one of the birders in the group that he had found an immature Ferruginous Hawk interacting with Red-Tail Hawk.
About a year ago I featured the birds that are frequent visitors around my home. Last weekend I wasn’t in the mood to do a lot of traveling so Jeannine and I and our 2 Leos hung around the house. We did a lot of cooking and I had made Pho from a recipe I found and it was confirmed as very close to home made based on my friends mom’s recipe. So when it comes to birds, I’m easily distracted and when a flock of 50+ Pine Siskins flew in I picked up my camera and started a bird count.
Although my favorite bird is the one I'm photographing, I do have a soft spot for the Say's Phoebe (Sayornis saya), which is a passerine bird in the tyrant flycatcher family. Named for Thomas Say, an American naturalist, I find this bird striking in it's gray-brown back, black square tail, and buffy cinnamon below. The colors blend in very well in dry brown fields it frequents.
