Let’s Make this a Birding Year
No, not a Big Year, I’m not quite ready for that just yet.
Table of Contents:
New Year
Morro Bay Birding Festival
Trip to DC
2025 quickly came around the corner and as much as we’d love for the new year to bring a clean slate or even a moment to catch our breath before we prepare for what’s to come, the world keeps spinning, whether we’re ready or not. In a way I actually am starting a new chapter for myself this year. So here we go again I guess and here’s to the new year!
It’s been a while since my last blog post. I didn’t mean for my first update to sound like a New Year’s resolution, but every January my website hosting bill reminds me of how much I’m paying and I tell myself I should really replace those "Coming Soon" placeholders. I have grand plans in my head but no time to design it all in time for everything to be done in one big website update. I think I'll just slowly throw things up when I have time and tweak the details later because otherwise it’ll never happen. So if you think you saw something that has since disappeared or moved around, no you didn't.
I have more birding travel adventures and paintings planned for each month and I’m already off to a good start in January! My travel bucketlist has just been sitting around but I’m finally ready to brave these adventures on my own now. I’m not going to watch these opportunities pass by me and I’ll make sure to share my adventures with you all! ♡
Morro Bay Birding Festival
I finally experienced my first birding festival! This was four full days of back to back birding activities and interesting talks in Morro Bay! I also just upgraded to a 600mm telephoto lens so I was excited to test my new gear out in the field. With my new camera I felt like I gained some confidence and finally belonged with the other bird photographers (which is just silly). By the way, if you’re planning a visit to Morro Bay, many roads lack streetlights, most likely due to considerations for the surrounding wildlife reserves in the area. So keep that in mind if you plan early morning or late evening activities.
By far the best event I went on was the all-day trip to the Carrizo Plain with two wildlife biologist leaders. The day started early by meeting at the Community Center at 6 AM to get on the bus and did not end until 5 PM. This was nearly 12 hours of birding, the longest birding event I’ve ever participated in. Technically there’s a couple of hours of drive time but we were looking out the windows for birds so it still counts! Throughout the entire trip, no matter where I looked, we were the only people in sight as far as the eye could see.
The Carrizo Plain National Monument is a vast, open grassland in central California, known for its gorgeous wildflower displays in spring, and unique geological features such as Soda Lake and the San Andreas Fault. Carrizo Plain is the only closed basin within the coastal mountains, and Soda Lake is the largest remaining alkali wetland in southern California at 3,000 acres. When water evaporates, the lake leaves behind white deposits of sulfates and carbonates that look like baking soda, revealing just a white sheet where water once was.
When we finally arrived, I was shocked to see the everything so dry and dead. When I visited Carrizo Plain with my sister in April 2023 for the superbloom, we were surrounded by mountains and fields bursting with yellow, purple, and orange flowers against a sea of green. The plants die back in the winter and wait for rain in the spring to come back to life every year. You can see the difference between the two seasons with my photos from 2023 below.
Our first stop was at a small fire station for people to use the portable restroom tucked away in the back corner of the parking lot but to also see the two Great Horned Owls that were hanging around at the station. As people lined up to use the restroom, the leaders spotted the owls and pointed them out to the rest of us. Out of all the trees they could’ve chosen, they of course chose the one where they perched right over the restroom. I bet the first person to go in was surprised to come back out to see they had an audience crowded so closely around them. Thankfully everyone was looking up and completely distracted with the views of the owls.
The main highlight of the entire birding festival for me was finally getting to see the Burrowing Owl up close! These little guys are listed as a species of special concern as populations continue to decline in California and especially along the coast. They have suffered significant habitat loss due to urban and agricultural development, wind and solar energy infrastructure development, and killing of ground-dwelling mammals whose underground burrows the owls use for nesting. Although there have been whispers of one or two along the coast where I live, the exact locations have been kept lowkey to keep their disturbance to a minimum. (I promise I can be trusted with secret owl coordinates!)
Our wildlife biologist from the Bureau of Land Management seemed to know exactly where to go for our target species on this trip. As we stood out in the middle of a dead field behind a gate, he pointed out a small Burrowing Owl peeking his head out of his burrow that was over 50 yards away. It took the rest of us forever to find what he was looking at. It’s not easy trying to describe a specific patch of dirt and bushes when everything is the same shade of brown and looks exactly the same. But after a lot of patience and help from our leaders, I spotted it! If you look closely at the picture below, I promise you’ll see a tiny angry face staring back at you in the dirt.
It wasn’t the best view, but I was thrilled nonetheless! I figured that was as close as we were going to get to seeing a Burrowing Owl. Later on in the day, we were carefully walking through the grassy fields and the guides told us to watch our feet for burrows on the ground so that we wouldn’t accidentally trip and fall in. Suddenly, something flushed out of one of the burrows and landed next to the bushes and before I could register what just happened, our guide called out softly “Burrowing Owl!”. And there it was, just a couple feet away from me staying still and staring right at me! Am I lucky or what??
We backed away slowly to avoid frightening the poor owl any more than we already had before moving on. Another key species we were searching for was the Sagebrush Sparrow. In 2013, the Sage Sparrow (Artimisiospiza belli) was split into Sagebrush Sparrow (Artimisiospiza nevadensis) and Bell’s Sparrow (Artimisiospiza belli). Bell’s Sparrow is largely restricted to coastal California, but winter south in Arizona and southeastern California, where they overlap in winter with the Sagebrush Sparrow. The only physical difference between the two is that the Bell’s Sparrow is somewhat darker with fewer streaks on the back. Look them up, it's honestly difficult to tell the difference between the two. Imagine trying to identify them in a flock as they hop around non-stop.
To my astonishment, our guide pulled over on a seemingly random dirt road and mentioned that he knew of three Sagebrush Sparrows in the area. Out of all the dirt roads and sage bushes in this vast 250,000 acre monument, you’re telling me he knew exactly where three (rare) little sparrows were hiding? Well, turns out he did! He pointed out the two Sagebrush Sparrows scurrying through the bushes, scraping through the dead foliage for food, completely unfazed by our presence. These are the kind of birding skills I can only hope to develop one day. There were a couple birds that I actually left off of my checklist from this trip because I personally couldn’t notice any identifiable traits at times. Our guides were confident that it was a Golden Eagle soaring on the horizon, but I honestly could not tell you what that little dot in the distance was other than it was a indeed a bird in the sky. Clearly I’ve still got a lot to learn.
Overall, I had an amazing time at the Morro Bay Birding Festival. I ran into a few familiar faces at different events and had a fantastic time chatting with everyone, birders are a welcoming crowd! And the food around town? Fresh and delicious. The guides truly were experts, helping identify birds that I could not even begin to think about trying to look for or identify on my own. I already can’t wait to start planning which birding festival to attend next.
More of my photos from the birding festival:
Trip to DC
During my quick trip to DC this month, I finally had the pleasure of meeting my friend Meesh in person! I first joined her #avianaugust bird prompts back in 2021, where I debuted my collectible bird cards, and the rest is history. It’s wild to think we’ve technically known each other for almost four years but had never met until now!
We met for a lovely lunch before heading out to explore Rock Creek Park. The photos online made it look like a winter wonderland blanketed in snow, but by the time I arrived, it had all melted, just some sad slush lingering on the roads. We had hoped to do some birdwatching, but for whatever reason (maybe last night’s rain?), the park was eerily quiet. Not a single bird that day! Okay, technically we saw some House Sparrows at the cafe and Crows fly by overhead, but that was it! I still had a fantastic time and I can’t wait for our next meetup!
While in DC, I visited a couple of museums, and of course, the bird-related displays immediately caught my attention. At the International Spy Museum, I came across a model of a pigeon equipped with a tiny camera. During World War I, pigeons were used for aerial reconnaissance, carrying cameras as they flew over European military sites to gather intelligence. The cameras took continuous photos until the pigeons returned to their coops, where analysts would develop the film. Unfortunately, technological advancements and the invention of airplanes eventually put the pigeons out of a job.
The miniature camera on display was nearly half the size of the pigeon itself so I can’t imagine how they managed to fly with all that extra weight! It reminded me of modern-day social media trends where owners attach tiny cameras to their cats’ collars to capture and post their daily escapades. Maybe it’s time for a comeback, I bet pigeons today could capture some pretty interesting day to day footage.
Next stop, the Smithsonian’s National Postal Museum! I honestly had a great time looking at old mail and stamp designs, they gave me some inspiration for some future bird mail art! As a stationery enthusiast, there’s nothing quite like admiring old letters with their elegant handwriting. I think the art of writing letters is lost nowadays!
Along the wall of different stamp collections, I of course perused the Duck Stamp Collection, which has almost all of the stamps since the first design! Each one was accompanied by a stunning remarque and I had to resist the urge to take a photo of every single one!
Kicking off 2025 with new experiences, new connections, and a whole lot of birds, I’d say it’s been a solid start to the year. I'm also catching up on my graduate school coursework while I’m writing all this and realizing I'm trying to stack too many projects on myself and will probably just disappear again despite telling myself I'll make the time to do more. Whoops, wish me luck!
