The Speckled Hatchback: March 2015

The countdown is on! Only ten more days in New York City. I will head to Boston at the end of next week, pack our storage locker into a shipping cube the following weekend, and then immediately start the drive to rendezvous with Sonia in Los Angeles!

Right now this is the route I think I am going to take. Early April is generally slow birding as wintering stuff has mostly departed and the big push of spring birds has yet to arrive anywhere but the Gulf Coast. Luckily, Colorado grouse season is in full swing in Early April! My plan right now is to race west to Colorado where I will spend a few days chasing grouse around before continuing west to California. After the great lengths to which I went to tick the grouse on my bicycle Big Year last year, it would be sweet redemption to see a few of them on their lekking grounds this year. Anyone who has any advice or special access that they would be willing to share, please email me at thespeckledhatchback@gmail.com or bikingforbirds@gmail.com.

I am terribly sorry for the lack of content the last few weeks. There is ZERO going on birdwise in Manhattan at the moment, and without a car I haven't got many options. Even as spring is arriving I find myself housebound with some form of exhausting viral infection. I am also putting most of my writing efforts into my book at the moment. I have cranked out close to 35,000 words, so I am making good progress. Who knows how much of that will be in the final version, but the trick at this stage is just to get all of my stories, experiences, and thoughts onto the page. It slow but it's lots of fun!

Once I put a bigger dent in the book, I will be doing more conservation- and environment-centric writing on this blog. This will help to augment whatever bird content I can generate!

I promise there will be loads of content once I set up shop in LA. Please stay with me through the move and check back frequently!

I had some business to conduct in Boston this week, and I managed to squeeze in a bit of birding here and there. Massachusetts winter birding is about as good as it gets by east coast standards. Not only are there usually huge volumes of sea ducks, but birds like Snowy owl, King Eider, Black-guillemot, Dovekie, Thick-billed murre, Iceland gull, and Glaucous gull are imminently more findable in Massachusetts than at any point farther south. This was precisely the reason that I braved the New England winter at the outset of my Bicycle Big Year last year. Throw in birds like Snow bunting, Lapland longspur, Purple Sandpiper, Barrow's goldeneye, Common eider, Harlequin duck, Black-legged kittiwake, and Great cormorant, and it's possible to see many if not all of the Northeastern winter specialties in just a couple days of casual birding. Those that have been thinking about visiting coastal Massachusetts in the winter might want to investigate the Cape Ann Birding Festival which occurs in February of each year. I highly recommend Charlie's Place for a seafood lunch if you ever find yourself in Gloucester. Alnateratively, you could sample of the famous North Shore Roast Beef on any of numerous establishments.

I arrived in Boston on Monday afternoon. I did not have a ton of time, but I hit Revere Beach for a few hours of gull photography. The beach above the high tide line is still buried under several feet of snow. Scrambling over this snow, I immediately found a beautiful 1st year / immature Glaucous gull. This guy was fairly approachable, and I managed some nice shots of him as he chased the other gulls around. Loads of clams wash up on Revere beach after each winter storm; There is never a shortage of gulls at this seafood buffet. I also found a single Iceland gull. I expected to find more given how many of them have apparently been around Coastal Massachusetts this winter. In full disclosure, I was struck by a bit of tunnel vision as I tried to photograph these two birds. There were admittedly many gulls through which I did not have time to pick. I am happy with the photos though!

Snow drifts on Revere Beach