2014 in Review (and pictures)

    Ok, so, I have absolutely no idea how to write an end of the year post. However, I can say that 2014 was an amazing year for me. Being my first full year immersed in the extremely socially acceptable activity of birding and actually getting outside to apply my knowledge, I experienced the most natural wonders ever in my brief existence on the planet. In addition to birds, I saw all sorts of amazing wildlife.

One of the many natural wonders: the day the world went through an instagram filter. #sepia #filter #actuallynofilter

First, let me play the favorites game and ramble over my favorite sightings from this year.

Best bird: Technically, the best bird I saw this year was the ABA code 5 Hawaiian Petrel, or relatively speaking, the code 3 Rustic Bunting in California, its rarity being lower due to its pretty much annual appearance in Alaska. In both cases, although those birds were great and I got decent looks at them, there were others that really stood out. One of these was already mentioned in an earlier post: the Black-billed Cuckoo I found at the Huyck Preserve during the 3 week research program. For some reason, the 3 fairly dull North American representatives of Coccyzus hold a special place in my heart and seeing my first representative of the genus was a great pleasure.

    Another bird I really thought made my year special was one of the more abundant species seen on the 8/2 pelagic trip: the Black-footed Albatross. Seeing over 20 of these majestic birds around the boat at one time was an amazing sight.

    There was also that Scissor-tailed Flycatcher seen at the Half Moon Bay Golf Course. The bird was a male, showing its long, delicately forked tail and flashing red underwings whenever it took flight. Here I was, standing less than 50 feet away from the vagrant in perfect lighting, only to realize that my camera ran out of batteries. So instead of taking a few potentially killer photos of possibly the most cooperative Scissor-tailed I would ever see, I ended up taking a pretty terrible phone pic through my binoculars. 

    Another bird that made my year special was a Parasitic aka Arctic Jaeger. No, not the one seen on the pelagic but the one that appeared late September in Santa Clara County. Not only was this individual a local rarity, it was also my first self-found rarity chased by many birders afterwards.

Yeah it was really far when I first found it.... Note the underwing "white flash" distinctive of skuas. Strangely enough, it was being chased by a California gull rather than vice versa happening.

Lovely pics of the bird much closer to the trail taken the next day courtesy of William G. Bousman. Here the bird is attacking a Forster's Tern, robbing it of its catch. 

Such a lovely juvenile bird

A much better picture of the underwing "white flash" compared with my first pic. All 3 pictures copyright of William G. Bousman.

Best amphibian: This one is fairly easy. I would say that the most interesting sighting of this category this year was the Spotted Salamander in Huyck. One of my fellow students, Aiyang, was flipping logs and with a stroke of luck, found one chilling underneath a medium-sized twig.

Best reptile: Probably my first and only Californian snake seen this year (yes, that is pretty sad). A lovely Santa Cruz Garter Snake seen in Palo Alto Foothills Park. Not only was this a life reptile, it appeared 5 seconds after I thought to myself: "I hope I see a snake today." If only other animals could be that cooperative...

Unfortunately this was my best view of the snake. This year, I plan on seeing more serpents, especially the garter snakes. The diversity of patternings on these critters in various parts of California is quite astounding.

Best mammal: I think I've talked enough about the Bobcat I saw during my first day of summer, but I still believe that it was definitely my favorite mammal seen this year. My human friends come close behind but the Bobcat still takes the cake. Next year, I hope a Mountain Lion enters my life - preferably at a safe distance.

Best butterfly: It was wonderful getting to finally see the beautiful Pipevine Swallowtail and its also gorgeous lookalike the Red-spotted Purple in Indiana. However, the local California Sisters did not disappoint. Basically, I have no verdict.

Such lovely colors of the Pipevine Swallowtail

Lower quality pic of the upperside with a very raggedy individual at Eagle Creek Park

Red-spotted Purple, a subspecies of the White Admiral that imitates the toxic Pipevine Swallowtail. Classic Batesian mimicry. Also at Eagle Creek Park.

Another brush-footed butterfly: the California Sister. Unlike the Red-spotted Purple, however, this western species is quite unpalatable to predators and rather than mimicking other species, has several impostors of its own such as the local Lorquin's Admiral.

What beautiful eyes you have. These butterflies always excite me, even though they are a fairly common species in summer oak woodland.

Best moth: Gosh this one is just as hard as the butterflies. Ths sphingids in New York were all great, with amazing species seen like the Small-eyed, Waved, and Virginia Creeper. In my backyard I also found a specimen of Glyphodes onychinalis, a sublime but unfortunately non-native moth species.

Small-eyed Sphinx silhouette in the dying light.

Same guy still on moth sheet in the morning. Later relocated to hide it from diurnal predation.

The Waved Sphinx was huge, dwarfing most other moths at the moth sheets. 

Why hello there

Virginia Creeper Sphinx: Such lovely. Wow.

Glyphodes onychinalis, a crambid moth native to the Old World tropics. It hosts on oleander, a common plant throughout my neighborhood. When I checked records online, it seems like this species was confined to Southern California so this was a very interesting spotting. This may have to do with the fact that this moth is small and easily overlooked but with it being my first self-identified moth after coming back to California, this little guy was quite memorable.

Hominid species with moth. This wonderful human named Jacob Gorneau was the culprit who introduced me to the amazing world of moths. He knows way too much about them.

Best odonate: For dragonflies, the winner goes to either the Halloween or Calico Pennant. I love how the pennants have such lovely colors in their wings and these two Anisopterans seen in the East were stunners.

Halloween Pennant seen in the field next to where I was staying in the Huyck Preserve

Calico Pennant seen by a neighborhood pond in Indiana

    For damselflies, the winner was the Ebony Jewelwing. I saw my first one in Indiana, a rather drab female. However, in the magic of the Huyck Preserve, by the streams there were male jewelwings in full iridescence.

One afternoon before a storm this male allowed me to get really close with my point and shoot.

Focus not perfect but still... <3 <3 <3 

Best tree: It was great to finally get to meet the Bigtooth Aspen at the Huyck Preserve! I had been dreaming to see one ever since I first saw a picture in a field guide several years back. Huyck also had a nice Quaking Aspen grove, which whispered beautifully in the slightest breeze. Mountain Maples, Eastern Hemlocks, and American Beech were also pleasures to see. Thinking locally, I did enjoy seeing my favorite oak the Blue Oak and also the more abundant Valley Oaks. Ok I give up.

My, Bigtooth Aspen, what big teeth you have

Signs of autumn from the Bigtooth Aspen. Someone had arranged these leaves on the trail.

Mountain Maple looking quite sharp.

Best forbs: In New York, it was great seeing a late Jack-in-the-pulpit blooming. Here in California, I think my spotting of a delicately beautiful Woodland Clarkia as I biked down Ed Levin as well as my spotting of a perky Yellow Sand Verbena in Half Moon Bay both were very memorable.

Jack-in-the-pulpit, a true gem of Eastern forests. This is the more common member of the genus Arisaema found in North America. The other one, A. dracontium, is very high on my list of North American flora that I want to see.

This species is also known as the Elegant Clarkia, a very fitting name

One of my favorite Californian flowers, the Yellow Sand Verbena, barely poking out of its sand dune habitat.

   As most other people who read this probably won't care about my personal lists or whatever, here they are! 

Birds

Year list: 273

County year list: 202

Green list (seen / heard from biking / walking only): 188

Reptiles and Amphibians (compiled to look slightly less pathetic)
Year list: 19

Mammals

Year list: 29

Butterflies

Year list: 58

Moths
Year list: Not finished counting; 150+

Odonates
Year list: 29

Trees

Year list: 71

Forbs

Year list: I gave up around March in keeping track; 300+, very conservatively estimating

Fish

Year list: 11

    Yep those were somewhat pitiful. Next year, I plan on making that change. Now, here are a few extra tidbits that really defined my year.

Most fun bird chase: Definitely the Sabine's Gull. It was really fun and rebellious sneaking out of the house at 5:30 am, biking 8 miles to see it, then biking back and well, unlike being a rebel, getting to school on time.

The lovely was well worth the chase

Easiest bird chase: Yellow-bellied Sapsucker at Geng Road on March 7th. After school I biked a mile to Geng Road, got off my bike, saw the bird above me, got on my bike, and biked home. Too bad I didn't have my camera with me...

Longest distance biked: On 5/31, the first day of summer, I biked to Ed Levin County Park, then headed south to downtown San Jose, before returning home. I honestly don't know how much I biked because I'm fairly certain that over half of the distance traveled was me being lost, but a conservative estimate would be maybe 40 miles ish? Although sadly the day was not very birdy in terms of diversity, that was made up for with sightings like the aforementioned Bobcat and Woodland Clarkia in addition to a lifer: the Black-chinned Hummingbird.

Worst day: Where to start? Well, there was that day where I biked out, targeting 3 rare birds and ended up traveling upwards of 20 miles in naught in muddy trail conditions but then again, the day was extremely birdy and I ended the day feeling pretty satisfied... Another day I hiked for an hour - in the wrong direction, but it still ended up being a pretty nice walk. Now that I think about it, there was never a bad day when I was out birding / exploring. Sure, some days were better than others, but none were truly "bad". So I guess the worst day this year may have been that one where I stayed indoors the majority of the day and took a test on calculus, getting a lovely 49%... That was pretty terrible. 

    Before concluding this post, I guess I should also briefly talk about my December 31 adventure, my final birding trip of the year. That morning, the weather was lovely and the temperature a balmy 30 degrees F.

Final sunrise of the year

Adorable little Cackling Goose amidst the Shoreline kite-flying area goose flock. 

    From the kite-flying area I biked towards the Stevens Creek trail then followed it south for around 8 miles before exiting into suburban Mountain View. Due to my superior lack of direction skills, I took a wrong turn but two very nice ladies put me back on track. I'm actually pretty surprised how I only made one wrong turn the entire day as my destination was a new one. You go Jasen! Soon, I arrived at a few Chinese pistache trees on Diericx Drive (an awesome street name) and saw what I came to see.

The birds were in the trees as I arrived: a flock of Evening Grosbeaks!

The large, vocal finches only came into the front of the tree with good light when I had my camera in the bag. 

It was a pleasant surprise seeing several overwintering Western Tanagers also chowing down on the abundant fruit

    I then turned back and headed home. Along the way, I stopped by at the Charleston Road marsh. It was a real finch party, with all the regular finches except for the Lawrence's Goldfinch present. There, I got a lone Pine Siskin within the American Goldfinch flock, my final "green" year bird of 2014. A little while later I stopped by the Palo Alto Baylands. The goose flock was strangely not in the golf course but scattered throughout the sloughs. Nothing too unusual but seeing 3 Greater White-fronted Geese in one frame was decently exciting.

The 101st and final species I added to my birding big day (or more like birding big morning + an hour).

    Oh yeah, and now the acknowledgements. I really have to thank my parents for dealing with my obsession and often actually being supportive, especially when they offer to take me places by car. Of course I also need to give special thanks to my dad for letting me use his camera. Other humans I should acknowledge would be my friends for not judging me too harshly when I'm within earshot and for not instantly changing the subject when I begin talking about birds (usually).   

    And those were the key points of 2014 in a nutshell. I cannot wait to see what 2015 has in store and well, after the whole first day not going outside, I am ready for my first trip tomorrow, bright and early! Until next time, enjoy life and love nature!

Time to venture beyond that proverbial mist and see what lies ahead

"Remember, life is like a birding trip. If you go too quickly, you'll miss all the birds. If you go too slowly, well, you'll run out of time before you see anything."

-me