Black Swan

My partner, John Mirau, had a home next to Lake San Marcos in the unincorporated community of Lake San Marcos, in the North County region of San Diego County. On July 30, 2022 Judy and I took a small boat out on the lake and followed its shoreline, with John, his wife Susan, and some other friends. One of the fun water fowl on the lake is the black swan, an import from Australia. Wikipedia notes that breeding pairs of black swans have been reported in Orange County in Lake Forest, Irvine, Newport Beach and Santa Ana. Well, I can verify that there are also breeding pairs in Lake San Marcos as we have seen them sitting on eggs and have seen cygnets with them as well. As the range map below indicates, they are found in Australia. However, Wikipedia notes introduced populations in New Zealand, the UK, Japan, Mainland China and the U.S. in Florida, North Carolina and California. 

Illustration from Birds of the World. 

Range from Birds of the World. 

Speckled Chachalaca

In February 2009 Judy and I went to Peru with my law partners and their spouses. During the trip we flew into Puerto Maldonado, then took a boat trip down the Madre de Dios River to the Inkaterra Reserva Amazonica, an ecolodge just off the river and adjacent to Tambopata NR. During a day walk into the jungle right next to the ecolodge we saw a speckled chachalaca that I got some poor photos of. I identified it as an Andean guan on iNaturalist and was overruled by two others who identified it as a speckled chachala. 

Illustration of ssp. guttata from Birds of the World

Range from Birds of the World. 

Sickle-Winged Guan

In March 2023 I was with Judy and my granddaughter Ella in Tatama NNP in Colombia, staying at the Montezuma Rainforest Ecolodge, one of the best birding areas in Colombia and the world. Our first afternoon we went out on a walk up the road with our guide, Fernando Tapasco. Judy and Ella got bored with our walk and went back early. On my way back with Fernando we spotted quite a few sickle-winged guan up in the trees, probably four to eight. Before I could get my camera up for a photo they flew, but I got a very good look at them. It is one of the few birds I treat as a lifer that I do not have some sort of a photo of. The year before, outside Mindo, Ecuador, I'd seen several crested guans, so I was familiar with the guans. 

Illustration of sickle-winged guan from Birds of the World. 

Range of sickle-winged guan from Birds of the World. 

Sooty Grouse

My prior post was on the dusky grouse, which used to be the same species as the sooty grouse when both were identified as blue grouse. The dusky grouse is found in the interior mountains of North America and the sooty grouse is found in the coastal mountains of North America. I've seen one, in the vicinity of Banner Peak in the Ansel Adams Wilderness of California in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, while backpacking the Pacific Crest/ John Muir Trail from Mammoth to Yosemite Valley, on July 5, 2009, with Larry Strong, Steve Wicks and other members of their families.  Mark Wicks saw the grouse which I incorrectly identified as a ruffed grouse, which is how I identified it on iNaturalist. It was later corrected and corroborated by four other identifiers, including scottdwilson, the 2nd highest identifier of sooty grouse on iNaturalist with 1341 identifications. 

Illustration of a male from Birds of the World. 

Illustration of a male, in display, from Birds of the World.

Range from Birds of the World. 

Dusky Grouse

The dusky grouse and sooty grouse used to be part of the same species known as the blue grouse. The dusky grouse is found in the mountainous regions of interior western North America from central Yukon south to northern Arizona and New Mexico.  The sooty grouse is found further west, in the mountainous regions of south-coastal Alaska and northwestern British Columbia south to the Sierra Nevada Mountains in California and westernmost Nevada. Nominate ssp. obscurus is found in central Utah, including on Mount Nebo, where I saw one when I was climbing 11,933 foot tall Mt. Nebo on August 1, 1992 with my brother-in-law, Dave Kenison, although it was not anywhere near close to the peak. It has two positive identifications on iNaturalist. 

It is also found throughout central Colorado, including on Mount Elbert. I saw three or four while climbing 14,440 foot Mt. Elbert with Judy on September 12, 2009, the second highest mountain in the contiguous U.S. and the tallest in the Rocky Mountains. They were not near the summit, but were above tree line. It has three positive identifications on iNaturalist, including from calebstroh and scottdwilson, the number 1 and number 2 identifiers of it on iNaturalist with 2001 and 1374 identifications, respectively. 

Obscurus has a distinct gray band at the end of its tail, which differentiates it from the northern ssp. richardsonii. 

Illustration of a female ssp. obscurus from Birds of the World.

Illustration of ssp. obscurus male from Birds of the World. 

Illustration of male ssp. obscurus in display mode from Birds of the World. 

Range from Birds of the World. 

California Quail

The California quail is the quail of my youth growing up in the foothills of Salt Lake City. It is also the quail of my mid-life and now old-age on the edge of Live Oak Canyon in Redlands, California. I know its unmistakable call, the blast of its wings as it explodes from nearby bushes and the beeline of its small feet as it scurries into nearby bushes. What is amazing to me, as I look back on it, is that I have only two observations of California quail on iNaturalist, compared to 30 observations of Gambel's quail, and I do not live in the vicinity of Gambel's quail or see them anywhere near as often. I never see California quail when they are not exploding from cover or scrambling pell-mell, so photographs are difficult to come by. 

These first three photos were taken in Live Oak Canyon on October 25, 2020. Not great photos by any stretch of the imagination. 

 

This and the following photos were taken on March 30, 2025 when I was with Judy and Sam at the UC Santa Cruz Botanical Garden. It was a rainy day and I was sitting on a bench waiting for hummingbirds to visit a particular tree. I just happened to catch this hefty female in some periods where she was not scampering.  

Illustration of a female from Birds of the World. 

Illustration of a male from Birds of the World.

Range map from Birds of the World. This is the first time I've looked at a range map for them and I am surprised by how sparsely located they are in Utah. I saw lots of them growing up and just assumed they were everywhere. 

Wedge-Billed Woodcreeper

On March 18, 2022 I visited the Mashpi Amagusa Reserve, in the Mashpi-Pachijal IBA, near Mindo in Ecuador. One of the most significant mornings of birding and wildlife observation in my life. I got a partial photograph of a wedge-billed woodcreeper, partially hiding on a tree. My guide identified it and I've submitted it to iNaturalist, but no identifiers have corroborated it. But the distinctive tail, along with my guide and iNaturalist, makes me feel pretty confident about the identification. 

Illustration of ssp. spirursus from Birds of the World.

Range from Birds of the World. 

There are 13 subspecies and geographic variation in plumage and vocalizations is considerable. I do not know which ssp. I saw, I don't have a photo of the entire bird, and there were not illustrations of all ssps. So I just picked the one that looked the closest to my photo.