Urban Birding

Disclaimer: This post has absolutely nothing to do with the Green Family. It's all about me. I will not be offended if you choose to back arrow (unless you're my mom, in which case, it's your obligation to continue, but don't worry, this won't be like Mexico).


I've recently gotten in the habit of walking around campus after lunch for a little while. After a few days of trying different routes, I made my out to the back of the school where the soccer fields are. Out on the grass, I saw about 20 or so birds that I had never seen before. They were smaller than a seagull, but not by a lot; they were brown, darker on the top, lighter underneath; and they had a long, slender bill that curved upwards. They were pretty cool looking and later, when I got on whatbird.com, I decided that they were marbled godwits. (see update below)
Then I made my way to the track:

Then I saw something even cooler:

In case you can't quite make it out, or don't know how to navigate whatbird.com, this is a picture of a burrowing owl. Of course this isn't a picture of the actual owl I saw (I don't think) because why would I be carrying a camera while walking around the school? No, what I did was bring a camera (and my mom's binoculars) to school the next day, and I was able to get this shot. I also saw a bunch of squirrels, some doves, a couple of cute bunnies, and a train. Who would have thought I could see so much wildlife in the heart of South Sacramento?

But I wasn't satisfied with my photo. So I brought the camera and binoculars the next day and saw a few different birds. It was fun. Once again I found myself feeling like I was in National Geographic. I'd sight the birds with the binoculars, then try to close in for the photo op. I really need a fancier camera with a good telephoto lens, because birds don't let you get too close. These photos are all cropped (and the birds are still only a small part of the photos).

I saw a killdeer.

And a western meadowlark.

I saw some magpies, but I blew my shot when I got too close (which wasn't really close).

Then, as I was walking next to the fence, out flew what I had been looking for. I walked along the track, looking the direction opposite the bird. (I'm pretty sure avoiding eye contact is what got me as close as I did), and got my shot:

Then I tried to get closer and the owl flew to the other side of the field. I used my same look away from the wild animal technique, and even added in some diagonal walking, kind of like the way a sailboat tacks in a headwind and got into camera range, and got this shot:

Then a squirrel, who's a fan of the blog, popped his head out, hoping that I'd post his picture. Squirrel, I got'chu, bro:

And then I snuck in a little closer  and got the money shot:

 

Then I got a tiny, little bit closer . . . and watched the owl fly away.

Update:

 Yesterday (March 9th) as I was getting to school I saw a ton of seagulls out on the soccer field and I thought I saw one of those brown birds I had seen last week, so I went in to investigate.

Turns out it was just a seagull with a lot of brown color, but further down the field there were some of those birds. So today (March 10th) I brought the camera and this is what I saw:

 

At lunch I went onto my new favorite website whatbird.com to verify my earlier identification, and it was a good thing I did because I was wrong. These birds are not marbled godwits, which have long, slightly upturned bills, they are long billed curlews. I don't know how I made that mistake because I had seen that their bills were turned down. I did make a mistake about their size. I thought they were smaller than seagulls, but now I think they are every bit as large as seagulls, if not slightly larger. In fact, whatbird.com states that the long billed curlew is the "largest shorebird in North America." Another interesting fact I learned from whatbird.com is that long billed curlews are also called "candlestick birds" and "Candlestick Park" was named for these birds that are native to the area.