Two More Long-billed Curlew Nests!

For a curlew update as of yesterday, visit The Nemesis Bird for a summary of how we found our first two nests.

Fortunately, there is more good news today.  We arrived at our curlew hotspot early this morning with volunteer Gary Worthington, and got to rope-dragging early.  We decided to save behavioral observations until it got a little warmer out, when females may get off their nests and be more visible. 

While taking a break from rope-dragging, males were displaying on territories, but it seemed like a few were acting a little different.  From a distance, I saw one male mob a Red-tailed Hawk, and made a mental note to revisit that spot later.  Then we spotted three curlews in the air that turned out to be a female being pursued by 2 males...a potential new arrival?  Speaking of arrivals, check out this photo that compares a Whimbrel with a female Long-billed Curlew.  It was taken by Darren Clark, in Roberts, Idaho.  The two were apparently in a field together with Sandhill Cranes.  Pretty cool comparison shot!  Maybe this means a few female curlews will still be arriving at our sites?

When we were about to stop rope-dragging for the morning, we spotted a pair of curlews on the ground in front of us.  They were foraging around, and it looked like a solid pair;  the female was actively following the male, and the male wasn't calling excessively.  While the guys searched the ground for some eggs, the pair flew a short distance to a nearby hillside, where I watched the female make a bee-line to a scrape.  She was getting pretty cozy in it, standing and sitting repeatedly, and scraping her feet to make it the perfect shape for a few eggs.  The male helped out by putting very small pieces of grass in it, which she continually rearranged.  She sat on the scrape while the male foraged nearby.  This scrape may have an egg in it, but since they were actively constructing it, we decided to back off in case she hadn't laid any eggs yet.  I will revisit the scrape on monday and hopefully find at least 1 or 2 eggs in it!  It is only a few hundred meters away from the nest we found yesterday.

At this point, it was getting a little warm out, so we broke up into pairs to do some observations.  I headed across the road with Alex, where we had rope-dragged over a week ago with Jay.  In the distance, there was a pair foraging around a hill side, and they look like they will soon have a nest.  The female of this pair is pretty massive and you can tell she is a female from quite a distance because of it.  While I was watching this pair to the south, a juvenile Red-tailed Hawk flew in a few hundred meters to the west, and a different male curlew immediately took flight from the ground and thermalled up towards the hawk.  He then dive-bombed the Red-tail repeatedly and escorted it away.  He landed just out of view over the next hill, so I left Alex with the previous pair and headed over.  At the top of the hill, I found the male foraging alone, and a quick scan over the horizon revealed the head and long bill of a female sitting on a nest!  While I waited for Alex and the gang to arrive with egg floating supplies, the female kept her head up as the male pursued any raptor that came within about 300 meters of the nest.  His alarm calls at a female harrier were particulary full of rage as the raptor passed low over the hidden female.  He seemed to be doing a great job of keeping the raptors away, who seemed to be genuinely surprised by his sneak attacks from the ground.  Each time, he landed within a few hundred meters of the hidden female. 

Long-billed Curlew (male) standing guard near his nest

When Alex and Gary approached, the female hunkered down pretty tight to the ground and became nearly invisible.  Even as we approached the nest, we could only see her tiny eyeball staring at us through the short grass.  The male was actually ignoring us, and took his foraging a little farther from the nest.  I guess he saves all his energy for chasing raptors. 

Long-billed Curlew (female) hunkered down on nest; head/eye visible at bottom of arrow

The female held tight to the nest until we were only a few feet away.  She then flew low off the nest and half ran/flapped for about 10 feet in a distraction display, mostly with her wings outstretched.  She made herself look pretty huge and weird, and if I was a predator, I would have headed towards her for an apparent easy meal.

Long-billed Curlew (female) distraction display away from nest

She then "snuck away" very low to the ground, even though her large body was barely hidden in the grass. Any predator would be hot on her trail by now, getting led away from the nest. 

Long-billed Curlew (female) "sneaking" away from her nest

She watched pretty impatiently but at a safe distance while we floated the single slimy egg that apparently had just been laid.  It didn't take her very long to "sneak" right back to her nest. The awesome thing about this nest is that it is right next to a massive, perfectly circular cow pattie!  We had heard that curlews will nest near large objects like cow patties but hadn't yet seen it.  This scrape isn't lined at all, but we think maybe nest construction continues throughout egg-laying, since our 4 egg nest was prefectly lined with a fluffy layer of grasses.

Long-billed Curlew nest #3 (top left side) next to cow pattie

Long-billed Curlew (female) waiting to go back to her nest

Alex and Oly are headed out to do owl surveys next week, and we are getting a new co-worker who is lucky enough to be starting right when it looks like things are getting started!

Thanks to Gary Worthington for helping us out today!  We covered a huge amount of ground!

Rope-dragging for Long-billed Curlews

All week, we've been out at our field sites in the morning trying to track down Long-billed Curlew nests.  We started a new method called rope-dragging, which is exactly what it sounds like.  Rope dragging is often used to flush secretive birds or find their nests, or flush them into nets to band them.  In the past, Alex and I have used rope-dragging to flush sparrows into mist nets, and it is also often used to flush rails or ducks.  Last week, Alex, Jay, and Heather travelled to Oregon to work with a masters student who uses this method with much success in finding Long-billed Curlew nests.  Basically, 4-5 people all line up with about 100 feet of rope between them, and walk in a straight line across the target area where curlew nests are suspected from previous observations.  Curlews tend to hunker down when a threat is near, so as not to give their nest away, and it takes the rope passing over them to flush them off.  Sometimes, this isn't even enough to make them fly, so you still have to keep your eyes focused on the ground near you to make sure birds are not missed.  It is a pretty good work out, and after a few hours, can be pretty tiring.

So far, we haven't found any curlew nests at our field sites with rope dragging. We know of many nests north of our sites, and aren't sure why we don't have any yet. It has been unseasonably cold lately, which may be delaying the start of nesting.  We found one pair that we suspected was nesting, but as soon as we thought we had it figured out, rope-dragging revealed nothing, and the pair had moved into the next valley.  A few days ago, we found a male frantically trying to gain a females love by making numerous nest scrapes, and trying to lure her over to them with low flights.  We'll keep an eye on them, and hope the female chooses to stay with the male.  On a few other occasions, we've found pairs on the ground together, but within minutes, they are flying off together into the distance. If they have nests right now, one should be on it because of the cold temperatures.  Finding single males defending territories is promising though, since we hope their mates are nearby on a nest. Today, we saw two different male curlews attacking Prairie Falcons!  In my opinion you have to be pretty crazy to go after a Prairie Falcon.  Hopefully this is a sign of a nearby nest, and we can rope-drag at these sites tomorrow when the temperature gets warmer.

Typical view of Long-billed Curlew pair...flying away.

male Long-billed Curlew walking around on his territory

same male surveying his territory for intruders

Same male attacking Prairie Falcon that got too close!

In reality, our study sites are really not ideal curlew habitat. Historically, many curlews nested here, but their numbers have drastically dropped in the past 30 years, most likely because the land is poorly managed for Long-billed Curlews.  It seems to be managed soley for cattle, and because it is BLM land, it is open to the public.  In this case, the landscape has been devastated and the ecosysytem totally disrupted by the practice of "plinking," or shooting ground-squirrels.  Ground-squirrel populations are exploding at our field sites because they aren't closed to the public, and this attracts a breed of people who find pleasure in killing a small animal purely for recreational purposes.  Unfortunately, badgers and coyotes are also targetted and killed, taking out natural ground-squirrel predators.  In turn, their is an abundance of raptors and ravens that come to scavenge the excess number of ground-squirrel carcasses. Long-billed Curlews are then affected negatively by the presence of so many avian predators, in the form of egg and chick predation, not to mention the energy expenditures of chasing predators more often than they should normally have to.  It doesn't help that our field sites are used as illegal dumping sites, and it is likely that illegal poaching also takes place.  A weekend at our sites can be pretty scary if you are a curlew, with loads of people shooting in every direction. In general, if I was a curlew, this is the last place I'd want to nest.  The low number of curlews and curlew nests at our field sites, in comparison to historic numbers, should be a red flag that the land is being poorly managed.  In this situation, I put more personal value on a healthy population of Long-billed Curlews (an obvious indicator species here for the general health of the land) than I do on someones weekend of target shooting, and I doubt this declining population could ever begin to increase as long as these sites are open to the public and managed for cattle.

Santa Barbara County Birding Day 2, July 31

After spending the night near Santa Barbara, we woke up and hit a few beaches along the coast.  Brewer's blackbirds were pretty common on the beaches, and weren't bothered by beach-goers.  This is a bird we rarely get to see so it was awesome to get an up-close look!

male Brewer's Blackbird

Nearby, a flock of gulls was relaxing on shore.

First Year Western Gull

First Year Ring-billed Gull

Adult Western Gull (has only one eye)

 

Our next stop was Santa Barbara Harbor.  This was an excellent stop!  A jetty with a walkway on it protects the marina and harbor, and the ocean-facing side is lined with huge algae-covered rocks.  About half-way down the jetty, we started seeing Wandering Tattlers and Black Turnstones!  All the people walking on the jetty had no idea they were there because of a big cement wall that acts as a wave-breaker.  A few people peeked over the wall to see what we were photographing and got a glimpse of them!

Black Turnstone, the Ruddy Turnstone's evil twin, balancing on slanted rocks

At a few beaches in the area, hungry Black Turstones were running around after waves, picking up and eating small mussels and sand crabs.  They seem famished, and are recent arrivals on the Santa Barbara coast right now.   We also saw a Surfbird fly over, but didn't get a good look at it.

Black Turnstone on the beach

This Black Turnstone were so preoccupied with eating

that a huge wave plowed right into him! (and me)

This one has a small mussell

These Wandering Tattlers (lifer) were on the ocean side of the jetty in groups of 3 to 4. 

This tattler perched on a rock as I hid nearby.

Afew Tattlers narrowly escaped incoming waves.

The tattlers would run to shore after every wave, and would be chased back up again by it.

The Wandering Tattlers were also frantically eating, and this one caught a huge sand crab!

While I was photographing shorebirds, Alex found this Common Merganser fishing

 in the marina.The water was so clear you could see him hunting underwater!

Butterflies were far and few, but we did find this

small Western Pygmy Blue fighting the wind.

Next we took a trip to the nearby Museum of Natural History, where they had an excellent

 collection of bird taxidermies. In the museum gardens, Oregon Juncos were hopping around.

We decided to go back to Santa Barbara Harbor since the birds were cooperative and the lighting was great.  We found a flew small flocks of Western Whimbrel on shore, and throughout the evening, more flew by, likely migrating down the coast. 

Western Whimbrel in Santa Barbara Harbor

Double-crested Cormorant, a common bird of the harbor

As the sun started setting, the turstones and tattlers settled in to dark rocky crevasses.  Alex and I took a walk down a small sandy beach, and found this Long-billed Curlew foraging along the shoreline.  He knew we were watching him, but didn't seem to care as we inched forward for some great photos.

 Long-billed Curlew foraging on beach

The curlew eventually flew towards Alex, but was flushed back towards me by some people.

When he landed he showed a quick glimpse of his bright rufous and cinnamon underwing,

which seemed dramatically red in the setting sun. We spent the night again in Santa Barbara.