Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!cmcl2!beta!unm-la!unmvax!nmtsun!john
From: john@nmtsun.nmt.edu (John Shipman)
Newsgroups: rec.birds
Subject: Birding technique
Message-ID: <17@nmtsun.nmt.edu>
Date: 23 Mar 88 21:33:35 GMT
References: <6@nmtsun.nmt.edu> <18531@oliveb.olivetti.com>
Distribution: na
Organization: Zoological Data Processing
Lines: 98
Keywords: stalking, pishing, California Thrasher, Moss Landing

In <18531@oliveb.olivetti.com>, Michael Mammoser writes:
> I bird [Stevens Creek Park] a lot and the California Thrasher
> is quite common here, but it can be difficult to see unless
> it is singing from the top of a low bush or tree. It is very
> spooky and will generally flee when it catches sight of you.

I agree; you can really feel you've accomplished something
when you get a good look at this bird.  For listers that
need it, my favorite spot for California Thrasher is around
the Stanford Museum (on the Stanford campus).  They're
somewhat tamer there, perhaps due to all the foot traffic
around the area.  Around 1980 the west side of the museum
was still somewhat brushy in spots, and a reliable spot for
the species.  Last month I sent my friend Phil to this spot
so he could tick it; he informs me that the west side is now
a sculpture garden, and too well-manicured.  However, he did
find it easily on the EAST side of the museum, which has not
yet been over-landscraped.  Method: sit in your car in the
alley or stand quietly, and listen for birds scratching in
the underbrush.  Most will be Brown Towhees.  Some look like
miniature roadrunners with scimitar bills.

TO PISH OR NOT TO PISH---that is the question.  My friend
Phil recently discovered pishing, and it has produced such
spectacular results for him, he can't imagine why everybody
doesn't do it all the time.  I started out as a pisher, but
in the last few years, I do it a lot less.  Recently, I
watched from above as Phil pished his way up a gully, and it
looked to me like he was herding the critters.  Each bird,
on first hearing him pish, would pop up on a high perch and
give Phil a nice 3-second look, and then the bird would flee
for its life on up the gully.

If you're on a Big Day, this is probably a good deal.  You
may miss a few birds, but most of them will pop up long
enough for you to identify them.  Also, Phil keeps pulling
out birds that I've never seen, in all my favorite spots!

I suspect that it's my predilection for photography that got
me away from pishing.  I like to get more than one picture
of a bird, if possible.  So I like to creep down the trail
at a literal snail's pace, trying not to make any noise at
all.  It's very boring for non-photographers, but fine if
I'm out alone.  I find that only when I'm careful about
noise and fast motion will I see a Cal Thrasher.

Maybe the thing to do is to work a site with pishing on some
days, without it on other days; you might see different
birds.  Or pish just before you plan to move some distance
away, when it won't matter if you traumatize the birds.

There's one more complicating factor.  It seems to me that
many wild animals will freak out if they think you're
STALKING them.  When I do my molasses stalk, I see different
birds than if I go with a friend, strolling along and
talking as if nothing unusual were happening.  The latter
situation seems to reassure some birds that we're not after
THEM.  An extreme case of this: Common Crows have been
raiding a pecan tree in our neighborhood for much of the
winter.  You can walk directly under the tree and they will
stay there;but if you make EYE CONTACT with any bird, they
will all flip three blocks away.

>	Rock sandpiper only in winter [at Pescadero Rock]
Oops, right you are. 

> Moss Landing tallied 214 species in this year's CBC. Maybe,
> for once, we will beat out Freeport, Texas for high species
> count. 8-) 
I just gotta say a few more kind words about Moss Landing.
You go down S.R. 1 until you see the two gigantic
smokestacks of the PG&E facility, or, if it's foggy, until
you get to the bridge over Elkhorn Slough, from which some
fishing piers are visible on your right.

The best spot is Jetty Road.  This is the first turnoff
north of the bridge (except for the turnoff to Skipper's
Restaurant---is their chowder still as wonderful as it was
around 1980?) and should be marked.  Just a little ways off
the highway, you have the harbor on your left and a group of
brackish sloughs on your right.  You don't have to move much
from this spot to see boatloads of species of gulls, terns,
shorebirds, waders, dabblers, and divers.  Most of my best
pictures of loons and grebes came from here at times when
the tide was all the way in to the jetty.  And when the tide
declines, the tideline and mudflat are usually entertaining.
When the tide is all the way out, the large muddy spot in
the north end of the harbor is good for loafing birds.
If the harbor action is slow, usually the sloughs are good.

Sometimes the harbor mouth can be good for divers, and the
outer beach is like any other section of beach in this end
of the state (good), but most of the good stuff is right off
Highway 1 on Jetty Road.
-- 
John Shipman/Zoological Data Processing/Socorro, New Mexico
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