Flamingo Races

I was so tired today.  Prom kept me up til 4 AM and I just got up and kept going today.  We spent the day at the racetrack, losing nominal sums of money betting on the wrong ponies.  No beer.  It costs 7 dollars at this track, which is 6 dolars more than the track in Berkley.  So, no beer.  It's time to go back to bed now.  Hopefully I'll sleep til noon.  Goodnight.

Typical sight at the races.  WEGU eating chicken bones.  Yumyum.

I had never seen Greater? Flamingos at the tracks before.  So Socal.

Shortest TPAD Ever

Driving to LA the day after St. Patty's Day is exhausting.  Old photos of what yesterday was like:

Eating hella.

Guzzling hella.

Poser Birds, I'm No Charlie Sheen

As much as I miss Midway, it is so awesome to be surrounded by hella different species of birds again.  For three months, I saw only 30 species.  Now I can go into a city park and see 30 species in 30 minutes.  I had forgotten how cool it was.  On another note, I have not been feeling very much like Charlie Sheen lately.  I'm striking out when I chase vagrants across the city, my bets at the racetrack did NOT pay out today, and now Facebook wants me to get Timeline.  Life is slightly Pain.  Although, it could be much more painful.  For example, Felonious Jive lost his second camera in three years today (this time to water damage).  If you have a heart, or a soul, or feelings, you should stop by seagullsteve.blogspot.com and give him your condolences.  Or maybe just give him like six hundred bucks so that he can keep blogging about birds and raging.  Today at the tracks I thought I had a Glaucous Gull for about two minutes.  Then I reviewed my photos and found that it was a sneaky-ass Glaucous-winged Gull posing as his much rarer cousin.

Mostly, what I saw looked like this bird's left wing.  Snowy white primaries.  But real life set in and the super gray right wing took control. : (

This Western Gull has the gnarliest, biggest, yellowest bill I've seen.  Pretty much a YFGU poser.

Here We Come To The End Of The Road...

...Still I Can't Let Go.  Well boys and girls, the end of another SEFI Fall has come for Daniel Maxwell.  I will be getting on a boat in a few hours and heading back to do some hard time in Real Life.  On the Island, there is a certain amount of superstition that goes with boat days like today.  Some people believe that the best birds always show up on boat days.  It certainly happened last year.  On my last day, birds seen were Summer Tanager, Ancient Murrelet, and (1 hour after I departed) a first Island Record Smith's Longspur.  Life was pain that day.  I'm hoping to not repeat that day.  Here are the 2 PADs from yesterday.  It was mostly slow, but there were a few birds here and there.

My favorite resident of Southeast Farallon Island, Common Raven.  This guy has been over on the mainland for the entire Fall.  He made a reappearance yesterday, just in time for me to see him before leaving.  He promptly began murdering mice out on the Marine Terrace.  

My last SEFI suset.  Goodbye gulls.  Goodbye rock.  Goodbye sharks.  Goodbye Lighthouse.

Blueberry Scones

I have absolutely nothing to say about yesterday.  Here are the photos.

When there are no birds around, shoot the E seals.  This is a foolproof plan and works every time.  This one is so cute that she even has a pink heart shaped scar on her lip.

It has come to this.  I have resorted to posting Western Gull photos.  30,000 of them breed here.  Somebody counted them all.