Water Birds of California

Refuses to look at camera

Yellow tail

 After starting my bird watching adventure I went to my local library (LAPL) and got several bird books. Then I explored the pages of E-Bay and bought two books,  Water Birds of California and to my surprise Osprey's were not included which I thought was quite strange.

Sharp beak

The Osprey is a large fish-eating hawk. It is the only hawk that dives into the water.

I have never seen once fishing by my sailboat but the Pelicans and Terns dive into the water bill first and the Herons that I see fish from the boat docks stabbing their prey but the Osprey have evolved extraordinary adaptations helping them become expert fish eaters. Starting with the feet, osprey talons are extremely long and sharp and combined with specialized scales on the toes, the osprey can easily grab and hold on to prey. One of these talon-clad toes is also reversible, this means that instead of having three forward pointing toes and one back, ospreys can point two forward and two back, this creates a powerful grip helping to prevent prey getting away.

Night photos

My first encounter with an Osprey was when one decided to roost on my Mast Head causing serious damage to the wind vane. At that time across the water from my boat there was a six pack fishing boat named Osprey. 

I had to go up the mast several times to try and fix the vane. Finally after several hikes up the mast in my bosun chair I finally left the vane a little crooked. Then a few years later my neighbor on a Catalina 36 decided to fly her spinnaker in the afternoon when the wind roars down the hill from the Fort above and her sheets came lost and the wild sail almost took down my mast. She had it repaired and now my mast head weather vane is sprayed with anti-osprey pepper spray. (lol)

Having watched the Osprey for several weeks lately I know that they can be quite messy. Blue Herons leave a trail of white guano spread out over an area (most likely a Mustang parked in the parking lot) but Ospreys don't swallow their prey whole like other sea birds and tear the flesh from the prey and eat in  a very delicate fashion much like in a sushi bar. They also don't eat the entails of their catch and simply leave them on the boat owners boat or dock or maybe an adjacent boat. 

The amount of bait in the harbor here varies and so do the sea birds that feed on the prey here. 

In the past I had read that Audubon was not a fan of the Bald Eagle because the eagle would steal from the Osprey and should have never been given the status of the national bird. 

Ospreys are every where 

A unique thing about ospreys is that they are a family of one. That's all, one species worldwide. Evidently ospreys got it right the first time and evolution didn't need to make changes along the way. That's pretty unusual when you think about it. South America alone has over 300 different species of hummingbirds, making up dozens of shapes, colors and sizes, but the entire world has only one osprey. There are no "great ospreys" living in the Alps or "snob-nosed" ospreys living on the beach in Malibu.

Loose feather
The Osprey is cosmopolitan and is also know in fancy talk as Pandion haliaetus

osprey (n.)

fishing hawk, mid-15c., from Anglo-French ospriet, from Medieval Latin avis prede "bird of prey," from Latin avis praedæ, a generic term apparently confused with this specific bird in Old French on its similarity to ossifrage.

ossifrage (n.)

"sea-eagle, osprey," c. 1600, from Latin ossifraga "vulture," fem. of ossifragus, literally "bone-breaker … transferred to the osprey, perhaps on similarity of sound between the two words.

There is even a Football team named after SeaHawks 

Changing the Subject

Writing about the homeless is one thing taking the pictures is another. Safety around crazy people can be dangerous. So no more homeless for now,

New Subject is back to birds.

Black Skimmers at Cabrillo Beach

Pair of Mocking Birds

One of a Pair nesting Cooper Hawks

Drying wings out

Humming Birds are difficult to capture on camera

More Mocking

Osprey at Terminal Island

Looking for fish

Heron found fish

Pair of Black Skimmers

Snowy in Tree

Bashful Brown Bird

Making baby Terns

Osprey on Ketch mast

Pair of hawks on old power pole

Punk Band members ready to party

More Party goers

Spring Time

Saved for Last

All of these photos were taken by Myself 

I Know It Is Today Cause It Is Raining

Tuesday is here again and that seems to happen weekly.

Mocking Birds Courting

It is May again and that happens somewhere between April and June.

Mocking Bird

Yesterday it was June weather and I went riding and tried another route. My original plan was to go to Long Beach on the bicycle as the auto route is via two bridges one that doesn't allow non motor types. Things were going alright until I came to Santa Fe at Anaheim Street where the street narrows as Long Beach begins. San Pedro,  Terminal Island and Long Beach or the major USA ports and there are lots of fucking trucks, more than enough. My life passed by quickly as the gutter disappeared and the curb got very close, the large trucks got very close and I escaped to the sidewalk. I gave the finger to two truck drivers that owned the road and changed my route.

Humming Bird low sun light

As I headed north instead of east I passed familiar sites and headed back into fast food country. In the San Pedro and Wilmington waterfront there isn't any Macs or Jacks only one burger joint at Ford Road.

Hawk on Solar Panel

Before moving to where I am now I had two sailboats in Wilmington so the streets where I was almost smashed like a bug were past haunts. When I got to PCH (Pacific Coast Highway) I headed west and saw a sign saying  this was a Long Beach Bike Way. It was not the Tour de France route unless they ride pass junk yards, stacked containers, a couple of oil refineries, What is funny about oil refineries here is gas station prices. In San Pedro gas prices are higher than in South Pasadena where I used  to live part time.

My Daughter

There will not be any bicycle ravel pictures in this blog as I ride my bike to ride my bike not to take picture. I tried mounting a smart phone or my little Sony on a handlebar mount but the collection of shots along the way were usually shit and then deleted. Sometimes I haul a Nikon along in my backpack but again that is too much trouble. If you want to see what PCH in Wilmington or Long Beach tune into the local Los Angeles TV news and watch the crime reports. 

So yesterday I rode twenty miles and the day before a little less but more hills. The passage from San Pedro to Long Beach doesn't have any hills except the street bridges over the rail road tracks. Once you get into riding everyday more than a few miles you need to keep doing it just like running. Running not jogging is worse than heroin. One hundred miles a week is never enough. 

Having Fun

The little rain we had here stopped and I did not ride today but the two dogs and I walked this morning. That is where the Mocking Bird, Hawk and Humming Bird pictures came from. Mocking Birds are all over the park (22nd Street Park) across the street but not in the park below Fort (Fort MacArthur) here. For those who need more information about Mocking Birds check out "Dick" the first pet in the White House. Hint for the Google impaired is "Thomas Jefferson". 

Zen and the Art of Forgetting

Books will jump off the shelves in your local library if you would go there. Try it, not book jumping but libraries and say out loud "Zen", The Do it yourself folks will say this is the way? Way where I am not sure. Myself starting fucking around with the keyboard again. Today I looked back via my personal history channel to look at some of my old blogs and as my unclear smoke filled nerve endings are not firing somehow I was remembering the days when we sailed on a Coal Ship to New Castle. Captain Cook was from Yorkshire just like my Midshipmen named "Lucky". And the air at sea was sooty somewhat similar to the air here when a fruit ship from South America docks near by smoking 24/7.

 With the current state of data storage and the ability to take and capture pixels in the dark, on a cliff or under the sea I myself have a hell of a time keeping track of all my pictures.

Most of these kids today that have those funny on-line names probably don't remember sticking film in the camera. So I forget things and getting good at that, like a Gold Star next to your name. The brain that sits on some heads the experts always claim to have these Billion and Billion of connections. Could this neuron complex connections handle all my sensory input ?

So am I forgetting things, which is normal or am I over  overwhelmed. 

                                        I just did a search on my laptop and came up with zero in the search for old dog pictures. Then I realized that those files were on my other laptop. So here is another experience where something is there but it isn't. That is the way my bank account works.

Zen is a trick word just like a price that says Free"

I am sure there is a book "Guide to Zen through Bird Watching" Some where I must have tread about the mind cleansing of Zen but I seem to have lost it. Where? Then one morning I woke up before the dogs and decided that I would become a Bird Geek.

have much better pics

Happy my GSD learned to chase and bark at prey as a puppy so when I go looking about to take bird pictures with my camera I take me two furries with me.

This makes it hard to photograph birds and control the two shit heads.

 What is beyond normal is that since I have become a bird geek I often find other folks that have big lenses on their Canons or Nikon. Yesterday I found a fellow named "Monty" armed with a penis envy camera lens. Monty knew his birds, hawks and shorebirds. 

I have learned the names of several birds I have seen but sometimes it is hard with small Wrens or Sparrows what is what.

Trying to capture a swallow in flight was is not easy and the one above is not very clear

The dog so called Happy now is a champion charger and loves to chase the darting ground swallows.

Well, my neighbor from South Carolina (he has a boat here) was saying "Well" and I replied, That is a deep subject". He thought for a minute about my remark, then we continue to talk about birds in South Carolina and Hawks. The General is older than myself and his memory about the past is remarkable. He was telling me about his classmate that came from Aiken in South Carolina when they both attended West Point. 

TO BE CONTINUED....