[EBB Sightings] Birds of the Pasturelands

Dear Birders:

A dry, stubbly field full of black angus cows and their calves didn't seem 
like a promising birding spot, but there they were -- flocks of Mountain 
Plovers who were perfectly comfortable among all those hooves.  The plovers 
were one of the many species we saw in Solano and Yolo County on Saturday 
with the Mount Diablo Audubon group.  Our leader. Terry Colburn, who lives 
in nearby Davis, knows the area intimately.  His enthusiasm is infectious.

The Mountain Plovers were in fields south of Dixon along a gravel road 
(Flannagan Road) off of H 113.  But before the plovers, we had good views of 
a wintering Ferruginous Hawk perched high in a tree with its white breast 
turned toward us.  A speck hovering in the distance turned out to be another 
winter hawk -- the Rough-legged.  One of the tall transmittion towers 
offered perches for a Prairie Falcon.

But it was those Mountain Plovers that captured my attention, both for their 
audacity and for their ability to substitute grasslands, overgrazed by 
cattle, for their native shortgrass prairie now mostly lost to cultivation.  
According to Kenn Kaufman, of all our North American Plovers, "this is the 
one most disassociated from the shore."  The "Mountain" is a misnomer unless 
you include the Sierra Nevada and the Rocky Mountains over which it flies 
from its inland, prairie nesting sites to its wintering grounds in the 
Central Valley.

As pale as the bleached stubble, the plover is almost impossible to see 
until it lowers its head and runs foward, stops, and in some instances 
waggles its tail feathers to perhaps scare up insects which make up most of 
its diet.

The other bird of these grazed fields is the Long-billed Curlew which 
previously I had only known as a bird of the Bay shores.  But here they were 
feeding in large flocks, obviously not spearing mollusks and marine worms, 
but all manner of insects.

We also visited the Yolo Basin Wildlife area which I had only glimpsed from 
the elevated causeway at 70 mph.  Most of the waterbirds had not yet arrived 
from the north but we saw a few grebes, plenty of coots, a scattering of 
shorebirds and good views of a Sora, and hearing as we left the loud, nasal 
"wank, wank" of a Virginia Rail.

But it was those pale plovers among the big bulky cattle, and the bleached 
fields stretching in all directions, that stayed in my mind on the long 
drive back to Berkeley.

Phila Rogers