Back to more fun at the San Diego Bird Festival! Last time I talked about all the wood duck action at Santee Lakes. I did get quite a few photos of wood ducks, but the main bird species seen at Santee Lakes (and my hotel) was the American coot. While we were at Santee, families came to “feed the ducks.” I thought about pointing out that they were actualely “feeding the rails” but abstained. The coots get an odd diet of bread and I even watched a kid toss them some gummy bears. Perhaps gummy bears are kind of like the aquatic insects and animals they are supposed to eat?
Santee Lakes is a beautiful little chain of lakes. The palm trees were a welcome site to this Minnesota girl. The San Diego Bird Festival originally was held in January. Last year they were kicking around the idea of moving to March. Someone asked, “Who wants to come to California in March, when it’s practically spring?” I added my two cents worth by saying in my area of the US, it’s still very much winter in March–and it is. As I type this, it’s five degrees in Minnesota.
A treat for me was being able to watch ring-necked ducks up close and not freezing my tail off! Some readers of this blog may remember a series of photos I put in the blog last year from my buddy Clay Taylor of a ring-necked duck trying to swallow a snail. Clay got that footage here at Santee Lakes.
We were so close, we could kind of see the ring around the neck for which the duck was named…again, those wacky ornithologists naming a bird for a hard to see feature and some something obvious like ring-billed duck.
Keeping with the theme of ultra-mellow birds, our group found a rather easy going pied-billed grebe. In many places, you so much as make one furtive sidelong glance and they dive. Not this grebe, it went as far as to go into a ten minute preening session.
Then came the stare down. It was fun and I never really noticed the black chin on a pied-billed grebe before.
There were some ruddy ducks out on the lakes too–but they were much more camera shy, or just tired. Many of the males with the bluest bills were more interested in sleeping and preening. I started to video a male as he was swimming around and towards the end of it, he started doing his mating dance–he raises his tail and two little tufts on his head. He creates some bubbles underneath his body and then slaps his bill against his chest several times while making To attract a female the male swims around her, his tail tilted forward and neck outstretched. He then slaps his chestnut-colored chest with his bright blue bill while making his courtship call. The video didn’t capture the call, but you can hear it at Xeno-canto. Here’s the video:
The park is used by several members of the public, it’s not a quiet park, but there’s room for everybody from birders, duck feeders and people who like to go fishing. As we were working the lakes for digiscoping, there was a guy who was fishing–his line even got stuck in the tree and Clay helped him get it out. But we birders must have out stayed our welcome because he started to complain about us. I heard him behind me mutter to his friend, “I think watching birds is stupid, you can just go to the pet store and buy them. Why don’t these people go and just buy some birds and leave us alone.”
Irritated that he was complaining about us, even after Clay had helped him, I started to defend our group by saying, “You can’t buy these birds in a pet store.”
And he retorted, “Yes you can, bird watching is stupid.”
I turned to look at him and he was not facing me.
But based on what I saw, I chose not to engage any further with a man whose butt was hanging out of his trousers. Perhaps he is not the world’s authority on whether or not bird watching is stupid.
I was grateful when a western scrub-jay popped up as a nice cleansing bird.
Revenge, thy name is “Photo of really, really wide a** crack”
Good one, Sharon.
loved your post. pictures of birds were beautiful. too bad you folks couldn’t stick the jerk’s line back up a tree. and something else to keep in mind….one can never win in a p*ssing contest with a d*ck…just saying.
Gee, and why would anybody go fishing when you can buy them batter fried on buns? Cripes.
Hooray, grebe! Love the fluffy plumage on that one.
Jess beat me to the “well, you can buy fish, too” comment. thank goodness for cleansing birds…
Nice work, Sharon! And thanks so much for the eye-cleansing scrub jay. Aack!
You could have pointed out how much money the festival was bringing in to the local economy, but this (explitive deleted) probably wouldn’t understand anyways.
I believe “talking out of his ass” is the saying that applies here.
Quite literally.
Cool video! I love duck mating behaviours.
Laughing. What a maroon!
Do Not Mess With The BirdChick, For She Has A Picture Of Your Ass & Is Not Afraid To Use It!
Good shot of that guy……that part of San Diego County (Santee, Lakeside, etc) is one of the white trash stronghold of California.
You shouldve told him he can buy fish at a store too, all ready to cook!
That ungrateful #*%$&#,
You and Clay should have escorted him to the Bathroom and give his Fat arse an oldfasion Swirly.
Sharon I encounter a good share of idiots myself.
Is it possible the guy was developmentally challenged? If so, this is a little cruel. But it’s a different story if he was just being an ass.
Anon,
That is a good question. I’ve worked with developmentally challenged kids (what I did in theater before birding). I did not get that vibe, I got the vibe that he was guy in his twenties being a butthead.
But, now that this post is up, I reconsidering. Normally, when people hassle me about birds, I offer to show the birds to them. Sometimes that works, sometimes that doesn’t. However, the exposure of the butt (from wearing the uber baggy pants some young men prefer) made me not offer.
I look at this guy and his weight and I think, “Is this an example of ‘nature deficit disorder’ and am I just adding to the problem by pointing out his butt hanging out.”
It makes for a good story, but does it help in the long run? Maybe he has never been around birders and now that he has and has been irritated by them and another birder has put his poor fashion choice online, does that seem more off-putting?
Maybe I should take the photo down?
You should´ve “popped a cap in his ass” literally
negative non birders also annoy me but hey…who is having fun in the long run?
next time pop a cap in em jejeje
This is in response to you wondering if you should take the picture down.
It’s easy to wonder if you are just being prejudiced but I really do think that the picture says a lot about how the person chooses to represent themselves, there are plenty of larger size people who somehow manage to keep their butts INSIDE their clothes.
I have also noticed that most of the people I have met (of all sizes) who let their butts hang out are usually not very concerned with other peoples sensibilities…so your response upon seeing the person issuing the comments seems to me like a wise one. Choose your battles. Some are inherently fruitless.
I think my last comment died… this is a test comment
Hi Sharon–what a great post! A real cornucopia, though some things are distinctly less appetizing than others. As far as taking the butt shot down, I say no face, no problem. If you could have seen his face AND his butt at the same time, now, THAT would be a problem.
And besides, Ozzy rules.