Mokka mit Schlag

Yesterday I spent the morning exploring William R. Mason Park, trying to add a few more birds to my BGBY list and keep pace with fellow OC birder Neil Gilbert (at least for the walking competition. No way I can match him for the bicycling BGBY). I started at the West end (more park-like) and walked all the way out to Concordia Road, then back.

I got out early enough to catch the shorebirds that sometimes hang out on the park’s lawns at dawn and dusk. Today there were not only several Long-billed Curlews and a dozen Whimbrels. There were also a few Marbled Godwits, a first for the park if not my list.

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Brown Garden Snail, Helix aspersa
William R. Mason Regional Park, Irvine, CA, 2008-03-23

These are edible if they haven’t eaten any poisonous snail bait in the last couple of weeks. They were introduced to California around 1850 in a failed effort to jump start an escargot industry.

While updating my life list, I discovered that the Red-naped Sapsucker seen on this month’s Sea & Sage Audubon trip to Santiago Oaks was in fact a life bird. That makes the Cassin’s Kingbird we found a little later #400! (I had previously seen this one on my own at San Joaquin Wildlife Refuge but misidentified it there as a Western Kingbird.)

However, that number is a little “soft”. It includes several exotics that don’t officially “count” including:

• Muscovy Duck (in my opinion, this one should count. These are feral populations, but very well established.)
• Common Peafowl
• Yellow-chevroned Parakeet
• Greylag Goose: I know I’ve seen Greylag Geese in multiple countries. I just don’t know if any of them were wild.
• Black Swan: this one really shouldn’t count, but it was very early in my list keeping.

If I remove those, I’m only at 395.

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Just a quick note that Washington Mutual’s advertised “free checks for life” is a lie. After opening an account with them, they did indeed send me some free checks. However the checks they sent were incorrect and not what I ordered. When I attempted to replace them, they wanted to charge me $25 (more than I would pay through a 3rd party printer) and flatly refused to honor their promise of free checks for life.

If they lie about something this trivial, what else are they lying about? If they can’t even get a basic check order right, do I really want to trust them with my money?

On top of that, WAMU doesn’t support Quicken for the Mac (again, despite telling me they did). Time to look for a new bank.

Spotted Towhee,
San Diego creek, Irvine, CA, 2008-03-19

Spotted this unusual large hawk at San Joaquin yesterday round dusk:

From the shape, it’s almost certainly a Buteo. My best guess is Red-tailed Hawk, but it really didn’t feel right for that. It could have been some Western juvenile plumage I’m not used to, but it really gave the impression of being huge, even larger than a Red-tail. The other possibility is Ferruginous Hawk, which I’m not used to at all. Neither of those seems spot on though.

If it helps, the bird showed definite white on the head, when it turned:
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