Pursuit of Violet-Green Swallows
It’s the first weekend in March. The birding has slowed down substantially – we are in between winter birds and the upcoming spring migration. I had hoped this would translate into a slower pace for me with a little time to recover from a very busy two months of intense birding, but I’m having no such luck for rest.
My goal this weekend was to find a Violet-green Swallow. These gorgeous swallows, sporting their namesake purple and green plumage, apparently only visit this county for about two months, and now is the time to look for them. It’s a now or never situation, as they won’t show up again for the rest of the year.
The Violet-green Swallows were already spotted at the Mokelumne Fish Hatchery. Last weekend we drove out there and couldn’t find any swallows, let alone our target bird. Needing some rest, I didn’t feel like driving all the way out to East County again this weekend. But I was convinced that we could spot them in my end of the county and today we headed to Ripon to test our luck.
We headed over to the Ripon Sewage Ponds. As gross as that name sounds, water treatment plants offer awesome birding, even if it does get a bit stinky at times. Thankfully today the chemical fumes were not wafting in our direction, so we spent more time looking over the first two ponds. Recently, an Iceland Gull and a rare Glaucous Gull were spotted in South County, so when I saw a large group of gulls plopped in the middle of the ponds, I spent some time scoping them in hopes of finding a goodie. A few petite Bonaparte Gulls and a Ring-billed Gull were the only deviants from the hundreds of California Gulls. Nothing unusual.
I scanned the Black-bellied Plovers, pretending that I know how to find and ID a rare Pacific-golden Plover. The plovers’ bellies were just starting to show hints of black as they transition from winter to breeding plumage. One plover in particular caught my eye with tan feathers extending further down its breast than the nearby plovers, but once it tucked its bill into its back and fell asleep I gave up on the opportunity to turn it into a rare bird. But no matter – today was about the swallows!
I saw a couple of swallows near the parking lot, but they were the expected Tree Swallows with their blue-green backs. But I had a particular spot in mind to find our target bird. Something was calling me to the end of the four main ponds where the geese like to hang out in a grassy mini-field.
Dragging my scope and camera with me kept my hands occupied as we walked to the field, so I listened intently to the sounds around me. Sandhill Cranes rattled overhead, a pair of Yellow-billed Magpies called to one another, and a Black Phoebe cheerfully chirped as it snapped bugs out of the air.
Upon reaching the mini field, I found that there were indeed swallows. Score one for intuition! Next was the arduous task of picking out each swallow for review, keeping it in my field of vision while it dances around the air in its acrobatic flight pattern. One by one, I glued my binoculars to a swallow and carefully checked for extensive white in the face and white extending up the sides of the rump to the back. FInding the white is an easier ID feature to pick out amongst the Tree Swallows in flight versus catching the purple and green colors. It felt like a Dr. Suess book: One Swallow, Two Swallows, Tree Swallow, Four Swallows. All were Tree Swallows chattering to each other. After some time of scanning with no Violet-green Swallows popping up, it was time to call it quits.
That’s the thing with the Big Year. I have “dipped” (missed a bird recently spotted by someone else) so many times I’ve lost count. And that doesn’t include ventures like this where I’m going out on a limb to find a bird that hasn’t been spotted in the hopes of being the first to report it. But you keep on going out, trying each day to get the birds, because today might be that special day when the bird cooperates.
For our efforts, our consolation prize later that day was a South County specialty: a Cassins’ Kingbird spotted, ironically, on Bird Road.