After a quick ride away from the Red Roof Inn in Watsonville, headquarters of the Monterey Bay Birding Festival, our intrepid group of beginning birders was immersed in northern shovelers, great blue herons and black Phoebes — and loving every minute.

Some in the 8:30 a.m. beginner’s trip around Pajaro Dunes were more advanced, with dog-eared Sibley books in hand, while others were still figuring out how to work their binoculars, myself included.

Luckily, trip leaders Wally and Lois Goldfrank started with the basics — like how to lift binoculars without frightening birds. We also had a quick tutorial on how to "pish," a funny sound birders make to rustle birds into the open.

We started at a lagoon near the Shorebird condominiums, where we spotted "diving ducks," as well as cinnamon teals and common western scrub jays.

Part of the fun were the "oh, that’s what that is" moments — when we started to recognize birds we see daily.

Carmel resident Melodie Rammer, who drove to Watsonville for the day, was having many such moments.

"I’m seeing birds I didn’t recognize from my own back yard," she said with obvious glee. "This is fun."

Wally Goldfrank, a professor of sociology and Latin American studies at University of California, Santa Cruz, and Lois Goldfrank, a retired librarian, have been birding for 15 years, traveling to 25 countries along the way. Wally said leading beginners reinforced why he got into birding in the first place.

"It gets you to remember what it’s like to see the most common birds for the first time," he said.
Stephanie Stewart, who joined the group from Camino, near Sacramento, said the festival was her first foray into birding.

"It just sounded really neat — this is going to be a great introduction for us," she said, adding that she planned to join a guided trip to Elkhorn Slough and an introduction to the endangered western snowy plover at the festival.

As our group glanced up at a grove of trees on our way to a marsh trail toward Sunset State Beach, we spotted the pretty yellow and black Townsend’s warbler, as well as the titter-inducing yellow-rumped warbler.

Whenever we paused, binoculars at the ready, our guides offered an interesting tidbit, such as Wally’s comment that the best birding is often next to some of the smelliest locales in the world. (We stood conveniently close to the garbage at the time.)

We also identified the loud call of the American coot and learned to differentiate between golden and white-crowned sparrows.

When we arrived at a ridge above the ocean, we were treated to a view of a massive flock of gulls next to a mixed group of willets and marbled godwits, and then a bunch of tiny sanderlings.
As we gazed down at the gulls, I thought, "Seen one seagull, seen them all, right?" A novice’s error, I found out. The ubiquitous gulls actually get avid birders all fired up because there are as many as 10 different species in the region, from pink-legged western gulls to small gray Heermann’s gulls. Identifying gulls also presents a special challenge because each bird’s markings vary greatly according to their age and the season, Lois said.

As we continued to walk above the ocean, we had our first birding controversy.
Wally called Lois over to the high-powered "scope" they carted along with us to help identify what looked like a Virginia rail. It turned out to be a false alarm; the bird was actually an American bittern, an elegant bird that usually remains hidden in the reeds. A good find, nevertheless, according to birders in the know.

As we neared the end of the trip, Wally rustled out more Phoebes and a northern mockingbird with a few more "pishes" and whistles. He told us how Lois had once communicated for several minutes with one bird, which fluttered into full view, apparently assured that he had found a potential mate. Just as our leaders said the only birds we hadn’t spotted were birds of prey, a red-tailed hawk, then a Cooper’s hawk, flew into view, quite a dramatic ending to an inspiring introduction to birding.

For more information on birding in the area, see www.santacruzbirdclub.org.

Reprinted from the Register Pajaronian, http://www.register-pajaronian.com