Black Oystercatcher, Lucerne Drive Vista Point, Cayucos, CA (Jack)

Incubating two eggs (re-nesting started with first egg on June 27, 2021, second egg on June 30, 2021) )

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Black Oystercatcher, Lucerne Drive Vista Point, Cayucos, CA

Incubating two eggs (re-nesting started with first egg on June 27, 2021, second egg on June 30, 2021) )

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Western Gull, Lucerne Drive Vista Point, Cayucos, CA

Two adults and one chick

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Black Oystercatcher, Lucerne Drive Vista Point, Cayucos, CA

Incubating two eggs (re-nesting started with first egg on June 27, 2021, second egg on June 30, 2021)

When we arrived, both adults were on the nest rock, but off the nest, exposing two eggs. - Eventually the adult standing closest to the nest settled down on the eggs and rearranged some pebbles while seated.

"They will often continue to fuss over the nest bowl picking up and re-arranging the rocks even with all the eggs laid."
(Jodi Isaacs, Environmental Scientist, California State Parks)

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Long-billed Curlew, male, Morro Strand State Beach,
Morro Bay, CA

MV DOZER is the satellite-tagged Long-billed Curlew from Idaho, who, with his buddy Neil, were the first-ever curlews from the Intermountain Bird Observatory’s Curlew Project to migrate directly from Idaho to the Central Coast in 2020 and spent nine months here (June 21, 2020 - March 21, 2021).

Well, DOZER is back!

On July 12, 2021 Dozer was at Morro Strand State Beach, in the dry sand in front of the Alva Paul Creek mouth/lagoon.

Sadly, Neil died this spring. When he was in the Morro Bay area, he liked to alternate between the sand-spit and the bay.

Carol Comeau, a local volunteer curlew tracker, had traced DOZER'S recent route back from Idaho:
-- June 27, 2021- started migration back to coast - went to eastern Oregon
-- June 29, 2021- northern Nevada just off 95 north of Rebel Creek- in agricultural fields
-- July 6, 2021 - near Merced, CA
-- July 8, 2021 - back in Morro Bay

In late June Carol tracked Mimi, Dozer’s mate, first to agricultural fields just east of the Salton Sea, then to Sonora, Mexico, Reserva la Bios near the Colorado River.

Unlike in 2020, Dozer had a successful nest in 2021 with at least three chicks with his mate Mimi, the latest transmittered Curlew added to the study flock in 2021.

Research Biologist Heather Hayes reports:
“I didn't get a chance to see the chicks, but when I walked out to the nest to check they were mobbing me like crazy which suggests the chicks were on the run:-) There was one unfertilized egg left in the nest cup that appeared to have been predated on. - This makes my heart so happy that he has arrived back in Morro Bay!”

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