February 23, 2011

Palo Clean

Today Michael and I headed to Muddy Hollow for a moderate day of banding!

Varied thrush (young male)
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Varied thrush and song sparrow
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Fox sparrow
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Fox sparrow foot. They have massive claws for foraging in the dirt:
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No pictures right now but a Carleton kid did THIIS

February 20, 2011

Anna's Hummingbirds

We got a good day of banding in at Pine Gulch today, catching 18 birds, 9 new, 9 recaptures.

Six of the birds we caught were Anna's hummingbirds. The first three we caught were within 3 inches of each other in a net, two males and a female, which had clearly been chasing each other.

Here is an after second year male, with a full crown and gorget:
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The ASY male being weighed
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Here is what I think we decided was an unknown aged female, with some feathers in it's gorget and two pink crown feathers:
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Here is an after hatch year female, which had a limited number of pink gorget feathers, and no pink in it's crown:
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When processing birds we do a lot of blowing of air on their bodies and through their feathers to take a look at molt, brood patches, cloacal protuberances, fat, etc. Some birds have feathers everywhere, but interestingly hummingbirds do not (this is not a brood patch):
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Wrentit being weighed:
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Wrentit:
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A bushtit with lots of pollen around it's bill. The light iris color means it's a female:
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Michael caught in an awkward moment:
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The view from the banding spot at Pine Gulch, apparently it snowed at the top yesterday...
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February 19, 2011

Raptors from before

Also, I'd been meaning to put up more of my dad's pictures from a previous job, but forget until just now, as I lay in bed, unable to sleep.

Now these guys were tough to get out...
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Flordia birds

It's been raining here for a week, so nothing new to report really. I do have my NABC (North American Banding Council) banding certification test coming up next week, so there's been a lot of reviewing for that.

Here are some more from my dad from Florida:

Yellow crowned night heron
Yellow-crowned Night-heron

Little blue heron
Little Blue Heron

February 17, 2011

25...

AWESOME picture from my dad:
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And the lame view from Grid 4 again...
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February 15, 2011

February 14, 2011

Crested Caracara

My parents were down in Florida this past weekend watching the CUT play their first tournament of the year. They went 8-2, losing to FL and WI, but winning the whole thing!

Here's a great picture my dad got of a crested caracara flying off with a beak full of fish guts.

February 11, 2011

Recipes

I just scanned these in to send to Baylis, so I thought I'd put them up for others too. The noodles are the spicy noodles you have had at our house in Leverett if you've ever been around for a summer meal.

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February 8, 2011

Dobbinator

Great weekend in Oakland. Had a chance to meet the Dobbins parents and have a couple of GREAT meals out with them (one was at Chez Panisse, Alice Waters' restaurant in Berkeley, mind blowingly good).
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Franklin was there too.
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February 6, 2011

35

We had 35 birds on Friday at Pine Gulch, a very nice change from the normal slow days recently. Off the top of my head we had: yellow rumped warblers (audubon's and myrtle), white crowned sparrows, golden crowned sparrows, fox sparrows, song sparrows, a lincoln's sparrow, a wrentit, two robins, hermit thrushes, an anna's hummingbird, and probably others...

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song sparrow
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All of the warblers had lots of pollen surrounding their bills, bunching up their feathers
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February 1, 2011

Huvi

Hutton's Vireo, common here, but we don't catch a ton.
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They look a lot like ruby crowned kinglets, but a more hooked bill, fatter heads and huge eyes.

HUVI:
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COMPARED TO

RCKI:
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