Common yellowthroat


Osprey

Hot at pine gulch

Par day at Pine Gulch, walked around with my camera a lot.

House finch


Me with a downy woodpecker


Tree swallow


Our faithful marsh wren, always singing from the same patch.


Juvenile black phoebe


Savannah sparrow

Here

Finally, the camera came, here are a first few pictures, no idea how to use this.

Flicker video

Here's a video of our release of two of the fledgling flickers from the weekend. Let it be said that all of their feathers were still growing in...

Tiny birds

Hummingbird and band


Bushtit

Western Scrubjay

We caught this Western scrubjay on our closing net run today. They general stay above the nets, and are pretty smart, so we don't catch many. Scrubjays are one of the study species here at Palo, so in addition to the usual silver band with a number on it, we fashioned it with some color bands, allowing the nest searchers/finders/gridders to identify the individual again, without having to recapture it.

With a couple of the color banded species we have to use pyropens to melt the plastic bands together so that the birds cannot pick them off with their strong bills


This bird was just beginning to go through its prebasic molt (the yearly replacement of feathers) and may be the first adult bird we've seen in this process this year...

Hatch year flickers

Most of the birds that we are catching these days are hatch year birds, which means they were born within the last couple of months or so. Yesterday we got our first juvenile northern flicker, and today we've gotten three more, all from the same two nets, and all males.

The red mustache stripe tells you its a male


On this one you can see a white tip to the bill, something that we saw on two of the four, but did not notice on the others


Some of these young flickers can have a reddish wash to their crowns, something you will not see in adults


One of the most obvious traits of a very young bird is that every feather on its body is still growing in, like these tail feathers


This guy flew off, only to perch between two nets on this tree. He's still there right now, but I bet we find him in a net again soon.

New camera comes tomorrow, they say.

Finally got a chance to take a hike around some of the favored trails around the area, in the "water district."


Bad picture of yesterday's great egret rookery visit. About 60 pairs I think, nesting in a redwood. Got to see eggs, fresh nestlings, and some awkward tweeners.


Juvenile purple finch caught today at Redwood Creek


Brown creeper

Shocked

An Allen's hummingbird from yesterday that was a bit shocked by the banding processes, but flew off fine after a few shots of sugar water.

Lovely Lagunitas

Good day banding at Lagunitas Creek. We caught over 20 birds, including a very stunning pair of Lazuli buntings.

Male


Female


We also had around 5 robins, a couple of which were juveniles like this one


As well as a deformed swainson's thrush


And some feather lice

GROSSbeak

Female black-headed grosbeak from today

Young warbler

Juvenile Wilson's warbler

Wood-Peewee

We've been catching more, I went to Oakland, H.P. Roberts graduated, I missed another cooper's hawk that was caught here, we recovered a 7th GLS tag from a Swainson's thrush, I order an SLR and...

...few days ago we caught a Western Wood-Pewee here at Palo, which does happen frequently in the fall, during migration, but isn't too common during the breeding season, as they do not breed right here.

Smaller than an olive-sided, larger than an empid, with nice long primaries

Allen's

Group Photo

From Pinnacles

Juvenile growth

Juvenile orange-crowned warbler growing in flight feathers


Growing in belly feathers, not to be mistaken for a brood patch

Thrush in the net

Hummingbird tail

Allen's Hummingbird tail

Raw chicken

A very ripe brood patch

Spotted Owl Nestling

Yesterday Amanda, Todd and I went out with one of PRBO's biologists who does spotted owl surveys around Marin county. We went to a site where we hoped to find a pair and their fledgling. We spent two hours searching, only to find the youngster post giving up.

Here's the female doing some preening


The male sitting near the fledgling


Fledgling

Best day so far

Today Amanda and I had a really great day banding at Redwood Creek. We caught a total of 41 birds, with 16 species. The highlights were 2 barn swallows, a tree swallow, a black-headed grosbeak, a warbling vireo, and mix of juvenile birds! We also ran into a female common merganser with 4 chicks, shortly before peeking into the hummingbird nest I found the week before, which now has two cute little raisin-like nestlings in it.

Female black-headed grosbeak


Steller's Jay


Barn swallow #1



Barn swallow #1, female


Barn swallow #2, male



Barn swallow #2, awesome tail, and with a couple of retained primaries in there


Barn swallow secondaries, very cool heart shape, which you don't see in other birds


Male California quail






All three of us, wearing hats


Tree swallow




Hummingbird raisins