PIGR in the AA

More of that Robin from the Arnold Arboretum.  These may be the very same crab apples that Pine Grosbeaks have been munching on all week.

Downing Berries

North

We've made it to the Northern Sierras and will be staying just outside of Chester, the farthest north I've been in Cali, for the next two weeks during our training period. As we've made our way north through Cali we've seen a lot of friends, as well as birds, that we haven't in a while, and it's been grand. Thanks to the Palo folks for the visit, and Nolan for the farm fun (we fed lambs!).

White-tailed Kite at a gas station near Full Belly Farm




Red-winged Blackbirds infused the farm cover crops nicely

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

We also caught a Mourning Dove today

Good day at Pine Gulch. Only about 12 birds, but that's a lot for now, and we got a good variety again. Also, it's our second beautiful day in a row after weeks of rain, which is always uplifting.

Female AMRO


Male BUSH

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...



song sparrow


All of the warblers had lots of pollen surrounding their bills, bunching up their feathers

NYE2K!)

Went to Muddy Hollow with Lisa today for banding. We had a big day, with 37 total birds, 8 species. One of the net runs left us with 17 birds in one net, 16 of which were Myrtle's yellow-rumped warblers. It was a bit overwhelming at first, but they are big, hearty warblers, so none of them got stressed. The unfortunately thing was that my supervisor was not there. While I feel like I now have a better idea of the differences I can see between 16 MYWA's, I am still unsure of what specific features help me distinguish a hatch year male from an after half year female. I did see two birds that seemed to clearly be after hatch year males, but the rest were recorded as unknown unknown... There are so many details for each species and until you are taught what's actually important, as opposed to what the guide tells us, it is hard to feel confident about many grey areas of ageing and sexing.

Here are the bags with birds in them, waiting to be banded after our flock of warblers hit.


The backside of what looked to certainly be an AHY male (looking at the size of the black centers of the feathers between the yellow rump and tail..


AMRO


Hermit thrush with some weird growth defect.

Pine Gulch

Today was my first day at one of our three offsites (not located right where we live). It was about ten minutes away, located right along the Bolinas Lagoon. It was a beautiful day, we caught a huge variety, and bigger numbers than since I've been here. We got an American robin, a hutton's vireo, a bewick's wren, a winter wren, a few ruby crowned kinglets, a sharp shinned hawk, a couple fox sparrows, a couple song sparrows, a pine siskin, and five anna's hummingbirds.

Joe measuring the robin


hutton's vireo


male anna's hummbirds






The view from the banding spot