BaW

Black-and-white Warbler at Chestnut Hill Reservoir in Boston just before my trip south to New Jersey, where I'll be living for the summer.

Labor days

One of two Great Crested Flycatchers caught this season.


Nearly all of the Black-and-white Warblers caught this fall have been young females such as this one.


An American Redstart of undetermined sex.

Sweetwater Wetlands

After the night in Madera Canyon I packed up before sunrise, heading off to Tucson, making a quick stop at Florida Wash to find the Crissal Thrasher that had been spotted the night before.


Though I was planning to spend the whole day in Tucson, I decided to just make a morning of it, spending a few hours at Sweetwater Wetlands before making the trek to Oakland later in the day.

Verdin were much more common at the wetlands than anywhere else I had visited, giving me great looks at these yellow-headed bushtit-types.








Cinnamon Teal are always lookers.


One of about 4,000 Northern Shovelers.


There were a good number of Sora calling from the cattails, and I was lucky enough to have this tame one walk along the trail next to me for a bit.




My first Orange-crowned Warbler of the year.




American Coot, look at those lobed toes!


First Black-and-white Warbler of the year


A somewhat out of place Solitary Sandpiper

Manomet Visit

We visited Patrick over at Manomet this morning where he's interning as a bird bander for the fall season. Though it has been fairly slow recently, we lucked out with some great birds today, including a couple of life birds for me. It was great to have caught more than a few birds while there because it was our sister's and his girlfriend's first time seeing a banding operation and it's always disappointing to have visitors, but no birds!

Black-and-white Warbler


Brown Thrasher


Chestnut-sided and Blue-winged Warbler


Blue-winged Warlber. Check out that massive bill!


Patrick, performing under pressure.


Chestnut-sided release

Highlanders

More highland birds here for you. Not only do we catch a lot more birds in the mountains, the highlanders seem to just be easier to photograph. Both of these facts seem to be a result of the habits we're banding in. Though there are plenty of birds on the humid coast here in Tortuguero, the canopy is much higher and there are way fewer ground foraging species to be captured. Oddly enough one of the only species we consistently catch in lowest pockets of our nets in Tortuguero are the woodcreepers. In the mountains there are hoards leaf litter kicking finches to fill our inadequately tall nets. Really we need to have triple (I guess MDDettling did do it...) or quadruple stacked nets in Tortuguero, but that is unheard of as far as I know, and everything would be stolen by locals within days.

Collared Trogans are easy to find with a little bit of call and response whistling


Black-and-white Warbler


Black-throated Greens are really common, but a welcome sight after seeing so many Townsend's last year.


A very young Slaty Flowerpiercer


Ruddy Treerunner


Black-capped Flycatcher

Like a boss

We had a visit from a guy leading a group of Portland, OR birders today. He spent six seasons banding here, as well as a season banding at Palo in the late '90s, whadayaknow!?

Black-and-white Warbler


Lampornis species


Amanda ON A BOAT

Caught these two in the nets this morning:

Green darner:


Black-and-white Warbler: