A couple of captures

A very young Red-breasted Nuthatch from yesterday's banding.

Our one and only Black-headed Grosbeak of the season.

Meadow Banding

After a frantic week of camping, banding and packing, Amanda and I are out of the Sierras and prepping for our big trip east. High Sierra meadows are hot spots for dispersing juvenile songbirds this time of year, resulting in around 800 captures in four days, it was awesome.

Something I did not discover until this week was that my point and shoot has a super slow-motion video mode, result in what I think are quite sick videos of birds being released.

Black-headed Grosbeak launching



Red-breasted Sapsucker



Cassin's Vireo


Photos by Alicia Arcidiacono:



Lindsey at our last meadow site




This is how I always look while taking birds out

Meadow Valley

We're moving! Tomorrow we'll be packing up and making our way down to our summer housing at the Berkeley Forestry Camp in Meadow Valley where we have a little duplex for our crew. Thursday I'm off to alumni weekend at Carleton. Dare I bring my camera? The internet situation in Meadow Valley is unclear at the moment, but from what I hear of past experiences the dial-up at the camp and frequent work-related camping excursions make my my blog posting a bit more sporadic.

True love


Black-headed Grosbeak

Training Day

First day of training was pretty good overall. A tad rainy and cold, but we got out birding a bit and learned a lot about what lies ahead for the summer. The Sierras rule so far, so come on over for a visit!

Great Blue from the farm a couple of days ago


Black-headed Grosbeaks were singing all over the farm

GROSSbeak

Female black-headed grosbeak from today

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