Me&LBDO

Going back home to the EAST coast

Orange-crowned Warbler taking off


A birthday creation and a creepy shirt.


Brent with his first hummingbird


Steller's Jay release


Birds in bags. After taking them out of the nets we keep the birds in these bags until we are ready to process them.


Rufous Hummingbird finally taking off



Photos by Alicia Arcidiacono

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

Missed

A couple of things Massachusetts does not have to offer right now, or ever I suppose.

Capris

The last two days of banding in Costa Rica were spectacular, with 49 birds (of 21 species) the first day and 38 birds (of 18 species) on the second, including two White-throated Spadebills, a Scintillant Hummingbird, a bunch of Fiery-throated and Magnificents, our first Northern Waterthrush, our second Streak-breasted Treehunter, and more Nightinggale Thrushes than I ever wanted to see.

This was the only picture I got of the two spadebills because both seemed ready to perish at the sight of a camera...but LOOK AT THAT BILL!


Hummingbirds will cling to anything they can get their paws on, including their own wings and bills, like this monster playing the trombone.


Me and my 2.2 gram buddy, weighting in at less than a penny.


This was our third Scintillant of the season, but our first male, distinctly different from the equally tiny Volcano by the orange gorget.


Streak-breasted Treehunter


Ah yes, we also had lots of Yellow-thighed Finches. I think they look more like they're wearing capris.


A good net run of the day.

Breaking news

We caught our second trogon today, it was a Slaty-tailed! Could have had our third (and maybe fourth) but one escaped the net before I could get it out and another was just whistling hysterical above the net. I don't know why I'm so obsessed with trogons, but seeing one in the net is something I have found myself daydreaming about on slow days. I think some of my great excitement over trogons comes from the fact that four years ago I would have never thought I would see one, let alone hold one. Check it:

Surprisingly bulky bird in the hand. The black-throated felt much smaller and more docile.




Odd flight feather proportions, reminds me a quail wing.


Our El Salvadorian coworker was never as excited about the prospect of catching a trogon as I was, she claimed they smell bad. And she's right, it was a stinky bird. Good though.

Had a nice bite too! (It was a young lady bird, very pretty lashes.)


After a rough banding session, having dropped more feathers than a mourning dove.

Black-throated Trogon

We did it! Well, it did it to itself. I guess we did it together, how cute. We got our first trogon in the nets yesterday. Not only that, it was the first Black-throated Trogon we'd even seen. Waiting for a toucan now.

Short legged birds take some delicate holding

December

I'm not taking many pictures at home, so here's one of me at home by my bro. We've settled Catan quite a bit, seen some movies, and been prepping for the big trip to Costa Rica!

An Island Thanksgiving

A common misconception about living on an island is that you must eat poorly. No grocery store? Military rations it is! Fortunately, that is not the case here on the Southeast Farallon Islands. As I've mentioned before, every two weeks we are resupplied by a group of volunteers who do a large shop for us, picking up nearly anything we request. So, despite what you may have envisioned for my island thanksgiving meal, it was in fact a feast. We still had work to do during the day, so it was late by the time we stuffed ourselves and could not even get to dessert.

Liz prepping


Pre-meal


Blueberry Apple Pie, by Jim


Turkey and Pie almost done


Jim and Oscar, getting ready to eat




Chocolate Pecan Pie

The Auklets Were Back

Last night the Cassin's Auklets decided to come back for the night. They are one of the breeders out here but this time of year we don't see them a whole lot, especially on land. On nights that they come back to land you can hear them singing all over the island and if you walk around you find them scattered everywhere, crawling into rock crevices, existing holes in the ground, or start to dig their own.





They are not the best fliers so they are pretty easy to catch by hand as they stumble around, attempting to hide, but often just flying into things (including humans).


After catching a few and seeing them fly around a bit you realize how much padding they must have to survive the beating they give them selves every time they make that crash landing into their burrows.

Bitey

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

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...

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