In-hand

So far this season I have taken very few in-hand bird photos, but here are a few, most of which are off of my iPhone, so not great, good birds though.  Now that the intensive training period has passed I think I'll be taking and posting more photos, both in-hand and in the wild.

We caught five Cedar Waxwings this week at one of our offsites, my first ever in-hand.  There was a flock of over a hundred in the area, but only a few seemed low enough to make it into our nets, a few others even bounced out.


I'm not sure what's going on with the lighting in this photo, but look at the WAX! Amazing.


We've caught more swallows this season than I ever have before, all of which were Tree Swallows, except for this one female Violet-green.


Tree Swallow looking minuscule next to these hands.


Swamp Sparrows are around, but not too common, so catching two new ones this season has been a nice surprise.


A messy looking Yellow-rumped Warbler.

Patagonia

After a frantic but unsuccessful search for the Elegant Trogon that has been seen at Patagonia Lake State Park lately I birded around the lake until dark, finding a brilliant male Vermillion Flycatcher, a few Gray Flycatchers, and a variety of duck-like creatures.

The next day I hit up the Paton's yard early morning, a spot notorious for bringing in great birds to the feeders that are stocked year round.  I saw the usual suspects, but was happy to find four or five Lazuli Buntings tentatively eating seed.

Yellow-rumped Warbler taking a break from the suet.


Bridled Titmouse


I then spend the rest of the morning exploring Patagonia-Sonoita Creek Preserve, where I was greeted by a large flock of Lark Sparrows, a species I'd really only seen a handful of before.

Lark Sparrow


Northern Cardinal


Though not extremely birdy, the two miles of trail I walked were great, showing lots of Abert's and Canyon Towhees, my first Phainopepla*, my first Hepatic Tanager in the US, and more Gila Woodpeckers than I needed.

Hepatic Tanager


Canyon Towhee


One of the fun discoveries here was a small section of stream where I found a Say's, Black, and Eastern Phoebe all feeding within 20 feet of each other.  Though the former two are quite common in the area, the Eastern is somewhat of a rarity and was great to have next to the other two.

Eastern Phoebe


A Cooper's Hawk that was undoubtedly snacking on a Lark Sparrow only moments ago.


My final excitement for the reserve were the two Rufous-winged Sparrows I spotted in the parking lot on my way to my car.  This was a bird I was hoping to see, but was told I'd be lucky to find, but I think they're fairly common at this location and was just lucky to have not passed them off as something else.


Ah yes, and this dummy, an Inca Dove

October

Owl banding has been steady in the last few days, catching 30-50 birds per night.  Last night we ended September with 636 owls, including four Long-eareds.  This month we'll be hoping for more and more Saw-whets, lots of Long-eareds in a couple of weeks, and possibly some Boreal Owls!

Yellow-rumped Warbler


Red-breasted Nuthatches hatching


White-crowned Sparrows, a hatch year in the foreground and an after hatch year in the back.

Burney

Right now I'm a few hours north (in Burney) of my usually work sites, helping out the northern crew with some of their work. Still point counting, but no nest searching, and we do playback calls for a few indicator species. Camping in National Forests is still the best.

View from atop the toughest site I've done, which runs parallel to the PCT.


Brent and with Fish.


Banded Yellow-rumped male


Shadowy Tree Swallow at Willow Lake

Recently Photoged

Gray Flycatcher singing


Evening Grosbeak maintaining itself after being banded




Mountain Chickadees are the only bird that have regularly been creeping up close to me during my point counting/nest searching, so here's another


Yellow-rumped

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.