SNOW!!!!!!

For some reason I'm unable to add a video too, but this was a very nice bird, perched about 20-30 meters away.  One of five seen that day at plum island.

Portal and Cave Creek Canyon

After Satellite Road I made a quick stop at Quailway Cottage, where there were feeders up and I got my first looks at Ladder-backed Woopeckers* and Pyrrhuloxias*.

Ladder-backed Woodpecker


Pyrrhuloxia


Singing Curve-billed Thrasher


Next I made my way to the tiny town of Portal, where I birded the main quarter mile strip, and made my way up and down Cave Creek Canyon.  Around the canyon I found lots of Mexican Jays*, a few Juniper Titmice*, my only Red-naped Sapsucker*, and my first of many Bridled Titmice*.

Banded Mexican Jay
 

Feeders were obviously the most productive spots to find hoards of birds, so Cave Creek Ranch's extensive feeder setup did not disappoint.

Curve-billed Thrasher


Everyone loved the Peanut Butter

Ladder-backed Woodpecker


Arizona Woodpecker*


Acorn Woodpecker


Ruby-crowned Kinglet




My only Blue-throated Hummingbird* of the trip


My second and final Cactus Wren sighting of the trip

Gos release

Ok night of owl banding, with 32 Saw-whets, 5 LEOW and 1 Barred.  Probably the coldest night so far, possible getting down into the high teens.

Goshawk release

SY Sharpie

When I left the ridge the main blind caught a bunch of sharpies and some Merlin, not much flying. We did catch three sharpies at once though, all different ages (first, second, and after second year), giving a nice comparison of eye and feather color. Here's the second year with some very obvious retained juvenile flight and upperwing feathers:

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

MN

In MN for a few days, then off to MA for a couple weeks and then up to Duluth for more birds!



Very young Warbling Vireo


Accidental photo on my worst day of the summer, Storrie 12


Western Tanager laaaauuuunches



Audubon's Warbler

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

Lassen

Today is another rain/data day, bringing me to the big city (Quincy), where a post is possible!

Last week I camped and point counted with Mr. Lipp in the northern regions of Lassen National Forest. We caught fish and got ripped to shreds by manzanita, so there were ups and downs to the week, but it was especially nice for me to switch things up by helping out with their project, getting to see slightly different birds and habitat for the week.

Mountain Quail are spectacular. Though they do not shout "CHICAGO" like their Cali Quail relatives, they sure can belt out a good "Quork!"


Barn Swallows were nesting under this bridge, which was over a creek full of highly uninterested trout.


There were SO MANY butterflies everywhere we went. We must have hit hundreds with our truck, as they seem to gravitate toward moist surfaces...like these sandals.


This year the Juncos here are actually able to nest, as compared to last year, when there were still multiple feet of snow at many of our sites.


From the top of Burney Mountain at sunset.




Listen for the background barks

Juggler Meadow

Walked along the Robert Frost Trail between Depot and Juggler Meadow Road today. A few non-feeder birds: Swamp Sparrow, Palm Warbler, Eastern Bluebird, Yellow-bellied Sapsucker, Pine Warbler, and an early Prairie Warbler.

Eastern Bluebird


A few Palms flitting around the marsh-forest edge.


Sapsucker banging on metal.

Sounds of SEFI

Below is a video, but its really just a sound clip taken at night, it features wind, sea lions and a chorus of Cassin's Auklets, enjoy!

Fur seal pups

From Maintop

More pinnipeds

Fur Seal bull

West End

Yesterday Jim and I headed over to the West End island which is normally off limits as it is where the pinnipeds hang out and we don't want to disturb them for the most part. However, every two weeks or so Jim goes there to get a count on the different species. Everyday we get to see the Elephant Seals and California Sea Lions, but rarely do we have Northern Fur Seal sightings, so a trip over to West End is a pleasure, as you get to see the colony, which was at around 300 yesterday.

The first step to getting to West End is crossing a channel. We harness in and zip across between waves:


The second part of getting to areas where we can actually get counts on them is walking extremely slowly, and hopefully out of sight so as to not flush large groups (which can be dangerous for them and is quite a disturbance).

Here are a couple of pictures of the large masses of pinnipeds I saw. The four species (California and Steller's Sea Lion, Elephant and Northern Fur Seal) do some inter mixing but stick together for the most part.




This is looking out from the highest point on the West End down over much of where they hang out


Mostly Cali Sea Lions


Fur Seals


There are not many Stellar's Sea Lions, but here is a female with her pup


Elephant Seals


The best part of the trip is getting to see all of the pups! The Fur Seals were obviously the cutest:








Cali Seal Lion pup is also cool


The views back the the main island were also outstanding

Pup vid

More on this later

Full Belly Farm

On Monday evening Amanda and I arrived at Full Belly Farm in Guinda, CA, about 2.5 hours Northeast of Bolinas, as the sun was setting and got a quick tour of only a small portion of this very large organic farm. Nolan is about two month's into his one year internship there and is loving it. As an intern he is set up with his own yurt and is provided with the freshest food imaginable. Every day he sets out to complete a WIDE variety of tasks throughout the farm, doing work where needed, which means he's being exposed to and is developing an extremely diverse set of skills.

After getting bucked at by a cow, walking into half a dozen walk-in refrigerators to collect dinner-making ingredients, and eating wild boar burritos, we settled nicely into the yurt for the evening.

The next day we followed Nolan around for his animal chore duties. First off was milking the cows, Arnica and Pinto Bean. I'd never done this before and it took some getting used to, but I can see how you could get the hang of it and be super fast like Nolan (and Antonio in the video).






This calf loved to suckle on fingers


This goat really needed Nolan's help


After milking the two cows we strained it


And put it into jars. That's about 6 gallons a day this time of year for the two cows. They can't sell it because it's unpasteurized, but it is delicious indeed.


Then Cookie and her piglets needed some feeding


I'm unsure of the exact number, but they have around 500 chickens on the farm, some escape, so there was a lot of chicken wrangling through the day


The chickens were so hungry and excited they bowled the fence over, don't worry, Nolan controlled them


We later helped him chop the artichokes off of the plants to prevent a waste of energy on producing flowers


Pretty though


Later we collected eggs! Here they live:












One day's worth:


There are lots of walnuts on the farm, and this is how they get them down: SHAKE 'EM!


THANKS NOLAN!