Cheeseburger

It's been awhile for a post, because it's been awhile since a bird. Since that adult goshawk on Saturday we haven't caught any hawks. There have been a few owls, but we had our first two days of zero hawks and owls the last two days. Not only that, but the only birds we're seeing are the one or two adult bald eagles around.

Winds are bad, and it is November, so at this point we are all just kind of counting down the days, which is fine with me, as I am leaving in 8 (+/- a day). There is hope for more red tails or rough legs, and the occasional gos, but I think I'll be lucky to see another hawk before I leave. With only 7 red tails this year we have caught, by far, the fewest in the 39 years here. Fud has no idea why, but it might mean interesting things for next year.

In order to get some new pictures I set up a little potter trap on our bird feeder.


The first two chickadees I caught were banded. (Also, "Cheeseburger" is supposedly what it sounds like chickadees are saying in one of their calls...according to Larry.)



We also have a lot of red breasted nuthatches poking around and I was able to get one of each sex.

Here's a female, which has a gray-blue cap, as opposed to the male's black cap.


Male


Nuthatch tail

ADGOS

Despite missing the first adult goshawk we caught this year, I had my chance today. This is an after second year female. As you can see the plumage difference between the immature and the adult birds is much more dramatic than in most of the other species we catch.

NOSH 2

I caught our second Northern Shrike today...and it torn me to pieces. All blood you see is mine.

So Far

So far today we have two gos, an RT, and a little male shin. In total we have around 1750 birds.

This short video is a good example of how quick accipiters are. An RT would not be able to take off like this.


The RT from today

Lil guy

Last night was our first night of zero hours since we started running them... Today however I caught two goshawks, one of which had the smallest wing cord measurement Fud has ever seen (though it did not weight the least).

The little guy:

Feetsies

I don't know about you, but I think bird feet are NEAT-O. Some of these pictures have been put up before, and many of them are larger pictures cropped, so quality is lost, but I thought it would be cool to see a lot of these feet side by side. I put the bird associated with each picture below the picture so that you could guess which bird it is...if you're into that kind of thing.


Saw whet


Sharp shinned


Short eared owl


Red tail


Rough legged


American pipit


Peregrine (I really wish I got a better picture of the feet because the talons of one of the peregrines we caught were very dull, which you don't see with most hawks, as a result of perching on rocks)


Harris's


Gyrfalcon


Goshawk


Flicker


Cooper's


Broad wing (These guys, along with harriers, have a seemingly disproportionate feet to body size ratio)


Blue jay


Black backed woodpecker (Only three toes on each foot!)


Barred owl

Unfortunately I did not get good pictures of falcon feet, which obviously are not going to look THAT different, but are certain thicker and stronger than other hawks their size.

Nov 1?

I have about 18 days left here, insane. My next job will be working on the Point Reyes National Seashore, which is about an hour north of San Fran. It's an internship, so, again, very little money is involved, but the opportunities for learning are significant enough to make it worth it. It's essentially a songbird banding internship where I'll be learning in a lot more detail the standardized ways of aging, sexing, banding and measuring passerines. I'll also get a chance to do point counts and winter bird censuses, learning other techniques for mapping out local bird distributions. We're also going to get a chance to do independent research projects using the decades of data they have collected there. The idea, for me at least, is to develop somewhat of an understanding of the kinds of questions that are useful to ask given the specific data set. What questions are feasibly answered, what questions are not, what questions am I actually interested in? This may help with figuring out grad school interests. I'm excited for the winter in Cali, living closer to a few friends, but unfortunately a lot farther away from Massachusetts.


Photo by my pa

LE flying off