Ramsey

Though I was semi-prepared for a cold night at the San Pedro NRCA, a frozen water bottle in the morning explained a lot about how well I slept.  After packing up camp and walking around the reserve for a bit I headed toward the hills, with White-winged Dove as my only new species of the trip that morning.

White-winged Dove


Gila Woodpecker from San Pedro House


Hikes up and down Ramsey and Miller Canyons were snowy and beautiful but fairly quiet.  Brown Creepers and Golden Eagles were seen, as well as my first Bushtit of the year.

Say's Phoebe along the side of the road near Ramsey

My last stop before heading to Patagonia for the night was a B&B in Ash Canyon, where there was a great array of feeders, though nothing new was seen.

Acorn Woodpecker


Pyrrhuloxia

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

No internet, no blogging, sucks how that works. I've also not been taking my camera out much during training, so no pictures really either. After an excellent weekend in Minnesota with CUT, GUT and co. (which resulted in 17 hours of sleep over four nights...) I'm back in the Sierras and we've truly started the season. Up at four, point counting by six or seven, nest searching for woodpeckers til noon, and home by two. Starting tomorrow I'll be at least bringing the cameras in the truck and will see if it's going to be a rough, white-thorn kind of day, or something a little more open, and camera-lugging friendly.

Training Continues

The whole crew has arrived and we continue to familiarize ourselves with the calls and songs in the area. Saw/heard my first Yellow-breasted Chat, Bullock's Oriole, and Yellow Warblers of the year in the Greenville, CA area.

Here are a few from Bidwell Park the other day.

Acorn Woodpecker


Black Phoebe


Western Tanager

The fourth!

Most years for the fourth of July the Palomarin interns makes a float for the Bolinas parade. It's often a bird from around here that the public would recognize. This year we put together an acorn woodpecker, and in our opinion, it turned out great! We all had a really great time as we marched down the street (about 3 blocks, REAL slowly) carrying the float and blasted the woodpecker's calls on a loud speaker. It was amazing how many people were there watching, dressed up in all sorts of crazy, skimpy, patriotic, cute, scary, funny outfits. It was not your normal parade, because while it had a patriotic theme in some ways, it was more about fun within the community than celebrating Independence Day, which I really appreciated.

Also, I ran into George Stubbs there, nice surprise indeed.

Loaded up at 8am, barely fit!




Interns made acorn shirts, with this on the back (acorn woodpecker banding codes, cool, right?)


Interns (Melissa and Todd missing)


Marching away


Libby was most excited


Heading to the yard we drop the float off in every year


Check out the rects!


The float was left behind for a few days for the public to further enjoy (peeking out over the fence)



Before the parade every year there is a tug-of-war across the mouth of the lagoon between Stinson Beach and Bolinas (neighboring towns). There is a massive rope strung across with a boat in the middle doing some officiating, each side gets 20-30 people (not sure how many, but equal numbers on both sides), and they pull. It was very well attended, and very exciting! The Bolinas women won, which was exciting, as there were three PRBO members pulling, and the Stinson Beach men won, but who really cares, Stinson Beach sucks anyway.



Renee, winning


More fourth pictures to come.