Amanda visited!

Balloons

We made it to Boston A O K.

We woke up to a hot air balloon convention outside of our tents near South Lake Tahoe a few weeks ago!

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

GUCR banding day

Banding was a great success yesterday, catching around 75 birds with nine nets, including 8 species of warbler (Yellow-rumped, Orange-crowned, Black-throated Gray, Townsend's, Macgillivray's, Wilson's, Hermit and Yellow), an Evening Grosbeak, a male Western Tanager, a Warbling Vireo, a bunch of Song Sparrows, and others.

My first Evening Grosbeak, surprisingly not bitey


Monstrous indeed


Hermit Warbler




Hermit and Townsend's


Warbling Vireo


Female Macgillivray's


Male Macgillivray's. We had a few of these, but one of them is known to be at least 9 years old.


Black-throated Gray


Yellow


Amanda with a Stellar's Jay, hood up in response to the terrible mosquitoes, which were close to a first for us in the Sierras yesterday

Sage

Amanda and I made an afternoon trip over to the Honey Lake Wildlife Area in order to get a peak at some birds we will likely not encounter for most of the summer, as it is sage brush country. Western Meadowlarks were everywhere and the small ponds we found were full of very skittish ducks.





My first (150 or so) White-faced Ibises


Killdeer were kicking around all over the place, nervously bobbing all the way


Loggerhead Shrike, thankfully a safe distance from my hands

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.

Boat-billed Flycatcher

Like the Great Kiskadee, we see and hear Boat-billed Flycatchers a lot, but never catch them. BUT, yesterday we did!

It swallowed my thumb.


Amanda loves this bird, can't you see?

Last week in Tortuguero

We're back to the land of interwebs and kiskadees. And thank god, finally leaving behind the atrocious birds of the Costa Rican mountains.

Great Kiskadee

They're everywhere and they're loud as all hell. This was out first and probably only of the season. It was still very loud.

Extensive yellow in the crown that is often very concealed.

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

Nonbirds

The canal we live on and the ocean meet in the background


Arboreal Mexican Porcupine