Wing morph

I should have done this earlier, but here is a quick look at the basic terms for the different feathers on a bird wing. All passerines have 9 or 10 primaries and most have 6 secondaries and 3 tertials (which are actually just more secondaries with a special name). In this picture of a spotted towhee wing you can see that there are 9 primaries, 6 secondaries, and two visible tertials. The median coverts, the greater coverts, the tertials, the inner most secondary, and one of the primaries have been replaced, and are much blacker and fresh looking. This pattern is very indicative of a second year bird (one that hatched last summer).

Towhees

California towee, with a single white feather on its head, which shouldn't be there.


Spotted towhee


Spotted towhee wing, showing a typical HY/SY molt pattern: fresh greater and lesser coverts, and tertials (black), and retained juvenile primaries, secondaries, and primary coverts.

Potter

Today it was too windy to run the nets so instead we set up some potter traps (the traps I used to catch those chickadees in Duluth) around our site, using bird seed as bait. We ended up catching around 13 birds, which was pretty good, but checking them every 15 minutes got tiring. We got a wrentit, a couple spotted towhees, a nuttall's white crowned sparrow, a few golden crowned sparrows, a couple song sparrows, a few fox sparrows.

Here are some bad pictures!

Nets


white crowned sparrow


golden crowned sparrow


song sparrow


diana with a spotted towhee


spotted towhee