Another shin

Our only bird of the day yesterday was this young male sharp shin. These were pictures from Joe.

More of the same

Study Skins

The Palo field station has a small collection of study skins for us to look at and study, so Joe and I did a bit of that today. While they can be useful for taking a look at all sorts of birds for extended amounts of time, they often do not retain many of their original characteristics and are tough to identify.

What I did discover was that a few of these birds have come from a very familiar place, I'm not sure how or why, but there must of been someone connected.

This was attached to a junco:

I can't hear the birds, I live too close to the ocean.

Me, right now

YRWA's

Nine birds today, eight species. The coolest thing was getting the two subspecies of the yellow rumped warbler, the audubon's and the myrtle. Up til now I'd only seen the myrtle, but the yellow chin of the audubon's is a pretty defining feature:


They also have more white on more tail feathers:


We couldn't age this one...


This is the myrtle, which we called a second year female due to the very small black centers of the back and upper tail feathers, as well as a very minimal amount of white on the rectrices


Michael, checking for molt/fat on a varied thrush

SSHA

Second sharp shin of the season. Also a young male.