I am spending quite a bit of time in my backyard these days so I figured it was about time I put out a bird feeder. I was quite pleased that this flashy Black-headed Grosbeak was one of the first new birds to make an appearance. A new entry on my “shelter-in-place” bird list and a brief moment of forgetting the current situation and imagining myself in the wild!
Now seems like a good time to resume sharing photos! Whether I’m outside exploring in the wild, sorting through a backlog of photos, listening to bird sounds, or flipping through my favorite @natgeo field guide, birds always manage to reduce my stress, calm my mind, and remind me of our connections to the communities and ecosystem we are linked with. The tiny but fierce American Kestrel always inspires my respect - especially when seeing those intense face slashes up close (this bird was being banded and was photographed in the hand of a raptor biologist, March 3, 2019).
I’ve had a hard time keeping up with photos lately, but here are a few birds from a few weeks! 1) I have an affinity for Bell’s Sparrow - this one spent most of its time foraging on the ground, but briefly popped up for a call near Soda Lake, in Carrizo Plain; 2) A Peregrine Falcon peers down from a pine cone, in Morro Bay; 3) I am terrible at taking photos from a boat, but was lucky to capture this Black-legged Kittiwake and 4) Pelagic Cormorant on the @sea_and_sage_audubon winter pelagic trip and, finally, 5) this beautiful Tropical Kingbird spent some time in one of my favorite parks in my #5mr
#sparrowappreciationsociety #calnatshare #ebird365 #audubonca
This little patch of Coyote brush was a sparrow treasure trove during Christmas Bird Count. I paused for a portrait of one of my favorites, the delightful White-crowned Sparrow, and stayed for the flurry of activity that ensued. Sparrows were flitting around, enjoying the bounty of seeds provided by this late-blooming shrub. A California Towhee performed the towhee two-step under cover of the canopy while a Spotted Towhee popped up to investigate the clicks of my camera, giving me his grumpy old man call (it always reminds me of someone shouting at me to get off their lawn). All of this activity almost distracted me from an unexpected visitor — a dazzlingly colorful Green-tailed Towhee made a brief appearance before disappearing into the dense brush (a bird that John Cassin praised as, “the handsomest bird of the family of Sparrows yet discovered in the United States”). All the while, right behind my back, a large flock of strikingly patterned Lark Sparrows busied themselves in a Sycamore.
#calnatshare #uccalnat #ebird365 #audubonca #christmasbirdcount #sparrowappreciationsociety
