An Overdue Garden Surprise

Although I have never really been into my 'yardlist', we have intermittently maintained seed and hummingbird feeders in our backyard, usually at the initiative of my wife, Remy. Since we moved to our current address, we have made a bit more effort and have had a few birds of interest, including six species of hummingbird and occasional visits by one or two White-winged Doves. However, we have had very little out of the ordinary with respect to seed-eating species, despite backing on to agricultural fields and having a regular flock of White-crowned Sparrows.

This fall, I have put more effort into making sure the feeder is filled regularly and also scattering seed around on the ground so the sparrows can easily access it, without having to wait for the House Finches to displace seed from the feeder.

This proved effective as I quickly built up a small flock of White-crowned Sparrows and juncos, as well as attracting the usual suspects to the feeder itself. Interestingly House Sparrows may be heading the same way in my part of California as they have back in their native UK as they have become distinctly less common locally, with just a couple showing up at the feeder.

After a few days, I noticed a Song Sparrow appearing among the sparrows and a further day or so later I saw a Lincoln's Sparrow. This was the first time there had been one in the yard for a few years. After seeing a high frequency of Lincoln's Sparrows sightings, I began to suspect there might be two. I upped my watching efforts a bit more and confirmed this. While doing so I noticed a largish sparrow that apparently had a fairly well-marked supercilium but with underside streaking much less well-defined than that expected for a Song Sparrow. Suspecting a young White-throated Sparrow, I went off to grab my binoculars and was able to confirm it indeed was. The bird hung around for the next couple of hours and I was able to get some pretty nice photos through the window.

White-throated Sparrow

White-throated Sparrows are uncommon but widespread winterers southwards from SW Washington State along the west coast. However, they thin out considerably as one heads further south in California. There are several other birders in Goleta and Santa Barbara who have them visit regularly but I suspect their yards are in areas with more trees and bushes. White-throated (and Golden-crowned) Sparrows definitely prefer more densely vegetated habitat to White-crowned Sparrows and I suspect this is why I have never seen one in the yard before. Golden-crowned is also a very occasional visitor, usually in late winter or early spring when natural food sources are diminished. As far as I can tell, the White-throated Sparrow just dropped by for the day.

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Belated Alaska: Interior Alaska and Kenai Fjords

After returning to Anchorage from Utqiagvik, we embarked on the final leg of our Alaska birding trip. This started with visiting the interior around the eastern end of the Denali Highway, traveling via the Glenn Highway. Following that, we would head back south via Anchorage to Seward, where we were taking a cruise out into the Kenai Fjords. After a night in Anchorage, we headed out early on the Glenn Highway. The key target for the interior part of the trip was Hawk Owl. Once we reached the spruce forest areas, we did most of driving at 45 miles an hour or so to allow easier scanning of the roadside treetops for the owl. We also looked for side roads that allowed good views of spruce forest to check along these as well. Short-eared Owl The first side road we tried was near the Eureka Roadhouse. The small lakes and marshes here held a decent variety of wildfowl, including Trumpeter Swan and Barrow’s Goldeneye. Noisy Lesser Yellowlegs teed up for photo opportunities on the top o...

Belated Alaska: Nome Interlude

I am finally catching up with the last couple of posts from our amazing Alaska trip back in June. This first one covers one of our 'schedule padding' days between Gambell and Anchorage. After returning from Gambell, we had an evening and most of the next day to bird before catching a late flight to Anchorage. The evening session was a dud and the next day we decided to head up the Kougarok to find a Wandering Tattler in some breeding habitat as well as check out Salmon Lake again. The tattler search proved futile and activities devolved largely into photographing some common species we had yet to see very well. Golden-crowned Sparrow The first of these were American Tree Sparrow and Golden-crowned Sparrow. We also had very nice looks at singing Arctic Warblers, which were abundant in the roadside willows. Arctic Warbler Ruddy Turnstone We then checked out a different part of Salmon Lake for ducks and other waterbirds. A flock of Common Goldeneye was our first of the trip and th...

Recognizing Adult and Juvenile Dowitcher Plumages

Dowitchers occur in three distinct plumages – alternate (breeding), basic (winter or non-breeding) and juvenile (young of the year). Being able to determine the plumage of a particular dowitcher is essential as plumage features that apply to a juvenile, for example, may not be relevant for an adult. Dowitchers change between plumages by going through a molt. Molt is a process that takes some time and it should therefore come as no surprise that birds on migration are often in active molt from one plumage to another. Since these transitional plumages resulting from active molt can cause identification pitfalls, I will also give some examples of them and how to recognize them. The photographs on this post and the next were kindly provided by Peter Schneekloth (PS), Brad Hacker (BH) and Lynn Scarlett (LS). Basic Plumage Dowitchers can be in in basic plumage starting from as early as August through to April/May. Note that young birds may retain basic plumage through the ...

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