8/31/04
Well, I could have told you last week that we weren't
going to break a record this week. That's because
the record for week 35 is -- are you sitting down? --
21 species, observed in 2002. That was way atypical.
On that walk we had two kinds of Wren,
a Hermit Warbler, an Orange-crowned Warbler,
and a Western Bluebird to name a few. We didn't
see a House Finch or the record could have been 22.
We did have Jon feenstra along and that never hurts.
Today we saw 13 species, which really isn't all that bad.
See the birds_epoch plot at
http://birdwalks.caltech.edu/bird_data/two_plots.htm.
The weather was pretty hot -- 90 F and that
must have done in the Crows because we didn't see one.
We did hear and get a glimpse of a Bewick's Wren and
were fortunate to see a Nuttall's Woodpecker fly
into a nearby tree. We got two hummingbird species.
All in all, it wasn't too bad.
The stats:
The date: 8/31/04
The week number: 35
The walk number: 747
The weather: 90 F, sunny
The walkers: Alan Cummings, Kent Potter, Bryan Jacoby
The birds (13):
Rock Dove
Scrub Jay
Mockingbird
House Sparrow
Mourning Dove
House Finch
Anna's Hummingbird
Acorn Woodpecker
Bewick's Wren
Nuttall's Woodpecker
Band-tailed Pigeon
Allen's Hummingbird
Black Phoebe
Respectfully submitted,
Alan
8/31/04
http://birdwalks.caltech.edu
8/24/04
Wow, what a good bird walk. It started off slow;
we only had 6 as we turned north up Wilson,
but the back half of the walk was very productive.
We recorded 16 species, which was a record for week 34.
The previous record was 15 in 2001.
See the birds_epoch plot at
http://birdwalks.caltech.edu/bird_data/two_plots.htm.
The weather was very pleasant for this time
of year -- only 71 F! The highlight birds were
a Yellow Warbler over by Avery, and a Western Wood-Pewee
and a Black-throated Gray Warbler, both
in front of Ramo. We also saw an Allen's Hummingbird
in the same area as last week, in the Brazilian Silk
Floss trees west of Chandler.
The stats:
The date: 8/24/04
The week number: 34
The walk number: 746
The weather: 71 F, sunny
The walkers: Alan Cummings, Glenn Hamell, Kent Potter
The birds (16):
Rock Dove
Scrub Jay
Mockingbird
House Sparrow
Mourning Dove
House Finch
Anna's Hummingbird
Acorn Woodpecker
Crow
Band-tailed Pigeon
Yellow Warbler
Starling
Allen's Hummingbird
Black Phoebe
Black-throated Gray Warbler
Western Wood-Pewee
Respectfully submitted,
Alan
8/24/04
http://birdwalks.caltech.edu
8/17/04
Well the walk for week 33 went off without a hitch.
It wasn't as hot as predicted so Glenn
hung in there the entire way. We observed 11 species,
which is about typical for this time of year.
The record for week 33 is only 13, set last year.
See the birds_epoch plot at
http://birdwalks.caltech.edu/bird_data/two_plots.htm.
We did have an interesting observation. In the Brazilian
silk floss trees just west of Chandler
we saw 3 or 4 Allen's Hummingbirds buzzing around.
That's probably the most Allen's I've seen at one time.
The stats:
The date: 8/17/04
The week number: 33
The walk number: 745
The weather: 82 F, sunny
The walkers: Alan Cummings, Glenn Hamell
The birds (11):
Rock Dove
Scrub Jay
Mockingbird
House Sparrow
Mourning Dove
House Finch
Anna's Hummingbird
Acorn Woodpecker
Crow
Black Phoebe
Allen's Hummingbird
Respectfully submitted,
Alan
8/17/04
http://birdwalks.caltech.edu
8/11/04
The stats:
The date: 8/11/04
The week number: 32
The walk number: 744
The weather: 91 F, Clear (warmer later on :-)
The walkers: Kent Potter, Glenn Hamell
The birds (8)
Rock Pigeon
Crow
Band-tailed Pigeon
House Sparrow
Mourning Dove
Acorn Woodpecker
Mockingbird
and a small bird in the top of the sapsucker tree, seen only from the
underside. Yellow from beak to tail, dark outline toward end of tail, dark
wings (what little of them could be seen from below). At first I suspected
an American Goldfinch, but the beak seemed a little narrow (again seen only
from below). Also, the end of the tail was slightly split, like the right
side of the letter "B."
(Note added by Alan: decided to call this yellow bird a Warbler, sp.)
Warmly (to say the least),
Kent
http://birdwalks.caltech.edu
8/3/04
As Glenn and I were nearing the end of the walk today,
I said "How bad is it when you don't even see
a Mockingbird?" We didn't try to quantify degrees of bad but
we agreed it was bad. On the other hand it was week 31 of the year.
Although it wasn't all that hot, in fact it was
very pleasant, historically early August is not the
greatest for noontime birding. We recorded 10 species,
no where near the record of 17 way back in 1988.
See the birds_epoch plot at
http://birdwalks.caltech.edu/bird_data/two_plots.htm.
Now it's interesting to look at what we saw
back in week 31 of 1988. In addition to the regulars of today,
we recorded Brewer's Blackbird, Killdeer, Ash-throated
Flycatcher, California Towhee, Black-chinned Hummingbird, and
Spotted Dove. Back in those days, Spotted Doves
were almost a cinch, about 90% probable, Brewer's
Blackbirds were pretty regular at about 60% chance,
and we were into a streak of Killdeer sightings.
About a fifth of the 1988 walks produced a Killdeer.
How times have changed. On the other hand, we see a lot
more Black Phoebes now than we did back then. I didn't
say times were better back then but they were different.
Some of the differences can be seen by examining
the probability plots at
http://birdwalks.caltech.edu/bird_data/probability_plots.htm.
One of these days, I'm going to get
around to updating and improving these plots.
Our highlight bird was the Lesser Goldfinch.
The stats:
The date: 8/3/04
The week number: 31
The walk number: 743
The weather: 78 F, sunny
The walkers: Alan Cummings, Glenn Hamell
The birds (10):
Rock Dove
Scrub Jay
House Sparrow
Mourning Dove
Anna's Hummingbird
Acorn Woodpecker
Crow
Bushtit
Black Phoebe
Lesser Goldfinch
Respectfully submitted,
Alan
8/3/04
http://birdwalks.caltech.edu