06/30/04
Two astronomers and a physicist held the fort down
and walked the bird walk today. The weather was
very pleasant and the birds were relatively
plentiful. We tied the record for week number 26
at 15, which was recorded also in 2001.
See the birds_epoch plot at
http://birdwalks.caltech.edu/bird_data/two_plots.htm.
And we could have easily smashed the record. Birds
we didn't see but which we easily could have seen
include Mourning Dove, Yellow-chevroned Parakeet, Raven
(which was on campus yesterday afternoon and this morning),
Starling, and Mallard (which was on the pond yesterday, according to
Matt.) On the other hand we had a couple of
not so common birds: Cooper's Hawk and Lesser Goldfinch.
All in all, it was a good day.
The stats:
The date: 6/30/04
The week number: 26
The walk number: 738
The weather: 70 F, partly cloudy
The walkers: Alan Cummings, Matt Hunt, Bryan Jacoby
The birds (15):
Rock Dove
Scrub Jay
Mockingbird
House Sparrow
House Finch
Anna's Hummingbird
Acorn Woodpecker
Crow
Bushtit
White-throated Swift
Cooper's Hawk
Band-tailed Pigeon
Red-tailed Hawk
Lesser Goldfinch
Black Phoebe
Respectfully submitted,
Alan
6/30/04
http://birdwalks.caltech.edu
06/22/04
Wow! What a day and in more than one respect. First, we had
9 walkers show up, including Matt Hunt's parents from
Pennsylvania. That might be a record or is certainly close to it.
Sometimes Kent brings his entire family and then we
have 6 Potters walking. I don't have the data handy
to check if 9 is a record, but it's probably pretty close.
Second, we recorded 19 species. That's a record
for the 25th week of the year. The previous record
was 15 in 2002, so we broke (shattered) that by 4 birds.
See the birds_epoch plot at
http://birdwalks.caltech.edu/bird_data/two_plots.htm.
Third, there was the controversy. Along Wilson
I saw a bird soaring and when I got the binocs on it I couldn't
believe what I was seeing. It looked to me like a
Northern Harrier. It had a very long tail and a white
rump patch. I immediately yelled for Jon
to confirm and then went back to observing it.
I felt like I got a pretty good look. But
Jon and the others only got a brief glimpse
as it soon sailed out of sight. Jon was
extremely skeptical that it was a Northern Harrier.
They just aren't around here in the summer and they don't
soar except in migration and it's not migration
season. Normally they fly low over the
ground. It wasn't flying anything like a Harrier.
(But it sure looked like one to me!).
So he surmised that maybe it was a female
Cooper's Hawk that sometimes ruffles up its feathers
along the body towards the rear and they might
look like a white patch back there. But the white
does not really extend onto the top side of the bird.
If it were a Harrier, he thought it would be a Rare Bird Alert
situation and what's the probability that we would
stumble across that? Low. So, I have entered Hawk, sp.
for this bird.
Other birds of note included an Allen's Hummingbird,
spotted primarily by Kent, a bunch of Red-masked Parakeets,
heard and seen by everyone, and a Lesser Goldfinch,
heard and seen by Jon.
The stats:
The date: 6/22/04
The week number: 25
The walk number: 737
The weather: 75 F, sunny
The walkers: Alan Cummings, Glenn Hamell, Matt Hunt, Bryan Jacoby,
Kent Potter, Jon Feenstra, Kelly Jung, Char Hunt, Harry Hunt
The birds (19):
Rock Dove
Scrub Jay
Mockingbird
House Sparrow
Mourning Dove
House Finch
Anna's Hummingbird
Acorn Woodpecker
Crow
Starling
Yellow-chevroned Parakeet
Allen's Hummingbird
Red-masked Parakeet
Band-tailed Pigeon
Black Phoebe
White-throated Swift
Bushtit
Lesser Goldfinch
Hawk, sp.
Respectfully submitted,
Alan
6/22/04
http://birdwalks.caltech.edu
06/15/04
What a fine day for a bird walk and what a fine group
of birders we had today. We had a new birder,
Bryan Jacoby, a grad student in Astronomy.
Also we had a birder from the past show up --
Bill Schaefer. He was down for a couple of days
from his new home in Rio Vista, California,
and decided to drop in on us. Welcome back, Bill.
It was Bill's 101st walk.
We had a pretty good, but not record-setting, day.
We recorded 16 species. The record for week 24 is 18 set in 2002.
And we got 17 last year. But the range is pretty large,
with 7 being the fewest recorded for this week of the year. Sixteen
is above average. See the birds_epoch plot at
http://birdwalks.caltech.edu/bird_data/two_plots.htm.
The standout birds were the Black-chinned Hummingbird
and the Spotted Towhee. The disappointments were the Mallard (none
in the ponds) and the Nuttall's Woodpecker (the nesthole was empty).
The stats:
The date: 6/15/04
The week number: 24
The walk number: 736
The weather: 74 F, sunny
The walkers: Alan Cummings, Glenn Hamell, Bill Schaefer, Brian Jacoby,
Kent Potter, Jon Feenstra, Kelly Jung
The birds (16):
Rock Dove
Scrub Jay
Mockingbird
House Sparrow
Mourning Dove
House Finch
Anna's Hummingbird
Acorn Woodpecker
Crow
Starling
Band-tailed Pigeon
Black-chinned Hummingbird
White-throated Swift
Spotted Towhee
Bushtit
Black Phoebe
Respectfully submitted,
Alan
6/15/04
http://birdwalks.caltech.edu
06/8/04
Well, another week, another record -- almost. We fell one
shy of the record for the 23rd week of the year. We got 17 today.
In 1998, Daniel Williams and I bagged 18 on the 9th of June.
See the bird_epoch plot at
http://birdwalks.caltech.edu/bird_data/two_plots.htm.
We had a pretty big group of birders, numbering 6.
The weather was great: cloudy, no Sun, with the temperature
in the high 60's.
There was one sensational highlight. We were over
behind the south athletic field and we heard a funny
bird noise. Of course, we immediately asked Jon what it
was. He was not sure at first and then thought it
was the cry of a baby bird. Soon he suggested it was
a baby Nuttall's Woodpecker. And he said that maybe
it was coming from a nest hole in the dead tree in
front of us. About that time Kelly said she saw the
head of a bird sticking out of a hole she was observing.
It withdrew before the rest of us could
get our binocs up, but soon we all saw it --
a baby Nuttall's Woodpecker, just as Jon had surmised
based on the sounds of a hungry baby bird. That's a
pretty good identification feat, by the way.
Soon the adult woodpecker showed up to
feed the baby. It was quite a sight.
The stats:
The date: 6/8/04
The week number: 23
The walk number: 735
The weather: 68 F, cloudy
The walkers: Alan Cummings, Glenn Hamell, Kent Potter,
Jon Feenstra, Matt Hunt, Kelly Jung
The birds (17):
Rock Dove
Scrub Jay
Mockingbird
House Sparrow
Mourning Dove
House Finch
Anna's Hummingbird
Acorn Woodpecker
Crow
Mallard
Yellow-chevroned Parakeet
Black Phoebe
Band-tailed Pigeon
Starling
Raven
Bushtit
Nuttall's Woodpecker
Respectfully submitted,
Alan
6/8/04
http://birdwalks.caltech.edu
06/1/04
The birding was spectacular for the 22nd week of the year.
We saw 18 species, which shatters the previous record for
week 22 of 16 by 2. Sixteen for week 22 was accomplished
twice, once in 1990 and once in 2002. See the bird_epoch plot at
http://birdwalks.caltech.edu/bird_data/two_plots.htm.
There were a couple of highlights. A Cooper's Hawk
landed on a wire not 10 feet from us and just sat
there. That brought out a lot of Wows from the group.
We also saw two Hooded Orioles and a Nuttal's Woodpecker.
The disappointment was a lack of a Raven. Matt
thought he heard one but he wasn't sure
enough to put it down. We also failed to see the Yellow-chevroned
Parakeets and the Black Phoebe, both of which we saw last
week. The total could easily have been higher.
The stats:
The date: 6/1/04
The week number: 22
The walk number: 734
The weather: 83 F, sunny
The walkers: Alan Cummings, Glenn Hamell, Matt Hunt,
Kelly Jung
The birds (18):
Rock Dove
Scrub Jay
Mockingbird
House Sparrow
Mourning Dove
House Finch
Anna's Hummingbird
Acorn Woodpecker
Crow
White-throated Swift
Starling
Band-tailed Pigeon
Cooper's Hawk
Nuttal's Woodpecker
Bushtit
Hooded Oriole
Red-tailed Hawk
Mallard
Respectfully submitted,
Alan
6/1/04
http://birdwalks.caltech.edu