11/28/08

It was a Caltech holiday, but four of us walked anyway because I wanted to get a walk in for week 48. By moving last week's walk to a Monday, it turned out we had two walks for week 47. And if we waited until Tuesday for the walk, we'd end up with no walk for week 48. That just wouldn't do. Well, it would do, but it's a not ideal.
One major benefit of walking on a holiday is the lack of background noise. It was serene and delightful. The weather could not have been more perfect. But we didn't score above zero on the walk. We got a -0.08732 to be exact. We saw 17 species, right on the median for a week 48 but a little below the average.
See the plots at http://birdwalks.caltech.edu/bird_data/species_time.html and http://birdwalks.caltech.edu/bird_data/two_plots.htm
But, did we ever have a highlight! We saw, on three occasions, a Great Egret! Yes indeed. I saw if first before the others got there. It flew over my head. Then later we saw it perched on a building on two occasions. Last time we saw one of those was in 2006.
The other unusual bird was a Dark-eyed Junco. We saw them a couple of times, once in Tournament Park and once on the north side of the walk. While not a total rarity it has been awhile since we've seen them. So, the walk may have scored negative, but there were lots of positives about it.
The stats:
The date: 11/28/08
The week number: 48
The walk number: 964
The weather: 68F, partly cloudy
The walkers: Alan Cummings, Darren Dowell, Beth Moore, Chris Martin

The birds (17):

Rock Pigeon
Scrub Jay
House Sparrow
House Finch
Anna's Hummingbird
Acorn Woodpecker
Crow
Yellow-rumped Warbler
Great Egret
Black Phoebe
Dark-eyed Junco
Raven
Bushtit
Ruby-crowned Kinglet
Lesser Goldfinch
American Goldfinch
Red-tailed Hawk

Respectfully submitted,
Alan Cummings
11/30/08
http://birdwalks.caltech.edu

11/24/08

Well, another walk, another new walker. All right! Viveca's son Jeff Sapin joined us, making him the 102nd individual to walk the Caltech birdwalks. Welcome to the walks, Jeff.

I want to apologize if this late switch to Monday inconvenienced you. As it turns out, it was a mistake, most likely. The reason I say that is that last week's walk was during week 47 and this walk is also during week 47. Had I known that, I would have sought a different solution. I would have rather had it occur on Tuesday as usual (if it doesn't rain), even though I would have missed the walk, because the ideal situation for my record keeping purposes is to have one and only one walk per week -- 52 walks a year, all in different weeks. But I can deal with it -- I did so for years before we got more birders and better odds that someone could go on any given walk.

We actually had a pretty good day. Because it occurred during the same week as last week's walk, last week's score changed -- to zero! But this one scored 0.6, not bad at all. We observed 18 species, two above the average and one above the median.

See the plots at http://birdwalks.caltech.edu/bird_data/species_time.html and http://birdwalks.caltech.edu/bird_data/two_plots.htm

The most common bird by far was the Cedar Waxwing. We saw them everywhere. But the big highlight was a Say's Phoebe seen out on the south athletic field.

The weather was delightful.

The stats:
The date: 11/24/08
The week number: 47
The walk number: 963
The weather: 70F, sunny
The walkers: Alan Cummings, Darren Dowell, Nathan Dalleska, Viveca Sapin-Areeda, Jeff Sapin

The birds (18):

Rock Pigeon
Mockingbird
House Sparrow
House Finch
Anna's Hummingbird
Acorn Woodpecker
Crow
Cedar Waxwing
Yellow-rumped Warbler
Band-tailed Pigeon
Black Phoebe
Say's Phoebe
Bewick's Wren
Ruby-crowned Kinglet
Red-tailed Hawk
Bushtit
Lesser Goldfinch
Hummingbird, Selasphorus

Respectfully submitted,
Alan Cummings
11/24/08
http://birdwalks.caltech.edu

11/18/08

This report was delayed because of a computer failure. It's the computer where the license manager of the spreadsheet program I use resides. I will not be able to update the plots for the website until that problem is resolved. But I can send out a report, although I can't tell you the score of the walk. But I can tell you that we had a new walker, Nathan Dalleska, the 101st individual to participate. The cumulative number of person-walks now stands at 3177, having been accumulating since mid-October 1986. We walked walk number 962, so next year we should cross the 1000 walk mark. Welcome to the walks, Nathan.

It was week 47 of the year and it was kind of hot and kind of low on birds. We observed 16 species, one below the median for week 47. So, most likely it was a negative scoring walk, assuming the average for a week 47 is also above the number we observed. That will all be revealed when I am able to update the plots at http://birdwalks.caltech.edu/bird_data/species_time.html and http://birdwalks.caltech.edu/bird_data/two_plots.htm

We did have a couple of highlights. A Turkey Vulture cruised overhead, undoubtedly looking for worn out undergrads. We heard and saw a quite vocal Bewick's Wren. And once again we also saw both the American and Lesser Goldfinch.

I'm ready for the weather to cool down; it's November for crying out loud.

The stats:
The date: 11/18/08
The week number: 47
The walk number: 962
The weather: 83F, sunny
The walkers: Alan Cummings, Glenn Hamell, Matt Bradford, Nathan Dalleska, Barbara Ellis, Beth Moore, Viveca Sapin-Areeda

The birds (16):

Rock Pigeon
House Sparrow
House Finch
Anna's Hummingbird
Acorn Woodpecker
Crow
Yellow-rumped Warbler
Turkey Vulture
Bushtit
Cedar Waxwing
Red-tailed Hawk
American Goldfinch
Bewick's Wren
Black Phoebe
Ruby-crowned Kinglet
Lesser Goldfinch

Respectfully submitted,
Alan Cummings
11/20/08
http://birdwalks.caltech.edu

11/11/08

It was week 46 and it was a good walk. We got a score of 0.7, the highest score since week 32. We observed 18 species. The median for week 46 is 16, the average is 16.19 and the standard deviation is 2.588; hence the 0.7 score.

See the plots at http://birdwalks.caltech.edu/bird_data/species_time.html and http://birdwalks.caltech.edu/bird_data/two_plots.htm

And we welcomed back an occasional walker, Eric Christian. Eric recorded his 18th walk since 2/28/1994. He is somewhat at a disadvantage since he lives on the East Coast. All his walks have occurred after he left Caltech in the late 1980's. It was good to have him back. I don't think we would have gotten the Yellow-chevroned Parakeet without him. He saw a pod move and suspected that it wasn't just a pod. The normally chatty birds made no sounds as we passed by.

We also saw American Goldfinch for the first time in a long time. We have been seeing Lesser Goldfinch very regularly.

I had a nice email this week from Bengt Stridh, who is really at a disadvantage for the walks since he lives in Sweden. Bengt made 23 walks from 1/6/1988 to 1994, 20 of them in 1988. He was the third individual to walk the walks. Ernie Franzgrote and I were the first. He says the lake outside his house is about to freeze if they get a normal winter. He said last winter was the warmest since temperatures have been recorded there -- at least 250 years. So it sounds like he's got evidence for global warming! It was good to hear from Bengt, one of the pioneers of the Caltech birdwalks.

The stats:
The date: 11/11/08
The week number: 46
The walk number: 961
The weather: 68F, sunny
The walkers: Alan Cummings, Eric Christian, Glenn Hamell, Viveca Sapin-Areeda,
Fiona Tindall, Kent Potter, Darren Dowell, Beth Moore

The birds (18):

Scrub Jay
House Sparrow
House Finch
Anna's Hummingbird
Acorn Woodpecker
Crow
Yellow-rumped Warbler
Bushtit
Wren, sp.
Lesser Goldfinch
Black Phoebe
Ruby-crowned Kinglet
Starling
Cedar Waxwing
American Goldfinch
Yellow-chevroned Parakeet
Hummingbird, Selasphorus
Raven

Respectfully submitted,
Alan Cummings
11/12/08
http://birdwalks.caltech.edu

11/4/08

It was election day and we were hoping for a big turnout -- of birds. Oh, voters too, and we did get that. But the birds? Well a little better than the last few weeks. I instituted a walk scoring system a few weeks ago, and finally we had a walk that scored above zero. We got an 0.05 out of the walk. That means the number of species we saw was just above the average for this week of the year. We saw 17 species, which is the median for a week 45. Apparently the average is just a hair below 17. See the plots at http://birdwalks.caltech.edu/bird_data/species_time.html and http://birdwalks.caltech.edu/bird_data/two_plots.htm

We did see, or in some cases hear, some good birds. We heard a Northern Flicker and also a Bewick's Wren. Fortunately, we had two birders along who are really good at identifying by sound, Darren and Beth. I'm not terrible at it if I can get my good ear on it (my left).

No offense to Darren, Beth, and me, but we are all pikers in this department compared to the legendary Jon Feenstra, who walked 47 times with us, mostly in 2002 and 2003. You had to be there the day he called a MacGillivray's Warbler based on one little cheep sound. That happened on 7 May 2002 and it was Jon's 7th walk with the group. Bill Schaefer was along and he can attest to the accuracy of what I'm reporting. I didn't believe Jon at first and asked him if he were sure. He listened again, heard another chirp, and said yes that was what it was. We looked and sure enough there it was, the 4th sighting all time of a MacGillivray's Warbler on a walk. And the last time we've seen one too, by the way.

A MacGillivray's Warbler. That would be nice. The way it's been going, we'd be happy for a Rock Pigeon, Scrub Jay, Mockingbird, and House Sparrow to show up all on the same walk. Maybe it will take Jon Feenstra to show up for all that to happen.

By the way, Ashish emiled me that he was sure he saw a Band-tailed Pigeon last week, so I've added that to last week's total. We saw 14 last week, instead of 13.

The stats:
The date: 11/4/08
The week number: 45
The walk number: 960
The weather: 67F, partly cloudy
The walkers: Alan Cummings, Glenn Hamell, Viveca Sapin-Areeda, Kent Potter, Beth Moore, Darren Dowell

The birds (17):

Rock Pigeon
House Sparrow
Mourning Dove
House Finch
Anna's Hummingbird
Acorn Woodpecker
Crow
Yellow-rumped Warbler
Ruby-crowned Kinglet
Townsend's Warbler
Northern Flicker
Bewick's Wren
Black Phoebe
Lesser Goldfinch
Cooper's Hawk
Band-tailed Pigeon
Hummingbird, Selasphorus

Respectfully submitted,
Alan Cummings
11/6/08
http://birdwalks.caltech.edu