11/28/11
It was another two-warbler day. There was an
abundance of yellow rumped warblers and Viveca
picked up one orange crowned warbler on Wilson.
I despair of seeing another Townsend or black
throated gray warbler on the walk until next
Spring, even though Townsends, at least, are
relatively common right now up in the foothills.
We also failed to get the common yellowthroat.
Although there have been a number of morning
sightings around Dabney gardens and the Millikan
ponds, our one lunchtime capture is in some
danger of becoming a statistical freak. Like
many gleaning specialists, common yellowthroats
tend to be more active early and late in the day
when flying insects are more likely to be
inactive and, therefore, more likely to be
susceptible to being gobbled up by an
enterprising common yellowthroat. So, we have no
common yellowthroat to report this week. Other
news was, however, more encouraging. Carole's
mourning dove was not in its usual place in the
yard opposite the tennis courts but Viveca picked
him it up in an adjacent tree, an important
capture since mourning doves were scarce. We did
see a nice kettle of ravens, and our total
included another mountain chickadee, our sixth
sighting of the year. Overall, we ended up with
21 species, just shy of the record 22 for week 48.
See the plots at
http://birdwalks.caltech.edu/bird_data/species_time.html
and
http://birdwalks.caltech.edu/bird_data/two_plots.htm
The highlight of the walk for me was in the north
parking lot. We were working over a house finch,
hoping for something more interesting, when
Viveca noticed some warping leaves that I had
dismissed as the work of a squirrel. They were
actually reflecting the presence of a pair of
large green, hence probably juvenile, parakeets.
This was problematic because juvenile parakeets
often lack the characteristic color schemes of
the adults, and this can make them difficult to
identify. We kept looking and slowly established
a bit of yellow under the wing, pink/tan bills,
and very prominent eye rings. There was no hint
of red on the head or throat. We weren't close
enough to pick up the iris color and they weren't
talking. We had a set of useful features
suggesting an Aratinga parakeet but there are a
dozen Aratinga species with green juveniles and,
if we had to consider all of them, we would have
been in trouble. There are, however, only two
Aratingas that are well established in southern
California, mitred and red-masked parakeets, so
we were probably looking at one of those two
species. Finally, one of the birds hops from one
branch to another and in doing so briefly opens
up its wings. Darren catches a flash of undimpled
red forming a shoulder patch. We were dealing
with juvenile red-masked parakeets. Since
red-masked parakeets are much more common around
campus than mitred parakeets, playing the odds
would have suggested red-masked but without that
under wing red or red flecks on the neck, more
characteristic of mitred parakeet juveniles, we
would not have been able to reliably move beyond
one of Alan's favorite categories, parrot or
parakeet species. Now, having spent several
minutes working the juveniles, we finally notice
another pair of parakeets above the first two.
Up pop the heads, showing solidly red heads. We
had a classic pair of adult red-masked parakeets.
Apparently, this was a family affair with Mom and
Dad taking the kids out to sample the local
cuisine. Our assessment of the juveniles as
red-masked parakeets looked really solid.
As happy as I am to see the odd red-masked
parakeet, I would be happier not to see any and
it's not because I'm hoping that the local hawks
become more efficient at killing them. These
birds are native to parts of Ecuador and Peru and
have never extended their range north into
Central America, much less the U.S. Yet, here
they are, compliments of the pet trade.
Currently, red-masked parakeets are classified as
near-threatened in their native habitat and the
population in the wild is in a period of steady
decline. If you listen to people in the pet
industry, they will tell you that this is all due
to habitat loss and there is a grain of truth to
this but it is a grain of truth in a vat of salt.
They will also tell you that the pet trade is
good for declining species of exotic birds. That
one is all salt. The feral populations in
California and Florida (and Spain) are now a
statistically significant fraction of all
red-masked parakeets in the wild, perhaps several
percent now and rising fast. This can't be good.
The basic conundrum for red-masked parakeets
comes from several factors. They start
reproducing late in life (they may try at two but
are unlikely to be successful breeders at that
age), so there are a lot of nonbreeding birds in
the population at any given time. They rear only
one clutch a year in the wild so that a clutch
disaster can't be recovered from for at least a
year (a breeder will generally get two clutches a
year but that's because the fledglings are
removed after a few weeks and, of course, because
of a highly reliable supply of food). Red-masked
parakeets have a relatively small number of eggs
per clutch (two to four; generally three). They
are sensitive to habitat loss. They are prone to
predation even as adults, and they continue to
care for fledged chicks several months after
fledging (not the three weeks or so allowed by a
breeder). Compare this with black phoebes. They
generally do two clutches of several chicks a
year and start breeding successfully in their
second year. The male black phoebe takes the
newly fledged birds out for on the job training
for a few days, not a few months, and you better
learn fast because, after that, you are on your
own.
Generally, for red-masked parakeets in the wild,
you can expect about 2/3 of the chicks to fledge,
which is consistent with our little family group
of two adults and two juveniles. Add the kindly
grasp of the pet trade and this drops
dramatically because the species is then
subjected to human nest poaching. For red-masked
parakeets, which are in fairly high demand, about
30% of nests in the wild are poached, although
this number is shaky. Basically, the hunters
remove some fraction of the eggs or chicks and,
since the parakeets generally come back to the
same hole (they are secondary hole nesters) year
after year, in spite of losing one or two of
their three eggs, it's not hard to see how
maintaining the population becomes problematic
with the "help" of the pet trade. The pet trade
is also pernicious in the sense that, as the
population declines, the price per bird tends to
go up, resulting in more intense hunting and ever
greater declines in fecundity. This is a recipe
for extinction. If you own one of these birds, I
don't want to know about it but you should know
that you are a tiny agent of extinction, just as
dangerous as the nicest fashionable ladies of
1900 with their feather plumed hats and other
clothing accessories. It's virtually that
simple. It's not no demand, no problem because
there are in fact some serious habitat loss
issues for many parakeets and parrots and some
face extinction solely because of habitat loss
and hunting as food but the situation for
red-masked parakeets and many other popular avian
pets reminds me a similar problem faced by woolly
mammoths. Woolly mammoths did not go extinct
because humans killed them all. They went
extinct because humans killed a few at a time
when the population was barely maintaining
itself, if not already in decline. Human hunting
was that last one or two per cent effect straw
that sent the entire woolly mammoth population
into an irreversible decline, probably our first
successful extinction project, though certainly
not our last. Pet parrots and parakeets are also
a big straw. Perhaps a few species will
establish long term stable feral populations in
the U.S. and other wealthy countries and, maybe
some of these birds will eventually be used to
reseed their original range but, for a lot of
species that won't be an option and, if there
aren't any left in the wild, there won't be any
left. The pet industry is not the friend of any
parrot or parakeet, no matter how well
intentioned. Yes, there are domestic breeders for
these species and it's supposed to be all
domestically produced birds in this country but
you will not be able to tell the difference, even
if you buy directly from the breeder (you don't
know what else he/she is doing and it is highly
unlikely that you or anybody else is going to
bother with the extensive oxygen isotopic study
needed to pin down the natal territory).
Regardless, the breeding stock in this country is
ultimately built from on-going nest parasitism in
the original habitat. As long as red-masked
parakeets are bringing $400 apiece in this
country (plus shipping, which can be pricey), you
will have a steady drain on the natural
population. The system depends, should you have
some vague twitch of environmentalism running up
your spine, that you pretend, at least to
yourself, that your source is totally above board
and that you are not an agent of extirpation.
Your breeder may be totally above board and
completely domestic in production but, to use a
phrase that politicians seem to love (usually
when they are about to puff out with some
fundamentally flawed assertion but I'll use it
anyways), make no mistake. If you buy a pet
parrot or parakeet, you are an agent of
extirpation and potentially, perhaps probably, an
agent of extinction.
The date: 11/21/11
The week number: 48
The walk number: 1119
The weather: 81°F, partly cloudy
The walkers: Alan Cummings, Viveca Sapin-Areeda,
Carole Worra, John Beckett, Darren Dowell
The birds (21):
Rock Pigeon
House Sparrow
Mourning Dove
House Finch
Crow
Black Phoebe
Yellow-rumped Warbler
Woodpecker, species
European Starling
House Wren
Bushtit
Cedar Waxwing
Hummingbird, Selasphorus
Ruby-crowned Kinglet
Band-tailed Pigeon
Orange-crowned Warbler
Lesser Goldfinch
Red-masked Parakeet
Common Raven
Mountain Chickadee
American Goldfinch
--- John Beckett
Respectfully submitted,
Alan Cummings
12/8/11
http://birdwalks.caltech.edu/index.html
11/21/11
We enveloped an odd cornucopia of a walk. We
were a whisker away from having double digit
birders and the birding wasn't too shabby either.
At 22 species, we tied the record for week 47,
although the fact that this required Alan to
invent a new category, "Pigeon, species" to pull it
off, makes it all seem a bit tainted. Still,
we'll take it. The last three weeks have
produced two record walks and a record tying walk.
See the plots at
http://birdwalks.caltech.edu/bird_data/species_time.html
and
http://birdwalks.caltech.edu/bird_data/two_plots.htm
I could almost lift the paragraph on mountain
chickadees from last week as we picked up yet
another of these unusual, for Caltech, little
birds. We have now had seven chickadee weeks
this year, or 44 % of all chickadee walks for the
Caltech bird walk. I can't say for sure what has
brought all of these chickadees to campus,
although I'm tempted to blame the Station fire.
Regardless, they seem to be having a very good
time with us and I hope the fond memories and,
hopefully, a high survival rate bring some of
them back next year.
We didn't see last week's common yellowthroat
again, but Darren saw him in one of the Dabney
garden olive trees on Tuesday morning, so that
bodes well for our chances next week and, if he
becomes at all reliable, it would help out a lot
with our warbler drought. We saw numerous
yellow-rumped warblers on the walk and picked up
a lucky orange-crowned warbler outside Dabney
garden, but we are still experiencing a serious
lack of Townsend's and black-throated grays. We
aren't getting any four warbler days.
I think, perhaps, the most entertaining part of
the walk for me was in the Maintenance yard where
an Anna's hummingbird did a display dive,
bottoming quite close to several of us. I didn't
see the object of his attention and I couldn't
hear the swoopy song that went with it, but I
could hear a click at the base of the dive, which
is pretty impressive.
Just outside Tournament Park, Darren picked up
the call of a western tanager. This led to a
string of birders scanning every tree and bush in
the vicinity, all to no avail; only a winsome
call held the afternoon and we became almost an
ode seeking an aberration in the spire balanced
echo of our bird, but it was a chrysalis moment
never born and we had only a vocalization. The
call was more than sufficiently distinctive to
justify naming the species, just as the northern
flicker call that Hannah and Darrell both jumped
on in Tournament Park was perfectly adequate.
For me, of course, it's a bit academic. Somehow,
a tanager vocalization, which I can only hear if
the bird is very close, just doesn't carry the
pleasure of a nice visual unless, of course, I
can hear it.
We are well outside the migration period for
western tanagers through our region, so this is
the winter of our bird. Most western tanagers
pass through on their way to or from Mexico or
Central America (i.e., they are neotropical
migrants) around weeks 20 and 40, based on
sightings in previous years, but a small
contingent winters in southern California. This
year, we had two sightings in successive weeks in
January, presumably a wintering bird and
potentially the same one, a sighting in week 13,
about a month before a normal migration
appearance, a sighting in week 34, about a month
before normal and now another winter sighting,
which as a matter of idle speculation, I point
out might even be the bird we saw this January.
Five western tanager sightings is the most we
have had in any year (versus three each in 1995
and 1999). I don't think this is like the turkey
vulture effect in which more eyes and ears on the
walk yield more birds. With the tanagers, we
went from nothing for five years to five, mostly
widely separated, sightings in one year. It's
an odd year for tanagers. It's an odd year for
chickadees. It's an odd year.
The date: 11/21/11
The week number: 47
The walk number: 1118
The weather: 60°F, partly cloudy
The walkers: Alan Cummings, Carole Worra, Viveca
Sapin-Areeda, John Beckett, Travis Cummings,
Darren Dowell, Ashish Mahabal, Vicky Brennan,
Hannah Dvorak-Carbone
The birds (22):
Northern Mockingbird
House Sparrow
House Finch
Anna's Hummingbird
Crow
Red-tailed Hawk
European Starling
Yellow-Rumped Warbler
Lesser Goldfinch
Bushtit
Mountain Chickadee
Cedar Waxwing
Black Phoebe
American Goldfinch
Western Tanager
Hummingbird, Selasphorus
Ruby-Crowned Kinglet
Northern Flicker
Bewick's Wren
Yellow-chevroned Parakeet
Orange-crowned Warbler
Pigeon, Species
--- John Beckett
Respectfully submitted,
Alan Cummings
11/23/11
http://birdwalks.caltech.edu/index.html
11/14/11
It was a day of endings. We ended up with 26
species, replacing the old record for week 46 of
25. The record tying bird, discussed below,
didn't appear until the last official part of the
walk, the Millikan ponds mallard search, which
incidentally yielded no mallards. The record
setting bird was acquired at virtually the last
possible second, a post-walk house finch outside
Cahill. We now have two record walks in a row.
Incidentally, the record for the next two weeks
is 22, which, barring bad weather, should be
accessible, hopefully without the histrionics.
See the plots at
http://birdwalks.caltech.edu/bird_data/species_time.html
and
http://birdwalks.caltech.edu/bird_data/two_plots.htm
Before discussing the bird of the week and a
non-bird of the week, I would like to mention the
mountain chickadee we intersected in a tree off
Michigan. This bird was visually coy but, in
aggregate, we ended up with a solid look and, of
course, he talked a lot. This is our sixth
chickadee week of the year and we are potentially
within reach of the nine chickadee sightings
obtained for all other years combined. Any stray
doubts about this being the year of the chickadee
must surely have dissipated by now.
So, what is the bird of the week? In Tournament
Park, Darren called a Townsend's warbler based on
vocalization. We had an instant highlight bird
because the Townsends (and black-throated gray
warblers) seem to have abandoned us after putting
in an appearance a few weeks ago. It is as if
the migrating warblers stopped by for a snack
before continuing south, as expected, but our
winter residents failed to show. That's
potentially bad news for us and very bad news for
the warblers, who are highly vulnerable to
habitat loss in their breeding areas, so I was
quite happy to hear that we might have an
overwintering bird. Unfortunately, Darren
decides that he isn't sure about the
identification and we weren't able to acquire a
visual or a follow-up vocalization. My highlight
bird had evaporated and it was so obvious that
the Townsend's warbler was going to be the
highlight bird of the week that I had given no
thought to a plan B.
I grant that every bird can be a highlight bird,
no matter how common the species might be and my
favorite write-ups actually tend to be about
relatively common species. I have no doubt that
one such bird from this week, moving in the
seamless soul of some subtle moment, would
eventually rise from a memory perched by this
more extravagant warbler's fluttering and call to
me for a tete a tete. Still, I have to admit a
feeling of disappointment over that Townsend. It
reminded me of a potter, whose name I regret to
say I've forgotten. He is giving a workshop and
demonstrates how to make a Voulkos plate, which
is a very distinctive looking thing, but then he
proceeds to drop the completed slab into a trash
can, the clay thunking to the audible gasps of
his audience. He was trying to make the point
that, although one should respect a past
accomplishment and look to it for technique and
inspiration, it was also important to explore new
things, to move on. There is, however, always a
loss in reducing form to formless. That plate,
still quivering from his careless and undeserved
blow, began to call to him. At first, the tone
was subtle but it called out of the trash can
tomb of his mind for years, to the point where he
even fired a few Voulkos-like plates. That lump
of clay, long ago pug-milled into some wobbly
beginner's mug, didn't care. The loss was a
moment and the moment was gone, a formed
potential never realized. He had found that
regret and grief are inherently impossible
because the moments from which they draw can
never be recovered. Will that never seen and
maybe never heard Townsend's warbler be calling
to Darren in a few years? Probably not. You
may regret not having a camera because of some
great pose in great light that you can never get
back. You may regret deciding not to go on some
birding expedition that would have yielded a
lifer but, once within, the nature of birding
constantly lends itself to the connection between
your skill and interest in identifying or
appreciating and the limits of what you can hear or
see at a given time. If you aren't sure but
think you could have been, you may choose to
practice, using less and less and absorbing
progressively more of the spectrum of look,
behavior, and sound for a species. You go from
clueless to nervously flipping through a field
guide to a definitive glance or a single note,
all taken for the same bird in the same place
doing the same thing. Your inability to
confidently identify a bird in a particular
moment is not a loss but a beginning.
Darren is an acolyte, or perhaps better stated,
Darren is an addict of Ernie's, the lunch truck
that serves campus during the week. Towards the
end of the walk, Darren generally peels off from
the group to buy lunch but he often catches up
with us before the end of the walk, as he did on
this occasion, although there was little left
beyond taking a turn around a set of turtle
infested, mallard free ponds. It looks like this
is going to be the show when Darren stops short
and announces the presence of a common
yellowthroat, somewhere in the pittosporum-Indian
hawthorn-agapanthus patch south of the middle
pond. It took some time to acquire a visual
confirmation as the bird had no intention of
showing itself, flying low to the ground and
making full use of twigs and leaves intervening
between birder and bird. Finally, however,
Travis gets a good enough look to pick up on the
flashy black facial mask that characterizes the
males of this warbler species. We had a serious
highlight!
Common yellowthroats are examples of birds that
are relatively common if you look in the right
place. For example, if you were to drive down to
Upper Newport Bay right now and work the reeds
near either of the Nature Centers, you would have
a pretty good chance of seeing one. At Caltech,
you get three, now four, sightings in 25 years.
Previous Caltech sightings, in September of 2002
and 2003 and in May of 2008, were probably
migrating common yellowthroats, which for us,
means birds from coastal California, either to
the north or south of us or upslope to the east.
They are nocturnal migrants but active on
stopover during the day, so we have a reasonable
shot at seeing a stopover bird. November is,
however, very late for a yellowthroat to be
migrating anywhere, so perhaps, this bird is
planning to stay around the ponds over the
winter, assuming we haven't completely freaked
him out. Generally, yellowthroats like it kind of
wet, so if this bird is planning a Caltech winter
stay, he is most likely to choose the Millikan
ponds as a home base.
Common yellowthroats are widespread throughout
the U.S. and the males, at least, are so
distinctive that minor taxonomic variables are
easily teased into something somebody is willing
to call a subspecies and this causes trouble.
Having at least 15 and, probably more, subspecies
may be a convenient short hand for distinguishing
regional populations but it is probably an abuse
of the subspecies game. DNA work, which might
reasonably be expected to weigh in on this
matter, is still relatively sparse. Available
data indicate identifiable genetic drifts between
some of the different "subspecies" but the
distances are not very large and it is teasing
the limits of what is plausibly a subspecies.
Expect some condensation.
Common yellowthroats have a complicated sex life.
They are socially monogamous. That is, a male
common yellowthroat will generally have one mate
whose brood he helps to feed, whose territory he
defends, and to whom he will sing, although the
frequency of singing declines after nesting
(i.e., singing is mostly for courtship and
advertisement). On the other hand, both
partners take full advantage of opportunities for
affairs. The male will mate or attempt to mate
with any female yellowthroat he runs across
during the breeding season and, if he is larger
than her nominal mate or has a larger facial
mask, she will not only accept him, she will go
out of her way to find him. Since she will
generally have a clutch of six or seven and lays
an egg a day, there are plenty of opportunities
to acquire the multiple fathers likely
represented in her brood. You might think this
behavior pattern is humanistic in a caricature
sort of way but it's such a studied approach that
this has to be a fundamental mechanism the
species has worked out to optimize the genetics.
The affairs are for later eggs and, if the
genetics are superior, the chick may do well in
spite of being younger than its siblings. If it
didn't work, the males would play the game like
mallards do - the genetic selection is made at
the courtship stage and, after that, a drake is
not good for much other than keeping other drakes
away from the hen. The male common yellowthroat
is very territorial and will attack any
transgressing male but he doesn't hover over his
mate trying to minimize extra-pair matings.
Instead, he'd rather make out with all the
neighboring females and this requires a certain
degree of flexibility on the home front.
The date: 11/14/11
The week number: 46
The walk number: 1117
The weather: 64°F, partly cloudy
The walkers: Alan Cummings, Travis Cummings,
Melanie Channon, Viveca Sapin-Areeda, Carole
Worra, John Beckett, Ashish Mahabal, Darren Dowell
The birds (26):
Northern Mockingbird
Mourning Dove
House Finch
Anna's Hummingbird
Acorn Woodpecker
Crow
Lesser Goldfinch
Yellow-Rumped Warbler
European Starling
Black Phoebe
Swift, sp.
Dark-eyed Junco
Orange-crowned Warbler
Ruby-crowned Kinglet
Cedar Waxwing
American Goldfinch
Hermit Thrush
House Wren
Red-tailed Hawk
Bewick's Wren
Common Raven
Mountain Chickadee
Bushtit
Cooper's Hawk
Hummingbird, Selasphorus
Common Yellowthroat
--- John Beckett
Respectfully submitted,
Alan Cummings
11/21/11
http://birdwalks.caltech.edu/index.html
11/7/11
There can be many patterns to a walk and, often,
these are overlain in conflicting and compliant
stripes. We may have many uncommon species and
the residents, perhaps intimidated into adjusting
schedules and placement by the hubbub, are
nowhere to be found. Sometimes, it is unusually
warm, wet, dry, cold, or windy conditions, or an
unusually low or high air pressure that dictates
the avian response. Sometimes, it's a hawks'
tale. This week, it was cool but pleasant and we
had a very strong showing from both regular and
near-regular birds for this time of year with
just the lightest dusting of special guest.
Constructive interference apparently worked,
leading us to a new record for week 45 with 24
species, one more than the previous record of 23.
See the plots at
http://birdwalks.caltech.edu/bird_data/species_time.html
and
http://birdwalks.caltech.edu/bird_data/two_plots.htm
If you look at probabilities for each of the
birds in today's list, you would conclude, with
one glaring exception, that all were typical of
the birds expected at Caltech at this time of the
year and most of them could be seen at any time
of the year. Each of these "common" birds can be
special and, if it hadn't been for the highlight
bird, I'm sure that some thoughtful consideration
would have surfaced about one or more of them.
After all, even a bird that is very common for us
may be very rare nearby and visa versa. This
week's highlight bird, a Canadian goose, is an
example. Wander over to the LA Arboretum and you
can see them by the dozen. Given the right time
and right habitat, a Canada goose that is seen
three times in two decades at Caltech (now four)
becomes an everyday occurrence and visa versa.
Each person has different reasons for birding.
It may be a game with life lists, county lists,
country lists, home lists, year lists, month
lists, week lists and/or day lists. You may like
the socialization or the opportunity to leave the
nattering hordes of grad students behind for a
little while. You may just need a convenient
excuse for a little light exercise. It may be
driven by an appreciation of the natural world or
of islands in the avian deserts we create in our
cities. The purpose may lie in contemplation or
solitude. Maybe you need something to do while
on a walk. I don't have a life list, although I
do maintain a list for birds seen on my property
but I started getting mildly serious about
identifying birds as a consequence of a knee
injury to my wife. During her recovery, we would
go on verrrrry slow walks, much less than a mile
an hour (try it sometime; it's harder than it
sounds). So, I started photographing anything
that plopped down in front of us and, since I was
only familiar with the thirty or forty most
common birds in our area, I was soon left with
not knowing what I had shot. That required
research but I don't keep a list because I want
each bird I encounter to be daring. I want to
see the nuance in an old face, something that
slides beyond a cursory name. I want it to be
fresh.
In many ways, our highlight bird was an odd
capture. Generally, Canadian geese are all about
family and you will usually see more than one
goose at a time composing families or family
groups. You will see a trail of five, the
epitome of a fifties human household, with Dad in
front, the children in the middle and Mom at the
end. It's always in that order. I'll have to
admit that I thought our goose was a duck but I
didn't get a glass on it and only saw the bird at
the tail end of the sighting. Travis got a solid
visual that brought out the prominent cheek patch
and he also heard a honk. Case closed.
One generally thinks of the Canada goose as a
strongly migratory species, flitting from one end
of the country to the other and there is a group
of these birds from the midwest that winters in
southern California. There's no telling where
Travis' goose came from but the Arboretum birds
are resident, although they do appear to get
zugunruhe, that stir crazy thyroid crashing
anxiety that precedes migration. There is much
honking and the flock lines up on the lawn in the
mid-morning sun after a good breakfast.
Suddenly, they are off in a ragged vee, swirling
around the field twice, gaining altitude and then
flying off towards the east, the vee getting
progressively tighter. They are off on their
annual migration to the Santa Fe Recreation Area,
at least that's what a long time groundskeeper at
the Arboretum once told me. The Arboretum geese
have a serious migration of twenty miles.
Speciation among Canadian geese has been
contentious for a long time and there are a lot
of subspecies, as a casual drift through Sibley
will show. However, the cackling goose, formerly
a subspecies of Canada goose, officially split
off as a separate species as of 2004, according
to the American Ornithological Union. So, if you
are one of those life list types and you remember
seeing an adult plumage "Canada goose" that
wasn't that much bigger than a mallard, you may
be able to up your life list count by one. Isn't
DNA a wonderful thing?
The Caltech birdwalk is a fey weave that doesn't
always yield a pattern but, sometimes, even the
ambiguity of a nonpattern has structure and
definition. Perhaps, the most dramatic portion
of this week's walk came towards the end. Viveca
and I split off to check the shefflera outside
Braun for house sparrows while the rest of the
group continues up Wilson. We net the house
sparrows very quickly but then we started getting
glimpses of a more elusive bird. It had a solid
gray bill (ergo not a house sparrow or a
white-crowned sparrow) and a whitish throat, with
a slight speckling on a less whitish breast.
Could it be a white-throated sparrow? We didn't
have a field guide to help us pick the right
field markings to concentrate on but we continued
working the bird, although we never got a
seriously good look. Finally, upon realizing
that we had completely lost contact with the main
group, we had to leave the sparrow to its own
devices and hope that we hadn't completely lost
Alan. In the mean time, the main group had
finally realized that Viveca was absent. It is
standard practice for people to "peel off" at
various points in the walk as dictated by time or
need but "Viveca never peels off." Then they
realized that I was also missing and "John never
peels off," so the main group had a burgeoning
mystery. It eventually became clear that we
hadn't been abducted by aliens, as we caught up
with them on Michigan Avenue. The nascent
fluttering anxiety of the flock is smoothed but I
immediately go after Alan's Sibley Guide to look
up white-throated sparrows and it starts to get
exciting again. I remembered white throat and
gray bill for this species, this not being a bird
I had much familiarity with, but I was clueless
beyond that and I had forgotten a key ingredient
for identification. White-throated sparrows have
yellow lores, the feathers between the eyes and
bill. I hadn't seen any such yellow and, given
the lighting, I'm reasonably but not completely
sure that I would have picked up on prominent
yellow lores, were they as flashy as the Sibley
suggested. Also, the Sibley drawings implied
that the white throat patch is more prominent
than what I had seen. So, I was now rather
uncertain about this bird. If the find is real,
it would be extraordinary, not merely for
Caltech, but also for LA County (i.e., this is a
seriously rare bird for our area). So, what
could we do but detour back to the Braun
shefflera to see if our sparrow could be coaxed
out for a better viewing? Didn't work. We
picked up on several house sparrows but a
white-throated sparrow made no appearance in
spite of posting birders to cover every possible
angle. Based on photos I've since seen on-line,
the yellow lores are not always really obvious,
especially in winter but they are always around
and, given the rarity of the species, probably a
must for a southern California identification.
Had I seen those yellow lores, I would happily
call the bird and attribute the later absence to
bad luck for everybody else, but I didn't see them
and can only say c'est le vie.
The date: 11/7/11
The week number: 45
The walk number: 1116
The weather: 61°F, sunny
The walkers: Alan Cummings, Travis Cummings, John
Beckett, Ashish Mahabal, Viveca Sapin-Areeda,
Kent Potter, Darren Dowell, Vicky Brennan, Tom
Palfrey
The birds (24):
Rock Pigeon
Scrub Jay
Northern Mockingbird
House Sparrow
Mourning Dove
House Finch
Anna's Hummingbird
Crow
Yellow-rumped Warbler
American Goldfinch
Black Phoebe
Ruby-crowned Kinglet
Northern Flicker
Hummingbird, Selasphorus
Red-tailed Hawk
Spotted Towhee
Bushtit
Common Raven
Cedar Waxwings
Hawk Species, Accipiter
Band-tailed Pigeon
Canadian Goose
Lesser Goldfinch
European Starling
--- John Beckett
Respectfully submitted,
Alan Cummings
11/14/11
http://birdwalks.caltech.edu/index.html