You just never know. It's been a heck of a weather day with heavy squalls and wind lashing at our campus while I've been teaching. I really wanted to go out and get some exercise and look for a few birds but it didn't seem to be in the cards. But somehow the students finished their lab a bit early, and...the sun came out for a few precious minutes. I wandered over to the "mini-wilderness", the drainage pond and sheep pasture that is the nearest thing to a wild area on our campus. I noticed an oddly colored bird on a fence, and when I focused in I realized I was up closer than ever before to our resident rarity: a Cassin's Kingbird (Tyrannus vociferans). I posted pictures of the Cassin's Kingbird only a month ago, but I was thrilled to get such clear close-ups today.
It is a real surprise to see this bird here. Western Kingbirds flood into the region in the spring and are a common sight during the summer months, but it is a tropical species that migrates south to Mexico for the winter. The Cassin's Kingbird is a related species, but it rarely gets this far north, so this individual is a real outlier, especially since it's been staying here through the winter (I've been observing it off and on since the summer of 2016). I do wonder if we can expect to see more of them as the climate warms up and conditions here become more to their liking.
I don't absolutely know that they were fighting, but it sure looked like it. In the early spring and summer the males might participate in a "fencing duel", but this is the fall. There may have been a territorial thing going on. But in any case I got to witness the spectacle of a pair of male Northern Flickers (Colaptes auratus) chasing each other from tree to tree along the Tuolumne River Parkway Trail the other day.
The Flickers are woodpeckers, but they spend a lot of their time on the ground searching for insects like beetles and ants. They'll peck the ground to chase down their quarry. They'll also eat berries at certain times of the year.
I'll often hear them before I see them. Their call is quite distinctive.
Just a quick single picture tonight. This is a Yellow-billed Magpie (Pica nuttalli), one of California's
very few endemic bird species. Endemics are those species that are found in one place and nowhere else in the world, and this magpie fits the bill very nicely. It is common in California's Great Valley and the Coast Ranges, and is found nowhere else. We almost lost it a decade ago when the West Nile virus decimated the flocks. More than half the population was wiped out. Luckily a few seemed to have had some resistance to the virus and the populations have stabilized somewhat, although not yet to the number that existed prior to 2004 when the virus arrived.
I was thrilled to see a flock of more than a hundred of the Yellow-billed Magpies flying over the campus of CSU Stanislaus a few weeks ago. I've seen as many as two dozen or so at a time on the bluffs above the Tuolumne River in Waterford in recent weeks as well. There are also at least two dozen living on the west campus of Modesto Junior College.
This one that I saw today was obviously saying that it was the center of the Universe by making sure it was framed correctly by the barbed wire.
One of the dependable birds that I see on my walks along the Tuolumne River are the American Kestrels (Falco sparverius). They are certainly not as common as Starlings or Scrub Jays, but there is a pair that consistently shows up in the treetops. I'm not usually close enough for good shots, but once in awhile one of them perches in near the trail keeping an eye on me. That's how I got this shot yesterday.
I caught the Kestrel pair last August in the top of one of the huge oak trees along the river. I have no idea if they had a nest this year or not, but I'll be watching more carefully as spring rolls around.
The Bushtits (Psaltriparus minimus) are busy little birds of the underbrush. They barely ever stop moving in their search for small insects, hopping from branch to branch like little Energizer Bunnies. And they are as cute as a bird can be, with their little beaks and furry looking ping-pong ball bodies.
The females have different-looking eyes and seem a little bit more stern (I featured them two months ago). The black eyes of the males make them simply look like toys. If you live in the American West, you have a pretty good chance of spying these birds, in any place with lots of open shrubs. They forage together in flocks of a few dozen individuals. But good luck getting pictures! They rarely pause in their work.
It's getting to be the holiday season, and folks are thinking of trimming and decorating Christmas trees. The avian folks along the Tuolumne Parkway Trail had their own idea of how a tree should be decorated, using around 145 of themselves as ornaments. These beautiful birds are Cedar Waxwings (Bombycilla cedrorum), who tend to show up around here in the fall and winter as they migrate south.
I couldn't get near enough for a close-up, so here's a shot from last January at MJC...
Let's face it: Turkey Vultures (Cathartes aura) can be really creepy. Not so much when they're soaring on the thermals; that's when they are actually beautiful. No, it's when they are perched on the branches right over your head staring at you. It's like they're hoping you'll have a heart attack so they can have some lunch.
I was walking along the Mokelumne River this morning near the fish hatchery just below Camanche Reservoir. I had not yet reached the river and was looking for other birds, but I couldn't help but notice that nearly every tree had a Turkey Vulture perching on the top branches. They were all over the place. So yeah, a bit creepy.
As I got closer to the river I heard odd splashing sounds, and suddenly it occurred to me. It was the Chinook Salmon run! The spot where I was walking is the end of the road for the salmon, as Camanche Reservoir blocks their upstream progress. I wondered if there was a fish ladder, and there was, but it led only into the fish hatchery where workers collect the eggs for rearing in the complex. The fish ladder was closed, presumably because their holding tanks were full, so the upper pool of the river was full of Chinook trying to go farther upstream. And the vultures were waiting for a tasty lunch.
Here's a short video of the fish swimming in the Mokelumne River.
