The Networked Bird Observatory Blog

It’s been quite finch-y at the birdcam lately, with lots of House Finches and Lesser Goldfinches, but fewer, it seems to me, of the other birds. Maybe that’s just sampling bias on my part, though; I haven’t been able to spend as much time as I’d like looking through the camera lately.

Anyway, here are my favorite shots from yesterday.

Several of us got shots of this female House Finch. I was interested by the little tufts on top of her head, which led me to believe she’s a recent fledgling. Here’s a shot taken by kryptonkay at 11:41:

I also was very interested by this Mourning Dove. Again, I think we’re looking at a recent fledgling, one that hasn’t had time to grow in that long, beautiful tail that mature Mourning Doves have, and whose feathers have a curious mottled, camouflage appearance. Here are a couple of shots taken by buzzie at 5:11 p.m. and 5:27 p.m.:

Finally, here’s a very interesting pair of shots taken by frodo at 6:59 p.m. The other users on the site classified them as Allen’s Hummingbird, which I can see if I squint a little, though I bet it was much more clear if you saw the video in real-time than it is from these shots:

If you’re having a hard time seeing where the hummingbird is in that shot, here’s a shot taken after he left:

I think it’s neat that you get an actual shot at the iridescent throat, or gorget, of this male hummer; so far I’d never seen a good shot of that with the birdcam. Since the camera mainly faces southeast, and since the sun in the northern hemisphere tends to track across the southern sky, it’s hard for us to get a good view with the sun at our backs, which is pretty much what you need to get the full effect of a male hummingbird’s gorget. But in this case it was late in the day, with the sun low in the west, and the hummingbird apparently was far enough to the left in the camera’s field of view to give us a favorable angle. The result: A very nice pair of shots.

If that whets your appetite for some better views, check out these amazing shots by Doug Morgan: Hummingbird gorget displays. The last two, of a Rufous Hummingbird, are especially interesting to compare to these shots of frodo’s, but some of the earlier ones of the Calliope Hummingbird will really knock your socks off.

My favorite shots from yesterday were these three interesting close-ups:

spurdin got this beautiful shot of the Western Scrub-Jay at 12:37:

Crows and jays are supposed to be among the most intelligent of birds, and this shot certainly conveys that; the bird could be posing for a Rodin sculpture, seated atop the Gates of Hell contemplating the fate of birdkind.

widget got this shot at 1:30. I love that even though it’s completely out of focus, there’s no doubt at all about what bird it shows. I added the comment, “Warning: Objects in birdcam may be larger than they appear!”

Finally, there was a series of really nice close-ups of the Mourning Dove; here’s my favorite, taken by buzzie at 6:32 p.m.:

There were no new species yesterday, but it seemed like every time I glanced at the birdcam there was something interesting going on.

My favorite shot of the day was this one, taken at 1:39 p.m. by spurdin. It shows a female House Sparrow feeding a fledgling:

Here’s another view of what I assume was the same fledgling, taken by sunbird two minutes later:

What I assume to be the same fledgling (or maybe its brother or sister; I don’t know my immature House Sparrow gender differences) showed up later in the day by the birdbath; I got these two shots at 3:52:

There was also a nice, bright male Lesser Goldfinch that put in an appearance at one point. A few users voted for American Goldfinch, and I can understand the sentiment, but no; between the darkish beak, the extent of black on the head, and the dark back he’s pretty clearly a Lesser. We totally could get an American at the feeders someday, and it’s worth checking out all the goldfinches just in case, but no luck this time.

Anyway, I got this shot of him at 4:00:

And this one at 4:11:

rookie got this nice shot of him at 4:12:

Finally, while no one got four species in one shot like noho_bird_club did yesterday, there were a couple of threes, and one almost-three. First was this fuzzy shot, which, if you take the time to study it, reveals a male House Sparrow, a female House Finch, and down low, in the back, a Chestnut-backed Chickadee. It was taken by vireo at 2:56:

There was also this picture, which I took at 3:40. Something about the way the American Robin was bathing looked absolutely irresistible to the two House Finches watching. After the robin left they jumped in and took their turns.

There actually was also a Pygmy Nuthatch that flitted in and landed on the left side of the birdbath a couple of times while these others were there. I tried to get a shot each time it did so, but I was always too late; it only stayed a second or two each time. If I could have got that shot it would have made my day. Maybe next time.

Finally, I got this shot at 4:35. It’s only three species, but it’s a lot of individual birds. There’s a Mourning Dove on the left end of the T-bar, four House Finches (I think) on the sunflower seed feeder, and a male House Sparrow and (maybe?) another House Finch in the ball:

All in all, another fine day of birdcamming. 🙂