Woohoo! It’s great to finally get a California Towhee with the birdcam. kryptonkay got the honor of the first photo, last Sunday at 9:00 a.m.:
Then there was another one by kryptonkay, and a bunch by idbirds, yesterday, of which my favorite was this one:
Congratulations, both of you!
I didn’t notice at the time, but these four excellent shots of a female (or maybe first-year male?) oriole were taken on Thursday. The first is by birdbrain; the other three by robin54:
Early voting favored Bullock’s Oriole, but after looking through my Sibley I think I lean toward Hooded. Actually, I think the bird could easily be either one, and don’t see any compelling reason to swing one way or the other. So I went with Hooded, since we’ve previously photographed a definite Hooded with the birdcam, such that we know they’re there.
When I first looked at the photos, all four were ID’d as Bullock’s. My dissenting vote was sufficient to throw three of them into “Disputed”, but one (the last one) is still listed as Bullock’s.
Anyway, identification questions aside, these are great shots. Thanks to birdbrain and robin54 for getting them!
Update: As of August 23, 2007, enough non-Bullock’s votes have been entered to put all four images back into “disputed” status. So the system’s species count is reduced by 1 (to 24, currently). Personally, I think that’s probably for the best.
I’ve added a restriction that users can only post comments to the site without going through the moderation queue if they have previously posted an approved comment. I think that should stop the pornographic comment spam we’d started to pick up, at the cost of making newcomers’ comments take a little longer to appear.
Please let me know if you notice anything icky slipping through. In the meantime, party on, birdcammers! 
Here are a couple of really nice action photos that were taken today. annelizabeth took this great shot of a Steller’s Jay at 7:32 a.m. I can practically hear that raspy call:
At 7:41 p.m. killeshin got this spectacular shot of a male House Finch feeding a fledgling:
Apologies, again, for how little I’ve been posting to the blog lately. Too much going on in my real life, not enough time to obsess properly.
Something I enjoyed when I paged back through some of the recent photos, though, was the baby American Robin (or robins) that have been showing up at the birdbath.
Here’s the first shot I’ve come across of the little tyke(s). It was taken by killeshin back on June 27 at 7:22 p.m.:
killeshin also got this one at the same time:
Two days later, on June 29, killeshin go these two shots of what certainly could be the same bird at 5:20 and 5:21 p.m.:
On June 30 at 7:02 p.m., kryptonkay got these two shots of what looks to me like the male robin showing baby how to bathe. The young bird looks lighter than the ones we’ve seen in the previous shots, which makes me wonder if it’s a different individual. But I suppose it could easily be due to a difference in lighting and camera settings:
Finally, yesterday (Monday, July 9), kryptonkay got these two shots of a juvenile robin at 10:14 a.m., including one shot where a floating eucalyptus leaf in the water merges with the bird to give it a decidedly brownish look:
Great shots!
As kryptonkay pointed out today, you never know who’s going to show up at the birdbath. Like this guy (or gal): a beautiful adult light-phase Red-tailed Hawk. Umpteen photos were taken (though none by me; I’ve been very busy lately, and my birdcam obsession has suffered).
Anyway, check out these awesome photos, and thanks to the following photographers: idbirds (who got the honor of the first shot), kryptonkay, lal, and kellychitwood. Congratulations, all of you!
P.S. Craig has posted another image of the same bird on his blog: A surprise, first thing in the morning, right outside the window.