The Networked Bird Observatory Blog

There were some great shots of the Wild Turkey today. Here are my favorites, by vanilla and kryptonkay, respectively:

I really like these two shots txbird got this morning of a male Great-tailed Grackle showing off:

The latest post on Craig Newmark’s personal blog: My black-headed grosbeaks are back!

kryptonkay also pointed out this item he posted the other day: Butterball the hawk is back!

We don’t get as many shots from Craig’s deck these days, but the ones we get are really nice. In a way, it’s like we never really lost CONE Sutro Forest. We just got a dramatic upgrade in the camera’s command-and-control subsystem.

I’ve mentioned how I’m not sure what species the hummingbirds that aren’t Buff-bellied are; it’s clear that they’re either Ruby-throated or Black-chinned, but without a good view of the color of the male’s throat (which requires that the sun be behind us as we look at him), it’s really hard to distinguish the two.

I missed it at the time, but vireo got a shot of a hummingbird perched on one of the feeder wires yesterday that answered that question:

It’s not a great shot; it’s pretty much impossible to get the camera to focus when zoomed in on a small target like that with most of the field taken up by the more-distant background. But you can see the color of his throat: that’s Ruby-throated red, not Black-chinned purple.

That was pretty cool, but the series of shots that several users got this afternoon were even better. txbird got my favorite:

Awesome shot!

User rafa is getting a lot of amazing shots lately. But I think this might be my favorite so far. I’d give this shot six stars if I could:

I haven’t seen one of these since I was 12 years old, and lived with my grandparents in Florida for a time. That’s when I first became obsessively interested in birds, and I can still remember what a thrill it was when I saw an Indigo Bunting for the first time.

That was more than 30 years ago, but I felt that same excitement when I saw this shot of rafa’s today. Please keep those great shots coming.

I was really blown away when I saw the quality of the hummingbird shots people were getting today. Especially when the feeders are moving around in the wind, it can be really challenging to get a zoomed-in shot that is in sharp focus.

Here’s a shot of a male that vireo got:

Here’s a female by avatar99:

And another shot of a female by rafa:

I entered an ID of Ruby-throated Hummingbird on these, though I’m not very confident of that ID; going just by the images these could easily be Black-chinned. I’m really curious if we can get more information about when and in what numbers the two species occur at Welder.

No problems on IDing these next two shots, both by vireo: They’re Buff-bellied all the way. Gorgeous!

Wow. I know it took a little extra time to get here, but the new system was really worth the wait, wouldn’t you say?

One of the first surprises I got was this jaunty little fella (along with his mate, sometimes) hanging out on the suet feeder in front of the pond:

That shot was by birderbf, taken April 30. A Rose-breasted Grosbeak is a pretty exciting bird for me; growing up outside their normal range, I always thought they looked neat in the field guide, but never got to see one.

I practically fell out of my chair when I saw this Wild Turkey strutting around:

That’s a shot I got April 29; I also really liked this action shot taken by vanilla the same day:

A bird that had me mystified during the alpha test was this guy, though after some help from the other users I’m pretty comfortable calling it a Bronzed Cowbird (this shot was by achadamaia on April 30):

But the hands-down most exciting bird (for me at least) since CONE Welder went live is this Barred Owl. vanilla and kryptonkay each got a shot of it late last night; this is the shot taken by vanilla:

All in all, I’d say it’s been a pretty smashing first couple of days. I can’t wait to see what comes next. See you on the birdcam!

I posted previously about my interest in the earliest and latest shots (in terms of time of day) successfully ID’d in the system. Now that the game has ended, there’s a final winner in each of those categories.

The earliest shot ID’d was this one, taken by kiddo on June 7 at 5:31:12 a.m.:

The American Robin showed up frequently in the crack-of-dawn photos, as you can see from this list of the 10 days with the earliest identified shots:

+-----------------------+---------------------+-------+------------------+
| user                  | time                | id    | bird             |
+-----------------------+---------------------+-------+------------------+
| kiddo                 | 2007-06-07 05:31:12 | 14770 | American Robin   |
| elanus                | 2007-05-21 05:31:40 | 11253 | American Robin   |
| elanus                | 2007-06-06 05:33:35 | 14565 | Mourning Dove    |
| noho_bird_club        | 2007-06-14 05:34:35 | 16229 | American Robin   |
| lal                   | 2007-06-12 05:38:34 | 15804 | Mourning Dove    |
| elanus                | 2007-05-06 05:38:57 |  6585 | American Robin   |
| kiddo                 | 2007-05-26 05:40:59 | 12404 | American Robin   |
| lal                   | 2007-06-13 05:41:13 | 16006 | House Finch      |
| lal                   | 2007-06-21 05:44:36 | 17955 | House Finch      |
| tom kellie in beijing | 2007-06-24 05:48:04 | 18576 | Lesser Goldfinch |
+-----------------------+---------------------+-------+------------------+

The winner for latest identified photo was this one, taken by killeshin at 8:46:20 p.m. on June 30:

If the American Robin was the champion early riser, the Mourning Dove was the king of late night, as you can see from this list of the days with the latest identified photos:

+--------------+---------------------+-------+----------------+
| user         | time                | id    | bird           |
+--------------+---------------------+-------+----------------+
| killeshin    | 2007-06-30 20:46:20 | 20009 | Mourning Dove  |
| qmodo        | 2007-06-29 20:42:47 | 19850 | Mourning Dove  |
| oxomoxo      | 2007-06-28 20:42:15 | 19620 | Mourning Dove  |
| rookie       | 2007-06-25 20:40:24 | 19038 | Mourning Dove  |
| rookie       | 2007-06-24 20:37:39 | 18810 | Mourning Dove  |
| killeshin    | 2007-07-01 20:36:20 | 20228 | Mourning Dove  |
| rookie       | 2007-06-05 20:34:10 | 14564 | Mourning Dove  |
| killeshin    | 2007-07-18 20:33:37 | 23446 | Mourning Dove  |
| rookie       | 2007-06-27 20:32:11 | 19400 | Mourning Dove  |
| ttinin       | 2007-05-21 20:30:23 | 11506 | American Robin |
+--------------+---------------------+-------+----------------+

Anyway, congratulations to kiddo and killeshin!

It looks like vanilla got the last shot on the birdcam. It was this one of a Chestnut-backed Chickadee, taken at 12:22 this afternoon:

Congratulations, vanilla!

robin54 pointed out the following very cool image, taken by birdbrain last Thursday at 3:49 p.m.:

If you squint a little you can see a woman’s face in the leaves in the background. It’s totally like the Face on Mars!

On a sadder note, tomorrow (Sunday, November 18, 2007) is Shutdown Day for the CONE Sutro Forest birdcam. I’m not sure whether or not the camera will be operating tomorrow; it would be nice if we had one more day to play with it, but I guess we’ll have to wait and see.