Thank you so much for this report, Anthony! I am heading over to Clapp now.
Really hope to spot the buntings - haven’t seen them yet.
Sent from my iPhone
On May 1, 2020, at 1:21 PM, Anthony Hewetson <fattonybirds@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Greetings All:
I was under the impression that this morning was supposed to be
fantastic for migrants so I headed back to the park for a couple of
hours before getting a later star to work today.
Things were quite a bit slower this morning than they were yesterday
but, thanks in part to the sharp eyes of Brad Shine, I picked up some
goodies.
My first two empids of the season ended up being Least Flycatchers and
one was somewhat darker than the other, leading to speculation that we
might have had two species - no such luck! There was a small flock of
latish American Goldfinches (I saw two of them) and a latish Pine
Siskin. Chipping Sparrows were down to 72 or so and Clay-colored
Sparrows were down to 30 or so but we did see a Cassin's Sparrow and
fairly pale Brewer's Sparrow. We also had a 2 Lincoln's Sparrows and
2 White-crowned Sparrows pushing on into May as well as 2+
Green-tailed Towhees. Warblers were pretty sparse but we did get on a
Northern Waterthrush ... and I heard a rumour that Brad picked up a
MacGillivray's Warbler after I left. Buntings were on fire: we had 1
female and 1 male Lazuli Bunting, 1 female and 4 male Indigo Buntings,
and 1 female Painted Bunting under the oaks by Shrubhenge - 1 male
Lazuli Bunting and 1 female Painted Buntings in the arboretum by the
stone benches - and 1 female Painted Bunting along the west edge of
the main playa. The buntings under the oaks seemed glued to their
location so I feel the outliers were, indeed, different birds.
Mars needs warblers!
Anthony Hewetso
