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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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Feb 13, 2012 - 01:09am PT
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My homie David Schultz shot this up at the Boundary Bay Snowy Owl Rendezvous.
He said he counted 30 that day!
Is this too freaking much? I love the WaitingForGodot touch.
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Tony
Trad climber
Pt. Richmond, CA
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Feb 13, 2012 - 02:23pm PT
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I'm just trying to learn how to embed videos. This one is on my SmugMug page, perhaps it will be better to use YouTube or Vimeo. Anyone have experience with these?
Anyway, here is a pair of Red-necked Phalaropes at the Loch of Funzie on the Shetland isle of Fetlar. It's a little long, but at about 2:00 there is skirmish with another pair. A sidenote is that Phalaropes show reverse sexual dimorphism, so the females are the larger, brighter ones. After laying eggs, they leave to let the males continue from there to let the males incubate and rear the young.
[Click to View YouTube Video]
Edit: That didn't work very well. I am in the process of setting it up to be embedded via a YouTube
Edit: Done
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cyndiebransford
climber
31 years in Joshua Tree, now Alaska
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Feb 13, 2012 - 02:48pm PT
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Red-necked Phalaropes are my favorite bird, thanks Tony.
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Tony
Trad climber
Pt. Richmond, CA
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Feb 13, 2012 - 02:59pm PT
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Cyndie,
I guess you get to see them a lot in Alaska. This is the only place I have seen them in full breeding regalia with the associated behavior.
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Tony
Trad climber
Pt. Richmond, CA
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Feb 13, 2012 - 04:34pm PT
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Redpoll in San Diego County at a birdwatching store feeder, eh? The cynic in me makes me think of the movie Rare Birds, where a struggling restaurateur (William Hurt) concocts a rare bird sighting to lure the business of birders.
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Willoughby
Social climber
Truckee, CA
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Feb 13, 2012 - 04:42pm PT
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On the surface that would definitely seem fishy, but redpolls are turning up all over state this winter, NV too. It's completely unprecedented, both in terms of numbers, and how far south they've reached.
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Tony
Trad climber
Pt. Richmond, CA
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Feb 13, 2012 - 04:52pm PT
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Willoughby,
Yes, I'm sure it is a real vagrant, but it was fun to think of life imitating art.
On a serious note, is there any reason to think this is related to a common cause with the Snowy Owl irruption?
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Bob D'A
Trad climber
Taos, NM
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Feb 14, 2012 - 01:16am PT
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Cool shot of a Great Blue Heron I took today near Pilar, NM just above the Rio Grande.
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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Feb 14, 2012 - 01:18am PT
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Nice one, Bob! Dood thinks he's a Roadrunner! HaHaHa!
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Todd Gordon
Trad climber
Joshua Tree, Cal
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Feb 14, 2012 - 02:07am PT
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Willoughby
Social climber
Truckee, CA
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Feb 14, 2012 - 02:28am PT
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On a serious note, is there any reason to think this is related to a common cause with the Snowy Owl irruption?
Certainly seems reasonable BUT Snowy Owl irruptions are very closely linked with lemming/vole cycles. Redpolls eat very few lemmings. Almost none, really. Same with Gyrfalcons, and there have been a few of them this winter too. Anyway, the lemmings spike up, and then the owls track right behind them. The lemmings crash and then the owls have to head south or starve. It's super fun for us to see 'em in the lower 48, but it's indicative of a really rough time for the birds. Safe to say most won't make it.
I don't have a clue what could be driving all these redpolls down here. The weather's been so mild, there's really no reason for them to keep pushing south. E.g., there's been a redpoll in Lassen Co. for a few months now, yet others are just showing up as one-day-wonders. Mono County has had two so far, but one smacked a window and didn't make it. Migration's a costly endeavor, so it's quite a mystery how they'd wind up in San Diego (!!!) or Clark County, NV. Maybe they had a banner reproductive year too, and some density-dependent switch got flipped.
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StahlBro
Trad climber
San Diego, CA
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Feb 14, 2012 - 05:57pm PT
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Here is the Common Redpoll on the feeder in Julian (saw it this morning). Supposedly the 9th sighting in CA since the late 1800's. Sorry for the crappy pic, but didn't have the good camera. It was there every 15 min or so.
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Willoughby
Social climber
Truckee, CA
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Feb 14, 2012 - 10:05pm PT
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Supposedly the 9th sighting in CA since the late 1800's.
Some context:
There were big flocks of Common Redpolls at Eagle Lake in the winter of 1899-1900. Then it wasn't until 1969 that CA saw another one, a single bird in Humboldt. Winter of '86 brought more flocks down to Tule/Klamath, '91 and '02 brought singles, three scattered singles in '04, and one in '05, almost all restricted to the northernmost counties of the state. There have been others reported, but these are just the California Bird Records Committee-endorsed records. Not sure about '06-'11, but I can't recall any off the top of my head.
But never has there been such a scatter, nor birds reaching so far south. I think Sierra Valley was the southernmost record prior to this year. This year there have been singles all over the damn place (Mammoth, June Lake, Quincy, McArthur, Julian) and a few singles in NV as well.
I've been watching my feeder like a HAWK for months, but so far no dice.
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Tony Bird
climber
Northridge, CA
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Feb 15, 2012 - 11:29am PT
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i think i told this tale on the global warming thread, but it bears repetition here.
a couple summers ago my brother in kenai, alaska, complained of being kept up at night by the most irritating whistling sound. a combination of constant whistling and the proverbial cat's claw on a blackboard. i knew what it was because i'm a carpenter who occasionally sharpens his own handsaws. the culprit was a saw-whet owl, come quite a ways north from its usual range.
you fellas are all better birders than me, so i'm assuming you can tell the difference between a redpoll, a purple finch, a cassin's finch and a house finch. those little buggers gonna have to hold still a long time for me to do it. but i can tell you one thing. a redpoll is about the same size as a lemming. the only feasts would be at the bottom of the cliff.
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Willoughby
Social climber
Truckee, CA
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Feb 15, 2012 - 01:11pm PT
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A couple of Northern Pygmy-Owls duetting in Camp 4 woke everybody up around 0600 hrs a few Saturdays back. Those little owls can be LOUD when they want to be.
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Bob D'A
Trad climber
Taos, NM
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Feb 15, 2012 - 11:27pm PT
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matty
Trad climber
under the sea
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Feb 17, 2012 - 12:42am PT
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Will be going to the salton sea sunday. I've never been before. Any advice? Thx-
Matt
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SteveW
Trad climber
The state of confusion
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Feb 17, 2012 - 12:44am PT
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It's the great backyard bird count this weekend, folks.
Get those binocs out and start counting.
Then post your results. . .
go here. . .
http://www.birdsource.org/gbbc/
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Slater
Trad climber
Central Coast
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Feb 17, 2012 - 07:55pm PT
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Went out to Lopez Lake, in Arroyo Grande California on Friday. Lots of fun birds.
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