Great Backyard Bird Count begins Feb 16, and I am ramping up for it. Not that I do more than guesstimate how many house sparrows and white-wing and eurasian collared doves I see from the general boil around feeders.
I exaggerate. There are the curve-bill thrashers, mockingbird, and blue jays plus the starling or two nearby and passing grackles. Also known as "the regulars."
Who knows? There might be a surprise of two if I look carefully.
This morning was the first I've seen of a starling coming to the platform watering pan. Messy drinker, splashed itself and the environs while drinking. But this is a warm day after a mild night, and the nearest standing water is at the stream in the canyon a mile away. A black bird is likely feeling the heat after 9 a.m. But then why aren't the grackles coming for water? Rare when they do.
Yesterday I dropped by the arboretum at Clapp Park for a look-see. Pair of kildeer in the pathways east of the G&A center. Some fast-moving sparrows I couldn't get a look at. A streaked bird high in the evergreens, and some largish dark colored sparrows that might have been field sparrows or fox sparrows. The latter I watched from the car while they took a sand bath in leaves near the fence and had plenty of time to make an ID but I didn't have a a bird book with me and with my poor short term memory have trouble remembering salient details.
Might have been a pine siskin in the pine trees.
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