April Recap
In case you missed it you can find last month's newsletter here: april newsletter
april bird walk
Last month we went on a bird walk at Las Gallinas Wildlife Ponds in San Rafael.
We saw a lot of birds.
The red-winged black birds were likely the most common sighting and definitely the most noisy.
The females are also very pretty and look quite different.
A pair of cinnamon teals and a common gallinule. The gallinules have a funny call.
The marsh wrens were easy to hear but hard to see. Thank you to this one for posing out in the open.
The mute swans made the classic heart shape but I was a little late in capturing it. Close enough
The common mergansers love this spot at the ponds. Last time I was here it was only females but this time there was a good mix of both sexes.
In addition to the cinnamon teals we also saw some blue winged teals. Apparently they're only supposed to be here for the winter but they are among the last birds to migrate north in the spring.
The northern shovelers have some pretty goofy bills and it was fun to watch them upend themselves to feed.
Member Submissions
Thank you to everyone who sent me photos of the birds they saw!
Gus got some sweet shots of an anna's hummingbird up in seattle
Carol spotted a bird in golden gate park
Emily and James got a bunch of cool photos of the red-shouldered hawks they see in the presidio
Frank got a super cool video of a gull carrying a crab over in rhode island. I'm still not even attempting to put videos on this site else it might never load but here's a screenshot from the video
Sarah also saw a great blue heron over in the east bay
Sandy got some nice close-ups of a northern flicker
Megan got some very san francisco shots of this great blue heron
Kelly snagged this photo of a killdeer in a parking lot in the santa cruz mountains. It's kind of odd that these shorebirds are found so far from the shore in places like these. Also they don't kill deer they get their name from the sound they make.
Aarsh saw a swan goose or likely a domesticated chinese goose in the south bay
Janet saw a house sparrow up in napa
Rick spotted yet another great blue heron
I did most of my birding this month in a two week span spent in nyc, amsterdam, and scotland. In central park I saw some cardinals, blue jays, woodpeckers, and some other common birds too, but the pictures I'll share will be from the scotland leg of the trip. This wasn't a birding trip but if i were to go back i'd spend more time looking for grouse and ptarmigans and some golden eagles too.
Spotlight Bird: Great Blue Heron (Ardea herodias)
There were a wopping four different submissions of great blue herons this month so they will be our bird of the month.
Fun Great Blue Heron Facts:
- the plumage on males and females are essentially the same
- they look big but they're usually only about 5-6lbs
- most people know they eat fish but they also eat snakes, frogs, crustaceans, and small mammals like gophers or squirrels. they really are impressive hunters and the pictures/videos are pretty interesting but they can be pretty gnarly so i didn't include anything here. if you're interested they're a search away
- there's a 2023 studio ghibli movie called the boy and the heron but that features a grey heron not a blue heron
- there is a population of white ones in florida nicknamed great white herons
- the adults have few if any natural predators due to their size and beak but they are sometimes killed by bald eagles.
this is a photo from owen deutsch; the photo was so good it caused a controversy because people thought it was photoshopped
- a pretty gnarly account from a 1964 issue of Saskatchewan's Blue Jay journal describes a deadly battle between a golden eagle and a great blue heron
May Drawing Contest
I know this site still needs a little performance update because the newsletters and images have started creeping like moss on stone..
but the site could also use a little extra color; there's not even a favicon! so i'll instead focus on that.
and i know we already had a
drawing contest in december,
but i wanted to do another contest and my only other idea was a bird call competition
and if we did that i was expecting two submissions max... so drawing contest it is!
the rules:
Closeout
That's all; happy birding