SF Bird Club July Newsletter

June Recap

In case you missed it you can find last month's newsletter here: june newsletter

june bird walk

Last month we went on a bird walk in Golden Gate Park.
The highlight was either the rare sighting of the western wood-pewee or the red tailed hawk that stuck around for a while. the the eBird checklist from the walk is linked here

birding crew
birding crew
birding crew
pied-billed grebe
pied-billed grebe (Podilymbus podiceps)
song sparrow
song sparrow (Melospiza melodia)
red shouldered hawk
red-shouldered hawk (Buteo lineatus) seen right before the walk started
red-tailed hawk
red-tailed hawk (Buteo jamaicensis)
red-tailed hawk
the red-tailed hawk (Buteo jamaicensis) in this tree was getting harassed by a steller's jay
double-crested cormorant
double-crested cormorant (Nannopterum auritum)

Thank you to everyone who came out:)

birding crew
group shot minus sandy




Member Submissions

Thank you to everyone who sent me photos of the birds they saw!


Theresa saw a yellow warbler in Rhode Island

yellow warbler
yellow warbler (Setophaga petechia)
she also drove through Bird City, Kansas. Unfortunately the history of the name is not very exciting and has nothing to do with birds.
bird city
Bird City, Kansas


Katie saw a double-crested cormorant in the east bay

double-crested cormorant
double-crested cormorant (Nannopterum auritum)


Jenn had a titmouse pay visit to their window bird feeder in Oakland and sent in a video of their adorable cat watching from inside but videos still dont work on this site :0

oak titmouse
oak titmouse (Baeolophus inornatus)


Katlyn spotted a white-crowned sparrow in the city

white-crowned sparrow
white-crowned sparrow (Zonotrichia leucophrys)


Maeve was on puffin watch in Iceland and snagged some cool photos from a boat. She also sent a cool video of them taking off from the water but again, no videos yet :/

puffin
atlantic puffin (Fratercula arctica)
puffin
atlantic puffin (Fratercula arctica)


George did some birding during his europe trip

peacock
He saw some peacocks in a castle in Lisbon. He says they were brought from Egypt by royalty
He also saw a gull and a sparrow in rome.
yellow-legged gull
pretty sure a yellow-legged gull (Larus michahellis)
house sparrow
house sparrow (Passer domesticus)


Kelly and Parker were also birding in europe.

peacock
they were with george and saw the same peacocks in lisbon
magpie
they also saw magpies (Pica pica) around the Acropolis in Athens
wood pigeon
finally they also saw a wood pigeon (Columba palumbus) in paris


Sandy had another sighting of her regular neighborhood acorn woodpecker

acorn woodpecker
acorn woodpecker (Melanerpes formicivorus)


Jeff spotted a northern cardinal in cabo

cardinal
northern cardinal (Cardinalis cardinalis)


James saw a cooper's hawk and a mourning dove in pasadena

cooper's hawk
cooper's hawk (Astur cooperii)
mourning dove
mourning dove (Zenaida macroura)
He also witnessed a crow harassing a red-tailed hawk and sent in a video. This is a pretty common beavior and I've witnessed it myself several times. On our birding walk we also saw a steller's jay harassing a red-tailed hawk.
red-taled hawk and crow
crow (Corvus brachyrhynchos) harassing a red-tailed hawk (Buteo jamaicensis)


Adam did some birding in nyc

cardinal
northern cardinal (Cardinalis cardinalis)
laughing gull
laughing gull (Leucophaeus atricilla)


Also in nyc, Ani saw a red-tailed hawk with what seemed in the video like some prey in its talons

red-tailed hawk
red-tailed hawk (Buteo jamaicensis)


Aarsh also did some euro birding this month. In addition to some magpies he saw some parakeets in Windsor

parakeet
british parakeet
he also saw a california quail in the south bay
quail
california quail (Callipepla californica)


I saw a horned lark on the mission peak trail in fremont. I'd love to see an adult male they have the coolest lil hairdo

horned lark
horned lark (Eremophila alpestris)
but my favorite birding was done one morning camping alongside the Cosumnes River. The highlight was the kingfisher I heard and maybe saw.
checklist here

Spotlight Bird: Steller's Jay (Cyanocitta stelleri)

Steller's Jay (Cyanocitta stelleri) I spotted in Golden Gate Park

This month's bird of the month is the Steller's Jay. We saw and heard many of these on our birding walk.

stellers jay range map
range map from cornell's all about birds site
https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/assets/photo/622805861-1280px.jpg

Fun Steller's Jay Facts:

  • apparently they're pretty good mimics. eBird says "Researchers have heard them imitating squirrels, Northern Flickers, Northern Goshawks, White-breasted Nuthatches, and mechanical sounds such as water sprinklers."
    I found some videos online of them imitating hawks such as this one here.
  • There are several subspecies and some of them look pretty different from the ones we see around here. For example the coronata subspecies around middle/central america is far more blue and looks almost a bit like a blue jay
    coronata
    example of the coronata subgroup from Brandon Caswell from Macaulay Library
  • they are pretty loud and their call is very harsh
  • They display really interesting behavior related to predator risk. According to this study from Oxford's Behavioral Ecology they will alter their alarm call based on the specific predator and they will also alter their wait time to resume foraging for certain predator species depending on if they saw or heard them.

July Movie Club

wild parrots of telegraph hill
The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill (2003)


I've been seeing a lot of our city's beloved parrots, red-masked parakeet/cherry headed conure (Psittacara erythrogenys), lately. Also the chronicle held a vote naming them our city's official animal a couple years back so it might be fun to learn a little bit more about them. Unfortunately I did some googling and the doc seems very difficult to find a proper stream for so maybe just go look for the parakeets instead.

Closeout

That's all; happy birding