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little Z
Trad climber
un cafetal en Naranjo
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May 26, 2013 - 09:35pm PT
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LuckyPink,
Spotted Towhees can do a pretty good cat call
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cyndiebransford
climber
Kenai Peninsula, Alaska
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May 26, 2013 - 09:48pm PT
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A few more from my local area.
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dee ee
Mountain climber
citizen of planet Earth
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May 27, 2013 - 10:51pm PT
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Great photos y'all. I never get tired of Yellow Warblers or Sandhill Cranes!
I just spent parts of several days inputing all my birding data onto E-bird. EPIC!
I still found time to go out and look. I missed a Blue Grosbeak by 5 minutes, bummer.
I don't think they're all hers!
These Nuttal's were really going after territorial dominance, a major battle.
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BrassNuts
Trad climber
Save your a_s, reach for the brass...
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May 28, 2013 - 12:25am PT
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Hey Chaz - 3 of a kind is a tough hand to beat, cool capture! :-) I hope everyone had a great holiday weekend! Here are a few more from AZ a few weeks ago...
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Chaz
Trad climber
greater Boss Angeles area
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May 28, 2013 - 12:59pm PT
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Thanks, BrassNuts. The owls have taken up residence here in the yard, and they make getting shots of them about as simple as possible.
Until this morning, I hadn't seen either of the two adults for a few days. Maybe they took off for the weekend to get some much deserved rest.
At least one of the adults is still around.
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Crimpergirl
Sport climber
Boulder, Colorado!
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May 28, 2013 - 01:07pm PT
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My only contribution has been, and continues to be, as a cheerleader. Thanks to all of you who contribute photos - any photos. Love them all.
Agreed Dee ee...I can never see enough Yellow Warblers. Adore the baby Canada Geese Conga line!
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Bob D'A
Trad climber
Taos, NM
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May 28, 2013 - 03:06pm PT
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Nice weekend of climbing and a new route at Staunton State Park. Took a little stroll along Boulder Creek today near the Bobolink Trail...heard several Bobolinks but didn't see one. My new quest.
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10b4me
Ice climber
Soon 2B Arizona
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May 28, 2013 - 03:41pm PT
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Pyrrhuloxia. Kind of like a primitive Cardinal sorta guy
Dave, I saw something very similar in Tucson. The bird I saw was totally red though.
Great pics, Chaz.
edit: Dave, that male ladder-back pecker looks very similar to a male Gila woodpecker
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matty
Trad climber
under the sea
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May 28, 2013 - 04:17pm PT
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Went to find a spotted owl with Reilly yesterday...no luck...but here it is from last spring...don't give up reilly, you'll get him yet!
Spotted owl near Santa clarita:
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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May 28, 2013 - 04:42pm PT
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Spotted Owls, Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny; whatever!
But we did have a nice wee hike.
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dirt claud
Social climber
san diego,ca
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May 28, 2013 - 06:05pm PT
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As usual, the crew has posted some great pics. Sweeet!!
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10b4me
Ice climber
Soon 2B Arizona
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May 28, 2013 - 06:27pm PT
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Bob D'A
Trad climber
Taos, NM
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May 28, 2013 - 10:12pm PT
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A few more from Colombia. Dirt...that is a very amazing shot.
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john hansen
climber
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May 28, 2013 - 10:44pm PT
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Never posted this because of the branch. But got his one in Sabino Canyon outside Tucson. Peterson's guide show this within the Northern Cardinals range.
I was hoping for a Pyrrhuloxia too. No luck.
Cardinals have been released in Hawaii so I see them all the time but this one was a first on the mainland.
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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May 29, 2013 - 01:01am PT
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I'm bumping this so my next post gets top billing, as it should.
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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May 29, 2013 - 01:03am PT
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Pot Farmers' Pesticides Killing Spotted and Barred Owls
GRANTS PASS, Ore. (AP) — In the West Coast marijuana-growing region known as the Emerald Triangle, scientists want to know whether the rat poison spread around illegal pot plantations is killing northern spotted owls, a threatened species.
But because it is so rare to find a spotted owl dead in the forest, they will be looking at an invasive cousin owl from the East that has been pushing spotted owls out of their territory since the 1990s.
Mourad Gabriel, a doctoral candidate at the University of California at Davis Veterinary Genetics Laboratory, said Tuesday they are testing 84 barred owls from Northern California killed in the course of research on whether removing them allows spotted owls to reclaim lost territories. Those owls were collected primarily by the California Academy of Sciences and Green Diamond Resource Company, which grows redwood for timber.
Among the first roughly 10 barred owls tested, about half have been positive for the poison. Two spotted owls found dead in Mendocino County in Northern California also tested positive for the poisons, Gabriel said.
The research is funded primarily by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
Eric Forsman, a U.S. Forest Service wildlife biologist and a leading expert on spotted owls, said he did not think the rat poisons would be a significant factor for spotted owls in northern Oregon and Washington, where their primary prey is the flying squirrel and there aren't as many illegal pot plantations on federal lands. Loss of old growth forest habitat and the invasion of the barred owl remain the primary threat to the birds, whose numbers continue to decline.
The rat poison could be significant, however, in the southern part of their range — Northern California and southwestern Oregon — where they feed primarily on dusky-footed wood rats and pot plantations are abundant, Forsman said.
Spotted owls in southern Oregon and Northern California have been declining at the rate of 5 percent to 15 percent a year from 1990 to 2008, Fish and Wildlife said.
Scientists have already established that common household rat poisons spread around illegal pot gardens to keep rats from eating the plants have been poisoning fishers, a large cousin of the weasel that is being considered for protection by the Endangered Species Act. One of the threats to the fishers being analyzed is the poison at the pot gardens, which are common on federal and tribal lands in Northern California and Southern Oregon, the prime pot-growing region known as the Emerald Triangle.
Garbriel said researchers hoped to expand the testing of dead owls once Fish and Wildlife Service approves a program to experimentally remove barred owls from spotted owl territories on federal and tribal lands.
Fish and Wildlife has been considering the issue for years, and completion of an environmental impact statement has repeatedly been pushed back. The latest estimate is that it will be done by end of summer.
One of the proposed test sites is the Hoopa Valley Reservation in Northern California, where much of the work on fishers and rat poison has been done.
Gabriel said spotted owls may turn out to be more susceptible to the poisons than the barred owls, because they focus on eating rodents, while barred owls will eat a wide range of prey, such as snails and crawdads.
The tribe has received a $200,000 grant from Fish and Wildlife to work on the issue of rat poisons and wildlife. The money will go to cleaning up as many as five pot plantations identified on the reservation, testing the soils, and prey species such as snails, crawdads and wood rats for rat poison, and testing barred owls that are killed in the removal experiment, said J. Mark Higley, a wildlife biologist for the Hoopa tribe.
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dee ee
Mountain climber
citizen of planet Earth
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May 29, 2013 - 01:37am PT
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Damn, 5% to 15% a year. I don't like those numbers. In 10 years that's 50% to.....extinction.
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10b4me
Ice climber
Soon 2B Arizona
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May 29, 2013 - 01:49am PT
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I wonder what the rate is today?
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dirt claud
Social climber
san diego,ca
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May 29, 2013 - 12:01pm PT
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Good article Reilly, hope this issue can get resolved before it's too late.
That is a crazy shot Bob, definitely not my doing of course.
This is a little more my material right here.........
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Bob D'A
Trad climber
Taos, NM
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May 29, 2013 - 06:16pm PT
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A few from my walk today.
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