Tags:   Lark Sparrow Ridge Trail Ethan Winning E. A. Winning Acorn Woodpecker Woodpeckers Walnut Creek Open Space Old Borges Ranch Trail Old Borges Ranch Northern California Birds DailyNature-TNC13 DailyNature-TNC14 North America Avian Sparrows

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Pacific Grove Monterey Bay. I know that House Sparrows are considered a pest almost everywhere on the continent, and I also know that they're had a dramatic negative impact on the numbers of and nesting places for song birds. They were introduced into North America less than 200 years ago, and now they are among the most numerous of all song birds. Some groups on Flickr won't even allow posting their photos. Sorry, but it's wild, rather handsome, and not abundant in northern California. (It doesn't like grasslands or open range, and that's where I live. It was three years before I saw my first. So, as with the starling, it deserves consideration especially when it poses so nicely on an aloe tree.)

Tags:   House Sparrow Monterey Bay Pacific Grove Ethan Winning E. A. Winning Northern California Birds DailyNature-TNC13 DailyNature-TNC14 North America Avian

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Still breeding season for the Song Sparrow. Males will choose the highest point, in this case the top of a 20 foot cactus, and sing his little heart out while in competition with as many as six or eight other males.

Tags:   Song Sparrow DailyNature-TNC13 Northern California Canon SX40 or SX50 DailyNature-TNC14 North America NA Ethan Winning E. A. Winning

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A man's gotta do what a man's gotta do. Today, this man's gotta rake and bag leaves on two patios after a five-day rain accompanied by 15-20 mph winds which Japanese Maple, Magnolia, Tangelo, and a number of other 20 foot+ trees' leaves use as their personal jet stream which tucks those leaves in and around lava rock. Hint from a leaf gathering pro: use low setting for the leaf blower. The less wind allows air to get under the leaves and enables the leaves to become dislodged and the human leaf blower operator to become a 10 year-old again. Oh, to have Patches back! Patches was a Wire-fox terrier whose goal in life was to dive into the biggest pile of leaves and prove or disprove the theory that, at the bottom of a four foot pile of leaves, a dog with a good nose could find China! (If that failed - and it always did - then find a patch of dirt, and dig like a terrier!)

One of my favorite birds is the Ash-throated Flycatcher. I tell my annual leaf story because, Patches was very tolerant of flycatchers. He would sit and watch as the ATF would hunt from a perch, make a foray, and return to the same perch having nabbed an insect that emerged from the grasslands (the background here is all oak grass and scrub and live oak pastures). It was this flycatcher species which taught me about its hunting techniques, and it was such hunting habits that taught me how to photographically capture flycatchers (some swallows, two species of thrush, and then the dragons and damsels) when I had become frustrated with my Red Baron panning skills.

The ash-throated flycatcher (Myiarchus cinerascens) is a passerine bird in the tyrant flycatcher family. It breeds in desert scrub, riparian forest, brushy pastures and open woodland from the western United States to central Mexico. It is a short-distance migrant, retreating from most of the U.S. and northern and central Mexico, spending the winter from southern Mexico to Honduras. This bird is also prone to wander, with single birds often seen outside its normal breeding range as far away as the east coast of North America. The range appears to take up 2/5ths of western NA. My notes show that the ATF breeds from early May through August, after which it migrates just a few miles south, staying well within the grasslands.

How fortunate to have the grasslands and a decent mating/nesting/fledging "season". Of my total 146 species of birds, more than 100 were captured near Mt. Diablo and the foothills. Farmers love these birds because they control grasshoppers and other crop-damaging insects.

It took three years, btw, to get an Ash-throated Flycatcher with its crest raised, but only two years (see below) to get an ATF with a cricket in its bill. Flycatchers are the coyotes of the grasslands, taking off and very briefly hovering before diving into the grass to find food for its brood (usually 4-6 chicks).

Tags:   Ash-throated Flycatcher ATF Oak Woodlands Oak Grasslands Mt. Diablo - Walnut Creek, CA Canon SX40 Copyright Ethan Winning

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My favorite shot of a lark sparrow. Though we have them year-round in Northern California, I've found most from March through August. This one was on a fence post on the Ridge Trail in the Walnut Creek Open Space at about 1,000 feet and very close to a Rock Wren enclave. That 1000 feet is nothing to him, but I'm not too sure I could do it anymore.

Faved by Cornell.

Tags:   Lark Sparrow Ridge Trail Walnut Creek Open Space Northern California Sparrows Canon SX40 or SX50 DailyNature-TNC13 DailyNature-TNC14 North America NA Ethan Winning E. A. Winning

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