Notes from the Station

Species: Brown Thrasher
Most recent capture date: 6/25/2023
Age: at least one year old

Notes: This bird is not supposed to be here! As an east coast bird, they are not supposed to be within several states of here. We don’t know what brought them so far afield, but they seem to be doing well on the wrong coast: they are quite fat. CCFS has caught this species twice before, in 1987 and in 2000. Look at that eye!

Species: Nuttall’s Woodpecker
Most recent capture date: 6/24/2023
​Earliest capture date: 6/5/2022
Age: just over one year old
​Sex: male

Notes: This guy was captured with a juvenile Nuttall’s Woodpecker, almost certainly his son.

We keep birds in cloth bags while they wait to be measured: they can move around and even perch on the fabric, fluff their feathers or preen, and the dimness is calming. I was measuring another bird, and this woodpecker was waiting in his bag, when a flicker of movement caught my eye. This bird was sticking his bill out through the small opening of the bag – and then sticking his tongue FAR out and wiggling it! (Woodpecker stick their tongues into holes to spear their insect prey, remember: they’re masters at tongue-stick-outing.)

Species: Bushtit
Most recent capture date: 6/24/2023
​Earliest capture date: 12/16/2018
Age: at least 5 years old
​Sex: male

Species: California Scrub-jay
Most recent capture date: 6/17/2023
Age: at least one year old

Notes: Jays really like to hold onto things. Sometimes it’s our fingers (very tightly, digging those claws right in); sometimes it’s something harmless we give them to hold, like a pen; and sometimes it’s their own feet. They also like to stick their legs out stiffly, as this bird is demonstrating. Other birds are content to tuck their legs in, but jays must do Weird Jay Legs.

Species: Orange-crowned Warbler
Most recent capture date: 6/21/2023
​Earliest capture date: 6/14/2023
Age: less than three months old

Notes: Orange-crowned Warblers don’t breed at CCFS, so this kiddo has already dispersed from their natal territory! That’s a lot of adventuring for a very young bird.

Species: California Quail
Most recent capture date: 6/15/2023
Age: at least one year old
​Sex: male

Notes: Some birds just make you feel impolite for bothering them. Uncouth, even. What would your mother think.

Species: Spotted Towhee
Most recent capture date: 6/15/2023
Age: less than two months old

Species: Wilson’s Warbler
Most recent capture date: 6/13/2023
Age: less than two months old

Notes: Wilson’s Warblers are some of the goofiest-looking juveniles we catch. Their juvenile plumage is brown, and they seem to find it profoundly unsuitable, because they wear it for just one week. They start molting into their formative plumage – which most birds save until the fall – before they even leave the nest. Thus, this blotchy bird bearing a mix of juvenile brown and formative yellow, and generally looking embarrassed.

Species: Common Yellowthroat
Most recent capture date: 6/7/2023
Age: less than two months old

Species: Black Phoebe
Most recent capture date: 6/7/2023
Age: less than two months old

​Notes: Black Phoebes are one of those species that likes to hunch (I think of it as “turtling”) in the hand. This bird’s yellow gape and cinnamon wing bars mark it out as juvenile.