ML275168421
Contributor
Date
Location
- Age and sex
- Immature Unknown sex - 1
- Behaviors
- Foraging or eating
- Playback
- Playback not used
Media notes
White Wagtail, hatch-year, Villa Creek, Estero Bluffs State Park, San Luis Obispo County, California, 27 Oct 2020, Tom M. Edell
Observation details
I arrived about 15 minutes after Maggie Smith found this bird. The bird was feeding on files on the beach just down coast of the Villa Creek lagoon. We watched the bird move from there to the wet sand closer to the creek mouth and the bluff edge, and then to the lagoon where it fed along the shoreline. While birders were arriving and leaving the bird was very active, often jumping or running after flies and during the time I was here it cycled from the beach to the lagoon and back to the wet sand shoreline several times. Twice it flew over the bluff and out of site, but both times soon reappeared on the beach. During one of those flights it was pursued by a Merlin. This bird was essentially medium gray from crown to tail and white below. It had a long tail with two white outer retricies and when closed looked black above and white below. It had a whitish supercilium and forehead, a dark line through the eye that extended from the bill to the gray nape and an otherwise pale face that at times seemed to have a tinge of buffy color in the auriculars and front of the supercilium. The throat was white and there was a black bib on the upper chest that was wide and mottled across the throat and narrowed to somewhat of a point at its lower extent roughly forming a triangular shape. The edges at the bib extended out to under, but not to, the faint auricular patch. The gray wings showed two whitish wing bars and somewhat wide white edges on the median coverts. The tertials were pale edged and sometimes appeared slightly buffy. The eye, legs, and feet appeared black and the short narrow bill was mostly black but pale at the base. The length of the bill was about equal to the distance from the base of the bill to the middle of the eye. An American Pipit was often close to the bird. The pipits were a bit bulkier and had shorter tails which was most obvious when both were in flight together. Photos and video
Technical information
- Camera
- Cannon SX70 HS
- Microphone
- internal
- Accessories
- none
- Original file size
- 148.89 MB