ML364361401
Contributor
Date
Location
- Age and sex
- Adult Female - 1; Adult Male - 1; Adult, Unknown sex - 2
- Behaviors
- Foraging or eating
- Sounds
- Call; Song
- Playback
- Playback not used
Observation details
Lifer! They were calling and eating the seeds off the tall grass between the path and the railroad tracks. There were roughly twice as many adults as juveniles, but I didn't get an exact count as some were in the nearby trees or moving around. They're stout, compact birds with very thick, curved, seed-crushing beaks and short wings and tails. Although they're mostly brown, the shading is really quite beautiful. Their tails have a golden sheen not unlike a Golden Eagle's nape and some barring on the uppertail coverts. The back, wings, and nape are all more or less the same shade of brown, but the feather shafts seem to stand out more than they do on most birds, giving this plain area an interestingly patterned look. The color on the head rapidly transitions to a much warmer and richer/darker brown, which covers the entire face. The eyes, beak, and legs are all black. I'm not sure if this is exactly accurate, but it seems like every individual feather on the breast, belly, flanks, and vent is pure white with a well-defined black outline, giving it the scaly look. I heard at least two different calls from them. One was just a quick, fairly high-pitched "peep" that trails off and slides down. These usually came in short series of calls. The other was much lower, straighter, and squeakier, and didn't come in a series, but the individual note lasted about the same amount of time (roughly a quarter-second). I had been wanting to come down and see these birds for at least a few weeks now. I actually tried to find them one time last year but was unsuccessful then. This year I've just been too busy either adjusting to my new work schedule or chasing other birds. I almost didn't come down here today since I've really wanted to go up to Santa Rosa to try to see the Sulphur-bellied Flycatcher. Someone reported seeing it yesterday, but after going through all the other checklists from the day at that location, it just didn't seem worth the 3 hour round trip I would need to try to make before I have to start work. Especially since the Cape May Warbler showed up. It would still be a 90-100 minute round trip, but that's much more doable. I got to the park just after 6 and decided to first go looking for these birds, figuring the MOB would show up later and make it a lot easier to look for the warbler. Of course it's mostly all luck, but that plan panned out perfectly. I didn't notice the munia when I first got to the UPRR crossing, but after a brief visit into Gomes Park I came back and they were pretty much all just right there. They generally seemed unbothered by all the people jogging and biking by. Nor did they seem to mind me stopping to check them out from less than 10' away. I got to see them, hear them, and observe some of their behavior from up close. I know they aren't native, and I do wonder what their successful breeding this year could mean for the rest of the local ecosystem in the future, but that doesn't stop me from appreciating how beautiful and interesting these scaled nuggets of birds are.
Additional species
Technical information
- Recorder
- Microphone
- Accessories
- Original file size
- 189.39 KB