ML556368331

Age

Not specified

Sex

Not specified

Observation details

Continuing here, following reports of 4 birds by Mike Rogers on April 7 and 3 birds by Vivek Tiwari on April 8. Today I saw at least 12 together in the bushes, weeds, and small trees at the southwest corner of Shoreline Lake and the adjacent southeast corner of the forebay. Upon my arrival at the southeast corner of the forebay, I talked to two other birders, at least one of whom had seen the munias a few minutes earlier. He pointed me to where he had last seen them, at about (37.4336,-122.0961), and I found about 5 munias here immediately. They moved around frequently and regularly gave soft calls. Within a couple minutes, they retreated into the bushes on the east side of the trail, toward the edge of the lake, and I lost them from view. I spent the next few minutes trying to get better views but was unsuccessful, so I tried a different vantage point farther east along the south side of the lake and was still unsuccessful. I then returned to the original spot and immediately found a group of at least 12 munias bouncing around by the edge of the trail, mostly staying on the east side of the trail but also occasionally flying west and hanging out in the bushes and weeds at the southeast corner of the forebay, by the culvert at (37.4334,-122.0967). The most I counted at once was 12, but I think there were more like 15, especially based on my impression of the whole flock in flight. I last saw them flying off to the southwest—I couldn’t tell whether they were going back over to the brush along the south edge of the forebay or whether they were heading farther away. Difficult to photograph, especially as the flock was spread out among different bushes, but this photo shows three individuals. All the munias I saw had at least some amount of scaling on their underparts, but the amount varied, as did the amount of rich nutmeg back coloration versus duller tan. A few, like the center bird, looked to be full adults, while others likely were immatures. I think they were of the more frequently reported "Checkered" subspecies rather than the less frequently reported "Scaled" subspecies group, as their underpart scaling looked dark brownish or black rather than being the same nutmeg color as their backs, but this was difficult to judge for sure, and I need to read more about how to distinguish these subspecies. I couldn't tell whether they were foraging or just hanging around—each bird moved pretty quickly in and out of cover, making it hard to focus on any one individual. This was only my second time seeing this species, following a brief sighting at the Santa Clara Valley Water District two years ago. It was nice to get more time to watch them this morning. The combined impression I got of their size, shape, and behavior was quite different from that of any other bird I'm used to seeing.

Technical information

Model

Canon PowerShot SX620 HS

ISO

640

Focal length

106.9 mm

Flash

Flash did not fire

f-stop

f/6.3

Shutter speed

1/1000 sec

Dimensions

1375 pixels x 1031 pixels

Original file size

529.28 KB