ML594321361

Age

Not specified

Sex

Not specified

Observation details

A big surprise! The bird flew out from the hillside, crossed the road and then circled back to land out of sight in dense scrub oak. It was immediately obvious as a cuckoo from the size (about twice the size of the Ash-throated Flycatcher we'd been watching at the time), long tail with alternating white and dark spots on the underside and long pointed wings with obvious rufous color. After not seeing it again for several minutes we played a tape and the bird responded immediately, flying over us again to land downslope where it was again not visible. We repeated this routine another 2-3 times before it finally landed low in a scrub oak where we could see it and get a few semi-obstructed photos. The decurved, yellow bill was obvious. It flew on and we refound it once or twice more before continuing our hike. When we passed back through the same area at about 11 am (first sighting was at ~8:15 am) we did not re-find it although did not spend a lot of time looking. The area where we saw this bird is about 1.2 miles from the western end of the fire road, about 200m past the point where the road takes a sharp hairpin turn south to cross to the other side of the ridge. This area was manually cleared for fire control about 5 yrs ago and is now very dense with regrowth of scrub oak and manzanita. It's hot and open and there is no water nearby.

Technical information

Model

COOLPIX B700

ISO

360

Focal length

236.5 mm

Flash

Flash did not fire

f-stop

f/6.3

Shutter speed

1/250 sec

Dimensions

3343 pixels x 2507 pixels

Original file size

1.66 MB