ML609752825
Contributor
Date
Location
- Age and sex
- Adult, Unknown sex - 1
- Sounds
- Call
- Playback
- Playback not used
Observation details
Lifer! Continuing bird found yesterday by Noah Arthur and seen this morning with three other birders at 36.981086,-121.930923. We heard it calling from somewhere in the middle of a dense oak tree after searching with no sign of it for an hour and a half. It called for a few minutes before flying further out in the tree and therefore into view. It then visited a few other nearby trees, at least until I started walking away, which was 20 minutes after we first heard it. It was a decent-sized Myiarchus with big triangular white edges on inner tertials, a rather dusky head, an extensively pale base of the lower mandible, a bright lemon yellow belly, rufous-edged primaries, and yellow-edged secondaries. There was a fair amount of rufous in the tail, but none of us ever got well-lit shots or views of the undertail. I believe this is an adult because the primary coverts look fresh. Its calls were a clear, up-slanting wheep that lasts just over a quarter-second and cuts off very abruptly. The calls were spaced anywhere from two to ten seconds apart. I said this the last time I saw a lifer in this county, but I freaking love Santa Cruz. I'm now up to eight life birds on just seven trips to the county, and pretty much everywhere I've been has been good birding or just a cool, interesting place. Because of how and when this bird was initially found and identified, I figured there would be a big group of birders out to chase it and was pretty surprised when there were still only four of us at 8:00. From what I can tell on eBird, this is only the second record in the county. Looking at other checklists it turns out more people did show up after I left, but sadly, the bird didn't stick around. If it's any consolation, I know that pain! The first county record in my home county was seen off and on for much of a day that I spent 5.5 hours looking for and missed by several minutes multiple times. I'm very grateful this twitch turned out differently for me.
Technical information
- Recorder
- Microphone
- Accessories
- Original file size
- 2.24 MB