Contributor
Date
Location
- Age
- Not specified
- Sex
- Not specified
Media notes
Probable immature males to right of adult male. Immature males have black lores and black bellys.
Observation details
Seen while standing on wooden platform at Vernal Pond. These birds were seen just about everywhere around the pond. At one point they flew out of pond but then came back as a group. There were two problems with the environmental conditions caused by at least two groups of well meaning public servants. A drone was flying overhead much of the time, and scattered the birds. I later found out this smaller drone was being used by Costa Mesa police to monitor the homeless. Second, Vector Control and the water district were teaming up to scatter bacteria loads into the pond to target certain pests. This involved the use of a 4ft x 4ft 4ft drone, with a 20lb carrying capacity. You know, a big one! Yesterday the problem was people letting dogs off the leash to run around the Vernal Pond area! One enforcement person today was heard announcing on a PA speaker “to get their dog back on the leash.” I counted 11 Yellow-headed Blackbirds (see photo) with varying degrees of yellow. Most appeared to be female-type, but a few appeared to show blackish lores and more yellow around the face/eye (like a 1st year male). My camera was not able to discern white tips on primary coverts on these possible males. There appeared to be only one full spring adult male, that was pure black, with large white primary coverts, and a full yellow head.
Technical information
- Model
- Canon PowerShot SX70 HS
- ISO
- 800
- Flash
- Flash did not fire
- Dimensions
- 4506 pixels x 3159 pixels
- Original file size
- 3.7 MB