ML619165616

Age

Not specified

Sex

Not specified

Observation details

***Very rare. Pending acceptance, this would Marin’s 5th record, and state’s first in close to a decade. This is a very early date for GCTH, and is 12 days earlier than the current earliest spring record. I first noticed this bird as I was leaving the lighthouse, as I took my final check into the oven. Deep in towards the bottom, I noticed a bird hopping along the ground. My first reaction from seeing just it's back was Ovenbird, but that was quickly cleared up as I moved and saw the rest of the bird. Initially, after getting a view of the birds face, my mind went straight towards GCTH. The bird overall felt like a Swainson's thrush, but the entire body was uniformly colored, and the face appeared very cold and lacked any buffy tones. The bird disappeared after a five second observation. Over the next hour, I was able to get three brief glimpses of the bird, each pointing me further in the direction of GCTH. The back and tail of the bird were uniformly the same dull olive color, eliminating my first concern of HETH. I was able to get better views of the face, and notice the cold gray tones. Eventually, after an hour, some tourists flushed the bird out of the oven. Subsequently, the bird would move around all over the lighthouse, landing in almost every tree, and even flying up to the radio tower. During this time I would get clear full body views of the bird, and was able to obtain clear photographs and video of the bird. During these views, I noticed the long, evenly bicolored bill of the bird. I don't know if this is a field mark used for GCTH, but it's a trait I've noticed everytime I've seen one out east. The bird was mostly silent over the course of the observation. I only heard it give one clear burry call in my hours of observing the bird. This call sounded perfect for GCTH. The bird did make many very faint quiet calls, not reminiscent of anything HETH or SWTH make, which I should have recordings of. I viewed this bird until the sun set, the last place of observation was back in the oven. Over the last hour of the day, the bird became fearless, and fed in the open on the main path. I used playback twice over the course of the observation, both times the thrush flew in aggressively towards GCTH playback, and showed no reaction to calls of other thrushes. Photos, Video, and hopefully Audio tba.

Technical information

Model

Canon EOS R7

ISO

5000

Focal length

500 mm

Flash

Flash did not fire

f-stop

f/7.1

Shutter speed

1/400 sec

Dimensions

4239 pixels x 2609 pixels

Original file size

11.91 MB