ML619237051

Age

Not specified

Sex

Not specified

Observation details

Continuing mostly in the "Oven" in the first set of cypresses. When I arrived only Michael Hingerty, Steve Howell and friend were present and had just seen the bird about 10-15 minutes before I arrived. Took over an to see from the start of my checklist but once it did show up it showed very well a few times. When we first saw the bird it would typically dash out of the lowermost right clump of the oven, forage a little bit and then go back into that clump. But then later it started moving around a little more widely, moving all the way to the westernmost cypresses. When I first saw the bird I was pretty amazed at just how "cold" the bird looked with absolutely no rusty or buffy tones whatsoever of, say, a Swainson's Thrush. The bird was basically the same size and structure of a SWTH and the most contrasting part of the bird was it's bill with a fully dark culmen and pale inner third of the lower mandible. Otherwise the face was gray with streaking in the auriculars, pretty darkly spotted on the upper breast which turned into softer spotting going lower down the breast to belly. The upperparts looked really dark and cold olivey brown in the low light and then tended to look a little browner in brighter light, which shows in my photos. Pretty amazing record and glad I was in the Central Valley the day the bird was found and had the opportunity to chase it! Documentation to be submitted to the CBRC.

Technical information

Model

Canon EOS 7D Mark II

Lens

EF400mm f/5.6L USM

ISO

500

Focal length

400 mm

Flash

Flash did not fire

f-stop

f/6.3

Shutter speed

1/500 sec

Dimensions

2458 pixels x 1639 pixels

Original file size

2.32 MB