ML521449331
作者
日期
地点
- 年龄
- 未说明
- 性别
- 未说明
观察细节
We had heard two earlier, and I at least was getting a little nervous because we hadn’t heard anymore since the first spot and we had only been seeing mixed flocks. We tried at a place overlooking the canyon to the NW, absolutely gorgeous vista but no TUJA. We were going down the canyon along a trail a little more when I noticed a larger bird flying upslope from us in the oaks. It was a little curve in the road with a narrow heavily wooded ravine going back up to the top of the mountain with lots of deciduous trees. I saw a bit more movement and then got the bird in my bins and yelled out “jay! Jay!” as the bright white and blue/black bird came into view briefly. For the next 10-15 minutes we struggled to get good views of them as they were quietly foraging above us, not calling nor responding to the playback or NOPO whistles. I managed to get an unobstructed view of one but for the most part we were unsatisfied. Zaida recommended that we go up the narrow steep trail here to try to get up on their level. We were breathless by the time we made it up the 50-75’ elevation difference to where the jays were and we stopped a moment to try to find them. We saw one or two move across the ravine and then in an unbelievably surreal moment two jays flew into view over the ravine at the same time chasing what I thought was a leaf and then a malachite butterfly and then realized as the first jay grabbed it in midair that it was a huge katydid. This first jay, with the white belly and tail base almost glowing against the dark background of the ravine landed about 15’ from us with the big bug in its mouth. It then spent 5 minutes methodically destroying the thing, bits and wings falling as we stood open-mouthed and taking pictures. I managed to get an ok video through the scope, but we ended up getting much better pictures and videos when we made it closer to the top of the ravine and saw some of the others as they hung out and foraged in the area around us. Saw one go down to the ground and poke around, saw one peck on an acorn, only other food item seen was the katydid (RIP). Absolutely legendary jays (se llama Chara Pinta en español, I think we should change the name to Painted Jays to match) with a very small distribution in Nayarit, Durango, and Sinaloa in the pine-oak mountains. Bright white jay with black markings on face and dark blue on upper parts and end of tail. Crazy spiky black crest, pale yellow eye, white cheek and eyebrow mark. Spectacular. Ended up just walking away from them. I hope these are descendants of the same ones Bill and Judy saw years ago!
技术信息
- 相机
- 话筒
- 附件
- 原始文件大小
- 22.59 MB