I've been fighting a nasty cold all week and haven't been able to get out and do the traditional New Year/new yearlist birding yet. So far, I'm limited to species who can be seen from my living room window - fortunately, that's still a nice mix. But earlier in the week, I was able to throw enough layers on to survive the Christmas count at Lake Merced in San Francisco.
As the calendar flips a page, this male Anna's hummingbird is making a transition. He's been in the yard all week, and I've noticed that he's molting into his first set of grown-up gorget feathers - the hummingbird equivalent of being ready to start shaving.
A little spotty, like many adolescents:
Friday, I was so under the weather that I really didn't even feel like going to the window to look out at the birds. Wait, what's this? Someone has popped up from the goldfinch feeder (yellow thing visible at lower right).
Awww, visitors - how cute! The goldfinches were coming to the dining room window. They've never done that before!
And as it turns out, they'd better not do it again! I thought they were gleaning insects from the screen, but no - they were trying to pick it apart (you can see it fraying near this guy's mouth). I don't know if it looked like thistle down to them or what, but within a moment of the first one showing up, there were eight hanging off the screen plucking it apart. One good thump on the window sent them on their way and I haven't seen them back up here again - they're sticking to the feeder now.
The one time I got beyond the edge of my yard this week was the Christmas Count. My friend and I have co-led the Lake Merced area for five or six years now, but she's in Ecuador so I had to solo this time. Overall numbers seemed to be down around San Francisco, and at Lake Merced our waterfowl numbers seemed well below normal.
We had a few good birds, though. Our area is probably the best spot for rails in the SF count area, so we're responsible for picking up Sora and Virginia Rail every year. This means getting out before dawn to broadcast for them in certain areas, and then keeping a close eye on the reed beds during the day. Usually we manage 2-3 of each; this year we had nine of each species, including several really good visuals on both. For a few members of the team, they were life birds. Nice! (Here we are looking into a reed bed from one of the floating docks. A Virginia rail came within two feet of us here.)
It's easy to count birds when they thoughtfully space themselves out like these pigeons did...
Oh, wait - did I say pigeons? Nope, sorry - this wire was actually full of mew gulls.
While waiting at one spot for everyone to turn up after we'd split into groups, we were treated to a red-breasted sapsucker working a nearby tree.
He even let me get some video through the spotting scope. You can hear us bird-geeking in back, along with the kind of traffic noise that was pervasive at this location. It's really tough to bird by ear here.
While we were counting, we were also cleaning. Here's a bit of fishing line, with hook, that my friend picked up on a stretch of shore where many ducks like to haul out.
Even though it's a menace being removed, let's not end on that note. Here's a junco chowing down on a birdseed ornament, the perfect end to the holiday season whirl...