Enjoyed the beautiful spring weather while participating in Alvaro Jaramillo's Migrant Landbirds workshop with the San Francisco Bay Bird Observatory. This was a fabulous 3-day course with evening presentations on Bird Migration in the Bay Area, followed by a full-day field trip looking for migrants passing through our area heading north. Finding (and photographing) these migrants is usually quite challenging... and the group succeeded in observing several warbler and flycatcher species.
We birded trails within the Russian Ridge Open Space Preserve & Sam McDonald County Park, with a final stop at the Wurr Road bridge to take a chance to observe American Dipper. That last stop offered a quick success and the easiest bird of the day... the dipper was waiting for us on the rocks just below the edge of the bridge as we walked up!
The usual habitat for many of these migrants are in wooded areas... with target birds often high in the trees hidden by many branches and poor sunlight. It was a real challenge and I was fortunate and thrilled to capture a few species during the trip! Enjoy!
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Lazuli Bunting - pretty posing for his photo!
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Black-throated Gray Warbler- high in the trees
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Golden-crowned Kinglet - a real challenge to photograph!
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MacGillivray's Warbler - finally came out for a few seconds!
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Pacific-slope Flycatcher - small flycatcher likes shaded forests
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Pygmy Nuthatch - found a the nest hole
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American Dipper - at the right place at the right time
