Morning sun

  

Cedar Waxwings (Bombycilla cedrorum) and a Northern Flicker (Colaptes auratus) enjoying the morning sun in Santa Rosa today (6 January 2026).  [You can click on the image for a larger version.]

The little builder

  

In between appointments in Santa Rosa today, I caught a glimpse of a hummingbird flying towards a tree and then disappearing.  At first I wasn't sure where it went, but then I realized something was going on.  The hummingbird wasn't sitting on an exposed branch, but it was hunkered down in a small fork, where it was building a nest!

She kept flying away and returning with different nest materials.  Above, perhaps some fluff from a willow?  Below, a piece of moss:

 

 

And then she would spend quite a bit of time tucking in the materials:

 

 

Sometimes she would use her belly and wiggle around to smooth and shape the base of the nest:

 

 

 

Other times she would pause and sit very still:

 

 

 

I was very thankful for a visit with this little Anna's Hummingbird (Calypte anna).  Watching her make her nest made my day!

 

Blackened

 

This afternoon (29 October 2017), I went for a short walk at Crane Creek Regional Park — the first time I've been there since the fires.  Quite a bit of the northern edge of the park was burned.  For the record, this was one example of many blackened and charred oak trees.

Among the willows

A quick look at two nice butterflies (both photographed in Santa Rosa on 3 July 2016):

 

Mourning Cloak (Nymphalis antiopa)  

 

Lorquin's Admiral (Limenitis lorquini)

 

All in a row

I stopped briefly at a quiet spot in Santa Rosa yesterday.  From the edge of a creek, I first heard and then saw a female Wood Duck (Aix sponsa) with young.

 

Here's a close-up of the ducklings:

 

And the hen with her brood as they swam towards the shadows of the creek bank:

 

What a pleasant surprise!

 

Slender-billed Nuthatch

In 2013, the American Ornithologists' Union voted on whether White-breasted Nuthatch (Sitta carolinensis) should be considered several species rather than one.  For example, whether there should be a Carolina Nuthatch, a Rocky Mountain Nuthatch, and a Slender-billed Nuthatch.  (The birds we encounter on the West Coast would be in the third group.)

The A.O.U. voted against the proposal, citing the need for more data.  For now, these groups of nuthatches remain subspecies, and they vary in plumage, bill shape, and vocalizations.  

Now when I see and hear White-breasted Nuthatches, I pay a little more attention.  It's a chance to consider how they might vary, and it's also an opportunity to contribute to what's known about them in different parts of the country.

Here are two views of a male White-breasted Nuthatch in Santa Rosa on 14 March 2015.

 

Examples of things to look for: the length of the bill, the amount of white in the face, the width of the black crown, and the amount of black in the blue-gray feathers.

 

And you can listen to this male singing, too.  I should have also tried to record the call notes (which vary among the subspecies), but I have a brief recording of his song.  [By the way, I haven't heard a discussion about why the call notes would differ more than the song.  Nuthatches do tend to call a lot, and they don't sing that often.  Could that be part of the reason?]

Pardon the background noise, as this recording was made with my camera.  Remember to turn up the volume of your speakers.

If you're interested, you can read more about differences in the subspecies of White-breasted Nuthatches in this article by Steven Mlodinow. 

Among the leaves and flowers

 

I had fun learning about Nuttall's Woodpeckers (Picoides nuttallii) today, 14 March 2015.  

I know some of you are familiar with this species, and some of you aren't.  If you have spent time with the similar Downy Woodpecker, some notable differences in Nuttall's include:

- black-and-white barring extending across the back (Downy's have a vertical white stripe)

- an extensive red patch on the back of the male's head (a male Downy's patch is smaller)

- some black spotting on the underparts (Downy's have none)

 

I watched this male Nuttall's Woodpecker foraging in an oak in Santa Rosa.  It spent most of its time among the new leaves and flowers.  I hadn't really watched a woodpecker do that before, so when I returned home, I read more about Nuttall's Woodpeckers and their feeding behavior.

It's true that Nuttall's Woodpeckers like oaks — especially Live Oaks, Valley Oaks, and Blue Oaks.

But it turns out that they're known for being different — i.e., they don't often peck wood vigorously and forage deep below the bark like many other woodpeckers.  Instead they tap gently from the side, probe near the surface, and glean from the surface itself.  Miller and Bock (1972) also observed that they spend a lot of time scanning foliage and twigs.

 

Nuttall's Woodpeckers eat insects (e.g., beetles, ants, bugs, caterpillars, etc.), and they also eat "vegetable matter" (e.g., seeds, berries, and flower buds).

Now this gets tricky.  Was this woodpecker eating oak flowers, or insects attracted to the oak flowers and leaves...or both?

Only the woodpecker knows...

 

P.S.  I'm not sure how to identify all of the local oaks yet.  My guess is that this is a Valley Oak (Quercus lobata), but please let me know if that's wrong.

P.P.S.  Facts above from the Birds of North America account by Lowther (2000), and Miller, A.H. and C.E. Bock.  1972.  Natural history of the Nuttall Woodpecker at the Hastings Reservation.  Condor 74: 284-294. 

 

Only the second -- Part 2

Okay, this time I didn't cheat.

 

I found a few minutes this morning to look for the Williamson's Sapsucker in Santa Rosa.  She was high up on the trunk of the tree, and very busy, but here are a few pictures for the record.

Note the brown head and extensive barring on the back.  Although a little fuzzy, the next picture is the best one that shows the partly black breast and the yellow belly.

 

I posted a picture of a male Williamson's Sapsucker (from Yosemite) a couple of nights ago.  When first discovered (scientifically), the male and female looked so different it was thought they were two different species. 

I learned that the females may winter at lower elevations than the males, and they may also use a greater diversity of habitats (according to the Birds of North America account).

I mentioned that this sapsucker was "very busy."  She was chipping bark off the tree to create sap wells.  You can see the results of her efforts in the image below where the reddish bark has been exposed.  The Birds of North America account reports that Williamson's Sapsuckers primarily eat sap and phloem fibers during the non-breeding season.

 

Here's one more picture — I just couldn't help including this action shot — of the sapsucker flinging a large piece of bark off the trunk:

 

A Williamson's Sapsucker in the morning, and a Patriots win in the evening — not a bad day!  ;)

P.S.  By the way, it appears that this sapsucker has been utilizing a Deodar Cedar (Cedrus deodara) — a tree native to the Himalayas (around 3,500-12,000 feet).  I'm not familiar with this tree, but I was interested to learn about it and its distribution, as Williamson's Sapsuckers are normally found at mid-high elevations (around 5,000-10,500 feet) during the breeding season.

Only the second

Well, this is cheating a little bit.  But I thought it would be fun to share the news that this species has been seen in Santa Rosa during the last two days.  I haven't been able to go see it, but I have pictures of this species from Yosemite in October 2014.

 

Although my pictures show a male Williamson's Sapsucker (Sphyrapicus thyroideus), the individual observed in Santa Rosa on 29-30 January 2015 is a female (and they look quite different).

This woodpecker is normally found in coniferous forests at higher elevations.  The recent sighting in Santa Rosa is only the second time a Williamson's Sapsucker has been documented in Sonoma County!

Here's one more view of this very striking woodpecker:

 

Creeping up 4th Street

On 27 December 2014, we were running an errand on 4th Street in downtown Santa Rosa.  I heard a familiar bird sound, but based on where we were (a city street) and the type of bird I thought it was (a woodland species), I wondered if I had identified the sound correctly.

I looked around to find the source and sure enough, there it was, among the holiday lights on a tree along the sidewalk:

 

I ran back to the car to get my camera and then walked over to take a few pictures: 

 

It brightened my day to see a Brown Creeper in such an unexpected location.  There were a few redwoods nearby, so perhaps creepers show up here occasionally.  I don't spend enough time on 4th Street to know, but if you've seen creepers there, I'd love to hear about your observations.

Here's one more of the creeper probing deeply into the bark of the tree:

 

We debated about a title for this post.  An alternative was "Street Creeper" — which we liked because it reminded us of "street sweeper," but I worried that it sounded, well, creepy.  Perhaps you can come up with an interesting title of your own?  

And no matter which title you prefer, I hope you can appreciate the wonder of seeing a Brown Creeper at eye-level working its way up the holiday-decorated trees on a busy city street!