California Trip – Day 4

On my final day in California, I wanted to get a little time for some final birding but I knew that I would have to leave almost immediately after the end of the conference. So, I went out a little early to see if I could see anything of interest such as a picture of an oak titmouse.

While I saw quite a bit in a small wooded area across from Stanford Stadium, the light was tough. Still, I got to see a Spotted Towhee (first of year), a couple of Western Scrub-Jays, Chestnut-backed chickadees, oak titmouse and even a small flock of bushtits.

Eventually, it was time to move on – and the walk actually provided to be very birdy. Along the walk were more bushtits and titmice, and when I got to the conference I was able to have breakfast with a pair of Oregon Juncos who were jumping around the edge of the patio. While I was admiring them, I heard a unique call in a nearby tree. Of course I had to check it out, where I saw a pair of woodpeckers – a pair of Nuttall’s woodpeckers*, a new lifebird. Unfortunately, I only had my iPhone and couldn’t get a picture of either species.

After the conference, my walk back to the car was also full of birds, including two species of hummingbirds (Anna’s (a new bird) and Black-chinned), more oak titmice, another towhee singing at the top of its lungs and several more scrub-jays, most of them flying around the buildings at Stanford. A trio of ravens (which I guess is a traditional resident here, even though they are uncommon in the area in general) were calling from the top of one of the buildings as a I walked past. I don’t often get to see them and even more rarely get a good luck so that was a nice touch.

So, all too soon it was time to head to the airport. But in addition to a nice conference (which I’ll get around to writing about soon), I had a lot of great birding in a short amount of time. You can see my entire set of pictures on Flickr.

Bird List