Filed Blog 5

Date: 2/27/2020

Location: Muir Beach

Site Description: Forestry Coast and Beach, Sunny with a slight wind and 70 degrees Fahrenheit

Species Account: Red-winged Blackbird

This was the first bird we saw this day. It was chillin on the fences as seen in the picture below. The sound was like tapping your fingers very quickly, (conk-la reeeee). When it calls it slightly spreads out its wings and tail. The black feathers with the one concentrated red shoulder patch. The red patch may be hidden while standing but once in the air, you can clearly see it. It has a long sharply pointed bill. It was for less than a second. There was about 5 total throughout the day. They are often seen in flocks during the winter. We mainly saw the bird walking on a wooden fence once it landed there and lost slight of it since we moved on to another area. It was a cool bird to see. 

Common Name: Red-winged Blackbird

Species: Agelaius phoeniceus

Family: Icteridae

Order: Passeriformes 

Observations: 7,192,657

Area: North America

Narrative: 

It was a nice day for this walk. So we saw a lot of birds and it was difficult to count all the birds so I missed some. The beach was loud with a lot of birds and waves crashing. We first made our way through the forestry habitat that was right next to the beach. We saw the house flinches and sparrows, in a dirt area. We saw a Phoebe that was sitting the side of the road and it was flicking its tail. There were sparrows flying around a horse stall. Their flight pattern was in circular motions and usually, it looked like they could be doing something with another sparrow. Hawk flying over and looking for prey, we saw it dive for a bit but it didn’t come up with anything. The Hawks also were not in a convention current like we saw two weeks ago since there were flying all around and not flying in one circular motion. We went to the beach and saw Ravens and learned some differences between raven and crows. Ravens will be bigger in body and beak size. Ravens tend to be more stable when they land and call with slight motion but crows will move when landing and calling. We also saw a Cormick that looked like in the water. We saw it dive and then appear 20 yards away from where it dove. The Cormick’s body is denser so it can dive. It was also down for a decent amount of time. We ended the trip by seeing a Northern Harrier in the distance just scouting and probably looking for food. 

Bird List

https://ebird.org/checklist/S66875511

Red-wing blackbird 3

Turkey vulture 2

House finches 5

American crows 15

Stellar’s Jay 1

Pygmy nuthatch 1

Red-tailed hawk 2

California scrub jay 1

Downy woodpecker 1

Great blue heron 1

Phoebes 2 

Fox sparrow 2

Peregrine 1

Anna’s hummingbird 10

Ravens 3

Cormick 1

Western gull 4

Northern harrier 1

 

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