[SBB] Dickcissel north of L'Avenida

[Mike Rogers <[[email protected]]>]

All,

This morning 10/14/05, I again birded the portion of Stevens Creek 
between L'Avenida and Crittenden Lane north of Highway 101 in Mountain 
View. The highlight today was an immature DICKCISSEL that preened in 
excellent morning light atop a coyotebrush about 50 meters south of the 
lone eucalyptus south of the Crittenden Lane bridge. After enjoying the 
bird from all angles for 6 minutes, it flew a short ways south to the 
next tall cottonwood. This bird had a necklace of thin streaks and 
narrow streaks on the lower flanks (as shown in Sibley's "1st winter 
female" illustration) but already had a yellow malar, yellow on the 
breast, and rusty edgings to the greater coverts, presumbaly indicating 
a young male (but I'll have to check Pyle's book to be sure about this). 
This is the third county record of this species, following a male in a 
Mountain View yard 28-30 May 1996, and an adult male along the Guadalupe 
River south of Montague Expressway from 24-26 July 1999. Quite a 
variation in the time of year the birds were found!

Other lingering migrants included 1 "WESTERN" FLYCATCHER, 1 HOUSE WREN, 
3 YELLOW WARBLERS, an ORANGE-CROWNED WARBLER, and a basic plumaged 
CHIPPING SPARROW (with the huge sparrow flock near the end of 
L'Avenida). I thought I might have heard a MacGillivray's Warbler just 
before finding the Dickcissel, but had to stop pishing to avoid flushing 
the Dickcissel and completely lost track of this other bird.

I heard begging young GREAT EGRETS while along the creek, and thus 
decided to check the heronry along Shorebird Way before heading to work. 
There is still one nest with two begging large young in it - pretty late!

Mike Rogers
Sunnyvale

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