[EBB Sightings] Townsend's Solitaire continues in Tilden RP

Birders:

I spent about an hour this morning trying to re-locate the Townsend's  
Solitaire that Jeff Hoppes found and photographed yesterday.  With  
dense fog cloaking the ridge tops and damp, sub-40 degree air filling  
Wildcat Creek Canyon, I didn't have much hope.  But the bird continues.

 From the location Jeff described, I spent 15 minutes or so looking  
and listening with no results.  Then I began to play the solitaire's  
call notes periodically.  After several minutes I heard a few single,  
loud, short, sweet warbled notes that it took me awhile to recognize  
as a fragment of the bird's song,  After several more minutes the  
bird uttered several of its unmistakable loud, clear, bell-like call  
notes.  It called from the dense vegetation in the ravine (as Jeff  
termed it) downstream from the dam, but I failed to get it into  
view.  Later, walking north down the fire road that follows the  
creek, I found a few toyons densely loaded with berries.  Perhaps  
there'll be enough food to hold the bird until the Oakland Christmas  
Bird Count on Sunday, December 14 -- or at least into Count Week,  
which begins on Thursday.

All I would add to Jeff's directions, below, is to note that the bark- 
less tree he describes is a madrone that's only 20-30 yards beyond  
the second moss-covered trunk one crosses.

Date: Sun, 7 Dec 2008 16:50:49 -0800 (PST)
From: Jeff Hoppes 
Subject: [EBB Sightings] Townsend's Solitaire at Jewel Lake
This afternoon about 3 pm I found a Townsend's Solitaire in the thicket
northwest of Jewel Lake in Tilden Park. Directions from the Jewel Lake
dam: follow the trail west along the edge of the lake, then straight  
ahead
into the thicket (instead of the wider trail south to join the Pack Rat
loop back to the parking lot). You'll cross two moss-covered tree  
trunks,
then the path will fork. Take the right-hand fork, and you'll soon
overlook a small ravine. The big tree on the other side of the ravine,
with no bark on most of the right-hand branches, is where the bird was
sitting.

A really terrible excuse for a record shot can be found here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/black_throated_green_warbler/3091277610/

Dave Quady
Berkeley, California
davequady at att.net