[EBB Sightings] Orioles at Temescal

Greetings Birders

-on this exotic morning with a sky full of lovely mid-level clouds.? "Dry lightening" is the possible forecast, not welcome in this driest of months.

Jane Dang and I spent a couple of hours this morning at Lake Temescal.? We had just gotten out of the car when a bird dropped down out of a redwood to the ground and then quickly flew back up into a lower bough.? It was the female Bullock's Oriole reported earlier by Judith Dunham and yesterday by Pat Bacchetti.  The female was joined by a male with its black throat.  We saw them off and on as we walked slowly along the edge of the lawn next to stream.  Though we saw no fledglings feeding there were probably several orioles.  If these reports were not made by experienced birders, I would wonder after consulting Sibley whether this male was not more yellow with a blacker more extensive throat than the pictured male Bullock's, thus resembling more closely the Hooded Oriole.

This is truly a very "birdy" place.  We spotted a possible Wilson's Warbler and got good views of a Townsend's Warbler in the redwoods.  Song Sparrows and Bewick's Wrens were singing and Wrentits, male and female, sang from up on the brushy slope.

This is a rich habitat for a number of species and I intend to include it on my regular rounds -- good brambles, a lively stream (passing the bridge I remembered that several winters ago Dave Quady and others saw a Dipper), nice live oaks, redwoods, a steep open slope with plenty of brushy cover, and cattails along the lake edge (which accounted for the flock of male and female Red-winged Blackbirds) on the lawn. 

-Phila Rogers