July 8, 2005
Asian oddity
The summer doldrums were somewhat lightened when Betty Berteaux sent me pictures of a 'funny bird' that had shown up in someone's yard north of Davis. The bird had coloration similar to the European Red-backed Shrike, though from what I'd heard of the bird's behaviour, that didn't quite match up. The next day Betty, Joan and I returned to find it. We were first alerted to its presence by its loud, raucous calls. Definitely not a shrike! The bird seemed shy, usually remaining in the thick canopy of a mulberry tree, but twice hopping down onto the lawn where it foraged like a Scrub-Jay. I managed just a couple of shots of the bird in the tree - Joan did her homework and identified it as a White-crested Laughing Thrush, a sedentary species of China and India. No chance of it being wild, but a genus tick for all of us!
