September 17, 2005
Return to Road 41
This morning at 4:30am (yuck!), Chris Conard and I returned to County Road 41 for another shot at Poorwill and Roadrunner. While we failed to find the former pre-dawn, we were treated to a Gray Fox in the road and several vocal Western Screech-Owls. In the course of driving back and forth along the road in search of the latter, we came across lots of Rock Wrens, 1 or 2 smart Lewis's Woodpeckers and a few singing California Thrashers. I managed a 'record shot' of a flying Golden Eagle...
... and this perched Prairie Falcon, who refused to face the camera because it spotted a California Ground Squirrel...
... which came to a sticky end!
Eventually, perseverence paid off and we were treated to 10 seconds of Roadrunner, which evaporated before I had a chance to set up the camera.
On the way back down we stopped at another birdbath which was almost continually attended by Lawrence's Goldfinches. It was hard to estimate numbers with all the comings and goings, but assuming that we weren't dealing with just a few very thirsty birds, we may have seen as many as 50 individuals!
Also enjoying a bath was this Western Wood-Pewee...
... and a Sage Sparrow.
