Sara Camnasio

It’s been so fun participating in this! Definitely a huge challenge and learned so much how to slow down and tune into the finer details as a birder. I got really frustrated a few times but then I would see something that would delight me. Today it was seeding two Steller’s Jays, one feeding something to the other and then looking it up to learn males feed females during breeding season!!

Final birding outing:

- Female redwing blackbird

- Female mallard 

- Female steller’s jay (male feeding female!)

- Female violet green (I’m 75% sure on this one: I saw it in the nest with building materials, but there were 30 other violet green swallows around also building nests in other places so I think it counts)

- 2x Quail 

- Bushtit

- Female (or immature?) lesser goldfinch (video)

On my way to surfing I spotted all these females from the car with another birder friend:

- female Wild turkey 

- female Starling

- female red tailed hawk

- female quail x 2

- western bluebird

wanted to share the cool photo of the male (smaller) and female (bigger) Red shouldered from yesterdays tally

After 7 hours of birding, 48 total species found, my female bird tally was:

NINE

Yes y’all - this is how hard this is! To be fair, I’m choosing the harder route by birding mostly in a forest, where it’s hard to spot birds and we mostly had to bird by ear. My list:

- 2 x Female Dark eyed junco

- 2 x female quails

- 1 Female bluebird

- 2x female acorn woodpecker (one pictured)

- 1 Female chestnut-backed chickadee (was in a pair with a bigger male!)

- 1 x female bushtit (light eye!)

Starting off small! It is definitely so much harder than regular birding 🥲

here are the 3 species I was able to ID (with an amazing pic!)

- 1 Female Red- Shouldered Hawk (larger in size, sitting next to male RSHA) - pictured

- 1 Female California Quail (easy to ID)

- 1 Female Black-headed Grosbeak

My total species count was 13, saw lots of Wilson’s Warblers.

Being in a weird bird spot paid off. Saw so many warblers!