Lassen National Forest

Seven hours of driving (one missed turn) brought us to Lassen National Forest and the banding sites of Big Springs and Burney Creek. We cut across the Trinity Range and into the central valley and then up the route 5 into the Sierras. These sites are typically more dry than the other banding sites and offer opportunities for slightly different avifauna than the coastal and Trinity sites. A YELLOW-BILLED MAGPIE, an endemic bird to the central valley of California flew right over the car as we headed north through the savannas dominated by blue oak. We arrived at the campground near Big Springs at about 10 and just threw down our tarps and crashed before waking at 4:45 to set up the banding station. This station is a riparian strip of willow on Big Springs Creek and consists of 8 nets that can at times be very birdy. From there it is another half hour drive to Burney Creek, a beautiful large meadow along the creek that stretches for miles under the shadow of a dormant volcano with snow capped Mt. Lassen off to the side.
We had many good birds in these two days. Highlights besides the magpie were: A GOLDEN EAGLE flyover at Burney Creek, a captured ACORN WOODPECKER, WHITE-HEADED WOODPECKER, and OAK TITMOUSE in the nets at Burney Creek. as well as EVENING GROSBEAK and RED CROSSBILLS feeding at Big Springs and a single BLACK SWIFT at Burney Falls. However, the absolute hightlight of this trip was a GRAY FLYCATCHER captured in the net at Burney Creek. This bird, being in the genus empidonax is very similar to the other empid species that we capture but the dark dusky tipped bill and extensive gray wash nails it down as a Gray Flycatcher. We also took measurements of bill width and primary feather extension to determine 100% the species. A great find, and a life bird for me.

Complete lists of birds banded:
Big Springs
song sparrow 9
audubons warbler 6
orange crowned warbler 16
dark eyed junco oregon 4
western wood pewee 1
chipping sparrow 1
mountain chickadee 4
cassins vireo 3
hermit thrush 1
western tanager 1
fox sparrow thick billed race 1
spotted towhee 2
red breasted sapsucker 1
dusky flycatcher 1
rufous hummingbird 1

Burney Creek
dusky flycatcher 1
western wood pewee 1
song sparrow 4
white headed woodpecker 1
bushtit 9
black throated grey warbler 3
orange crowned warbler 5
dark eyed junco oregon 1
chipping sparrow 2
yellow warbler 1
audubons warbler 1
lesser goldfinch 1
purple finch 5
cassins vireo 1
oak titmouse 1
western tanager 1
spotted towhee 5
black headed grosbeak 1
acorn woodpecker 1
gray flycatcher 1
selasphous spp. 1 (released at the net before species determination was made)

An Acorn Woodpecker. The black stripe between the white and red on the head IDs this as a female bird. In the male the red extends all the way to the white.

Acorn Woodpeckers are very infrequently captured in nets due to their habit to stay high in the trees. Also interestingly, this bird (and some other woodpeckers) can be aged by iris color since it changes with age

An HY (hatch year) Western Tanager in full juvenal plumage. By the way juvenal is the word for plumage in a juvenile bird (not a misspelled word.)

HY Chipping Sparrow at Big Springs

A Western Wood Pewee captured at Big Springs

A Gray Flycatcher. Note the dusky tipped bill characteristic of this species.

White-Headed Woodpecker captured at Burney Creek

An Acorn Woodpecker captured at Burney Creek

Hands full of Woodpeckers!!!