connorco
Well-known member
This is a report from yesterday. Central Marin isn't birded too often, and especially the areas I went to yesterday. I started off at Alpine Lake, where the best birds were. At the beginning there were 4 Wilson's Snipe, pretty nice bird for central Marin, one of which started flying through the middle of the first, definitely something you don't see every day. Along the trail there were many birds that are fairly unusual locally, such as 30 Red-breasted Nuthatch, getting close to the county high-count, and good numbers for Varied Thrush, which don't seem to be having a great year. The bet bird of the day was along this trail, a Townsend's Solitare. They winter in tiny numbers (>5) atop the highest mountain in the country, but this was at a low elevation ~630 feet. Later, further away in a tiny marsh in the middle of a forest, I saw a Song Sparrow so dark I thought it was one of the PNW subspecies, but it ended up being an extremely dark local bird. These birds were probably inbred, so that's why I'm guessing it was so dark. On the Ridgeline heading back I had lots (10+) Thick-billed Fox Sparrow, in a wintering population I discovered a month ago. Mixed in were a few Slate-Coloreds, also pretty rare. On the way back to my bike, I found a interesting junco which is up for debate right now, either a really wonky Oregon, or (more likely in my opinion) a Pink-sided x Oregon.
