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The Daily Bucket. First new species for the new year. [1]

['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']

Date: 2025-01-07

The Daily Bucket is a nature refuge. We amicably discuss animals, weather, climate, soil, plants, waters and note life’s patterns. We invite you to note what you are seeing around you in your own part of the world, and to share your observations in the comments below. Each note is a record that we can refer to in the future as we try to understand the phenological patterns that are quietly unwinding around us. To have the Daily Bucket in your Activity Stream, visit Backyard Science’s profile page and click on Follow.

*****

Hey, how ‘bout that? Yucky rhymes with lucky.

..

It being the afternoon, that meant the sun is toward the west so it will be at my back as I walk out along the road around the wastewater treatment plant settling pond. The day looked like this:

Looking across the wastewater settling pond toward the mountains bordering American Valley on the east.

The nearly-ubiquitous Red-tailed Hawks were, um, nearly ubiquitous. Hazy lighting conditions make for hazy photos, but them’s the breaks.

Pulled off one good shot, though.

Besides just perusing the pond I can walk a circuit that takes me out around a mile loop, part of which goes right along Spanish Creek, with all manner of pine, cottonwood, oak, and cedar tree for bird habitat and perching spots. Most of what I see this time of year will be very common, such as Steller’s Jay and Lesser Goldfinch and Pine Siskin, but there is always the possibility of the not so common, such as Bald Eagle. Well, no eagles today, but if I see a bird and I don’t immediately recognize it I will pull my binoculars for a closer peek. There! A dark silhouette up in the branches and I can’t call it. Camera out, zoom in, start snapping. As soon as I had my first snap I was pretty certain I had a species new to my experience. And so it was. Here’s that snap, uncropped and unprocessed:

After a few more snaps (nine in total) I reviewed what I had taken and then was positive in my mind: I had a new species and barely a clue as to what it was. Maybe a woodpecker of sorts, but the relatively short bill was throwing me, and the best I could come up with on the spot was Black-headed Woodpecker although I was also pretty sure it wasn’t that. Ooh, goody, I do love surprising myself.

When I got home I looked in my Hansen’s Field Guide to the Birds of the Sierra Nevada and still couldn’t place the bird. I had to go to iNaturalist, and there it was: Lewis’s Woodpecker, Melanerpes lewis.

Keith Hansen’s book says:

Between Acorn Woodpecker and flicker in size. Breaks the “woodpecker mold”: highly social, upper parts glossed green, belly blushed pink, lacks bold patterning. Appearing dark from a distance, prominently perched bird strikes majestic pose. Sexes similar. … Highly irruptive. Common some years, rare or absent others, depending on food supplies.

“Irruptive”. What does that mean? In short, just sort of appearing out of nowhere and in large numbers. But, I only saw the one for the day.

Some more info, from All About Birds:

The Lewis's Woodpecker might have woodpecker in its name, but it forages like a flycatcher and flies like a crow. It has a color palette all its own, with a pink belly, gray collar, and dark green back unlike any other member of its family. From bare branches and posts, it grabs insects in midair, flying with slow and deep wingbeats. It calls open pine forests, woodlands, and burned forests home, but it often wanders around nomadically outside of the breeding season in search of nuts.

Here are my good shots, cropped and color-adjusted:

I feel good. Not even a week into the new year and I bag species #178 for my life list. Without even leaving American Valley. I’m trying to not feel too smug, but it ain’t easy.

😈

Final photo: ducks on the pond; Bufflehead, Ring-necked, and Ruddy Duck.

Now it’s your turn. What’s been up in your world, nature-wise? Feel free to share in the comments, and please include your locations and any photos if you have ‘em. Thanks.

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