Myiarchus Pictures

This morning on my way to work, I observed a single Myiarchus flycatcher foraging in the Eucalytpus trees in the undeveloped parts of Creek Park just north of Imperial Highway. These three shots were very distant, but they were the best that I could manage.



I don't know what species it is. I think it's most likely an Ash-throated Flycatcher, but it might be a Dusky-capped Flycatcher. My impression at the time that it was small and yellow to be an Ash-throated, but the sun was warm and indirect. Its bill seemed large, and the tail seemed to lack the rufous of an Ash-throated. But, looking at these pictures, there seems to be some rufous in the tail (the second picture), and the wing bars seem pronounced enough to belong to an Ash-throated Flycatcher. The call more closely resembled an Ash-throated Flycatcher to a Dusky-capped Flycatcher. Either way, it's fairly rare, but Dusky-capped would be less likely.

Opinions welcome! Feel free to comment.

Astro-Blasting!!

Libby and I put off our celebration of St. Valentine's Day until this last Sunday, so we could eat at the Blue Bayou. We had a lot of fun at Disneyland. Here's us blasting some robots to save Star Command's power cells.

Look at how concentrated we are! Libby was having an off day, but we still had fun. I love this ride. It's like a video game and a fun theme park ride all in one.

Astronomical Wonders

Did you catch the eclipse Wednesday night? It was beautiful, and the weather was surprisingly cooperative for us. Every once in a while there'd be a thin veil of clouds, but generally it was very visible. Here's a record shot from our camera:


After I took the camera off the tripod we set up our spotting scope, which works OK as a telescope. We observed the moon through that for a bit, and then Libby went looking for Saturn. She found it! We could clearly see the rings sticking out on either side of the gas giant. Through the scope it was a beautiful clear star with two sticks on either side. We like to imagine it was something like what Galileo saw.

Regulus was also very clear just above the moon, and this is a great time to see the closest star visible in the Northern Hemisphere. Sirius is the brightest star in the south. You can use Orion's belt as a pointer - it's just straight off and a little below it (at least around 8:00).

Birding the Sacramento Valley

For Presidents' Day weekend, Jonathan and I went on a birding trip to one of the Fifty Places to go Birding Before You Die (I got this book as a Christmas present from one of my wonderful students). We went to destination 13: The Sacramento Valley. Jonathan has put pictures up on facebook.

We drove up Saturday morning, leaving at 5:45 am to get a good start. By lunch time, we were in Sacramento. We stopped at Sutter's Fort, had a picnic lunch and walked around. From there we went to the Capitol. It's a beautiful building on the inside and outside. No luck seeing the Governator, though.

Saturday evening we went looking for Short-eared Owls in a well-known hot spot, and had great success. They put on a good show along with Northern Harriers, a White-tailed Kite, and Red-tailed, Ferruginous, and Rough-legged Hawks all in one big field. And Burrowing Owls were abundant in the next field over. We weren't the only ones there. There were probably 12 or 14 birders total, standing on the side of the road, watching and photographing the scene. Jonathan had a funny idea: What if the way birders greeted one another was to give 'em the bird? I thought we should try it and see what would happen. However, he was not committed enough for this. I sure called his bluff.

After the owls, we still had about an hour drive further North to Willows where we would spend both nights. We passed the time in the car singing Anyone Else But You by the Moldy Peaches, and making up our own silly verses about each other.

All day Sunday, and also Monday morning, we birded all over the Sacramento National Wildlife Refuge. We encountered many other birders as we explored the area. And about 50% of them drove a Subaru. No kidding. I guess it's "the official car of birders" or something. I had no idea! But now I have to have one.

We had three target birds that we studied before the trip: Tundra Swan, Rough-legged Hawk, and Short-eared Owl. We ended up getting all of them. Here's the final trip list:

(in taxonomic order)
1. Pied-billed Grebe
2. Eared Grebe
3. American White Pelican
4. Double-crested Cormorant
5. Great Blue Heron
6. Great Egret
7. White-faced Ibis
8. Turkey Vulture
9. Greater White-fronted Goose
10. Snow Goose
11. Ross' Goose
12. Canada Goose
13. Cackling Goose
14. Tundra Swan*
15. Wood Duck
16. Gadwall
17. Eurasian Wigeon
18. American Wigeon
19. Mallard
20. Cinnamon Teal
21. Northern Shoveler
22. Northern Pintail
23. Green-winged Teal
24. Ring-necked Duck
25. Lesser Scaup
26. Bufflehead
27. Common Goldeneye
28. Ruddy Duck
29. White-tailed Kite
30. Bald Eagle
31. Northern Harrier
32. Red-shouldered Hawk
33. Red-tailed Hawk
34. Ferruginous Hawk
35. Rough-legged Hawk*
36. American Kestrel
37. Peregrine Falcon
38. Chukar* (We don't know if we can technically count this one, since they might not be from an established population.)
39. Ring-necked Pheasant*
40. California Quail
41. Common Moorhen
42. American Coot
43. Sandhill Crane
44. Killdeer
45. Black-necked Stilt
46. American Avocet
47. Greater Yellowlegs
48. Long-billed Curlew
49. Dunlin
50. Long-billed Dowitcher
51. Wilson's Snipe
52. Ring-billed Gull
53. Herring Gull
54. Rock Dove
55. Mourning Dove
56. Great Horned Owl
57. Burrowing Owl
58. Short-eared Owl*
59. White-throated Swift
60. Anna's Hummingbird
61. Belted Kingfisher
62. Nuttall's Woodpecker
63. Northern Flicker
64. Black Phoebe
65. Loggerhead Shrike
66. Western Scrub-Jay
67. Yellow-billed Magpie
68. American Crow
69. Common Raven
70. Tree Swallow
71. Cliff Swallow
72. Bushtit
73. Marsh Wren
74. Ruby-crowned Kinglet
75. American Robin
76. Northern Mockingbird
77. European Starling
78. American Pipit
79. Yellow-rumped Warbler
80. Spotted Towhee
81. California Towhee
82. Chipping Sparrow
83. Savannah Sparrow
84. Fox Sparrow
85. Song Sparrow
86. Lincoln's Sparrow
87. White-crowned Sparrow
88. Golden-crowned Sparrow
89. Dark-eyed Junco
90. Red-winged Blackbird
91. Tricolored Blackbird
92. Western Meadowlark
93. Brewer's Blackbird
94. House Finch
95. House Sparrow

Disneyland with a Toddler

Kids under 3 get into Disneyland for free. Jonathan and I have Disneyland passes. We also have a nephew just under the age of 3. It all fit together so nicely. So, we took the little guy to the Magic Kingdom. You can see pictures from the trip here. (This actually happened over a week ago, but I've been too busy to post about it until now.)

We had a good time. Little Jonathan said some funny things. Like when we were driving there:

Husband Jonathan: Aww, shucks.
Nephew Jonathan: Shut it! Shut it up! Don't say that word!

And then when we were getting out of the car, after arriving:

Me: Jonathan, do you need help getting out of your carseat, or can you do it yourself?
Nephew Jonathan: You should help me. Quickly! Before the train leaves!

It was a new experience for Nephew Jonathan and I think it was a little overwhelming. There were colorful, exciting things everywhere. And lots of people! He wanted to be held the whole time, and only walked by himself when we got back to the parking structure on our way out. But we rode the train, and the horse-drawn car (twice), and the Storybookland ride, and we saw a fire truck, and watched the Carousel (he was quite plain that he did not want to ride the Carousel, but he did want to watch the Carousel). And I think, all in all, it was a successful trip.

In The Place of the Lion

For my birthday, one of my gifts was Charles William's The Place of the Lion. Thanks, Phillip!

Charles Williams is not as well known as Tolkien or Lewis, but like them he was a member of the Inklings, an informal literary group of authors and critics that met in Oxford. He was a Christian, like Lewis and Tolkien, and wrote books that were full of atypical but Christian themes. The Place of the Lion is no exception.

The setting of the novel is a little country town. But for the novel, the address might be: Smetham, England, UK, Physical Earth. The point being that the plot of the novel revolves around the collapse of the heirarchical ideological immaterial realities of unchanging universals (personalized via ideas contained in Medieval thinkers) into the physical world. Kind of confusing, right? That's pretty typical of Williams' fiction.

Basically, some people in Smetham were fooling around with some kind of Neo-Platonism. The leader of this outfit is attacked by an earthly lioness escaped from a local circus. But when the lion contacts this Berringer fellow, the archetypical lion springs from the intersection and begins roaming the countryside, subsuming its lesser daughter into itself. But a lion to Williams is not only a giant predatory cat, it is also a spiritual reality. It is aggression and rage, also, such as you and I feel.

Soon other archetypes start popping up. The perfect serpent, eagle, butterfly, horse, and unicorn all appear. As they appear they subsume their earthly emanations. So the countryside is emptied of animals (except for sheep), but also, those humans who most closely serve each spiritual significance. A man becomes a ferocious lion, a woman a snake. A man who collects butterflies sees the idea of butterfly and is so consumed with its vision he eventually neglects life and dies. Buildings start falling down, the weather turns unbearably hot, and the end of the world appears nigh.

Pretty crazy, right?

Anyway, I really liked it. There are a couple of Dante-esque moments that would make any fan of the Comedy smile, and the ending was a pleasant surprise. The book was encouraging in its commitment to the way things really are, and the necessity of spending ourselves for the sake of truth, and not vice-versa. That's especially nice during the political season, when knowledge and opinion are bartered for votes, popularity and power.

I recommend the book, especially to those who have a bit of Classical education. It's fun to see the connections and to find someone who reveres the Medievals.

Anna's Chirps

Researchers have developed a new theory to explain an Anna's Hummingbird's chirp at the base of its dive. This is something anyone in California can observe - Anna's Hummingbirds are everywhere around here - and it's something he or she can probably observe right now, as we're well into the Anna's courtship season.

Anyway, it turns out that the chirp at the base of their dive (quite distinctive, and quite loud) is actually made by vibrating their tail feathers. Since they feathers are stiff, when they spread them at about 50 mph, they vibrate like a reed in a clarinet. It sounds louder to me than anything they use their voice to produce - and Anna's Hummers are accomplished singers.

Here's a BBC Article about it.

Here's a You Tube video.