Gualala Birds

I just got a new lifer yesterday, but it comes with a bit of a story.

My wife and I are eating lunch in our kitchen, when I notice something different about this little-brown bird sitting in the tree with all of the robin’s.

We keep a small set of binoculars on the kitchen table, and I quickly did a quick look at this bird – and I immediately said, “This bird is different!”

I went to my office, grabbed my camera — and thank goodness — did a couple of emergency photos thru our kitchen window before opening the front door. My thought was opening the front door might spook the bird – and it did. I opened the front door, and the LBB was gone.

Well, I had my emergency photos that turned out OK so that was enough to start with.

My initial viewing of them suggested this bird look like an Orange-crowned warbler – a bird I’ve only seen a couple times in the past year. But the coloring was off a bit – but it could have matched a juvenile orange-crowned warbler.

I finished lunch, then birded around the house a bit to create a small eBird entry, and I posted the bird as an orange-crowned warbler with a few photos.

eBird immediately bitched at me – “This photo is a Nashville Warbler.”

Wow! A new bird! I went to my bird guide and looked up the Nashville Warbler and … sure enough, it seemed like a likely candidate. My beginner eyes still have a hard time determining finer details like beak shape, the length of the wings and “dull grey” vs “concrete” coloring.

Regardless, I figured if eBird says it’s a Nashville, and the bird guide showed it in my range at this time of year, I’d enter it.

But… there was no entry in eBird to enter it.

What?

1. eBird insists it’s a Nashville Warbler
2. eBird gives me no entry for a Nashville Warbler.

I reached out to a local Mendocino Birding email list and asked for verification; an excellent birder, Lisa, verified that it was a Nashville Warbler, and explained that eBird “hid” that bird entry because it was too early in the season for Gualala to see them. Evidently, this bird started migrating a little early.

Lifer #157 – Nashville Warbler