today i birded tecolote canyon for the first time in a long time. i was working on a project there earlier this year until an acute case of cowardice, brought on by numerous attacks from a belligerent cooper's hawk, sidelined me for the season. i was inspired to begin my original project when my grandmother gave me a list that was compiled in the 1980's by a neighbor of hers who was a biologist and a birder. my original plan was to bird the canyon at least once a week for a year and compare lists at the end. at the time that i quit, my own list was already shaping up pretty well, with a few species that the other guy hadn't recorded. he was ahead in overall numbers, but my list was only about three months old... and that was about six months ago. who knows where i'd be now. anyway, after today's trip, i think i'll be re-launching the project, but with a less intense birding schedule. i'll try to get into the canyon once or twice a month until next march, which will be a year since the project started.
today's trip was a mission of the fact finding sort, rather than the birding sort. san diego waste water has been doing a lot of work lately on the storm drains down in the canyon, and my grandma, the always vigilant protector of tecolote canyon, asked me to take her down there to see what exactly they were doing. i just birded and tried to keep up. on our first leg of the trip i had a brief glimpse of what looked to be a WHITE-THROATED SPARROW, which would be an excellent find. the markings on its head were on the drab side, like an immature white-crowned sparrow, without the starkly contrasting black and white median lines on the top of the head. however, the bird had obviously yellow lores, a plain, clean, grayish white chest, and an obvious white throat patch which looked like a bib. however, the bird was partially obscured, and as soon as i got it in my bins, it moved deeper into a scrub oak, where i couldn't get it out again. after a minute or so of pishing, the bird flushed and flew far, far away. because this bird could have been an odd looking white-crowned sparrow, or maybe even a song sparrow that i didn't get a good look at, i can't in good conscience id it as a white-throated sparrow, even though the habitat was perfect for this species: an open grassy field, surrounded by low scrub. i fully believe there is a good chance that this bird was a white-throated sparrow. when i looked around for my grandmother she was about 100 yards ahead of me and i had to leave. i don't know when i will get the chance to check the area again, hopefully sometime soon! other than that there was nothing surprising as far as birds go. we had 3 CASSIN'S KINGBIRDs, gallons of WHITE-CROWNED SPARROWs, 1 COMMON YELLOW-THROAT, 8 YELLOW-RUMPED WARBLERs, 1 ORANGE-CROWNED WARBLER, 3 NUTTALL'S WOODPECKERS, 1 SHARP-SHINNED HAWK, 3 HUTTON'S VIREOs, and 2 NORTHER FLICKERs.
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