Visiting Birders See Hutton's on the Nest

5/3/2009 Birds AND birders all around this morning! The dog barking alerted me to guests in the yard and sure enough, Mauricio and his wife were up seeking the evening grosbeaks that had been here in large flocks last week. The raucous groups had moved on though, so I donned my raincoat and went birding with my guests. Just 200 yards down the road were Jay Bogiatto and Shelly Kirn, up doing their quarterly ‘modified big day’ together we had good looks at singing Nashville warblers, purple finches, black-throated gray warbler, Bullock’s orioles, black-headed grosbeaks, western tanagers and red-breasted nuthatches.

Stopping at the Archers home we saw one Hutton’s cavorting around the nest tree. Gaining a view into the nest from the top of the driveway we had nice looks at a Hutton’s on the nest, peering at us intently with her huge dark eye (see photo).

Parting company with my birding friends I followed some sharp little call notes onto an abandoned parcel uphill from my home. Here I watched four Nashville warblers moving from tree to tree and then chasing each other near the ground. It appears that one pair (or at least one individual) chased two of the other individuals away. Could it be that there were three males pursuing one female and a dominant male chased the other two suitors away?