Friday, March 18, 2011

Recreation Trail, Ocean Drive, Pacific Grove

Nesting season has begun in our Northern California area and we observed this pair of House Finches gathering nesting material earlier this week along the Recreation Trail from our favorite ocean overlook.
The House Finch is quite common and is found throughout the US except for the central states. It was interesting to see that the Cornell site suggests that they are so common the comment included an observation of the vivid male coloration along with them being as common (apparently) as European Starlings. We find the House Finch far more attractive. Read the  additional information from the Cornell Labs site here.

Individual shots of the Male and female from a different perspective are included below. It is always a welcome sight to see their nesting behavior in the springtime.



Offshore were the usual wintering Western Grebes along with their companion Red-breasted Mergansers. We saw two male Mergansers in their fine plumage shown well here. We did not get good photos as the flock gathers too far offshore for the 500mm lens combination we use. We have reported on this wintering behavior in a previous Blog and observed about 60 individuals in their usual location.




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