Poison Water guzzlers -- dickeybirds

Left to right: California towhee, Lesser nighthawk, rufous-crowned 

sparrow, hummingbird impersonator (you tell me), Oak titmouse 

Admittedly, they're not much as bird portraits, but they are good enough to identify water hole guzzlers.  

Sage sparrows showing age-sex differences in plumage.

Examining 400+ photos is a lot of work, and poor picture quality means more work, because you have to drag the jpg from IPhoto to Photoshop to eyeball it up close.

Here is a summary.

Number of appearances by species; 18-21 August '09 (487 photos).

If you just count frames, California towhees placed first as the most photographed bird, with California and Mountain quail placing second and third. 

Oak titmice were often seen clinging to a timber waiting to dash in for a quick drink. 

We got only one frame of the Lesser nighthawk -- seen at the top of the page drying out after a bath -- and two frames of a white-breasted nuthatch. 

When the scrub jay visited other birds stayed away. 

Frequency of bird and mammal photos at dawn, dusk and night.

For the sake of economy we set the controller for night pictures, so we don't know what species visited Poison Water during the warm hours of the day.

A northern flicker butts in on the quail for a drink of bathwater.

The camera still operated in low light -- becoming active around 7:00PM when there was a flurry of bird activity and turning off just before 7:00AM. 

It is tempting to set the camera for round-the-clock activity.

That gap in the data makes you wonder who shows up in the heat of day.