Still scrambling to pick up a few more year birds but with no luck!

Anna Fasoli of Speed Birding recently pointed out to me that I was in the eBird top 100 for my 2011 ABA (American Birding Association) area list.  I hadn't been checking my ranking since before I came out to California, but I'm glad she noticed that I was barely hanging on, now tied for 92nd place with 424 species (that's just over 50% of all the birds seen in the ABA area this year).  It's been a great year, but several birds relatively common in California remain to be added to the list.  Yesterday afternoon I went looking for Pygmy Nuthatches at the Bolinas Cemetery, although with no luck.  Nothing spectacular was around, but I did get to spend time watching and photographing some of the more common species; more than 6 White-throated Sparrows (a fairly good count for this part of CA), Song, White-crowned, Golden-crowned and Fox Sparrows, a few California Towhees, loads of Dark-eyed "Oregon" Juncos, Downy and Acorn Woodpeckers, Anna's Hummingbirds, Bushtits, and Chestnut-backed Chickadees. I also had 2 first winter male Eurasian Wigeons with the usual wigeon flock across the street from the Bolinas school.

Here are a couple of photos from yesterday:

California Towhee, Bolinas Cemetery, Bolinas, CA [Photo by Lukas Musher]

Dark-eyed Junco, Oregon race, Bolinas Cemetery, Bolinas, CA [Photo by Lukas Musher]