Another Chase With a Good Result

Since first being seen on a Christmas bird count in mid-December, a Brambling has been putting on a show for California birders in the small Northern California mountain town of Quincy. There have been less than 10 records for this species ever in California so this was a chance I did not want to let go by. My buddy Jeff was unable to join me on this chase so when a 3 day weekend rolled around I took my chance. Leaving Napa at 3:45 in the morning I headed towards Sacramento and then north in the Valley to Oroville. The road follows the Feather River from here and takes you along the edge of the gigantic burn from last year's Dixie Fire.  This fire has altered the landscape of a large area where I have both fished and birded since I was a kid. It will recover with time but I will not see it again in the state that I remember with such fondness.

Arriving at the stakeout location a little after 7 am I met another birder, Chris from Pittsburg, who already had several good looks at the Brambling.

Over the course of the next 45 minutes the bird made continuous appearances to collect seed from the ground, staying in the open at least once for 2 minutes. I collected a few low quality images because of the lighting conditions which I share here.

Seeing a migrant species like this so far from where it should be always makes me wonder about the circumstances of its journey. I mean, it is no mystery how it got here, it flew. The mystery lies in why it did not follow its species' traditional migration from northern to southern Eurasia but instead traveled east towards and across the Pacific to North America. We will not ever know the answer to this question but that mystery is one of the attractions to the birding life. The chase to see a bird you have never seen before is the excitement in the story, to wonder about how it got there gives us the mystery.

On my way home I tried unsuccessfully for a Northern Shrike that has been seen near Oroville for much of the winter. I will have to save this one for another chase in the future.