Saturday Morning update - Cassin's

Great updates this week, gang!

Gyrfalcon is a pretty wicked bird to get anywhere in the country, but Riverside, CA is quite the location to see that bird.  Nice work Kev.    You too Ben, with your Great Crested Flycatcher.   (Kevin, I talked to Wes Fritz last night and he is heading South this weekend to "hump on" the Gyrfalcon, he is pumped)

My favorite sighting this week however was the recent presence of Ryan P making his resto.bird.blog debut!

Beth and I strolled around Lake Los Carneros this morning hoping that the storm blew in some odd birds.  It was pretty quiet though - lots of good standard birds for that location:  

blue-gray gnatcatcher

mute swan

ring necked duck

lesser scaup

sora

green heron

orange crowned warbler
golden crowned sparrow

california thrashers

Best bird sightings were CASSIN'S KINGBIRD and a pair of White Tailed Kites grappling in the air and spinning down towards us DIRECTLY from above.   Beth gasped, and started to run away before the birds released each other about 20 feet above my head.  Feathers rained down on us after the whole ordeal was over.  Pretty neat thing, that was.  

So I'll update the list with todays Cassin's and also mention that I accidentally checked 'Hutton's Vireo' on the list, when I meant to check off 'Cassin's Vireo'   I will make the change to the list right away.  Thanks to Micah Schloss for catching this error.