A great big sit!

The weather was lovely all day...  after the sun came out. Before then I got chilled, but don't seem to have any ill effects from it. Fingers crossed. We saw more birds than we'd seen on a Big Sit before, I think. Having an ace birder (Stephen Falick) helped a lot. I could barely keep up jotting them down as he called them out.

That doesn't mean we'll win the competition. This year there were a couple more teams competing and I don't know their habitat or skill, so we'll see. Fun either way! Another team member, Jeff Bennett, joined us after these photos were taken. Such a fun group! 

There have been 275 species documented at the oasis, so it's hard to get another, but today it happened. A swallow flew over after Stephen had left to chase a rare bird that showed up in Marathon today. We weren't sure what the swallow was, but decided upon Violet-green Swallow. Then a visiting young ace birder (Camille Conner) informed us she had gotten a photo of it, and it was a Bank Swallow. These young birders these days are awesome! Photo by Camille. 

Another no-nap day, so I'm exhausted and headed to bed!

UPDATE: Mike Gray did his best during the Big Sit to get photos of the Crissal Thrashers at the nest. This is the best that can be done without cutting away the brush, which we won't do for fear it would compromise the nesting success. The twig walls are sort of part of the nest. I wouldn't change it.

And here's Camille's photo of an adult carrying food to the nest!