The first week of October has come to an end with nice weather at either end with a very rainy spell in the middle when we picked up a few inches of rain. I ended the first week with a great sighting to end my birding this morning with a Yellow headed Blackbird (a rather rare western species for the area) in the East Meadows. I almost missed finding the bird as I was heading out after birding in the fog all morning and noticed another large gathering of blackbirds and decided to quickly scan the flock. Literally the first bird I saw as I scanned from the car was an adult male Yellow headed Blackbird! I got a few photos through the window of the car before getting out and setting up the scope. Despite the bright plumage of Yellow headed Blackbirds that can amazingly disappear quite easily among the masses of large mixed blackbird flocks. I eventually relocated the bird and got a few more photos before I lost track of it again. I let a bunch of people know about it before I headed for home. The bird this morning appears to be a different individual from the Yellow headed Blackbird seen sporadically in the East Meadows in September (that individual appeared to be a juvenile with splotchy yellow on the head and it was never part of blackbird flocks). This becomes just my fourth Yellow headed Blackbird I have had in the county with previous ones being the other individual seen this year, a single bird in a large mixed blackbird flock in November of 2014 and another individual seen for around a week in mid to late October of 2012 in Hadley. The Yellow headed Blackbird becomes another western bird that has shown up in the area following on the heals of a Western Kingbird I found at Arcadia on September 11th. Hopefully more western birds will show as the fall season moves along (fingers crossed for a western warbler of course). Beyond this morning I got to be out birding a bit yesterday and made a stop at Arcadia and had a few good counts of a number of species but nothing too unusual among the 57 species tallied in around three hours. The month is off to a good start for the first week with a total of 113 species (a bit off the mark of the best first weeks of October with 2020 featuring 117 species and October 2018 with 120 species. Warblers for the first week of October featured 16 species but nothing too unusual (so far anyway).
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