It was over 90 degrees again, but there had been reports of Wilson's Phalaropes and there was a chance of seeing the rare Least Tern again, so I went back out to the local wetland the following evening. My lifer Wilson's Phalaropes were thankfully very easy to find! They appeared to be two males, so I'm not sure what they're doing migrating south already. My Nat Geo field guide says females are commonly seen migrating south in June (because the males, not the females, raise young) so perhaps these males had an unsuccessful breeding season, or maybe they completed their breeding season duties a bit early.
I got a few photos from a brief trip to the coast as well.
These photos are © 2025 Phil Thompson, all rights reserved.
My "birds in review" collages can be found here.
Signature
📄 hashes-2025-07-03-073447.txt
📄 hashes-2025-07-03-073447.txt.sig
The above hashes-<date>.txt file contains SHA-256 hashes of all the photos
from this shoot. The hashes-<date>.txt.sig is a signature of that hashes
file, created with my PGP key. The signature file
itself was written to both the Bitcoin Cash and Algorand blockchains, in the
OP RETURN and Note fields respectively, using the transactions below.
In short, this proves that these photos and the signature both existed at the time the
transactions were written to the Bitcoin Cash and Algorand blockchains.
This blog post has more details.
view the BCH tx on blockchair.com: dde15ea43fe681aa9f3292e8b53f51157554f04e155c24696066d4866ebaa539
view the ALGO tx on explorer.perawallet.app: RDEMGDJAWXPXIF5CLJCVWYF2STB4UDYE23FDFWGDB4KE5XQ5KROA
11:53AM Thursday June 26, 2025
Brown Pelican, Western Gull, Brandt's Cormorant, Double-crested CormorantThis thumbnail here isn't much use, but the full size panorama image is 22k by 16k pixels. You can pan and zoom around the full size image here, on ZoomHub.net. There are many nesting birds going about their day.
12:14PM Thursday June 26, 2025
Western Gull, Brandt's CormorantI believe Brandt's Cormorants use nesting material in some of their breeding behaviors, but the one holding a big bunch of nesting material flew off, carrying the material away.
12:14PM Thursday June 26, 2025
Western Gull, Brandt's Cormorant
12:14PM Thursday June 26, 2025
Western Gull, Brandt's Cormorant
12:14PM Thursday June 26, 2025
Western Gull, Brandt's Cormorant
7:33PM Monday June 30, 2025
Greater Yellowlegs, Wilson's Phalarope
7:36PM Monday June 30, 2025
Greater Yellowlegs, Wilson's Phalarope
7:36PM Monday June 30, 2025
Greater Yellowlegs, Wilson's Phalarope
7:37PM Monday June 30, 2025
Greater Yellowlegs, Wilson's Phalarope
7:37PM Monday June 30, 2025
Wilson's Phalarope
7:37PM Monday June 30, 2025
Wilson's Phalarope
7:37PM Monday June 30, 2025
Wilson's Phalarope
7:37PM Monday June 30, 2025
Wilson's Phalarope
7:37PM Monday June 30, 2025
Wilson's Phalarope
7:37PM Monday June 30, 2025
Wilson's Phalarope
7:37PM Monday June 30, 2025
Wilson's Phalarope
7:37PM Monday June 30, 2025
Wilson's Phalarope
7:37PM Monday June 30, 2025
Wilson's Phalarope
7:37PM Monday June 30, 2025
Wilson's Phalarope
7:37PM Monday June 30, 2025
Wilson's Phalarope
8:23PM Monday June 30, 2025
Great-tailed GrackleThis is a continuing rare bird here. I was mostly looking for the Least Tern again when this large black bird flew overhead. It appeared too skinny to be a crow, and my first thought was Great-tailed Grackle. I looked at the shots on the camera and couldn't see the light eye to confirm, so I had to wait until processing the image on the computer before it became clear that it was in fact the Grackle.
8:23PM Monday June 30, 2025
Great-tailed Grackle
8:23PM Monday June 30, 2025
Great-tailed Grackle
8:23PM Monday June 30, 2025
Great-tailed Grackle
8:30PM Monday June 30, 2025
Northern HarrierOne harrier was carrying food, and they both went to the ground in a tussle.
8:30PM Monday June 30, 2025
Northern Harrier
8:30PM Monday June 30, 2025
Northern Harrier
8:30PM Monday June 30, 2025
Northern Harrier
8:42PM Monday June 30, 2025
European Starling