From: Chris Howard
Date: 5/23/99
Time: 7:57:51 AM
Remote Name: 208.255.220.182
Yesterday May 22 at around 3PM, Larry Nahm and I saw a female Northern Parula at Tollhouse Springs. The springs are located on the Westgard Pass Rd up from Big Pine about half-way up the grade.
The bird we saw had bright yellow in the throat and breast, fading to white toward the belly. The entire head (except the yellow throat) was slate gray with a contrasting split eye-ring (white). The wings were gray with 2 distinct white eye-rings. The thing that initially stood out was the small olive green patch on the upper-back. The book says that females usually have a buffy or orange band across the breast...this bird didn't appear to have that band. Was it a first spring female? The book also says there are 855 records for California, 2/3rds of which are in late May. This bird is right on schedule!
Other birds seen there were Evening Grosbeak, Cassin's Finch, House Finch, Western Wood Pee-wee, Pinyon Jay, Costa's Hummingbird, Black-throated Sparrow, Green-tailed Towhee, Western Tanager, Wilson's Warbler, Common Raven, Emidonax sp. flycatcher, and Spotted Towhee.