Date: 11/11/24 9:37 am From: Brian Fitch via groups.io <fogeggs...> Subject: [SFBirds] Scott’s Oriole
After viewing the continuing Yellow-bellied Sapsucker at Elk Glen Lake this
morning, I walked on westward to the maintenance yard where a bird call
stopped me. The harsh chack sounded like a Cal Thrasher, but the well
screened bird making it was a greenish oriole. I had no guides or phone on
me and so couldn’t research on site, and my memory doesn’t hold marks and
sizes like it used to.
But I’ve just reviewed the two orioles who give a chack/chut call, listened
to sounds and checked images, and the bird was a juv or female Scott’s. It
was notably larger than the adjacent crowned sparrows, the “chack” call was
harsh and loud, and there were mottled dusky markings on the head and
mantle. Body color was olive with bright wing bars, and I couldn’t see the
bib if there was one.
The bird was skittish and flew away through cover before I could obtain an
unscreened view. It headed toward the lake, but despite walking the
shoreline and rechecking the original site twice, I couldn’t relocate it.
The site is the triangular patch between dirt roads due south of the yard
and west of the lake. I’ve seen Scott’s once prior in SF, a bird that
spent the winter around the Conservatory in 2001-2002. And I also saw the
Orchard this past March on the south shore of Elk Glen.
Brian Fitch
