Yellow-Breasted Chat

I did a post on the yellow-breasted chat on May 5, 2025. It was only one decent photo of the bird I'd seen for the first time in Big Morongo Nature Preserve. Yesterday I was out at Big Morongo again, with my son, Sam, on a very warm day in the early evening. 

A yellow-breasted chat visited the bird feeders two different times, I'm assuming it was the same bird both times, and it may be the same bird I saw over a month ago. I got lots of photos, some in a tree, some on the ground and some on feeders (which I did not keep). 

My photos follow:

This and the next photos particularly show the orange in the yellow that is characteristic of the western subspecies. 

Ruddy Duck (Breeding Plumage)

My first ruddy duck siting was at Bear River MBR in northern Utah. I posted on it March 4, 2021. On March 16, 2022 I did my second ruddy duck post, this time focusing on a male in breeding plumage at Lake Tamarisk in the Sonoran Desert of Southeastern California. I particularly like the second photo in that post which shows the duck in a "U" shape with the back tail erect in a "v" shape on one-end and the neck erect with the head angling downward on the other end. There were some good photos in that post, but the breeding plumage male was quite a distance away. On Tuesday, June 10,  I visited the Salton Sea State Recreation Area on the northeastern side of the Salton Sea in horrendously hot weather. Few birds were about. The only birds on the small harbor there were a couple of coots, some gangly looking female/immature pied-billed grebes and a good sized grouping of ruddy ducks, including two or three males in full breeding plumage. These males in breeding plumage are one of my very favorite birds and they were much closer than the Lake Tamarisk ruddy, so I share some photos. My first good close-up was a male swimming up the narrow channel into the main channel. Its tail was flat in the water and these two photos were my closest.

The rich chestnut  body and light-blue bill are gorgeous. 

The remaining photos were an attempt to get it in different positions although I got nothing as fun as the "U" shaped duck at Lake Tamarisk. 

From the back, no blue and very little white showing. Note that the tail is erect and I believe the rest of my photos show it erect.  

Now a little more angled with more white and the blue showing. 

With the head turned and the facial white and blue bill in full display.

Bill tucked back underneath back feathers with a female in the background doing the same. 

Now, from the opposite end, bill first and erect tail showing above the back of the head. 

Turned to get the full tail and full beak.

Note the lumpy head. It looks like it has two mildly sloped "horns". 

Beautiful duck. I can now cross a close-up view of the breeding plumage ruddy from my list. 

Great Tit

The second new bird (for me) on our recent trip to Germany was a great tit. I first saw one in Nuremberg fluffing itself in water by the river as I watched above from a bridge. The second time I saw one was on Wallberg, in Pforzheim, a hill made out of the rubble from the bombing of Pforzheim in 1945. I came down early from the top, which has a monument, and watched for birds from a bench. A great tit flew into a tree and I got a photo before it quickly flew again. 

The great tit is large for a tit. There are 15 subspecies and I saw the nominate subspecies, Parus major major, which is found through much of Europe, Asia Minor, northern and eastern Kazakhstan, southern Siberia and northern Mongolia.  The nominate subspecies has a blue-black crown; black neck, throat, bib and head, white cheeks and ear coverts, a yellow breast and a black midline strip running from the bib to vent. A white spot on the neck turns to green-yellow on the upper nape and the rest of the nape and back are green tinged with olive. The female plumage is similar to the male, but the colors are duller and the bib is less intensely black, as is the line running down the belly, which is also narrower and sometimes broken. 

The first three photos were taken in Nuremberg.

This photo was taken in Pforzheim.

This illustration is of the male of the subspecies, P. m. major, from Birds of the World. 

This is an illustration of the female, of the same subspecies, from Birds of the World. 

This is a range map from Birds of the World. 

Fieldfare

I was excited to find a new bird (for me) outside Phorzheim, Germany in the small town of Neubulach, on the outskirts of the Black Forest. Judy and her family were visiting Phorzheim, where her mother grew up, to attend a ceremony where they laid a "stolperstein" for her grandfather, Karl Gustav Frey, who was euthanized by the Nazis in 1940. The eleven members of Judy's family who traveled to Germany rented a a three story house in Neubulach, a 30 or 40 minute drive outside Pforzheim, where we stayed for three nights while we visited places associated with her grandfather and grandmother, mother and uncle. The home of Judy's grandmother and mother was destroyed in the bombing of Phorzheim in 1945 and they emigrated to the U.S. later where they lived the remainder of their lives. 

I went out early several mornings to walk and drive around Neubulach looking for birds. I found a home with a large yard and long grass where some beautiful birds were walking around among the grass. I knew they were a new bird for me and was completely surprised when I looked on Merlin to find that they were called a "fieldfare," a very weird name for a bird and one I'd never heard of. It is an old English name dating back to at least the 11th century which meant "traveler through the fields," an apt description for the birds I was watching. There are an estimated 42 to 72 million fieldfares in Europe, a staggering number, particularly for a bird I've never heard of. 

I went back the next morning and saw the fieldfares in the same place and also saw some roosting on tree branches and telephone wires.

It has a slate gray head, nape and rump, dark brown back, blackish tail and speckled breast. The forehead and crown of the male are blue-gray and each feather has a central brown-black band. There is a more meticulous list of colors on various parts of the body I'll not go into. The male and female look similar, but the upper parts of the female are more brown and the feathers on the crown have narrower black central stripes. 

The photos in the green grass are from the first home I saw them at and went back to a second time. I believe this is a male. 

I believe this darker bird is the female. 

I believe this is an immature fieldfare which was walking around with its parents. 

This and the next photos were in different places and I could have provided more for different birds. 

Illustration of the fieldfare from Birds of the World.

Range map of the fieldfare from Birds of the World.