Orange-Crowned Warbler

I saw an orange-crowned warbler on July 28th of this year in the San Gabriel Mountains above Los Angeles below the Buckhorn Campground which is on the Pacific Crest Trail near a beautiful stream. I was actually focusing on a dark-eyed junco which was nearby, but because it was behind some small limbs it wasn't focusing well. I noticed the warbler when it flew, but didn't know I had decent photos of it until I got home and was reviewing my photos. 

The orange-crowned warbler has olive-gray upperparts, yellowish underparts with faint streaking and a thin pointed bill. It has a faint line over each eye and a faint broken eye ring. The orange patch on the crown is not usually visible. Females and juveniles are duller than males. Western birds are yellower than eastern birds. They can be distinguished by lack of wing bars, streaking on the underparts, and strong face marking or bright coloring. There are four subspecies, but it is difficult to pinpoint which subspecies we have because ssp. sordida is resident in Southern California and northwestern Mexico and the others all winter in Mexico or Guatemala and could have been passing through. 

Two different subspecies, above and below.

Range from Birds of the World. Light blue is wintering, orange is breeding, yellow is migration and purple is year-round. 

Brown Creeper

Earlier this year I visited a woodpecker preserve in Nevada City, California and a bird I thought I might see there was the brown creeper, a bird I was not familiar with. I think it may have come to my attention because of my son Sam, who asked if I'd seen one before and he'd just been there. On the way back home from Nevada City I drove the Angeles Crest Highway and hiked the Pacific Crest Trail below Buckhorn Camp above a beautiful stream. There I saw a very camouflaged bird creeping along a tree and found out when I got home and looked at my photos that it was a brown creeper. Birds of the World says that its cryptic coloration and high-pitched vocalizations make it difficult to detect, but that it is widely distributed in forests throughout North America. 

The camouflage here is amazing. I could detect the movement, but had a hard time getting the outlines of the bird. 

 

Range from Birds of the World.

There are 13 subspecies and it appears I saw ssp. zelotes which is found in the mountains of southern Oregon, to northern, eastern and southern California. 

Range from Birds of the World. 

American Crocodile

I've seen a number of crocodile species now: (a) Morelet's crocodile in Villahermosa, Mexico (post on March 25, 2018); (b) the Nile crocodile in Masai Mara NR and Buffalo Springs NR in Kenya (post on July 11, 2014) and in the Okavanga Delta of Botswana (post on August 29, 2018); (c) West African crocodile in Kidepo Vallley NP in Uganda (post on December 5, 2025); and (d) the mugger crocodile in Udawalawe NP, Yala NP and Bundala NP in Sri Lanka (post on April 16, 2019). I did a post on the saltwater crocodile I thought I'd seen in Bundala NP in Sri Lanka (post on April 25, 2019), but my iNaturalist posts all eventually got to the point where they indicated they were mugger crocodile. This post on iNaturalist started out with 3 identifications as saltwater crocodile, followed by 8 identifications saying it was a mugger. 

I saw an American crocodile in the Panama Canal in Panama on March 17, 2022. It was at some distance and my photos only really show the head. 

American crocodile range from Wikipedia. Note that Florida is the only place in the U.S. that has them. 

I've seen signs for crocodiles in Florida, but not the crocodile. 

Surprisingly, it is one of the largest species of crocodile, reaching a length of 23 feet (averaging 9 feet, 6 inches to 13 feet, 5 inches) and a weight of 2,200 pounds (averaging about 880 pounds). However, it tends not to be as aggressive as some other species. 

Mountain Chickadee

Chickadees are small North American birds in the family Paridae. Related birds outside of North America are known as tits. The mountain chickadee is the sister (the closest living relative on the evolutionary tree) to the black-capped chickadee (post on November 8, 2022). The mountain chickadee has a black cap which is joined by a black postocular stripe behind white eyebrows. 

This photo of the back of a mountain chickadee shows how the black cap merges with the black ocular stripe and the white eyebrows. 

The black postocular stripe (which looks like it is also pre-ocular), the white eyebrows and the black cap, as well as a black bib. All other North American chickadees have a solid black cap. 

They have a short black bill, a black bib, the back and flanks are gray and they have pale gray underparts. 

The two photos above and this, and the next photo, were all taken near the Chilao visitor center in the San Gabriel Mountains above Los Angeles. 

This photo, and the next two photos, were taken below the Buckhorn Campground in the San Gabriel Mountains. 

Illustration from Birds of the World.

Range from Birds of the World.

Note that the range shows them only in the mountains in Southern California but we have them come to our bird feeder in Redlands. See the photos below. 

Yellow-Billed Egret

The yellow-billed egret of sub-Saharan Africa was considered a subspecies of the intermediate (or medium) egret of Asia until September 26, 2023 when it was separated into its own species by the International Ornithological Conference. It resembles the great egret, but has a smaller bill and a gape which does not extend beyond the eye. The gape is where the edges of the upper mandible and lower mandible of the bill meet. In breeding plumage it has long plumes on its back and breast and the yellow bill becomes orange-red. The yellow bill may have a black tip outside of breeding season. During breeding season the yellow lores turn green and the eyes change from yellow to bright red. 

I saw at least one yellow-billed egret in the Mabamba Swamp on Lake Victoria, Uganda. 

It is a little bit into breeding plumage, with yellow lores just a bit green and some plumes on the breast, but not the green lores and red bill of the illustration below. 

An illustration of a breeding plumage yellow-billed egret from Birds of the World. 

Range from Birds of the World.

East African Eland

I did a post on the East African eland (August 19, 2014) after our first trip to Africa in 2014. We saw one in Nairobi NP and several at a long distance in Lake Nakuru NP. Shortly after, I had an opportunity to try eland meat I obtained through Anshu Pathak of Exotic Meat Market. I did a post on an eland roast: sous vide, grilled and fried (on June 21, 2015) and a post on eland osso buco crockpot stew (on June 25, 2016). I've wanted to get a better view of eland in the wild ever since. 

Earlier this year, in July 2025, we saw huge groups of eland at a distance in Kidepo Valley NP in northern Uganda. Even though they were far away, the number of them was quite exciting to me. I've not kept the photos that were of larger, more distant, groups. The photos here are of eland that we got closer to. 

My favorite photo was taken by my granddaughter. It is a great photo of an eland running. 

West African Crocodile

The West African crocodile has just recently been recognized as a species separate from the Nile crocodile using varying types of studies, including DNA testing. It was not widely recognized until 2011. It is smaller than the Nile crocodile (16 feet 5 inches compared to 9 feet 10 inches) and has a short and thick muzzle. It is also less aggressive. It is found in West and Central Africa, going as far east as South Sudan and Uganda and south to the DRC. Many of the crocodiles in zoos identified as Nile crocodiles actually turned out to be West African crocodiles. 

In Kidepo Valley NP in northern Uganda we crossed a section of road that had a substantial marsh on each side. We saw two small crocodiles which our guide told us was a smaller crocodile than the Nile crocodile. My granddaughter was the first one to see one on the north side of the road and she get a close-up photo of it in the weeds before it turned around and disappeared. She also got a photo of the crocodile on the other side of the road. 

Close-up, but obstructed, view. It was quite small.

I got photos of the crocodile on the south side of the road and have had an identifier agree on iNaturalist that it is a West African crocodile. 

Range of West African crocodile from Wikipedia.