Trip Reports

What a beautiful day filled with 66 species of birds!

The day started off great at 6:30 am with a perfect temperature of 65 degrees, the gorgeous morning sun, and a light breeze. Today, It only heated up as high as 80 degrees, which is fantastic considering much of the rest of California cooked in the triple digits. Our trip was booked full which is awesome, but we did have a few no shows. The rest of the group consisted of lots of positive, great people, including some long time and even some brand new GGBA members.

Before we left the parking area we already had seen 20 species. The Alameda Creek Regional Trail and the Staging Area often have great bird activity and we weren’t disappointed. Bushtits bounced all around us. Next we headed up to the levee greeted by our first Black Phoebe of the day and watched Cliff Swallows going in and out of their nests under the bridge. Heading west towards Coyote Hills Regional Park we picked up a number of other species including Barn and Tree Swallows, and American White Pelicans. An adult and juvenile White-tailed Kite greeted us right next to the trail. By 7:30 am, we had already hit our day’s target of 40 species for the day, with good looks for most of the species as well. We watched some Common Gallinules, heard a Virginia’s Rail, and briefly saw an adult Ring-necked Pheasant flying (he continued to make a fair amount of noise even after we saw him).

We looked for the resident Great Horned Owls in the Eucalyptus around Hoot Hollow and tried for Rock Wren and Blue-gray gnatcatchers in the California Sagebrush and Radiolarian Chert outcrops, but came up short. Fernando the Chilean Flamingo also did not make an appearance, but the plethora of Nuttall’s Woodpeckers (10 in total) and amazing views and weather made up for it. We were surprised we did not see or hear any other woodpecker species today. There was so much to see between Alameda Creek Regional Trail Staging Area and the hills around the visitor center which remained the focus of the first part of the trip. Most folks left at the official ending time of 10:30 am, having seen 54 species. Ebird:

https://ebird.org/checklist/S91507324

Those remaining started a new list and headed out west to the former salt ponds and National Wildlife Refuge (NWR). Once we reached the NWR, we biked the levee all the way to the Bay seeing an additional 11 species, including: Least Sandpipers, Marbled Godwits, Willets, Caspian Terns, Forster’s Terns, and Brown Pelicans.…

Birders have this game. When the day is going well – and more often when it’s going badly – someone will announce “I’d like to see a [bird that’s sort of possible but by no means guaranteed to show up]!” in a strong, directive voice, hoping that Someone Out There may be listening. Everyone chuckles and walks on – but if whatever-it-is shows up, which happens weirdly often, someone else will try again.

The fourth Wednesday of May was like that for the still-unofficial monthly birdwalk at the lake. It started with the call for an Eared Grebe, one of the most gorgeous birds of North America at this season, decked out as it is in metallic plumage straight from the Craftsman’s hand. They’re almost certainly all well on their way to a breeding area by the 26th, but the lake was very thin of company. Acres and acres of water empty except for molting Canada Geese, assorted Mallards, and Western Gulls. So “I’d like to see an Eared Grebe about now!” was the most natural thing to say as we passed the islands, and on call, an Eared Grebe bobbed to the surface – probably the only one for miles around.

“I’d like to see a juvenile Black-crowned Night-Heron!” sez I, thinking back to the handsome gray, white, and black adult that had watched us from the bird paddock. And there in a bush on the end of an island sat a fine streaky brown youngster, conveniently perched a few feet below another adult for comparison.

“How about a Green Heron?” Why yes, there-about a Green Heron, standing straight up against an island piling with the central cream panel on its chest lined up with the grain of the wood making it almost invisible. It took careful examination of every foot of the shoreline (for about the dozenth time) to find it.

“We never see House Sparrows anymore!” “No, it’s a pity the way their numbers seem to be declining, but I’d – ah! Like that cock sparrow on top of the New Zealand Tea, and I think there’s a female among the branches!”

“I’d like to see a California Scrub Jay,” someone tried, but the Monkey Puzzle tree in the garden didn’t oblige (as it often would). The request hung fire till we were out the bottom of the garden and looking across toward the Lake Chalet, when two of them chased each other through the bushes and buzzed us close overhead.…

At the start, it looked like a really quiet morning, with the two leaders and one regular so consistent and so well-informed that he amounts to a third leader standing around and looking at one another, some assorted gulls, a few molt-grounded Canada Geese, and the tiny Double-crested Cormorant colony till well after the 9:30 formal start. Eventually, though, additional birders joined us for yet another unofficial, unsponsored not-really-Golden-Gate-Audubon 4th-Wednesday trip. (I was hoping to call it the last unofficial trip, but while GGBA lifted most pandemic-era restrictions as of July 1, it still requires pre-registration to discover secret starting locations – and that doesn’t work for us after a decade and a half in more or less the same spot.)

To begin, several American White Pelicans cruised in, one landing about 10 feet offshore beside me while I was trying to get the scope focused on a pair at the far side of the lake. “Well, you can count that one!” Ruth (my co-leader) said, noting that the usual deal with white pelicans at the lake is that if there’s only one, you should assume it’s Hank-the-rescue-bird, who isn’t here voluntarily and thus isn’t countable by American Birding Association standards. But Hank can’t fly, so if a pelican glides down out of the sky, it’s clear to list.

Several Brown Pelicans showed up too, for the first time since last November (not with the white ones; they live too differently for that, but in the same area.) We had one adult and several youngsters with their chins just beginning to molt from mouse-brown to white, making them look a bit like they were wearing Canada Goose masks.

The air over the water and the grassy fields was full of swallows – not a surprise (June is a peak month for swallows) but still a treat. Besides the Northern Rough-wings that breed here and the Violet-greens we see most often, we had several swallow-tailed Barn Swallows swooping and diving and picking bugs out of the air with their tiny tweezer-like beaks. (Odd how everyone knows what “swallow-tailed” means, even though most of the swallows around here have straight or slightly notched tails rather than the eponymous deep forks.)

Probably the most endearing sight of the day was a Dark-eyed Junco perched on a bare branch, feathers puffed out so far it was the size and shape of a softball – needing only a bit of snow on the bark to look like a holiday illustration.…

Thirteen happy birders gathered for the still-unofficial April 4th-Wednesday walk at Lake Merritt – not quite so many as in a non-pandemic month, but close. 

We got off to a really good start when a Red-tailed Hawk swooped to the top of the dome cage and prowled about, surveying the territory. “How can you tell that’s a redtail?” someone asked, observing its brown-and-beige striped tail. “It’s young yet” was the basic answer. Few descriptive bird names actually apply lifelong and year round, but redtails do better than most: almost all do get rust-red tails after about a year and keep them the rest of their lives. Besides, they have several field marks – the blocky shape, the cummerbund, the subtle light-colored V speckling the back, the black inside the elbows (invisible on a perching bird) – that help us identify them regardless of age.

Also from the meeting spot, we got a long look at a Green Heron on the island rip-rap. It was standing tall (showing off its truly herondous neck) and staring at us as though expecting a fish; no such luck. The water around the islands held an unusual number of scaup for the season, the drakes accompanied by more hens than generally venture near the islands. We also saw a lot of Ruddy Ducks, many altogether ruddy instead of dusty brown.   Coots have never entirely eluded us in April, but they came close this time – only one lone lorn coot showed up all morning.

The Double-crested Cormorant rookery on the island is down to two nests this year, at least so far – there’s room for more pairs, so it wouldn’t be odd to see newcomers. Two is good, though. They’re entertaining to watch and not numerous enough to need to kill any more trees; the smaller eucalyptus seems to be recovering from the damage done three and four years ago. (If that sounds weird, the answer is simple: these birds prefer sunny nest spots but will build in the shade if that’s all that’s left in their chosen area. Either way, they go about their lives, ejecting former fish – lots of former fish; you do not want to stand in their shade – and changing the soil in ways their tree eventually cannot survive. The big tree is a goner, but the little one looks like it may make it.)

Hank-the-rescue-pelican had a friend this year, which is notable on two counts.…

The still-unofficial 4th-Wednesday Golden Gate Bird Alliance walk drew 13 birders – much less scary now with so many of us fully vaccinated – and the lake was as lively as it gets in these diminished days. The variety stays high and we resolutely avoid counting individuals, so we stay cheerful despite the ever-increasing amount of water between birds.

The bare island tree started out empty, but three gleaming black double-crested Double-crested Cormorants swooped up from the floats to pose near the biggest surviving nests – so it looks like we will have a season again this year. With any luck, we’ll have another nine-nest colony, fitting into one tree and offering plenty of entertainment without raining further death onto the island.

Around by the Nature Center, we got our first look at a Green Heron in six months. The bird was standing unusually tall and away from the water’s edge on a twist of roots on one of the islands, showing off its properly heron-long neck and helping us celebrate my scope’s return to the walk for the first time since the initial lockdown.

The scavenger flock was in truly fine looks, with both Greater and Lesser Scaup drakes shining in white-winged perfection, despite the lack of hens to admire them. (The brown hens mostly stay well away from the islands.) A Hermit Thrush foraged near the corner of the bird paddock, still surprising despite showing up for a fourth straight month. The species hasn’t graced a March walk since 2011 – and this time we saw two of them (or maybe one twice, but the other was near the monkey puzzle tree in the garden). Happy news, either way.

Northern Rough-winged Swallows swooped over the grass and water, flashing brown and cream. They look to be working closer to the islands now – at any rate, one darted out of the lake wall just below the playground, a good block west of where they nested last year.

Down toward El Embarcadero, we saw several Eared Grebes near or in full breeding plumage, gold fans sparkling beside their beady red eyes – worth a trip to the lake all by themselves. The Ruddy Duck drakes were also well into their astonishing transformation from secretive brownish slate to brilliant blue-billed auburn, making the black caps and white cheeks they always wear stand out rather than blend into the scenery.

Checking out the floats one last time before crossing Bellevue into the park, I gasped reverently, “That’s a merganser!”…