Trip Reports

We had a very productive morning with pleasant, mostly sunny weather, a bit cool in the shade, and an enthusiastic group of about 15.  Our morning highlights were seeing the female Great Horned Owl on her nest, the light breeze blowing her feathers made it a little easier to see her, many Allens Hummingbirds, close up of a stationary juvenile Sharp Shinned Hawk – first it had it’s back to us, then it turned around so we got great views of it.  Having the Sibleys book handy was key to identifying this bird (no white at tail tip and it had an eye band), just after that sighting, we saw a Coopers Hawk flying overhead.  Probably one of the higher species counts that we’ve had on one of these walks!  

View this checklist online at https://ebird.org/checklist/S64615217…

14 of us including Carol and I had a great time pounding the back roads of Eastern Alameda County on a delightful, windless, faux-spring day.  We birded at Brushy Peak Preserve, Cedar Mountain Winery, and then along Patterson Pass Rd., Midway Rd., and Old Altamont Road.  Highlights were Mountain Bluebirds, Golden Eagles, and a close look at a Ferruginous Hawk.…

Eight of us had a very nice walk on a sunny, warm winter day.  Birds are getting ready for spring and were super active.  Ducks were mostly gone (since January), though a Canvasback and a couple female Ruddy Ducks had dropped in, and a pair of Ring-necked and female Buffleheads remained.  Judy saw an Allen’s Hummingbird.   Oak Titmice, which have been verrry vocal everywhere the last 2 weeks, did not disappoint here either.   We checked the napes of all our Northern Flickers for intergrade signs; none seen.  Yellow-rumped Warblers were the most abundant bird, with at least one Myrtle’s included (and nicely photo-documented by Becky).

https://ebird.org/checklist/S64408573.  …

Saturday was an unusually foggy day all over the bay, which made terrible conditions for scoping rafts of ducks off of Alameda. Upon arriving at 9 a.m. conditions were bad and only got worse. After seeing a few birds, including a Spotted Sandpiper on the shore, we decided to reverse our route and bird the inner Ballena Bay before walking along the outer SF bayside.

Ballena Bay is a great spot because aside from the offshore ducks you can reliably see a nice variety of landbirds such as Western Bluebirds, Western Meadowlarks, and usually a Say’s Phoebe. Walking among the buildings the first bird we spotted was a lone Red-breasted Nuthatch low on a trunk, which was slightly unexpected. Moving in to a small courtyard to view Bushtits, we found a Black-Crowned Night Heron hidden in the leaves. 

Moving on further brought coots, a few Common Goldeneye, more Spotted Sandpipers, Lease Sandpipers and a Snowy Egret. Crab Cove was not visible through the fog, and the marina wall and docks were empty of roosting shorebirds. 

Toward the end of the walk conditions were just starting to clear, and we saw only a handful of Surf Scoter. Most notable however was a first winter Ring-billed Gull that walked right up to the group. It had an obviously injured left wing, so I captured it and drove it to International Bird Rescue. IBRC confirmed it has a fractured ulna. With their expert care and a bit of luck, hopefully this bird will fly again.

Full eBird list:  https://ebird.org/checklist/S64014142  …

The first thing to strike our Audubon crew (aside from the new fences closing off the area between the dome cage and the lake except for a lockable but open gate) was how very much water there was. The surface looked at least three feet higher than usual… and the level was still rising: threatening to overflow by the Rotary Nature Center a bit before 10 am, and actually onto the path around 11:30 when we were heading back toward Lakeside Park.

Perhaps it was the extra water that lured in our one real lake-rarity: a handsome male Northern Shoveler sat gleaming on the edge of one of the islands like a comic caricature of a Mallard. In all the record-keeping for the trip, he was the first of his kind to appear.

The lake also had virtually all the winter regulars: all five kinds of grebe, both Greater and Lesser Scaup in substantial numbers (for this depleted age), not-ruddy Ruddy Ducks (better called Stiff-tail Ducks for now), and lots of Bufflehead. A party of nine Red-breasted Mergansers clustered in the waters below the islands, including a handsome male in full copper, green, and gray breeding plumage, and the Common Goldeneyes were out in force – unaccompanied by the rarer Barrow’s variety this time, alas.

For those willing to look at gulls (mostly birders bored with sparrows), we had several Glaucous-winged Gulls (gray backs and gray wingtips). They joined some of the duck-sized Western Gulls, a few smaller and yellow-legged California Gulls, and a huge flock of Ring-billed Gulls, the easiest species to identify, having (you guessed it) a clear black band around the bill.

The oaks along the park between the islands and El Embarcadero sheltered most of the birds we usually find across Bellevue and in the garden – crested gray Oak Titmice, Bushtits (also gray and much more mouselike), typewriter-chattering Ruby-crowned Kinglets – plus a pair of Hutton’s Vireos. 

Most of the rest of the forest birds turned up later, though we dipped on robins and House Finches. The prize of the last hour was a really good look at a Downy Woodpecker (one of only two dozen sightings over more than a decade) digging a nest hole at the top of dead pine tree.

For some reason, raptors are the princes of any day list; birders greet them with delight, which is weird when you stop to think about it – they eat the rest of the objectives.…