Trip Reports

The Pandemic continued to cast its shadow over gatherings in May, but the officially cancelled 4th-Wednesday walk at Lake Merritt drew seven birders – including three newcomers who’d been meaning to join the trip for years and decided this was the month to start.

The bird turnout was typical late-spring light (the more-or-less usual 33 species) – but we hardly noticed, with three sets of new eyes to see through. New birders make everything interesting again: the difference between adult and juvenile Black-crowned Night-Herons  and adult and juvenile gulls, the way to tell a domestic goose from a wild bird , the reason we see so few species of ducks in May.

Story sharing brought out the news that we have a Crested Duck back at the lake – over on the Harrison Street arm rather than in the bird paddock where it belongs, but enough to trigger the origin tale, untold for several years. Crested Ducks are gorgeous domestics – shaped like the common barnyard waddler and colored anywhere in that range, but one and all wearing some sort of ball of feathers for headgear. The new one is particularly fine: all shining white, with an orange beak and a huge puffy white feathered beret. A pleasure to see – but a tad grisly to consider once you know that only one of that bird’s parents was a Crested Duck; the other had to have been the ordinary smooth-headed variety. Why? Because the gene that causes the trait kills with a double dose: the skull doesn’t fuse and the baby dies in the egg. And people still breed for it…. At least our new Crested Duck is hanging with a very attentive smooth-headed drake.

A Green Heron visited the tidal flats in front of the dome cage at the beginning of the trip, high-stepping through the couple of inches of water-logged algae and occasionally snapping up something small and wriggling. It may have the way my toes curled as I watched, but it really looked as though the heron didn’t much like the footing despite the rewards of hunting there.

Later, we enjoyed another Green Heron appearance, this one on the near island’s east-side rip-rap – in an expected location, but not prowling for tidbits or watching for them. Instead, it had a crow crowding it along the shore and attempting to dive-bomb it. The heron responded by moseying away from the ground-level approaches and making a spirited attempt to spear the crow when it dived too close.…

Lake Merritt
December 18, 2019
Leader(s):  Hilary Powers and Ruth Tobey
# of participants: 4
# of species:  38

The December 4th-Wednesday Golden Gate Bird Alliance walk had two strikes against it: it was on the 3rd Wednesday, the 4th being otherwise occupied (Christmas Day), and the weather forecast promised rain. The hourly forecast was friendlier, with only a small chance of rain before noon, and the four intrepid birders who joined the two leaders actually found a gleam of sun.

We started with lovely looks at a Green Heron prospecting the rocks on the near island – these little jewels of the heron world are almost certainly always here, but they hide; we can go months without seeing one. Meanwhile, a flock of five American White Pelicans were performing their feeding dance, which looks for all the world like water ballet, right in front of the near island, and a pair of Barrow’s Goldeneyes –the first since last January – patrolled the area between the islands and the shore, with an immature male not far away. We saw lots of Common Goldeneyes too, but that was expected; they’re always here from November through March, while the Barrow’s make only occasional appearances at our end of the lake.

The last few weeks had been full of reports of mergansers at the lake in unusual numbers – from 10 to 30-odd,  raising high hopes. So it was almost (but not quite) a disappointment to pick up only a pair of Common Mergansers; an undeniable treat since we can go years without seeing them at all, but still….

The scaup population was up from November, with both Greater and Lesser Scaup in the flock, but still so far below what used to be normal that the Ruddy Ducks and Canvasbacks could compete with them for sheer numbers. A few Western Grebes joined the float at the Embarcadero end of the lake, along with several  Pied-billed Grebes and one Horned Grebe looking for all the world like a miniature Western.

By 11:30, having done the park segment of the trip in reverse since the gorgeous new gate on the back of the garden was still shut tight and we knew we couldn’t get out that way, we reached the corner of Children’s Fairyland dry and in good spirits despite missing several expected species, which were resolutely hiding instead of out stuffing their beaks as they should have been.…