Trip Reports

December 6, 2019 – Tilden Park Nature Area

December 6, 2019
Leader(s): Alan Kaplan
# of participants: 20
# of species: 31

Our walk went to Jewel Lake and back to the Visitor Center parking lot on the road.

Termites at the visitor center were fed on by Steller’s Jay, Dark-eyed Junco and Brown Creeper. The subterranean termites emerge around 10am on the next sunny day after the first heavy rain. Ospreys (2) flew overhead. Lots of Ruby-crowned Kinglets today, good views of the red crown feathers. Theme was winter survival strategies of birds, and a brief talk about Red Crossbills, which had appeared in November but were not around recently.

Our annual book exchange was held, thanks to the donors. There will be a December 26 Hunt-the-Wren-Day/ St. Stephen’s Day walk at the usual time and place. View today’s checklist online at https://ebird.org/checklist/S62103368…

December 4, 2019 – Blake Garden, Kensington

December 4, 2019
Leader(s): Sonja Raub
# of participants: 3
# of species: 20

On a rainy Wednesday morning four hardy souls ventured forth to find the winter resident birds in UC Regents’ Blake Garden. Meghan, the head gardener, gave a synopsis of the garden’s history to begin with. We were greeted by Ruby Crowned Kinglets, Brown Creepers, Red-breasted Nuthatches, Chestnut-backed Chickadees, Oak Titmice, Hermit Thrush, Spotted and California Towhees, Fox, Golden-crowned and Song Sparrows, Dark-eyed Juncos, Stellar and Scrub Jays, a Townsend’s Warbler, Lesser Goldfinch, Bewick’s Wrens, Crows, Anna’s Hummingbirds, and a beautiful, but soggy Red-shouldered Hawk.

We hope to repeat this tour in January, 2020 with better weather, as well as more bird sightings and species. There is a plan to offer a guided birding walk through the Blake Garden once a month in 2020.

Today’s checklist is located at http://ebird/org/checklist/S62115442…

November 27, 2019 – Lake Merritt

Venturing out right after the year’s first rainstorm and what was probably right before the second, we enjoyed most of a morning of fine weather for such a day – overcast and cold, but good light and no wind. So we were spoiled. When a big fat rain cell opened up on us at 11:40, the last 20 minutes of the trip (under the Lakeside Park trees and with the garden gate near the boathouse blocked off) just couldn’t compete with the prospect of shelter and dry feet. Loss of most of the land birds brought the species count for the day down to 39 – lowest for the month in years – but we enjoyed every bit of what we saw… except maybe the 8-inch sewer geyser pouring up out of a manhole cover near the globe cage at the end of the morning…. Nah, that was fun too, for those not required to fix it.

As has become usual, the expected winter visitors put in an appearance at the lake, but in numbers much lower than was typical even a decade ago. We did get a Western Grebe, the first November sighting since 2015, and there were enough nearby scaup to identify both Lesser and Greater – though far from enough to turn the surface black with birds as it should be. The Ruddy Ducks, Bufflehead, and Common Goldeneyes were out in force, relatively speaking, along with the usual crowd of American Coots, but we completely dipped on the rarer Barrow’s Goldeneye.

A pair of Red-breasted Mergansers overflew the islands near our meeting spot as we were gathering, and another of the species swam on the Embarcadero side of the islands. We see these birds occasionally in the late fall or winter, but only once before in November, in 2016. The day’s other relative novelty was a Glaucous-winged Gull that perched on the roof of the Arts & Science Center long enough to give everyone a good look.

At the beginning of the walk, the floats that block the islands and the Embarcadero end of the lake from boat traffic were crowded shoulder to shoulder – or wingtip to wingtip, anyway – with Double-crested Cormorants, mostly this year’s birds. If they were all born here, the rookery was way more successful than it looked; a quick estimate put the population somewhere north of 250 birds. But perhaps they started elsewhere, as they’d almost all vanished a couple of hours later, leaving the floats to the gulls and the odd Brown Pelican and no feeding flotilla in sight (though they mighta been around behind Children’s Fairyland, where we didn’t go).…

2018 Trip Reports

Lake Merritt
December 26, 2018
Leader(s): Hilary Powers and Ruth Tobey
# of participants: 35
# of species: 48

Our day after Christmas walk drew a lively crowd – about 35 people, though I kept answering questions and losing count. Most of the lake regulars showed up around the islands – both sorts of scaup, stiff-tailed Ruddy Ducks (not, of course, at all ruddy at this season), Canvasbacks, Canada Geese and Mallards, Common Goldeneyes, and a fair-sized flock of Bufflehead swimming and diving in a tight circle, chasing something…. We saw a few Double-crested Cormorants sitting on the floats, but the trees were back to normal for the season (all the nests empty and ignored). Overall populations continued to feel low, especially for the scaup, though all the individuals looked bright-eyed and healthy.

The islands offered lots of Black-crowned Night-Herons of all ages, along with some Snowy Egrets and one Great Blue Heron, and a Great Egret showed up along the far side of the lake. That gave us all the expected herons except for the Green, missing since last September – which wasn’t really a surprise; we haven’t seen one in December since 2016, and in only three other Decembers since 2009.

In the paddock – the area with the fresh water ponds that the park people drain and scrub clean every week or so – the new boss bird is a domestic Swan Goose, fawn-colored and black-beaked and striding around masterfully. The Muscovy Duck flock now up to eight individuals from the two or three of past months, stayed together, avoiding the Swan Goose despite looking to weigh about as much. Do these domestic birds fly in? Or is it reverse duck-napping? Who knows…. Certainly the chickens living in one of the tent camps were brought in.

The bird of the day was the second burglar-masked Townsend’s Warbler we met along the side of the lake between the playground and El Embarcadero – an area where warblers of any kind rarely appear and are still more rarely seen well as they prefer the tops of thick trees. But this brilliant gold, olive, and black beauty spent many minutes in the lower edge of a sparsely leafed oak, heading back and forth from one little well-lighted branch to another without regard to the breathless crowd standing a few feet away. (The first Townsend’s was a female in one of the New Zealand Tea bushes.…

2016 Trip Reports

Lake Merritt
December 28, 2016
Leader(s): Hilary Powers and Ruth Tobey
# of participants: 25
# of species: 44

The Belted Kingfisher in residence at the lake this year, a female, spent much of the morning swooping around the islands and giving her distinctive rattling cry. For a few moments, she hung in the air like a kite, then plunged straight down into the water… but emerged fishless.

All five expected heron species turned out for the enjoyment of the birders (at least 25, and some may have drifted in later) assembled for the walk. We didn’t see the local juvenile, but the adult Great Blue Heron posed portrait-style in the cluster of bare branches on the island nearest the Rotary Nature Center — a spot to check out anytime you walk near the lake with binoculars in hand; all sorts of wonderful creatures sit there, often camouflaged against thick greenery. Today, even in brilliant sun, the bird was hard to see without optics — and doubtless liked it that way. The Great Egret, on the other hand, was sitting on the chain-link fence box inside the duck paddock, 10 feet from the walkway and glowing like the rising moon. The Green Heron was doing its famous rock imitation on the rip-rap along the nearest island, again, very difficult to see unless you knew right where to look (or were simply examining every inch of the rip-rap, which is what you do if you want to see Green Herons and no one is there to point one out).

Out on the lake, we were still scarily without either Western or Clark’s Grebes, but had the other three regulars, including enough Horned and Eared Grebes to begin to get comfortable spotting the differences. At least two pair of Barrow’s Goldeneyes puttered around the islands and the floats, along with half a dozen pair of Common Goldeneyes, several Buffleheads, some copper-headed Canvasbacks, and what looked like a lot of Lesser and Greater Scaup to those who didn’t know how many more there should have been.

The oaks three-quarters of the way from the playground to El Embarcadero — usually bare of birds when the walk passes by — were hosting a big mixed flock, including Yellow-rumped Warblers, Bushtits, a Black Phoebe, and a couple of others. Most notable: a pair of Orange-crowned Warblers, yellowish and greenish and totally lacking in distinguishing marks (not seen at the lake since December 2015), chased each other back and forth from tree to tree.…