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San Mateo Birds of the Coast

2010-03-07T12:01:00.000-08:00

For easy to find reference.

Habitats:
Sandy beach and mudflats, rocky headlands, coastal scrub, freshwater marsh, lake, riparian woodland, farm fields.

Specialty birds:

Resident
Brandt’s and Pelagic Cormorants;
White-tailed Kite;
Peregrine Falcon;
Black Oystercatcher;
Marbled Murrelet;
Rhinoceros Auklet;
Western Screech-Owl;
Northern Pygmy-Owl;
Chestnut-backed Chickadee;
Wrentit.

Summer
Brown Pelican,
Cinnamon Teal,
Heermann’s Gull,
Elegant Tern,
Pigeon Guillemot,
Black Swift,
Allen's Hummingbird,
Bank Swallow.

Winter
Western Grebe;
Wandering Tattler;
Long-billed Curlew;
Black Turnstone;
Surfbird;
Thayer’s and Glaucous-winged Gulls;
Say’s Phoebe.

Other key birds:

Resident
Black-crowned Night-Heron,
Virginia Rail,
Common Murre,
Great Horned Owl,
Winter Wren,
Common Yellowthroat,
Purple Hnch,
American Goldfinch.

Summer
Caspian Tern,
Grasshopper Sparrow.

Winter
Red-throated Loon;
Eared Grebe;
Surf and White-winged Scoters;
Bufflehead;
Sora;
Greater Yellowlegs;
Marbled Godwit,
Ruddy Turnstone;
Sanderling;
Loggerhead Shrike;
Lincoln’s Sparrow

Unusual Swarm of Seabirds

2007-07-29T11:16:00.001-07:00

Unusual Swarm of Seabirds

Embarcadero Plaza

2007-01-30T01:11:00.000-08:00

The Embarcadero Plaza is about the biggest open space with trees in the Financial District, or easily reachable from 2nd and Market. I took my binoculars to the park this Monday afternoon to see what I could see.

Chestnut-backed Chickadee
Ruby-crowned Kinglet
possible Orchard Oriole
American Robin
various other LBJ's

All but the Robin were firsts for me.

The Day After

2007-01-29T11:06:00.001-08:00

Unwilling to let my first birding trip of the year be the only outing of the weekend, I trekked back to the lagoon from our place.

Notable birds and birds not seen or ID'd the day before include:

Purple Finch
Anna's Hummingbird
Green Heron
Red-Tailed

But most interesting was a double siting of the local fox. I saw him once last year and was very happy just knowing he was there. Yesterday I walked all the way around the lagoon as there were a number of dog owners doing things I should have mentioned to them that were not good for the local ecosystem. But I didn't -- I wussed out. Instead I walked to the other side of the lagoon to where I had never been before. Upon entering an opening, into the field that the Northern Harrier from Saturday was very likely patrolling, I saw the fox languidly taking in the sunlight. He saw me and slowly wandered into a den-looking mass of shrubberies. Awhile later as I was birding the inner perimeter we surprised each other, with him bounding off into the reeds and me getting to see him bound. Quite the thick bushy tail he had.

So my two favorite lagoon rarities, both of which I described but we did not see on Saturday, ended up being the main events of Sunday. Too bad Jessie didn't stay the weekend.

Birding with Jessie

2007-01-27T12:24:00.000-08:00

Jessie's my old fishing buddy. He came over to go crabbing on the pier at night but it rained so we hung out inside and looked at bird books while discussing life's events.

The next morning he mentioned that he wanted a new hobby and asked if I had any suggestions. So the obvious was suggested and we took the dog on his first long walk since his surgery down to the lagoon for the year's first birding walk, mine and Jessie's and Pirate's.

We saw:
At the beach:
Willet
Surf Scoter
Raven
Brandt's Cormorant
Rock Dove
Brewer's Blackbird
Sanderling
Western Grebe
various gulls

At the lagoon:
Marsh Wren
Pied-bill Grebe
American Coot
Ruddy Duck
California Towhee (we think)
Red-shouldered Hawk (2)
Turkey Vulture
Red-tailed Hawk
Mallard
Mourning Dove
Northern Harrier
Says Phoebe

####

Back to Birding

2007-01-26T09:00:00.000-08:00

I've been on a hiatus. No official birding excursions, no GGRO volunteering, barely even used my binoculars lately. But that's all changing.

Against all odds my brother is catching the twitcher bug. His first trip out of the country, to Africa, has awakened his inner birder. And in turn reawakened mine. That days are getting longer again helps as well. That 2006 is over and behind us is a boon.

So here then is my 2007 Proclamation and Manifesto.

1) Go birding more. Incorporate it into everything I do outdoors and much more of my indoor time as well. I've got the Peterson Bird Calls of the West to learn, several new books w/CD's of bird calls, and David Attenburogh's Life Of Birds to view.

2) Get outside more. Hiking, biking, walking along the shore. Whatever. Stay outside as long as possible every day. Fear not the rain (get rain pants).

3) Plan outdoor events. Camping, day hikes, weekend drives outside our normal range. We almost left decided to move away from California a few months ago. If that ever does happen I don't want to later realize how much of California I missed. It's time to double-down and see ALL of California.

4) Open my birding horizons. I started with hawk watching, duck ID'ing, and marveling at Herons and Egrets. I've come to appreciate all birds now, but I really need to learn them more.

5) Concentrate on learning bird calls. It's wonderful to have gotten the tools. Now use them.

6) Learn the constellations.

7) Learn the trees. I got a constellation and a tree book free from work from a series called Stikky. As in Stikky Trees and Stikky Sky. I started to learn the trees and the new memory technique was working. Then we moved and I lost the books, only to have found them recently. I've been fascinated by the night sky for as long as most people my age, but can't hardly name anything bu the Big Dipper and Orion. I want to know where Cassiopeia is, or at least how to spell it.

8) Be more efficient at work, so I have more time to what I want during the day.

That's it for now. Be back soon.

Coastal Birds

2006-03-25T17:52:00.000-08:00

I'm living about 75 feet from the breaking waves of the Pacific Ocean and about half a mile from a protected freshwater lagoon. While there certainly bird friendlier places to live, there probably aren't a lot! I've had a couple or more truly memorable birding days walking out of my front door in the last couple of months since we've lived here.

The four newest birds that I hadn't seen here before I saw with my neighbor Tim in Laguna Salada on Monday after work. I added a Green Heron, a Black-crowned Night Heron (juv.), a Greater Scaup, and a beautiful Ruddy Duck with its bright blue bill.

Standard fare on any given day are American Coots, Pied-billed Grebes, Red-winged Black Birds, Marsh Wrens, Common Goldenthroats, Song Sparrows and Ravens.

There is a resident Red-Shouldered Hawk. On Sunday we watched thim beat from perch to perch trying to shake a Raven that didn't appreciate his presence as much as we did. I lost him for a little while, but right before it would have been too dark to see anything a Ravens rose up from out of nowhere and the Red-shoulder too, but he fled off to the north. A moment later another Red-shoulder and a Red-tailed Hawk rose from the same spot harassed by the Ravens and split up heading south and east. A majestic finale.

On a solo hike though the lagoon and the hills and coastal cliffs I had my widest variety of raptors, and probably birds in general. I found the Red-shoulder and Red-tail right away. The next bird got my pulse going. A Peregrine Falcon flew into the area marking the second time I've seen him. I'm fairly sure I spotted a Merlin hunting at near the peak of hills near Mori Point. From the peak I spotted an American Kestrel perched at the the top of a tree on a neighboring hill. And a Cooper's or Sharp-shinned Hawk sprang into view just in front of me then flew around the hillside out of view.

Later on I added a Horned Lark to my life list. And I recall a Great Blue Heron slowly drift over head before alighting on a the grass atop the cliffside. LBJ's I saw that day remain that.

It was a great day of hiking and birding and I can't wait to repeat it.

Along the surf itself there seem to be a regular contingent of Surf Scoters. The males' remarkable oversized red, yellow and black bill makes for fun contrast to the black and brown bills I'm used to seeing. As far as sea gulls go I'd say there is a mix of California Gulls, Herring Gulls, Western Gulls, and Mew Gulls. But there could be a lot more that I can't distinguish.

Crows, Rock Pigeons, Brewer's Black Birds, and Starlings round out the more common birds in the district.

Finished Foggy on Hawk Hill

2005-11-07T10:45:00.000-08:00

A fairly slow day on the hill. Nothing unusual was spotted. There were plenty of Red Tails, Coops, Sharpies, and the occasional Kestrel and TV. There were a couple of possible Merlins and the north quadrant saw a Rough-legged Hawk, but they called it out during a double flyover by a couple of Navy fighter jets, so no one else heard and no one else saw the Rough-legged. I've never seen one. I did see a couple of Yellow Rumps for the first time.

Then the fog started rolling in around 2pm and teased us for about an hours before we finally broke watch and left. Still a good time though.

Recent Trip Lists

2005-10-22T12:50:00.000-07:00

Well maybe not so recent. My wife and I went to Yosemite Sept 17-20 to celebrate our 2nd Anniversary and I got to do a little birdspotting while I was there.
Mostly there were ravens, crows and Stellars Jays. Besides those I added the following tol my life list:
Northern Flicker - at Glacier Point
Blue Grouse - female, at Glacier Point
Black-backed Woodpecker - at Cranes Flat campground
Mountain Chickadee - everywhere
American Dipper - near Saddlebag Lake, east of Yosemite

Since then, my third HawkWatch, Sept 24, yielded an excellent long view of a Prairie Falcon swooping and diving at the hawk blind for five or ten minutes before flying off. We also saw long views of several Broadwing Hawks, including a dark morph, a juve, and an adult. Four or five Merlins also darted past on their way across the Golden Gate.

On that day I added to my life list:
Broadwing Hawk
Bewicks Wren
Band-tailed Pigeon - flocks flew past from time to time, some a mere thirty feet from us.

We saw about 755 raptors that day, or 185/hour, and 13 species of raptors.

By the way, here is my list in an excel file. It can be revised to use yourself:
http://www.chuckbaldwin.com/birdinglifelist.xls

New Binoculars

2005-10-20T00:39:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since I've posted. I've seen close to a dozen new birds I can add to my life list and I will list those in a hopefully soon upcoming post. But this one is about binoculars.
Binocular research can be a very addictive pasttime, depending on your personal degree of obsessive compulsiveness. Hmm. It looks like my last post was Aug 29, and I ended with this:

Once I have a good set of binoculars I need never waste time talking about them and can focus instead on the birds--which will look awesome through my new binoculars!

I guess that statement was wrong. I've spent hours per day, days worth of time total, at Birdforums.net reading and posting almost exclusively in the binocular forums. I can't even imagine what they talk about in the regular birding forums. But with that research and a phone call to Eagle Optics I moved away from the Celestron Nobles and toward the Nikon Monarchs. I called to ask what they thought of the Nobles and what other models they recommended in the same category and price range. While they definitely like the Nobles, he said that almost everyone that looked at the Nobles side by side with the Monarchs in their store bought the Monarchs.

In the meantime, while waiting for the 10x42 Nobles to arrive at the Scope City chain store in San Francisco, my wife and I made our way to Mendocino for a weekend, and I made my way into the optics store there, Out of this World (on the web at www.discounttelescopes.com). They are reputed to be the number one binocular dealer on the north coast of California and just happen to be located in my favorite little town north of San Francisco. Well, they no longer carry Celestron binos because they feel the quality that was once there is no longer there and they didn't want to sell a product they couldn't stand behind 100%. At least that was their story. But, they carried the Nikon Monarchs, in particular this year's new revision. The owner claimed that the Monarchs blew away all their competition at the buying shows this year. Nikon, she claimed, outdid themselves and apparently were trying to establish their excellent reputation in the mid-priced roof category.

I looked at four pairs of the 10x42 Monarchs in order to make sure I got one that I really thought was excellent -- something you don't get to do over the internet -- though she made me admit that I was obessive compulsive first. She said it wasn't bad, that her husband was an OCD basket case as well, but that it just had to be recognized.

At any rate two of the four I liked, and the other two just didn't do it for me. The main thing I was looking for at the time was the least amount of chromatic aberration, that is, color fringing, especially on the sharp edges of dark objects against a bright sky. Unfortunately that was really the only thing I was looking for.

After finally making my purchase I wandered out onto the coastal cliffs across the street (this really is one of coolest towns I've been to) to look at shorebirds. I'm pretty sure I was observing a black-footed albatross floating from kelp bed to kelp bed chomping on something. At some point while looking across the cove at a well lighted beach scene I must have closed one eye because I noticed a difference in brightness between the two barrels of the binoculars. I kept closing one eye then the other and not only was the brightness different but on of the barrels had a markedly cooler/bluer color cast. So half an hour after getting them I took them back to the store and spent another 15 minutes trying to figure out which of the remaining three pairs was the other one I liked. I finally decided, made the switch, and wandered back to the shore to continue the enjoyment of my latest expensive gadget.

Well, I spent the next day or so doubting whether these binoculars were optically any better than my $50 Bushnells. I also spent the last month and a half trying to figure out if there is something more subtle wrong with them. They have always felt just a little weird when I look through them, like my eyes just aren't as comfortable as they were with the cheapos. I've had several excellent birder with excellent optics look through them and give me their honest opinion, but they all seemed to think they were just fine, if anything, quite a good image. But I never thought they were really being very critical, so my doubts continued. A few days ago I finally noticed something very subtle that may explain everything.

When focusing on a tiny contrasty object in the distance, if I focus just past the object, toward infinity, the object separates into two blurry objects very close together before eventually forming a huge blob. My thought is that as the object blurs it should do so into a single shape or object. If it is creating two shapes the barrels are out of alignment -- bad collimation.
A very slight misalignment but probably just enough to cause all the funkiness I've been observing. There is no double image in normal usage as I think my brain is working overtime to correctly resolve the image, but that extra work is what causes eye strain, eye fatigue, and headaches. So, I'm sending them in for warranty repair ore replacement.

I hope they just realign them as I love everything else (well almost everything else) about them. The image (BTW I finally realized just how incredibly better the image is than the Bushnells) is bright, contrasty, sharp, and overall excellent. There is some barrel distortion that is noticeable when panning the horizon, but I saw the same thing when looking through Leica 10x42's so it must be a factor of that size configuration.

And yes, there was one more thing that really bugged me. These binos are supposed to have a close-focusing distance of 9.8 feet. I couldn't get a good focus on anything closer than 12 or 15 feet. since that was not a major factor in these I thought to just ignore it. Well, one night I was absentmindedly rotating the focus wheel back and forth stopping against the close focus side. I had noticed that on the far-focus end of the travel that the wheel stopped abruptly and very satisfyingly. But at the close focus side it just sort of tightened up until it wouldn't go any further. So I was pushing it back and forth, maybe a little stronger each time, when unexpectedly I heard a gaseous 'POP', very similar to opening a Coke can. Suddenly the wheel kept on rotating until it came to an abrupt and satisfying stop. And when I looked though lenses I had a perfectly focused image at about 6 1/2 feet. My immediate fear was that I just broke my binocular's seal and released all of the fogproofing nitrogen. The people at Birdforum reassured me that the binoculars are not pressurized. They are sealed, but at the same pressure as our atmosphere. They theorized that perhaps some extra lubricant was blocking a passage that the gas moved through as the focusing mechanism moved and when I pushed it too hard it cleared the passageway allowing the nitrogen gas to move freely inside the binocular and the focusing mechanism to also move its full distance. I certainly hope they are right.

I can test it and probably will before I send it back for the collimation alignment by taking a hot shower with my binos then tossing them into the freezer for a while to see if they fog up or have water droplets inside them. It seems extreme but if I'm sending them back anyway it won't really hurt if they do leak, in fact it'll save sending them back again on down the road if they fog up.

HawkWatch Day 2 -- Sat, Aug 27

2005-08-29T16:51:00.000-07:00

Great fun. 165 raptors were recorded of 8 species: red-tails, turkey vultures, Cooper's hawks, sharp-shinned hawk, American kestrels, an osprey, a red-shouldered hawk and a prairie falcon. I didn't see the prearie falcon. It had been caught by the banders and released and was briefly glimpsed by the watchers as it was released. The banders confirmed that it had been a prairie falcon though.

I looked through some of the others' binoculars and after a day on the Hill have decided to go with 10x of some sort. I'll probably get the Celestron Noble 10x42 binoculars, but I'm hoping to give them a look at Scope City. Since I'll never buy anything from and probably will not ever return to Discount Camera due to their terrible attitudes and lack of customer service, the only other place is Scope City, at least in San Francsico. If I like the binos and can't talk them down to the same price as Eagle Optics I'll get them from Eagle Optics. That 30-day return policy is pretty nice and everyone seems to love the company.

I hope the image quality of the 10x42 Celestrons match that of the 8x42's, since they are so highly regarded. According to Celestron's website the 10x42's are "new", so the judgement is not out on them yet. Anything will be better than my $50 Bushnells, but I don't want anything. I want the absolute best thing available for under $300.

Once I have a good set of binoculars I need never waste time talking about them and can focus instead on the birds--which will look awesome through my new binoculars!

Brown Creeper

2005-08-26T16:45:00.000-07:00

That didn't take long. I'm fairly sure what I saw spiraling up the tree in the Presidio was a Brown Creeper. I guess I just needed a little alone time with the field guide to find it.

Hmm. The Nat. Geo. Field Guide is not calling the parrots by the name conure, though Mark Bittner, author of the Parrots of Telegraph Hill made an issue of pointing out that they were technically conures, even though he continued to call them parrots.

A Day in the Presidio

2005-08-26T16:30:00.000-07:00

On an editorial retreat at the Presidio in San Francisco I spied through the window a red-tailed hawk chasing another brownish bird about 40 feet off the ground. The other bird could have been another red-tail but I did not see either very long. The hawk I did see so quickly was brown, had a red tail and was about the size it should be. It was a very fast glimpse.

I also caught short looks at the flock of conures the live in the Presidio. There is some debate as to whether it is the same flock as represented in the movie and book, The Parrots of Telegraph Hill, or if the flocks merge and morph from time to time. The parrots have been sighted regularly in the Presidio, on Telegraph Hill, and in Dolores Park.

I got the former Army base about an hour early and had a nice morninng hike through a stand of Eucalyptus trees while walking along a trail called Lovers' Lane. I didn't see anything along the path, but when it opened up near a field recently planted with conifers and with a mostly sandy/grassy ground I spotted a bird I have yet to ID. It was small (6-8"?) had a downward curved 1" bill and it was running up and down the trunk of one of the trees, hopped to another tree and continued its up and down journey. I recently read about such behavior but have not found the page again in the field guide. It also had a pale chest and belly with slight rufous flash under the tail. I think if I see it in a book I'll be able give it a name.

Lake Merced on a Monday walk

2005-08-22T23:55:00.000-07:00

Lake Merced in San Francisco has a few things to offer. But one is not a walk around one of the lakes. Harding Park Golf Course is nestled between the two lakes and pedestrian traffic is forbidden on the golf course. But despite this frustration, I managed to see a few birds that got me happy.

A juvenile red-shouldered hawk caught my attention flying down one of the fairways. It took me a while to make the ID. The bright white crescents on the dorsal side of the wings near the tips matched up nicely to the National Geographic field guide. Maybe due to the intense fog the bird looked more grey than brown and I could hardly see any banding on the tail feathers. I'm fairly sure it was not a red-tail, it wasn't stocky enough, the flight style didn't seem quite right, and those white crescents were the most visible thing on the bird as it flew away from me. I managed to find where it landed and we checked each other out. When it took off again the only other thing I noticed was that the tail seemed slightly longer than a red-tail's would, but nowhere near as long as an accipiter's. And it didn't look anything like an accip.

Heading to the lake side, we came upon an active and loud belted kingfisher, with two bright orange bars on the belly alternating with white, and darker brown and white bars/stripes up the chest with a thick white ring around its neck. I followed it to three successive perches but kept scaring it off as I approached. The only odd thing about this bird was that it seemd to be substantially bigger than the numerous kingfishers I saw from my former office window overlooking the lagoon in San Rafael. Maybe those were just farther away, or maybe there is size difference between sexes. According to Sibley though, there is not. Oh well, size is the most commonly mistaken feature of a bird.

In addition to a slew of gulls and cormorants we saw a few grebes, in particular one grebe with 2 or 3 little fuzzy babies squeaking non-stop a hundred feet or so offshore. I don't know what kind they were. I seem to recall their heads being more roundish than ovalish, so they may have been eared grebes. They were fairly gray and drab overall.

I'm finding it ironic that all the buteos I've seen lately in the city have been red-shouldered Hawks when it seems that until recently I thought everything was a red-tail. I wonder if I was previously mistaken and am just more thorough at making IDs now, or if I'm just seeing more birds locally and finding more diversity than I ever thought existed so close to my city home. Either way, I like it.

More birds, but in the City!

2005-08-21T22:19:00.000-07:00

I surely did not expect to see any more cool birds this weekend. But, I did. On the way to Fort Funston I saw a Red-shouldered Hawk on a light post on Rt. 1 between the entrance to Lake Merced and Fort Funston. It was quick, but sure enough, when we left it was still there and most definitely an adult Red-shouldered.

Inside the park I had a great day too. Literally the first tree we came to after leaving the parking lot held a Cooper's Hawk on a top-level brach. We looked for a little while with me handing off my binoculars to my wife. I grabbed them back in time to see a raven approach and the the Coop take off, fly behind us, and make a cool twist before diving down below sight in the direction of Lake Merced. The long tail and relatively large size convinced me she was a female Coop.

On our walk we continued to see cool stuff. In addition to all the neat puppies and doggies, we saw a very satisfied Osprey carrying its dinner from the surf to a perch somewhere in San Francisco. There were quite a few gulls chasing him but he won out and soared inland.

But the coup de gras was seen from the wooden deck next to the hang glider runway. From there I spotted half a dozen porpoises swimming northward along the beach. The 6 to 8 dolphins arched their backs through the surf and occasionally jumped clear of the water, turning a few degrees and crashing back-first into the sea. We watched them for twenty minutes or so and pointed them out to the rest of the people on the deck. I won't comment on the woman who answered dully, "Yeah," to my question, "Did you see the dolphins?" I guess her bitterness was compounded by her expression.

As the guy sitting next to us at Howard's Cafe said, "This has been a good Sunday."

Swainson's Hawks galore

2005-08-21T21:42:00.000-07:00

So we had our field trip. It was pretty damn cool. We saw a ton of Swainson's Hawks. We were, after all, searching for Swainson's Hawks in Central Valley, California, and sure enough we found them. Ironically, if you're a birder, the 10% population of dark morphs and non-typical Sainson's seem to be located in California. Out of the hundreds of hawks we saw, only two or three were the typical Swainson's with light underremiges and brown caps. The rest were a mottled mess. There were many juvenile Swainson's and many variously morphed adults.

In addition to the Swainson's Hawks we saw several skeins of White-faced Ibis's, a Green Heron, Northern Harriers, Red-tailed Hawks, American Kestrels, Great and Snowy Egrets, Great Blue Herons, and a skyful of Long-billed Curlews (many thousands). We also saw a couple of White-tailed Kites off in the distance near a high-school field towards the end of the day.

For me, we ran across a few species that were life birds, not so much that I had never seen them before , but that I had no reason to identify them before. They were the Western Kingbird, Loggerhead Shrike, Cattle Egret, Western Meadowlark, and a Yellow-billed Magpie. The Ibis's were also life birds.

I doubt I should count count them in my life list, but we found two Burrowing Owl corpses on the side of the road as we were leaving our last stop. We figured they were either burrowing too close to the road and got hit by a car. I don't know anything about these owls behavior, but I find it odd that two were killed. I wonder if they were hit at the same time. I suppose now I'll have to go to the Berkelely Marina to see a few live owls digging into the lawn.

But all in all, after 8 hours of sitting in a moving car, it was a great trip. I look forward to next year's, and I hope Erin comes along.

Audubon MasterVision DVD set

2005-08-19T12:41:00.000-07:00

Yesterday evening I watched a great deal of the two-DVD set of 505 Birds of North America, from Mastervision. While the title has Audubon in the title, I think it may have been licensed a long long time ago. Though it was packed with useful information, it may have been the worst produced DVD I've seen in a while. And the information was quite a bit dated. True, I've only been birding for a couple of years, but I've yet hear anyone refer to a morph as a phase in person.

My cat loved it though. She followed the tweety birds back and forth across the screen and sometimes stared off to one side trying to find where the birds went. She even went into the kitchen and looked around thoroughly for the little bird that flew off the edge of the TV.

I enjoyed the DVD too. But if you're selling something for $70 and advertising it in every serious bird magazine, then put a little effort into making it look good. Fortunately I got it for free from the magazine I work for. It was sent in to be reviewed. I guess this is the review they got -- probably not what they intended.

I watched it intently for about an hour, then had it on in the background to listen to the relaxing calls and look up when something sounded interesting. I definitely like having it around for reference, but I really can't imagine having paid for it. I would have been terribly disappointed to get this product in the mail for my hard-earned bucks. As it was, I got it for free and was mildly disappointed.

First Hawkwatch -- Aug 13, 2005

2005-08-18T21:49:00.000-07:00

My first Hawkwatch as a volunteer with the GGRO (Golden Gate Raptor Observatory) was quite eventful for me despite Hawk Hill being entirely fogged in. Given our options due to the fog I subtley pressed for us hiking up Bobcat Trail to see if we could find the known nesting Great Horned Owls there. Sure enough we found one asleep in a Eucalyptus tree -- my first ever Great Horned Owl and only the second owl I've seen in the wild.

The other life birds for me on that day were rather common birds, but since my bird knowledge extends only to raptors right now -- and that fairly limited -- I needed the others in the group's expertise to tell me what I was seeing so as to fill out the everyday birds in my life list.

But even with that I think I discovered that one of the birds they ID'd was wrong. A group of three flycatchers was identified as olive-sided, but looking at my guide book at home I am fairly certain they were Ash-Throated Flycatchers. The ruddy tail tells me they were not olive-sided.

I also saw a Wilson's Warbler, Lesser Goldfinch, Song Sparrow, and a Heerman's Gull. But the most impressive addition was that of a Marsh Wren. A very recognizable song, but "You'll never see him, so don't even bother looking," they said. That just forced me to scan even harder through my binos. This was my first day after all. I've got to show them how stubborn I can be. Lo and behold I saw some of the reeds shaking in the exact spot the song was coming from. And then I saw him, sitting on a reed obscured by several other reeds. But while I was trying to describe his location to the others, he jumped up to about 3/4's way up a reed and clung there out in the open for a good 45 seconds before disappearing back into the marsh. Fortunately, everyone got a look.

We also spent some time trying to ID another warbler. They hadn't seen this little yellow guy before and we did not get too many good looks at it. But based on the type of dark grey/black cap, I think it may have beed a Tennessee Warbler which would be rare but not impossible for the California coast. It may not have been that though.

All in all I'm thrilled to be a part of the GGRO and their mission. Check them out: http://www.ggro.org/

Saturday, we field trip to the valley to see a few hundred Swainson's Hawks before they begin their trek to Argentina to feast on beetles. I'll keep you posted.