Central California

 

Had just a marvelous day out with Jim Lomax as my guide in the Scary City of San Francisco (I say that tongue firmly implanted in cheek as I tend to be paranoid wandering around by myself in a large metropolis--with the exception of San Diego)!  My county list was officially at "2", so he wanted to help me do something about that!

 The weather was on and off wet (he said the weather report called it "unstable"), but it didn't stop us from getting a mob of birds!  We started out in a section of Golden Gate NRA that had a little garden where we got the expected suburban birds (including two flocks of Red-masked Parakeets) and the first of several Sooty Fox Sparrows for the trip (at least for sure).  I discovered that Townsend's Warblers are quite common here in the winter, unlike in San Diego!

  

Heading across the Oakland Bay Bridge

   

Gardens at part of the Golden Gate NRA

   

 

Picturesque lane with blooming cherry trees

The next stop was a coastal area of the NRA where we had a great view of the Golden Gate Bridge and Alcatraz, but also some terrific water birds, highlights including Red-breasted Merganser, both Greater and Lesser Scaup, Horned Grebe, Common Loon, both Long-billed Curlew and Whimbrel, and my personal favorite, a Red-necked Grebe!  We had several "Olympic" Gulls, as quite a few superficially looked like Herrings but with California-shade mantles (although I suppose someone could argue that we had a Vega Gull... J )  Mews were abundant, and on more than one occasion I thought I had a distant Thayer's that wasn't...

 

Obligatory shot of the Golden Gate...

 

...and Alcatraz

   

Marshes where we picked up our first big blob of birds...

                    

                                                                        Snowy Egret                                                                    Bufflehead                                        Belted Kingfisher

          

Greater Scaup (females at left)

   

Both species of curlew (Long-billed at far left and Whimbrel at far right) schmooze with the gulls

    

Gull hangout with California, Mew, Western, and probable mixes...

We then went over to an area that had lots of Monterey Pines (it was an area of old military housing during WWII; forgot to write down the name, but the buildings were impressive), and there we picked up P-Nuts, Chestnut-backed Chicks, and Juncos.  Swinging into an area with even thicker woods we added a Winter Wren who was upset enough with Jim's squeaking that he burst into song!  I thought I might have heard a Brown Creeper, but wasn't sure.

      

Jim's worried about the lack of birds, but for a tourist such as myself, the buildings were impressive!

        

                                           Probably the only forest in the county!                                                                        Bad weather doesn't stop the bikers!

From there we went to the Cliff House area (where I had previously gotten one of my few SF birds--my life Brandt's Cormorant--when I was here eons ago with my folks), picking up said Brandt's and Pelagic Cormorants, Black Oystercatchers, and Black Turnstones, but surprisingly no Brown Pelicans or Heermann's Gulls!  We saw a few bona fide Glaucous-wings and a real Herring Gull as well.  At some historic "pools" we picked up several Ring-necked Ducks along with some Mallards, but the real treat was a couple of Red-throated Loons out in the surf!

              

                                                                                Raven checking out the trash                                                               Yet another view of the Golden Gate

       

Views of the coast near Cliff House

   

    

After a potty break at the restaurant we cruised the shoreline looking for more shorebirds, only adding Marbled Godwit and Sanderling.  A Red-shouldered Hawk sat on a wire, and at Merced Lake we added a Clark's Grebe, several wigeon, and a distant Osprey.  People were feeding the gulls here, too, so it was a great photo op!

  

Merced Lake

       

Another raven looking for a handout

   

Second-year Mew Gulls (the adults were too fast...)

    

Third-year Western Gull

Then we headed to Golden Gate Park where we perused several of their ponds, the first of which (North Lake) had a pair of Hooded Mergansers!  The park overall was wonderful, and a place I would personally feel comfortable in: lots of "nice" people were using it, and the foliage was tremendous!  There was lots of good brush around the lakes for birds to hide in, so we added Lincoln's and Song Sparrows, Hermit Thrush, Steller's Jay, Bushtit, and a curious Hutton's Vireo quite nicely.  A lone Cedar Waxwing sat high in a tree, and Jim spotted a Downy Woodpecker that simply would not cooperate for me.  I was surprised that with so many trees we didn't have more woodpeckers (I personally didn't have any)!  Over at Lloyd Lake a Great Egret was so intent on fishing he paid no mind to the humans all around him, and at Stow Lake (wasn't impressed with my namesake) we only picked up Scrub Jay while Jim picked up a couple of hot dogs!

   

Heading into Golden Gate Park and North Lake (right)

             

Hooded Merganser (male with "inflated" and "deflated" hood at left, female at right)

         

                        Hermit Thrush                                                                                Song Sparrow                                                                            Townsend's Warbler

                         

                                                                                "Myrtle" Warbler                                                            Hutton's Vireo

Jim scans for goodies at Lloyd Lake

           

Great Egret fishing patiently by a waterfall

            

Stow Lake

From there we headed to the "rough" part of town around Candlestick Park, and visited what looked to be a tremendous wetland area called Heron's Head.  Even though we were supposedly in a bad area, I didn't see any signs of danger: the trail had lots of nice interpretive signs (that weren't vandalized), and even the graffiti in the porta potty had been painted over with pleasant pictures!  Out here we had several cooperative avocets and a small flock of Dunlin (with a token Western), and I had just been commenting to Jim that in San Diego I'd expect to see a Belding's Sparrow in this kind of stuff when POP--up came a Savannah, albeit a pale one!  (Whether it was a local coastal race or a migrant I don't know...it looked almost as pale as a Large-billed but wasn't...)  There was also a large flock of Greater Scaup close at hand with one Lesser in with them, so it was good to see and study them close together like that.  But Jim spotted the real prize further on: a male Harlequin Duck!  He was absolutely stunning!!!  He also found a young Eurasian Wigeon pretty close as well.

  

The marshes at Heron's Head, in the "rough" part of town

  

            

American Avocet 

                      

Jim spots a Harlequin Duck, a real prize!  (Preening bird shows some interesting patterns at right...)

       

Young Eurasian Wigeon

 

Male Lesser Scaup (upper right) in with a flock of Greaters; note the slightly smaller size and peak to the back of the head.

From there we went around the corner to get a closer looks at some of the birds, and found an adult Eurasian in with the Americans here.  There were several Common Goldeneye out there, and Jim also found a Black-necked Stilt (which is a hard bird for the county) and some Least Sandpipers for me.  About that time Luke Cole pulled up and razzed Jim about his parking technique! J There had been a Tufted Duck sighted that morning, so he was there looking for that, so needless to say all three of us were madly scanning!  Luke found me a Spotted Sandpiper (which turned out to be a trip bird as well), and then suddenly found the duck!  It was in with a flock of scaup that was fairly close to us, so then I found it, but just as quickly lost it; it was amazing how quickly that guy could disappear in that flock!  But he had a wonderful tuft, getting wind-blown as he preened constantly (making digiscoping a little frustrating for us)!

 

Luke Cole (right) arrives with news of a Tufted Duck (below), even rarer than the Harlequin!

                     

                                                                                                                                                                    (Bad hair day...)

Jim was desperately trying to get me over 100 for the county (we were up to about 95 by that point), so Luke gave us a couple of suggestions and we parted company. We stopped at a couple of other seedy looking places; one had a large flock of Canada Geese, but nothing new. Another spot looked popular with the dog owners, but the wind was howling and it was really getting wet (and late), so I told Jim I was VERY happy with my list (which I was), so we could go home without guilt! So we headed home after that (picking up what looked like the same Red-shouldered Hawk on the wire), and discovered after inputting my list that we actually had 96: I had forgotten about the Ring-billed Gull! Thanks again, Jim, for a fantastic day!