MKinHK
Mike Kilburn
This week's conference takes place in Oakland on the western side of San Fransisco Bay, and stepping off the redeye from Hong Kong I was met for a day's birding by Cedric Duhalde and taken straight to the steep coastal cliffs at Devil's Slide where we almost immediately found my first lifer - a greyish, long-billed Rock Wren singing in the morning sunshine from a horizontal cleft high on a rock face. Other birds here included a calling Peregrine and a soaring Red-tailed Hawk, a trio of Surf Scoters, including an adult male, four or five Common Murres a couple of Pelagic Cormorants, my first Red-necked Grebe in 25 years and several hundred Clark's and Western Grebes in a huge raft on the sea below. Walking back to the car a couple of Black Phoebes zipped about hunting insects and White-crowned Sparrows and a Bewick's Wren called from the chaparral scrub on the hills above the cliffs.
Our next stop was the edge of the golf course at Mori Point. On the way over we saw a roadside Belted Kingfisher, a couple of elegantly long-tailed Mourning Dove and several each of American Crow and the imposingly larger Common Raven, which I was surprised to discover was very much the city bird here - in sharp contrast to their more remote hideouts in the UK and mountainous Western China. A Collared Dove was somewhat less interesting but makes it's way onto the day list nonetheless.
Getting out of the car a House Finch was singing from overhead wires and a Chestnut-backed Chickadee was in the scrub by the roadside. Our target here was the splendid curve-billed California Thrasher and saving us a trek up a hillside path one had claimed ownership of a dead bush some 50 metres along the path, where it posed like a starlet desperate for attention from the paparazzi. Other easy to see birds included White-crowned, Golden-crowned and the smaller, neater Lincoln's Sparrow, a bulkier, longer-tailed California Towhee, Anna's and Allen's Hummingbirds, the latter performing a wonderful u-shaped display flight right above the path. A gaggle of Wrentits moved through the lower cover, two Tree Swallows went over and a Pygmy Nuthatch gave a frustratingly brief view as it disappeared into a conifer.
Rush hour having passed we headed north through San Francisco, and across into the Sacramento River Delta to a site in al large area of flattish fields where 40-odd Mountain Plovers had popped up on eBird a few days earlier. Despite searching hard we didn't find them, but there were plenty of other birds, starting with several Red-tailed Hawks, heaps of Western Meadowlarks, a couple of male Northern Harriers, and the first few of of what must have been 20 Loggerhead Shrikes on the day.
A moving carpet of black birds feeding on fallen grain turned out to be a mixed flock of Red-winged, Brewer's and Tricoloured Blackbirds, plus a few each of Brown-headed Cowbirds and Eurasian Starlings busily picking their way over a patch of ground next to a large eucalyptus tree. A couple of American Kestrels put them up in a swirling cloud, but they soon returned to what was obviously a rich source of food. A magnificent American Turkey puffed up in display to three or four females may or may not have been wild or attached to the farm on the other side of the wind break, but he was a fine sight nonetheless.
Other roadside birds included two Burrowing Owls, good numbers of Savannah Sparrows and a Sagebrush Sparrow, which turned out to be the first record for Solano County, which also had its first record of coronavirus a few days earlier.
More to come . . .
Cheers
Mike
Our next stop was the edge of the golf course at Mori Point. On the way over we saw a roadside Belted Kingfisher, a couple of elegantly long-tailed Mourning Dove and several each of American Crow and the imposingly larger Common Raven, which I was surprised to discover was very much the city bird here - in sharp contrast to their more remote hideouts in the UK and mountainous Western China. A Collared Dove was somewhat less interesting but makes it's way onto the day list nonetheless.
Getting out of the car a House Finch was singing from overhead wires and a Chestnut-backed Chickadee was in the scrub by the roadside. Our target here was the splendid curve-billed California Thrasher and saving us a trek up a hillside path one had claimed ownership of a dead bush some 50 metres along the path, where it posed like a starlet desperate for attention from the paparazzi. Other easy to see birds included White-crowned, Golden-crowned and the smaller, neater Lincoln's Sparrow, a bulkier, longer-tailed California Towhee, Anna's and Allen's Hummingbirds, the latter performing a wonderful u-shaped display flight right above the path. A gaggle of Wrentits moved through the lower cover, two Tree Swallows went over and a Pygmy Nuthatch gave a frustratingly brief view as it disappeared into a conifer.
Rush hour having passed we headed north through San Francisco, and across into the Sacramento River Delta to a site in al large area of flattish fields where 40-odd Mountain Plovers had popped up on eBird a few days earlier. Despite searching hard we didn't find them, but there were plenty of other birds, starting with several Red-tailed Hawks, heaps of Western Meadowlarks, a couple of male Northern Harriers, and the first few of of what must have been 20 Loggerhead Shrikes on the day.
A moving carpet of black birds feeding on fallen grain turned out to be a mixed flock of Red-winged, Brewer's and Tricoloured Blackbirds, plus a few each of Brown-headed Cowbirds and Eurasian Starlings busily picking their way over a patch of ground next to a large eucalyptus tree. A couple of American Kestrels put them up in a swirling cloud, but they soon returned to what was obviously a rich source of food. A magnificent American Turkey puffed up in display to three or four females may or may not have been wild or attached to the farm on the other side of the wind break, but he was a fine sight nonetheless.
Other roadside birds included two Burrowing Owls, good numbers of Savannah Sparrows and a Sagebrush Sparrow, which turned out to be the first record for Solano County, which also had its first record of coronavirus a few days earlier.
More to come . . .
Cheers
Mike
