Today's SFO local trip started at Myers Park, where our goal bird, the AMERICAN PIPIT, alighted by the parking lot shortly after our arrival, giving fantastic looks at its brown lightly-streaked featureless blandness. A number of pipits hung around the spits on both the Myers and Salt Point side.
A NORTHERN PINTAIL hung out in the mouth of Salmon Creek for good looks, and a half dozen RED-BREASTED MERGANSERS swam past for very good close looks: only one was in dazzling breeding male plumage, the rest were either female or juvenile. One of the f/j's caught a fish as big as its head, at which point the heretofore listless gulls at the spit sprung up and circled the mergansers looking for more. Walking up along Salmon Creek we saw a BROWN THRASHER sing from across the creek, and further along some BLUE-GRAY GNATCATCHERs alerted us with their calls then tested our neck-stretching abilities before rewarding us with fine views of their long white (from below) tails. Crossing the lawn to the marina side, we came across a bizarre TEN-LEGGED PLOVER: http://sfocornell.ning.com/photo/s1121-ten-legged OK, so it was a KILLDEER with two, no three, no four! chicks huddled within its folds! The precocial little ones were unbeatable on the cuteness scale. Looking across the marina were two TURKEY VULTURES on the ground, in front of it a GREAT-BLUE HERON showing off its fine plumage on one of the piers, and above that on the power lines was perched several swallows, one twice as big and fully black: a male PURPLE MARTIN. With that excitement I didn't even pay attention to its neighbor, which Stuart pointed out was a BANK SWALLOW decked out with its oversized bow-tie. And to its right was a TREE SWALLOW. And to the left and above, a NORTHERN ROUGH-WINGED SWALLOW: four species in one view! There were plenty of BARN SWALLOWS around (seen earlier perched on a nice little tree across Salmon Creek), but I guess they didn't get the memo to join this party. Driving around to Salt Point, we got another good look at the singing brown thrasher, a male purple martin perched on a wire right above us, and after spending much time trying to track down the location of the singing FIELD SPARROW, we found a handful of them foraging by the gravel road on the way back to the car, giving great looks. Continuing to Sweazey Road, we struck out with the screech owl. Two weeks ago another group also struck out. Has anyone seen the bird there recently? I suspect it may have moved on, as after the cold night I would've expected to see it today basking in the nice warming sun. We decided to return to the lab a little early to try our luck at finding the BARRED OWL. Sauntering quietly and attentively down to the gate by the road, we saw nothing. At this point Steph had to leave. Good thing, too (emm... in a good way, that is :-D), for shortly thereafter as the group approached the singing NORTHERN WATERTHRUSH at the Woodleton boardwalk, we heard Steph call out from the road "I have the owl". The group jogged clumsily towards where she stood on the road with a great view of the owl on an open branch, but just before we arrived a crow swooped by and harassed it off that branch and down a short distance towards a pine tree. We scanned hard and eventually found the bird sitting close to the trunk of that tree, and got decent looks in the scope and an appreciation of its fine camouflage which was hard to make out against the trunk of the tree. An excellent way to end a fine morning of birding! Suan Epilog: After the trip, I joined Lee Ann and Ferris (?) in search of the barred owl again. They saw it by the trail at first perched fairly obviously; by the time I caught up to them it had flown towards the road. When we walked to the road we had a good long look at the owl perched fairly openly before flying to perch close to the trunk of a pine tree looking obscure again. To any photographers looking for this owl, walking along the road in the morning may yield good morning-sun illumination. -- Cayugabirds-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsWELCOME http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsRULES http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsSubscribeConfigurationLeave.htm ARCHIVES: 1) http://www.mail-archive.com/cayugabirds-l@cornell.edu/maillist.html 2) http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/Cayugabirds 3) http://birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/CAYU.html Please submit your observations to eBird: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ --
