Like Meena I had a double-header weekend of SFO to kick off the season, though Saturday morning's cold dark drive to the lab on a snow-dusted road made one wonder how much "spring" there would be. But the enthusiasm of a mink bouncing about the small island across the open water of the lab brought cheer to the waiting students, and the birding turned out great on both days.
Highlights for Saturday's Group 1 ("the orioles") include two (possibly three) pileated woodpeckers dancing about near the Podell boardwalk, and later at Renwick Woods more pileateds calling and drumming and flying about and generally showing off, trying to grab our attention from the great-horned owl roost we were focusing on. Wood ducks also provided cooperative views at both locales. For Sunday's Group 5 ("the tanagers"), the wood ducks were less cooperative -- flushing and flying away rather than staying put -- but at Renwick we did witness a pair circle a number of times before one of them disappeared into a nest cavity high in a tree. The owl was absent on Sunday, making one wonder whether it had moved due to Saturday's paparazzi scrutiny, or due to other factors (like Sunday's more clement weather). By the Renwick park suspension bridge on Sunday a blackbird with a brown head flushed and landed across the creek; based on its thin bill and patterned face I called it a rusty blackbird, but it wasn't a great view, it didn't vocalize, and I failed to scrutinize it any further. Later, when I reviewed Sibley, I wondered if it wasn't a juvenile grackle. The redtail hanging out by the Stewart Park tennis courts was next to the tree with the nest Ann discovered earlier, making me suspect that it might be active (there is just no good angle for wingless beings to see what's going on). Both days saw good numbers of cooperative hooded mergansers and common mergansers, at least one bufflehead in the corner of fall creek, and a relatively close raft of ring-necked ducks (scrutiny limited on Saturday by the strong headwind). Both groups heard a (the?) brown creeper's "sparkling" song at the same stretch of Sapsucker woods, between the footbridge and Sherwood platform, though neither group saw the bird. Suan PS. A large flock of ring-necked ducks were again in the second-dam reservoir this morning. Also had a close eye-level look on Giles St of a redtail perched with a fresh bloody squirrel in its talons. -- 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/ --