Our SFO group heard the beautiful song of a winter wren this morning at Monkey Run South (along the muddy "SW loop" trail). I heard one/it yesterday also, but it was abbreviated and sufficiently off that I wasn't 100% sure that's what I heard. Other notable sightings there include a pair of purple finches (along the rail bed) offering good diagnostic looks, and a red-bellied woodpecker calling from an apparent nest hole (part of a near-sweep of woodpeckers, along with a brilliant male sapsucker, cooperative hairy, flicker calling continuously from an exposed perch).
Earlier we checked out the Park Preserve - including the new boardwalk area adjacent to Hammond Hill - though the birding was relatively quiet (possibly correlated to the white stuff that continues to fall from the sky), but we did get scope views of three heron nests at the rookery, good below-eye-level looks at golden-crowned kinglets - including one whose crown was almost orange, and distant drumming of ruffed grouse. Also, on multiple occasions throughout the morning we saw small flying groups of great blue herons - in 4s, 2s, 4s again. At Mt. Pleasant a perched kestrel gave good looks before flying off, in so doing flushing a savannah sparrow from the field up to the same tree. Not much else happened there then. When departing we disturbed 4-5 turkey vultures investigating a freshly road-killed possum; we pulled off to await their return, and for a while two of them worked the carcass for a bit, but not long after we got out of the car they flew off to nearby perches for some good scope views. Suan _____________________ http://suan-yong.com -- 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/ --
