Today we spent about four hours birding at Contra Loma Regional Park and tallied 40 species seen or heard. In addition, the views of the snow-capped Sierra Nevada were spectacular.

Near the end of our outing, we had very good scope views of a Merlin, which we spotted on the east side of the park. In addition, amongst a flock of 36 Canada Geese there were three Aleutian Cackling Geese.

A complete list of birds seen or heard follows:

Canada Goose
Cackling Goose
Mallard
Pied-billed Grebe
Western Grebe ( a lone bird which is probably the same bird that we reported on 11/1)
American White Pelican (7)
Double-crested Cormorant
Great Blue Heron
Turkey Vulture
Osprey (1 bird actively fishing, probably for recently-planted trout)
Northern Harrier
Red-shouldered Hawk (3)
Red-tailed Hawk (3)
American Kestrel
Merlin
Virginia Rail (heard only)
Sora
Common Gallinule (two families of six birds total)
American Coot
Killdeer
Mourning Dove
Anna’s Hummingbird
Nuttall’s Woodpecker
Northern Flicker
Black Phoebe
Say’s Phoebe (4)
California Scrub-Jay
Common Raven
Bushtit
Ruby-crowned Kinglet
Western Bluebird
Yellow-rumped Warbler
California Towhee
Savannah Sparrow
White-crowned Sparrow
Golden-crowned Sparrow
Red-winged Blackbird
Western Meadowlark
Brewer’s Blackbird
House Finch

Good birding,

Paul and Nancy Schorr
Antioch