Hi E. B. Birders,

Nothing rare to report, but yesterday, the highlights of the San Francisco Bay Bird Observatory Fall Challenge All Contra Costa County Mini-Big Day were:

Clapper Rail (1) swimming directly below us at Meeker Slough in Richmond

Lesser Yellowlegs (1) at MacNabney Marsh in Martinez

Lewis's Woodpeckers (2) seen from the bridge at Round Valley Regional Park

Ferruginous Hawk (1 adult) near the Byron Airport.

Lots of panting birds, and the first time I've ever seen a Lewis's Woodpecker hold its wings away from its body to cool down.  The total number of birds seen was only 83, and we never even heard Western Bluebird or Oak Titmouse.  I'm really happy this was not a real attempt at a Big Day!  Thanks to the eleven great birders who cheerfully put up with the hot weather and supported SFBBO!

All the Best Birding,
Denise Wight
Moraga, CA

Hi all,

A drive along Calaveras Res. this afternoon showed 5 Western Grebe juveniles in
Alameda Co., just over the Santa Clara Co. line.
I'm leaping to the conclusion that these are breeding birds from either Santa
Clara or Alameda County. First time in a while, maybe 5 years or more.
This follows a pattern seen in California reservoirs where vegetation flourishes
in areas of drought stricken reservoirs, and then
the grebes take advantage of that vegetation in a year of abundant rainfall to
either build or anchor their nests.

"Our only county nesting records are from Calaveras Reservoir in the
1990s. Grebes tend to be late nesting birds and they have been
attracted in the past in central California to reservoirs that have
filled up after a few drought years as they support their nests on
woody vegetation that grew on the reservoir floor during the
drought." Bill Bousman

Good birding,

Bob Power
Oakland, CA

Saturday morning in San Ramon:

FOS Golden-crowned Sparrows
FOS Lincoln Sparrow
FOS Song Sparrow (we only get an occasional one in our yard)

FOS White-crowns showed up a few days ago.

Steve and Carol

Seen at the shoreline today -

Pacific-slope Flycatcher - 1 at Winton Ave.
House Wren - 1 at Winton Ave.
Hermit Thrush - 1 at Winton Ave. is the first I have seen here this fall.
MacGillvray's Warbler - 1 at Winton Ave.
Yellow-rumped Warbler - 1 at Winton Ave. is the first I have seen here this
fall,
Bllack-headed Grosbeak - 1 at Winton Ave.

Bob

On 9/23, my friend Bob Hepps sent me a picture of a young male Red-breasted Grosbeak seen in his yard near Joaquin Miller Park in Oakland. It didn't stay.

Maury Stern

I haven't seen it mentioned, but Mt. Diablo Audubon has an extensive list already as "East Bay Places Birding Resource".  See http://www.diabloaudubon.com/places/index.html .  Also on the Mt. Diablo Audubon website is "Birding Contra Costa County"  by Steve Glover at http://www.diabloaudubon.com/local_habitat.php.
 
"East Bay Places Birding Resource" needs to be updated.  I notice that Fernandez Ranch, for one, is not included.  A volunteer to keep up this list, perhaps.
 
Travis Hails

The first White-crowned Sparrow of the fall showed up at my feeder
today in Fremont to keep the Red-breasted Nuthatches, who have been
around for about a week, company.

Charlotte Allen
c.allen@comcast.net

Seen at the shoreline those 2 days -

Lesser Yellowlegs - 1 on 9/23 in the rapidly drying up city ponds.
Baird's Sandpiper - 1 on 9/23 in the channel on the north side of Cogswell
Marsh.

Western Wood-Pewee - 1 on 9/24 at Winton Ave., seen at 7:00 pm.
Willow Flycatcher- 1 on 9/23 at Winton Ave.
Pacific-slope Flycatcher - 2 on 9/23 and 1 on 9/24 at Winton Ave.
Cliff Swallow - 2 were very late. They are the latest I have seen here by 2
days.
House Wren - 2 on both days at Winton Ave.
Ruby-crowned Kinglet - 1 on 9/24 on the west side of Mt. Trashmore in the
fennel.
Warblers seen on 9/23 were Orange-crowned, Yellow, Black-throated Gray, and
Common Yellowthroat.
Warblers seen on 9/24 were Orange-crowned, Yellow, Blackpoll. and Common
Yellowthroat.
Blackpoll Warbler - 1 seen on the west side of Mt. Trashmore in the fennel. Seen
only in the afternoon.
Western Tanager - 1 at Winton Ave.
Black-headed Grosbeak - 1 on 9/24 at Winton Ave. Probably the same bird that Ken
saw.
Fox Sparrow - 2 on 9/23 and 1 on 9/24 at Winton Ave.
Lincoln's Sparrow - 2 at Winton Ave.
Golden-crowned Sparrow - 1 on 9/24 near Winton Ave.

Coyote Hills

Black-throated Sparrow - 1 near the first and only picnic table you come to
along the trail closest to the main road.

   Seen on 9/24. Refound by Jeff Miller.

Bob

Hi. I was mainly butterflying at Brookdale Park this afternoon, but the park was
very birdy, so I did a little birding with my excellent new "Vortex Diamondback"
binoculars. There was a single large BUSHTIT flock, which included a few
CHESTNUT-BACKED CHICKADEES and 2-3 TOWNSEND'S WARBLERS. One of the Townsend's
showed a rather narrow supercilium, setting off my brain's Blackburnian alarm,
but the citrine-yellow throat and breast said Townsend's. Also at least one
COMMON RAVEN. A flycatcher briefly showed itself in some trees on the High
Street end of the park, but there were lots of people around and I didn't feel
comfortable getting out the very expensive binoculars.

The biggest surprise was earlier this morning in the car driving past the park:
five CANADA GEESE feeding on the ball field. They were very large, and seemed
quite happy, but by the time I got back in the afternoon, a soccer team was
practicing on the field and the geese were gone.


Butterflies included CABBAGE WHITE, ORANGE SULFUR, WOODLAND, UMBER, and COMMON
CHECKERED-SKIPPERS, and three beautiful MONARCHS. No swallowtails, though.


- Noah Arthur, Oakland.

I have also been slowly working on birding locations, mostly in the
East Bay. I don't have the number as in the below link but I have been
trying to add some of the birds you might find.
http://nejohnston.org/birds/class_SanFranciscoBayArea-EastBay.shtml

Nancy Johnston.

On Sat, 11 Sep 2010 18:45:54 -0700 (PDT), Ken Wilson <kaeagles@yahoo.com>
wrote:

This afternoon a female, perhaps two, American Redstart was photographed in the butterfly garden at the visitor's center. Later after the garden closed a couple standing in the driveway leading to the back of the visitor's center believed they saw a male American Redstart. Several of us fanned out to find the birds without

success.

 
Ken Wilson
Pleasanton

Chris Chochems photographed an American Redstart at Coyote Hills on the
11th.

http://www.foundbeauty.com/Birds/slides/DSC_0788.html

http://www.foundbeauty.com/Birds/slides/DSC_0781.html

It looks like an immature male to me.

Chris also photographed the Black-throated Sparrow yesterday and
contributed a fine image to the WFO site:

http://www.westernfieldornithologists.org/

Click through for full-size images.

Enjoy!

--
Joseph Morlan, Pacifica, CA jmorlan (at) ccsf.edu
SF Birding Classes start Sep 14 http://fog.ccsf.edu/jmorlan/
Western Field Ornithologists http://www.westernfieldornithologists.org/

I visited Coyote Hills this morning and refound the black-throated sparrow at the previously described location. I was actually at Coyote Hills yesterday morning birding around the visitors center but never made it over to the quarry (oh well). There were also a few migrants around, though I didn't get into the butterfly garden.

3 Orange-crowned Warblers
1 Western Tanager
1 Western Wood-Pewee
3 Pacific-slope Flycatchers
1 Black-throated gray warbler
1 warbling vireo

Good birding,

Zach Baer
Berkeley, CA

I really liked the examples of birding location maps from other groups
that Glen and Calvin showed. It's a better solution than I presented.
Here is a start for the counties of Alameda and Contra Costa:
http://tinyurl.com/2cn9952
I did not open it to General Collaboration since anyone on the net could
destroy it. I will add locations and invite collaborators to improve
it.

I forgot to sign my last post for the continuing black-throated Sparrow at Coyote Hills.

Bob Dunn
San Leandro

The Black-throated Sparrow was still present at 2:45 this afternoon. Kathy Parker and I had the bird on the path next to the orange-colored lichen rocks mentioned in Stephanie's post. We then went over to the large fennel patch on the west side of the south marsh and were able to pish up a MacGillivray's Warbler there. Kathy then left to go home and I went over to the visitor center. In the nectar garden there were 3 birders with cameras who were kind enough to show me pictures of the Black-throated Sparrow that they had taken there in the garden. So you may want to look there first. The nectar garden does not open until 10am and is closed on Mondays and Tuesdays. It closed today at 4pm.

Other species seen in my journey there included but not limited to: Cooper's Hawk, Red-shouldered Hawk, Marbled Godwit, Western Wood-pewee, Flicker, Nuttall's Woodpecker, Loggerhead Shrike, Red-breasted Nuthatch, House Wren, Hermit Thrush, Oranged-crowned and Yellow Warblers, Savannah, Fox, White-crowned and Golden-Crowned Sparrows, Lesser and American Goldfinches.

Coyote Hills Regional Park is located in Fremont at the west end of Patterson Ranch Road.

I think I figured it out!

My mail program added slashed at the ends of the lines. This caused nearly all of the links to take me to Kansas. But when I deleted the slashes, then I ended up at the proper Bay Area locales.

Jaan Lepson

Peet's Pond, Alameda, CA

http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&;hl=en&msa=0&ll=37.72857,-122.2460&#92;
75&spn=0.008265,0.013154&t=h&z=16&msid=103627154941239960014.000490f19f0&#92;
5342ca5e54
<http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&;hl=en&msa=0&ll=37.72857,-122.246&#92;
075&spn=0.008265,0.013154&t=h&z=16&msid=103627154941239960014.000490f19f&#92;
05342ca5e54>

=============================
Jaan Lepson

University of California
Space Sciences Laboratory
7 Gauss Way
Berkeley, CA 94720-7451

Following Gail West's report this afternoon of a juvenile BLACK- THROATED SPARROW at Coyote Hills RP in Fremont, I high-tailed it over there and met up with Bob Dunn. We found the young sparrow with a White-crowned Sparrow flock along the trail closest to the entrance road from the Quarry parking lot. We walked up the hill and the flock was in the vicinity of the first group of rocks.
Bob then took me over to a fennel patch where we pished up a Yellow Warbler, an Orange-crowned Warbler and a young MacGILLIVRAY'S WARBLER.

Kathy Parker
Los Gatos

Thanks to Glen and Calvin for sharing two excellent examples of mapping
birding locations. Seems like the way to go on this.Since we are
specific to Alameda and Contra Costa Counties in our sightings, I
decided to mimic the approach on a map for our area.
http://tinyurl.com/2cn9952 <http://tinyurl.com/2cn9952>

I've added a few locations for a start.

It is in "Open Collaboration" mode so to add a location (placemark),
click on the Edit button and drag the blue pin at the top of the map to
the place you want to indicate. A Title and Description may be added to
the placemark. It would be good if the placemark is put at a parking
location so that getting directions to the spot is facilitated. Let's
see how it goes!

I was fortunate to run into Gail at the park today, and she pointed the way up the hill to where I immediately found the Black-Throated Sparrow.  The first Blue-Gray Gnatcatcher I've seen this season was also up in the fennel with the sparrows at the very top of the hill. To add to Gail's directions, go up the steep hill at the entrance to the Quarry parking lot, climbing up past the picnic ramada all the way to where you see the first pile of orange lichen-covered rocks in front of you.  Just before those rocks, a trail climbs off to the left to rocks at the top of a hill.  The birds were in the poison oak, on the ground on the trail, and in the fennel at the crest of that hill.  The Black-Throated Sparrow associates with the flock but is often separate from them, on the ground, on the fennel, and on the rocks, and it allows a fairly close look, as does the Blue-Gray Gnatcatcher.  Back by the parking lot, a big young Red-Tailed Hawk was eating
lunch atop the A-shaped roof of one of the picnic ramadas.  As I was leaving the park, a female Ring-Necked Pheasant startled from the brush just before the entry kiosk and flew across the road.
 
At yesterday morning's Ohlone Audubon field trip to the park, we saw 62 species.  Highlights were a Western Wood-Pewee in a snag on the hillside by the entrance to the Corporate Yard at the Visitor Center and a Virginia Rail lurking in the tall grass of an island on the southwest side of North Marsh.  A Loggerhead Shrike has also returned to the Quarry area for another season.
 
Stephanie Floyd
Fremont