Hi E.B.Birders,

I have taken up Bob Richmond's suggestion to keep track of all the bird seen in Contra Costa County for 2012, updating the list monthly.  Contra Costa County is one of the more under-birded counties in the Bay Area, so this will be a great way to get more people out in the field.  Once we find a location for the list, we will be up and running! 

If you need a daily checklist, one is available for Northern California from Mount Diablo Audubon Society. 

http://www.diabloaudubon.com/index.php

I will also be happy to share a pdf of my own personal checklist if you're interested.
Keep finding great birds for Contra Costa County, and continue to post them on EBBirds.

All the Best Birding,
Denise Wight
Moraga, CA

I work in the Emeryville Marina acomplex nd often go down here before work or at lunchtime. For the past several days there have been many thousands of shorebirds on the mudflats. At each high tide they are sitting on the rock rip-rap along Powell Street in large flocks. You can get very close. It's quite a sight. On Friday I looked at several thousand Marbled Godwits, Willets, Western Sandpipers, Dunlins as well as smaller numbers of Yellowlegs, Dowitchers etc. Go look at it at high tide.

Aaron Maizlish

Yesterday afternoon I observed the Loggerhead Shrike back on his usual tree next to Mt Diablo's Northgate Rd (about 1/2 mi past the entrance gate). He returns to that spot every winter.
Also, for the last week or so we have had literally hundreds of Robins (and Cedar Waxwings) visiting our backyard bird-bath. I have to re-fill it about every half-hour! They migrate through every winter as we all know, but this year there seems to be much higher numbers (in my opinion). They're obviously very thirsty in these dry times and I would urge everyone to get a bird bath.

http://twitpic.com/8e1z9u

Bob Hislop
Concord

Hi all,

I recently switched to birding here on some mornings before work. Although I haven't found any rarities, I thought I'd mention that the shorebird roost on the south side of Powell Street, across from Trader Vic's, has had impressive numbers of WHIMBREL. I counted twenty-two this morning, a personal high count. I also saw three BLACK TURNSTONES and a PELAGIC CORMORANT here this morning.

Good birding,

Ken Schneider
San Francisco

I have talked with several birders and have decided to start an Alameda County Year List like the lists in Santa Clara, Santa Cruz, and San Mateo Counties. This is a year list of birds seen in the county by everyone. The main reason for doing this, is to encourage more people to bird locally in the county. Interest in county birding was fairly high when many people were doing county lists but has dropped off since then. Unusual sightings should be reported to EBB and ebirds, not just ebirds like many people seem to be doing now. At the end of every month, a list of new birds for the year in the county should be sent to me at bobrichmond94544@...  . It hasn't been decided where to keep the list for birders to view.

While this is just for Alameda County, perhaps someone will start one for Contra Costa County (like Denise, Hugh, Jimm, or Maury).

Bob Richmond
Hayward

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This (1/30/2012) afternoon around 4PM I found and photographed a Hammond's Flycatcher in the woods next to the big sycamore tree on the hill foot trail to the Jordan Pond. This is probably the same bird that I reported on 12/30/2011 and photographed in both 2010 (2/13/2010) and 2011 (2/24/2011). Images of this Hammond's Flycatcher can be seen at http://www.flickr.com/photos/jerryting/6793830587/in/photostream/.

I also saw and photographed a male Allen's Hummingbird at the same location http://www.flickr.com/photos/jerryting/6793851887/in/photostream.

Happy Birding,
Jerry Ting

This afternoon on the soccer fields, the 5-member GREATER WHITE-FRONTED
GOOSE family, 3 Aleutian CACKLING and 1 RIDGWAY'S CACKLING. All the
Aleutians had obvious neck collars, though only one was wide and very white.
At least one of them had a distinct gular stripe, and one other only a
partial stripe. Molting, I assume.



John Cant

Fremont

I gulled at the Pacific Commons pond with Dominik this morning (thanks, Dom, for a great day of birding!). Early on, Dom found a male EURASIAN WIGEON with the local AMERICAN WIGEONS. We spent several hours looking through thousands of gulls coming and going from the pond. Tied at most common were GLACUOUS-WINGED and AMERICAN HERRING GULLS, with smaller numbers of WESTERN and CALIFORNIA GULLS as well as WESTERN/G-WINGED and AMERICAN HERRING/G-WINGED hybrids. We probably saw 15-20 THAYER'S GULLS plus two RING-BILLED GULLS and one MEW GULL. There were several confusing birds we couldn't ID; photos will be posted later.
 
Most interesting was a Slaty-backed-like gull that bathed on the pond for about five minutes. Unfortunately, I was unable to get Dom onto this bird; he got on the wrong one (an odd Herring-like gull) and followed it instead. The Slaty candidate was a large, fairly dark-backed gull with a spotted and streaked (not smudged) head, staring pale eye, prominent bright reddish orbital ring. The bill did not look particularly bulged or angular, unlike a Western's. In flight it showed some pale tongue-tips on the primaries, although not as many as on the Slaty-backed that was seen there last November. Its primaries were still well within the range of variation for Slaty-backed shown in Howell and Dunn's gull book.
 
The only thing I didn't like was the mantle: too pale. It wasn't too much darker than the surrounding Glaucous-winged Gulls, and clearly somewhat paler than at least some of the Westerns on the pond. This makes me lean towards Vega Gull; I need help on this one. Photos are here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/73989529@N02/sets/72157629106017191/
 
The hybrid goose photographed yesterday was still there. It is clearly a big, bulky goose, so the verdict Dom and I agreed on was CANADA/BARNYARD GOOSE HYBRID. Other interesting non-gulls included two CINNAMON TEALS, a dark-rufous morph RED-TAILED HAWK, and large numbers of RED-WINGED and TRICOLORED BLACKBIRDS with a few BREWER'S BLACKBIRDS and BROWN-HEADED COWBIRDS. The Tricolors seem like they may be getting ready to nest around the Pac Commons pond.
 
Noah Arthur, Oakland

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And never ever throw away small rubber bands. Big ones, either, I suppose, but the little 2" suckers are deadly to birds. Some days you eat the worm....

--
- Hilary Powers - hilary@... - Oakland CA -
- Freelance copyediting and developmental editing -
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Excellent! Happy news in a very unfortunate situation.
Sandy


__________________________________________ 
  
      Fine Art Nature Photography 
 
http://naturesmajestyimaging.zenfolio.com/

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tie your trash bags! Pick up garbage in the street so it won't end up in the storm drain :-))) Cut plastic rings in 1/2! [I know I'm preaching to the choir...]
Lisa

On Jan 30, 2012, at 1:41 PM, Hilary Powers wrote:

On 1/30/2012 1:10 PM, bobsikora38 wrote:

The consensus of observers is that he finally succeeded in getting the
ring of jetsam off, and is now putting distance between himself and
Berkeley as rapidly as possible.

What great news! I thought the subject line meant the poor thing had
died, probably after capture. This is much much better!

--
- Hilary Powers - hilary@... - Oakland CA -
- Freelance copyediting and developmental editing -
- "Making Word Work for You" - www.the-efa.org/res/booklets.php -
- The edit you want - online, on time, and on target -
- Salamander Feltworks NOW LIVE - www.SalamanderFeltworks.com -

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

On 1/30/2012 1:10 PM, bobsikora38 wrote:

The consensus of observers is that he finally succeeded in getting the
ring of jetsam off, and is now putting distance between himself and
Berkeley as rapidly as possible.

What great news! I thought the subject line meant the poor thing had died, probably after capture. This is much much better!

--
- Hilary Powers - hilary@... - Oakland CA -
- Freelance copyediting and developmental editing -
- "Making Word Work for You" - www.the-efa.org/res/booklets.php -
- The edit you want - online, on time, and on target -
- Salamander Feltworks NOW LIVE - www.SalamanderFeltworks.com -

On Saturday, 28 July there was only one Western Grebe at Berkeley
Aquatic Park. There were about 8 Clark's Grebes. Poor photos from a
distance showed what might have been disturbed feathers at the base of
the bird's neck. A number of photos showed the same marks, but not well
enough to tell what they were. No band around the neck, in any case.
On Sunday, 29 July a thorough search with a scope turned up no westerns
and now 10 or 12 Clark's (possibly some repeats).
Over the last week the entangled Western would repeatedly grab the
rubber ring around his neck, slide it up and become bridled by it.
It was frustrating to watch without being able to suggest to him that he
put both mandibles under the ring and then look at the sky ala a
breeding Goldeneye and the ring would pop right off.
The consensus of observers is that he finally succeeded in getting the
ring of jetsam off, and is now putting distance between himself and
Berkeley as rapidly as possible.
Many thanks to all the people who offered their time to help this bird.
Bob, Alameda

I went to Pacific Common Linear Park for few minutes to see whats going on. There was a lot of Red-winged Black Birds as usual. One Northern Harrier two white-tailed kites. Pond had the usual stuff mallards wigeons, shovelers, Canada goose, and one I belive Greater White-fronted Goose. here is picture.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ddsimages/6786890433/in/photostream

Davor Desancic
Fremont,CA

EBB'ers,

Oft reported male BLACK SCOTER at Richmond Marina was close in to Peninsula Drive at Harbor View Drive -- the last (gated) road before Vincent Park parking lot -- at 11'ish. It was with GREATER SCAUP. It posed for some good photos, then vocalized repeatedly. County bird visual observation, and life vocalization.

BURROWING OWL (not a county bird) on Byron Hot Springs Road about 100 meters south of Holey Road. It resolutely stood at its burrow near the fence, despite our proximity in the car. Nice photo op.

MOUNTAIN BLUEBIRD -- single male exactly at the junction of Holey & Byron Hot Springs Road. As Denise Wight observed last month, lighting here is important, and this one perched on the fence on the north side of Holey -- where it needed to be for optimal lighting. Again, great photo op.

Good birding,
Stephen Long
Museum of Vertebrate Zoology
University of California, Berkeley
diomedea at berkeley dot edu

Sorry, this is what should have been in the last email:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/73989529@N02/sets/

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After a week of thinking and studying on these mystery gulls, I decided to post the photos:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/organize/?start_tab=one_set72157629078678237

When I first saw these birds with hundreds of other gulls at the San Leandro Marina, I thought they would turn out to be just variations of common stuff, but I'm not so sure now. In particular, the one labeled "adult mystery gull" is really baffling to me. Any help is much appreciated!

I have also posted this message to CalGulls.

Thanks in advance

Noah Arthur, Oakland, CA.

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I paid a short visit to Richmond Marina this morning to see what kinds of
ducks might be on the water. The continuing adult male BLACK SCOTER was
hanging out across the harbor with a small flock of Surf Scoters and Greater
Scaups. Other than a PACIFIC LOON, not much else out and about. No sign of
any Long-tailed Ducks.

Berkeley Pier and Emeryville were also pretty quiet. From Point Emery, 5
Red-breasted Mergansers and a flock of 30+ Mew Gulls on the water were
mildly interesting.

Bruce Mast
Oakland

On 1/29/2012 8:45 AM, Cal Walters wrote:

On Wednesday last week I tried for both Tanagers - got skunked (not
literally). But I have been down in SE AZ birding on the weekend and
wanted to see if I could nab either. Has anyone seen them in the
last day or so?

Not yesterday morning at Aquatic Park.... I arrived around 11:20 and joined a group of frustrated birders who hadn't spotted the tanager there; left an hour or so later having admired lots of butter butts, hummingbirds, and waxwings, but no tanager.

--
- Hilary Powers - hilary@... - Oakland CA -
- Freelance copyediting and developmental editing -
- "Making Word Work for You" - www.the-efa.org/res/booklets.php -
- The edit you want - online, on time, and on target -
- Salamander Feltworks NOW LIVE - www.SalamanderFeltworks.com -

At 8:30 this morning, we had a fist fall male Rose-breasted Grosbeak
visit our yard, eating seeds as well as drinking at the bird bath. I
was able to take a very hurried photo from the kitchen window.

Good birding,

Paul and Nancy Schorr
Antioch




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1st fall male Rose-breasted Grosbeak



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1st fall male Rose-breasted Grosbeak



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1st fall male Rose-breasted Grosbeak