Many thanks to Bob Powers for your post suggesting that it is easier to find the Tufted Duck in a raft of 30. It sure was!!! I went last year when there were at least 1000 lesser scaup to sort thru and came up empty and frustrated - swearing I wouldnt look for TUDU again!

His comment triggered my trip this morning and after exiting I 580 at Lakeshore Ave and parking on the street on the south side of the lake I walked back east and saw the raft of 30 - between the float line and the monument end on the east.

I scanned the raft from left to right and on the right-hand edge there was Lifer #474!!! Less than 10 minutes after I left my car.

My good luck held as I went from there to Byxbee Park in Palo Alto and picked up #475 - the Clay-colored Sparrow!!!

Bill Zachman
Groveland, CA
Tuolumne County

I returned this morning, and the male Wood duck is still there, mostly sleeping in shadows. There is a female Wood duck who clearly thinks he is the cats meow, but he is sticking with his Mallard. There were two pair of American wigeons, one American coot, one Cormorant, lots of Ring-billed gulls and lots of Mallards, some mating. There is also no shortage of various geese, domestic ducks and turtles.

Chris

Sorry for the late report.
I was able to locate a single Common Loon south of the Berkeley Pier
looking stright west, distance is unknown but my scope was required.
Yesterday about 1 PM from the Berkeley Pier parking lot looking west
there were Horned Grebes in winter plumage.
Horned Grebes were also in front of the Hong Kong Ocean restaurant in
the Emeryville Marine.
Also from the Watergate walk way a very nice example of a Pied-billed
Grebe in winter plumage.
Again near the Oakland Middle Harbor EBRP, is the Oakland Port View Park
( Beth40/ 4011 7th st.) here was a single winter plumage Eared Grebe.
Over head looking towards Middle Harbor from Port View Park was a Merlin
diving into flock of shore birds.
Rich Cimino
Pleasanton

This morning I struck out on a Parasitic Jaeger at the Berkeley Pier, but I did have 1 adult non-breeding HEERMAN'S GULL. It originally flew over me when I was at the end of the pier, and later I found it in the parking lot with a horde of other gulls squabbling over some bread someone had thrown out.

Kathy Parker
Los Gatos

I made a brief stop early this AM and refound the adult male Harlequin Duck
reported by MOB at the end of Canal Street in Richmond, Contra Costa County.
This was my third try. Initial scoping of Brooks Island was unsuccessful; I
located the bird very close to shore at the bow of the Red Oak Liberty Ship.
There were two Osprey on Brooks Island. No sign of the Brant reported by others.

-- Emilie Strauss
Berkeley, California

A tan-striped White-throated Sparrow was at our feeders in the Oakmore neighborhood in Oakland this morning. If it sticks around, it will be the fifth year in a row we have had at least one spend the winter. I wonder if it is the same individual every year.

Glen Tepke
Oakland
g.tepke (at) comcast (dot) net
www.pbase.com/gtepke

Hi. Here's the link to the photos of the unusual junco at Lake Merritt. They're
really bad, but show the face/throat pattern pretty well.


www.fretnotgospel.com/narthur-birdsightings.html

Noah Arthur, Oakland

On 11/1/2010 7:26 AM, Chris Cochems wrote:

Hiding amongst the hundreds of mallards, domestic ducks and geese and
hybrids is a male Wood duck. Also saw an American wigeon, and didn't
nearly see every duck there. The Wood duck seems to be mated with a
Mallard, and seems rather pushy and territorial with the other ducks,
but lacks the usual shyness around people.

Ain't that a hoot! The Wood Duck & Mallard pair has been there for several years - or, at any rate, a friend dragged me over there to see one a coupla years ago, and it's hard to imagine there's more than one.

Maybe it's something about Mallards.... A few years ago, a female Wood Duck was lounging with a party of Mallards under one of the twisty trees at Lake Merritt, between the path near the nature center tot lot and the lake itself. Perfectly calm and contented, with people tromping back and forth and calling to one another within 10 feet of her. I watched for half an hour or so, then came back the next day - but she was gone.

--
- Hilary Powers - hilary@powersedit.com - 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 -

Hiding amongst the hundreds of mallards, domestic ducks and geese and hybrids is a male Wood duck. Also saw an American wigeon, and didn't nearly see every duck there. The Wood duck seems to be mated with a Mallard, and seems rather pushy and territorial with the other ducks, but lacks the usual shyness around people.

Chris

On 10/31/2010 7:27 PM, Bob Power wrote:

There is a huge difference that I think it's important to note
between viewing this year's bird this week and finding and viewing
the bird for the rest of the winter.

This week, the Tufted Duck is in the company of 35 scaup. For the
rest of the winter the number is likely to be.... well....

That's a good point! But there's another difference that sort of cuts in the opposite direction - this year's Tufted Duck has notably gray sides rather than the bright white I remember from other years. In fact, I thought he was another Ring-necked Duck when I first got the glasses on him; then he moved his head and flashed his pony tail at me.

Assuming that he'll lighten up as the winter progresses, he'll be easier to recognize later when he's brighter. Of course, chances are that would be more than counterbalanced by the sheer numbers of similar ducks he'll be able to hide among....

--
- Hilary Powers - hilary@powersedit.com - 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 -

This afternoon there were two pair of Blue-winged Teal in Damon Slough, near where the channel empties into San Leandro Bay, adjacent to Garretson Point in Martin Luther King Jr. Regional Shoreline in Oakland.

Glen Tepke
Oakland
g.tepke (at) comcast (dot) net
www.pbase.com/gtepke

Hi all,

This year's Tufted Duck was hanging out in the northeast corner of Lake Merritt
at 2 p.m. today.
There is a huge difference that I think it's important to note between viewing
this year's bird this week
and finding and viewing the bird for the rest of the winter.

This week, the Tufted Duck is in the company of 35 scaup. For the rest of the
winter the number is likely to be.... well....
at a minimum, I'll leave it at 100's. Another way to put this is, if you've
been skunked by the Tufted Duck in the past, this week
would be a good time to go.

A few digi-scoped images of the Tufted Duck can be seen at:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/14935921@N00/5133830431/


Good birding,

Bob Power
Oakland, CA

Hi. Lake Merritt was productive again today, with many small birds in the trees
surrounding Fairyland. Fairyland itself is full of spectacular exotic plantings
(to impress the small children?), and these seem to attract lots of birds.

Most interesting was an apparent 'PINK-SIDED' DARK-EYED JUNCO, in the same trees
where the Palm Warbler was earlier this month. This is near "The Pavilion", at
the corner of the Fairyland fence.

It was seemingly a rather large junco, with a very pale grayish head and
extensive pale pinkish on the flanks. The lores were darker than the rest of the
head, and the throat was paler. The throat was so pale gray, in fact, that
it showed nearly zero contrast with the breast. This may be just an extremely
pale 'Oregon', but 'Pink-sided' seems to be a better match. I got some crappy
photos of the bird, which I'll post later.

Also present were many YELLOW-RUMPED and TOWNSEND'S WARBLERS, WHITE-CROWNED and
GOLDEN-CROWNED SPARROWS, etc.


Noah Arthur, Oakland

3rd attempt to send this messege- I give up on doing it through the Yahoo web site and will do the cut and paste labor intensive route.
An article this week by Joe Eaton on cacklers and taxonomy.
http://www.berkeleydailyplanet.com/issue/2010-10-27/article/36572?headline=Wild-Neighbors-Honkers-Cacklers-and-Taxonomists

Forgot to mention two Cackling Geese at Middle Harbor. They had fairly
dark breasts and lacked white neck rings, so they looked more like
minima than leucopareia, but they seemed a little too big and
long-billed, and lacked the dark purplish bib that minima often has, so
I am wondering if they were taverneri, which is much less frequent in
the Bay Area. They were associating with Canada Geese on the main lawn.

Glen Tepke
Oakland

I had a Prairie Falcon slowly circling over my backyard in Livermore about 10 minutes ago. The falcon never flapped it wings for the 5 minutes I watched.
Good birding.

Steve Huckabone
Livermore, CA
Alameda County

Ohlone Audubon Membership Meeting
Date: November 2 Time: 7:30 p. m.
Location: Casa Sandoval
1200 Russell Way, Hayward 94541

Topic: "Chimps and Gorillas—With a Dash of Plants and Birds!"
Presenter: Michael Ellis

Join naturalist Michael Ellis as we journey to that unique region
where the East African savanna gives way to the Central African
rainforest thus creating a remarkable assemblage of plants, birds and
mammals in a relatively small area. But the primary focus of traveling
to this part of the world is to see the mountain gorillas. There are
only 740 of these magnificent primates remaining on our planet. They
survive in a tiny area–-the eastern part of the Congo, far southern
Uganda, and in the small nation of Rwanda.

During this evening's journey we will visit Murchison Falls National
Park, which contains the headwaters of the Nile River and is the
largest park in Uganda. It is home to elephants, buffalo, giraffes,
lions and a plethora of bird life. This place, in particular, is a
great example of the importance of preserving habitat. Most of the
large animals were poached out completely in the 1980's but the park
remained intact. Upon receiving protection the animals emigrated from
the Congo and repopulated the area. Kibale National Park is one of the
best places to visit a large chimpanzee group, and Queen Elizabeth
National Park has some unique tree-climbing lions! In Rwanda we'll
visit the Virunga National Park, made famous by Diane Fosse. It is the
home for eight habituated gorilla families. We clamber up steep, rain
soaked volcanic slopes to spend one hour with one of these families, a
truly remarkable and powerful experience.

Casa Sandoval is on the corner of 2nd and Russell. From "A" or "B"
Streets in Hayward, turn north onto 2nd St. and follow it one block to
Russell. A link to directions is on Casa Sandoval's website: http://www.casasandoval.com/

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

A brown/tan morph White-throated Sparrow was seen by an Albany Adult School
field trip today at San Leandro Reservoir. We began our walk at the Valle
Vista staging area. The sparrow was across the path from the horse stables
in the company of a few White-crowns and Golden-crowns.



Rusty Scalf

This afternoon the CASSIN'S VIREO was in Washington Park, which is immediately
adjacent to Crown Beach. It was at the west end of the line of trees right in
the middle of Washington Park, with a mixed kinglet/chickadee/warbler flock.


Joe Morlan has seen the photos and concluded that it is in fact a Cassin's
Vireo, albeit a very drab individual.


In the morning, the male TUFTED DUCK was still at Lake Merritt, with the scaup
raft in the middle of the northeast branch of the lake. At the very "top" of
this branch was the male RING-NECKED DUCK, and a female REDHEAD was between the
islands and the nature center. Lake Merritt was hopping with songbirds,
including a very pale, buffy TOWNSEND'S WARBLER that may have been a
Townsend's/Hermit hybrid. The back was plain, so it wasn't a Blackburnian. A
RED-BREASTED SAPSUCKER was in a cedar in the strip of parkland that is across
the street from Fairyland.


Noah Arthur, Oakland

I visited Roberts Regional Park this morning and walked around the picnic area around 9am it was not all of that birdie but there were at least 2 VARIED THRUSHES and 1 EVENING GROSBEAK giving the rapid trill calls. I then went to the berkeley pier only to find several COMMON LOONS (7-8).

Good Birding,

Zach Baer
Berkeley, CA

Hi all,

Both Pt. Isabel and Garretson Pt. were fairly quiet at midday today, with the
following highlights:

--Pt. Isabel--
HORNED GREBE - 10 (I was following up on a 10/28 eBird report of 8)
CLARK'S GREBE - 60
PELAGIC CORMORANT - 1 (on a wooden platform with several Double-crested
Cormorants)
SURF SCOTER - 110 (about 2/3 were southward-bound flybys)
BLACK TURNSTONE - 27

--Garretson Pt.--
The pond across from the park entrance now has enough water for a nice
collection of ducks including AMERICAN WIGEON, CINNAMON TEAL, NORTHERN SHOVELER,
NORTHERN PINTAIL, GREEN-WINGED TEAL, and a male BLUE-WINGED TEAL.


A CLAPPER RAIL foraged and preened in the open along the edge of the channel
(north of the pond) for the entire hour I was at the park.

Amy McDonald
San Jose, CA