This morning, while looking for blackbirds along the east side of Oyster Bay Regional Park, I flushed something that looked like a tiny yellowish meadowlark on the hillside at the northeast corner of

Just had two surprisingly beautiful CAGE CANARIES visit my ground feeding station in with the flock of HOUSE SPARROWS. Both were streaky and sparrow-like with pale yellow tails and a yellow wash in th

Hi everyone I can probably say that today was the best birding of my life. I went with the Yolo Audubon's East Bay field trip, led by my friend from Davis, Terry Colborn, to a number of good East Bay

I spent most of my time at Oyster Bay this afternoon looking through the thousands of big gulls coming and going from the slough on the north side, but there were a few other (more interesting) sighti

This afternoon John Cant and I gulled Oyster Bay Shoreline in San Leandro, mostly focusing on the large congregation of gulls bathing and loafing on the slough on the north side of the park (I call th

Yesterday, Dave Kiehl and I birded around the South Bay most of the day, but ended up at Lake Elizabeth in Fremont, where there was a huge flock of geese on a lawn on the northwest side of the lake. M

WHITE-WINGED SCOTER was still diving actively right along the shore at the parking lot at the end of Mulford Point Drive at 2:30pm. Spectacular looking duck, and a year bird for me! Thanks to whoever

First cycle Glaucous on the boat house now. 2nd cycle probable Kumlien's Iceland just flew off. Photos and more details when I get home. .

Hi everyone. Sorry for the short Iphone message earlier... just thought I should get the word out. Gull numbers were high at the lake today, and the birds were milling around a lot. While looking at t

Thanks everyone for your continued interest in this bird! Jerry, thanks for refinding the bird and taking such great photos! Stephanie, could you forward this email to Alvaro? I don't think I have his

Alvaro, Jerry, and everyone else interested in this mind-numbing gull debate: I agree that kumlieni is genetically intermediate between thayeri and glaucoides. BUT I don't think that makes it not be a

Today my dad had a meeting in Pt. Richmond, so I had him drive over to Miller Knox to check and see if the gulls were swarming yet (since the herring run started early in the North Bay, I suspected th

Albert Linkowski showed me around the northwest side of Clifton Court Forebay today (what a great place!), where at first there were relatively few gulls, so we walked to the swamp on the north side o

Hi everyone. Here are some photos of the (sick) immature that I'm tentatively calling a 'Vega' Gull, found by Albert Linkowski and I at Clifton Court Forebay on Jan. 9: http://www.flickr.com/photos/73

This year's herring run in the San Quentin/Tiburon area was spectacular -- probably the biggest run I've ever seen (in terms of gull numbers) -- so I'm hoping for a good showing of gulls at the upcomi

Sorry, haven't had time to post until now. Yesterday I met up with Bob and Juli Toleno at Lake Merritt, where there were very few gulls and no sign of the target Glaucous. This didn't stop a 2nd-cycle

Here's a working link to the Kumlien's Iceland Gull photos from Lake Merritt: http://www.flickr.com/photos/73989529@N02/sets/72157640471162266/ Sorry I couldn't be more detailed about this bird earlie

Sorry, I don't think I was specific enough about the Iceland Gull's location. This was at the place I call the Gazebo Beach: the sandy beach just south of the east end of Fairyland. There is a large g

My advice to everyone who wants to see this bird is USE BREAD. Throw pieces of bread in the water to gather a large flock of gulls, and keep on throwing to keep them coming for a while. If the Iceland

Big thanks to Steve Tucker for spotting the beautiful adult SLATY-BACKED GULL at the Point Richmond Herring Run today! The most interesting part, to me anyway, was that I was able to watch and listen