Hi there First of all, it's a good custom to write your name..at this point I have no idea who I am communicating with and even though the internet is impersonal, I would rather know I am talking to a

Hugh None in Half Moon Bay yet and I have been keeping eyes and ears open all week. First juvenile California Gull today though. Alvaro Alvaro Jaramillo chucao@coastside.net Half Moon Bay, California

Esther That is a Ross's Goose. The small size compared to the Mew and California Gulls as well as its short-necked, small-billed look are helpful in identifying it. Also the little stumpy bill looks t

Calvin, Thanks! I was at Chrissy field to catch Fleet Week today with my son and had nice views of the Red-necked Grebe. Another bit of excitement was a fly by Cattle Egret, just to the east of the la

Dan This is a difficult angle, but this looks like a juvenile Red-shouldered Hawk to me. If you want to hang your hat on a specific mark, the Cooper's and Sharp-shinned do not have markings on their u

Folks This is a House Finch with abnormal pigmentation (leucism.amelanism..whatever you want to call it). In other words, what sometimes has been termed partial albinism. The oddity is how symmetrical

Folks, As I mentioned earlier today on sfbirds, I did get some recordings of flight calls of the Red-throated Pipits at Crissy Field, SF. These calls are often talked about, and referred to as the eas

SF Birders Don't tell my San Mateo friends that I left the county! Actually, I had a meeting in SF today and I was hoping that the pipits would hang on long enough for me to get to see them, and I did

Folks I am not doubting the identification of this bird, but wanted to point out something about the undertail covert streaking in Carpodacus finches. Our Purple Finches, californicus, are not quite l

Folks I have a real interest in yellowthroats. For an as of yet unfinished San Francisco Bay Bird Observatory project I measured and analyzed hundreds of specimens of our local breeding (Salt-marsh, o

Folks This gull is a real tricky one, for at least two reasons. But it is, in my opinion, a worn and faded Glaucous-winged Gull. Most Glaucous-winged are north of us at this season, and the whitish fa

Brian That link in my original message has calls you can listen to of all the types. They are so similar to each other that I don't think that I can tell any of them apart, the sounds are so quick it

Birders Cc: to SFBirds since they have been seeing crossbills up there as well. I just analyzed the sounds from the Red Crossbills I recorded at Skylawn Cemetery (top of hwy92) between Half Moon Bay a

Folks Just a point here, Grinnell was a genius but in this case his speculation is a little shaky. Snowy Owls and Northern Goshawks do not share the same home, at all. The owl breeds on tundra, the ha

Folks I just wanted to say that I looked on a couple of occasions for the possible Red-legged Kittiwake and came up empty handed. Consolation was a Parasitic Jaeger, Red-necked Phalaropes and Bottleno

Folks This is one of those extremely tantalizing birds, but unfortunately not fully identified to my satisfaction. I am writing this note just in case I may be correct, and just in case this bird is f

Hey Folks I was at the SF Zoo today and an Osprey flew over, it seemed to go to Lake Merced after checking out some of the zoo ponds. Also around a Cooper's Hawk as well as rosellas, currasows, hornbi

Folks I don't know the details of the San Francisco population, but hasn't there been a gradual change in the "Canary-winged Parakeet" populations in various established populations in North America?

Nathaniel et al. I always wonder what the coast here in Half Moon Bay was naturally, and I am still wondering. If anyone knows of any good sources on the Internet or on paper summarizing what the habi

Birders I warned you! In any case, I was eating a sandwich and reading the "pink section" of the SF Chronicle today, to see all the great movies, bands and theater I would miss this week, and came acr