Willets at Arrowhead Marsh, Oakland
Sun, 17 Jun 2001 09:54:37 -0700
From: Courtenay Peddle
Hello folks,
On Saturday afternoon about a dozen Willets were foraging at the water's edge at Arrowhead Marsh, Martin Luther King Jr Regional Shoreline in Oakland.
They were in strikingly brown breeding plumage. I believe they are on their way south from their breeding grounds, but don't know for sure. Can anyone clarify that?
Foraging with the Willets was a single Whimbrel, which I think has been at Arrowhead since winter. It didn't migrate.
The Willets sent me to Sibley's Guide to the Birds and Hayman, Marchant and Prater's Shorebirds to check on plumage. Sibley's illustration of a breeding western Willet looks all wrong, far too pale and grey on the back, and with too few markings. The birds I saw looked very like plate 146c in Shorebirds.
So, the fall migration has begun.
Good birding,
Courtenay Peddle
Re: Willets at Arrowhead Marsh, Oakland
Sun, 17 Jun 2001 16:40:00 -0700
From: Tom Condit
Courtenay Peddle wrote:
On Saturday afternoon about a dozen Willets were foraging at the water's edge at Arrowhead Marsh, Martin Luther King Jr Regional Shoreline in Oakland. They were in strikingly brown breeding plumage. I believe they are on their way South from their breeding grounds, but don't know for sure. Can anyone clarify that?
I know that when I was regularly walking around the Emeryville Crescent Marsh and adjacent areas, there was only a week or two in the year when Willets weren't present. (This is over a term of about ten years.)
Original Message Subject Index
Hayward skimmer bonanza
Sun, 17 Jun 2001 19:48:16 PDT
From: Peter Dramer
In past years Hayward has had a single Black Skimmer nest. I have been hoping for two nests and this year we got two - and then three - and now there is the possibility of three more.
Today there were twelve Skimmers at Hayward Shoreline. Three pairs were on nest and three more pairs were making motions to suggest that they too may nest. Except for one all nests and nesting activity are viewable from the Bay Trail.
From the Hayward Interpretive Center at the end of Breakwater Ave take the one and only trail which leads to the bay. At the bay continue on the Bay Trail for a very short distance. Inside the area protected by chain link fencing and signed "Reclaimed Water" there are two prominent islands. The larger, southern island has a single skimmer nest near the middle of the island. The northern island has eight skimmers of which two are certainly on nest.
Binoculars will do but certainly a scope will provide great viewing.
Peter
Yellow Warblers
Fri, 15 Jun 2001 01:20:25 -0700 [actually posted 17 Jun 2001]
From: Rusty Scalf
These reports of nesting Yellow Warbler are wonderful to read. I've heard something similar from Los Angeles County where a friend has found nesting Yellow Warblers at a place called Harbor Lake at the base of the Palos Verdes Peninsula.
What is remarkable about these reports and the reports I heard from Coyote Creek in Alviso, where Yellow Warblers have nested in recent years, is that none of these nestings seem to be Cowbird parasitized. (Is that still true, anyone who knows the San Francisco Bay Bird Observatory Coyote Creek operation?)
I had understood that Yellow Warblers were at one time one of the most abundant nesting birds in the riparian habitats in California. (The Sacramento County Breeding Bird Atlas failed to turn up a single pair.) Their demise, I thought, correlated to the Brown-headed Cowbird invasion of recent decades. Yellow Warblers, being arboreal nesters, are prime cowbird targets. And cowbirds seem to be all over the place.
I wonder if this is just good luck, or if some cowbird-evasion strategy is taking place.
Rusty
Reply #1 Reply #1 Subject Index
Fwd: Yellow Warblers and phalaropes
Sun, 17 Jun 2001 20:48:00 -0700
From: Larry Tunstall
Yellow Warblers and phalaropes
Sun, 17 Jun 2001 13:02:40 PDT
From: Bob LewisAdding to the nesting sightings on Yellow Warblers that have been appearing this last week - Hanno and I and several Welsh friends were birding in Tilden this morning, and came across a very busy Yellow Warbler nest in a poison oak short of the Jewel Lake dam on the left of the main dirt road from the Little Farm parking lot. An adult was busily foraging over the corner of Jewel Lake and feeding the nestlings.
On another subject, Rusty Scalf, Jerry Daniel and I came across a male and female Wilson's Phalarope while doing some Contra Costa County breeding bird atlas censusing on Chevron refinery property early yesterday morning. Having been in the Sierra the preceding two weekends and noting how dry it is, it prompted us to wonder if this is an unusual sighting, and if there is any possibility that they could be a breeding pair, driven to find more hospitable habitat. I note the Hayward Shoreline birdlist has Wilson's Phalarope as present in small numbers through the summer... Any comment?
Bob Lewis
Berkeley, CA
Skimmers moving across the bay?
Sun, 17 Jun 2001 22:08:37 -0700
From: Larry Tunstall
A friend who lives in the Palo Alto area mentioned that there are very few Black Skimmers on the shoreline there this year. Maybe they've moved across the bay to Hayward Shoreline. Anyone know if there's been an actual decrease on the southwest bayshore?
Good birding, Larry
Larry Tunstall
El Cerrito CA