Terns at Arrowhead Marsh, Oakland
Tue, 30
Sep 2003 15:03:04 -0700
From: Paul Webster
Dear East Bay Birders,
I live in Seattle and bird in Alameda & Contra Costa counties intermittently, so I have the kind of question I wouldn't have to ask in Washington state where I pretty much know what birds are likely to be around in specific places and at various times of the year. I hope someone can help fill in those blanks for me about the Martin Luther King Jr Regional Shoreline in Oakland.
At about 4:30 PM on Wednesday, September 17, I was on the west side of the water in a parking lot just off Doolittle Dr in brilliant sunlight. I saw a small tern fly out over the waterway heading roughly north toward Alameda and when it got well out over the water three gulls began harassing it. The gulls were about twice the size of the tern which eluded them rather easily and continued flying north. A couple minutes later a similar tern appeared, headed in the same direction and likewise attracted the attention of two similar gulls.
The distance was around 300 yards and I was using my Swarovski 10x42s. After cursing myself for having left my scope at the hotel (I was picking up relatives at the Oakland Airport and needed all the space in the car for their luggage), I put my elbows on the car to steady my hands and took the best look I could: the gulls seemed to be Ring-billed Gulls, but the tern was far enough out there and small enough that I couldn't see enough detail for an identification. The possibilities in Washington of that approximate size would be migrant Common Terns or, less likely, Arctic Terns. I would be unlikely to see a Forster's Tern in western Washington at all - and Least Tern would be a rarity there, but is possible in San Francisco Bay, I read.
Has someone observed similar happenings at Martin Luther King Jr Regional Shoreline? Would someone be willing to speculate on which tern species I might have seen?
Thanks!
Paul Webster
Seattle
Hayward Regional Shoreline
Tue, 30 Sep 2003
21:33:10 PDT
From: Bob Richmond
Today at the shoreline -
W Winton Ave
Hayward Landing
Mt Trashmore
Good Birding
Bob
Lewis' Woodpeckers in Berkeley Hills
Tue,
30 Sep 2003 23:34:05 -0700
From: Larry Tunstall
I am forwarding the following message to the list for Steve Glover:
Date: Tue, 30 Sep 2003 23:10:50 PDT
Subject: Lewis's Woodpeckers againHi all,
This morning I woke up and noticed the weather had changed and decided to head up to Inspiration Point in Tilden Regional Park to look for raptors and whatever might be migrating by. It was very birdy and between 9:30 AM and noon I saw or heard 56 species.
The highlight was a total of 17 Lewis' Woodpeckers, all flying south, in groups of 1, 3, 2, 1, 2, and 8. This is likely the most Lewis' Woodpeckers ever seen in Contra Costa County and certainly in a long time. As I mentioned before, they are being noted throughout Northern California. There were also many Acorn Woodpeckers in the area, including 8 seen at one time, but there didn't seem to be any pattern of direction like with the Lewis' but instead they just seemed to be wandering around. Two of them even sat on the transmission towers to the north!
Accipiters were seen in good numbers with 8 Sharp-shinned Hawks, 4 Cooper's Hawks and 4 unidentified birds. Other birds included many Vaux's Swifts and White-throated Swifts, a House Wren, a single American White Pelican on San Pablo Reservoir, 2 Ospreys around the reservoir, a Red-breasted Sapsucker, a beautiful male Hermit Warbler (one wintered here last year) and a California Thrasher. The thrasher is resident up there but I don't hear it on most trips for some reason.
Good birding,
Steve Glover
Dublin
Posted to EBB by Larry Tunstall