Requesting information for visiting birder from
Sweden
Thu, 09 Dec 1999 10:56:53 -0800
From: Mike Feighner
Greetings birders of the 5 Bay-Area birding listservs:
I have a request for a visiting birder from Sweden from Dec 20 1999 thru Jan 7 2000. Hans will be looking for the following targets:
1) Barrow's Goldeneye
2) wintering Varied Thrush
3) wintering Sage Sparrow
4) wintering Lawrence's Goldfinch
Please reply directly to Hans Johansson at beata.jaske@telia.com
Below I have included what information I could get for Hans in the meantime.
Thanks
Mike Feighner, Livermore, CA
Hans,see below....
Hans Johansson wrote:
My name is Hans Johansson and I am a birder from Sweden. I have been subscribing at Calbird and MBB for a while now. I have noticed your name in some interesting mails that you have written. I will wisit California between Dec 20th and Jan 7th together with my family. We plan to amongst other places wisit Lake Merritt (Barrow's Goldeneye is a target bird) and Mines Rd (hopefully Lawrence's Goldfinch and Sage Sparrow ). I have noticed that you live in Livermore which is quite close to Mines Rd (and not that far from Lake Merritt).Livermore is about 30 miles from Lake Merritt, and I believe I have heard Barrow's Goldeneye reported. The last ones I saw recently were at Lake Solono Park on the Yolo/Solano County line.
I have seen Lawrence's Goldfinch only once in Winter, and these were two among a large Lesser Goldfinch flock in Panoche Valley in San Benito County about 8 winters ago. And I haven't heard of any reports this winter.
So I would like to ask you a few questions:Do you know if there are any Lawrence's Goldfinches at Mines Rd this winter?
If not, do you know of any other good spots to look for them?
Do you know if any Barrow's Goldeneyes has settled down for the winter at Lake Merritt?
If not, maybe there are some birds somewhere else that you know of?
How is it with Varied Thrush, a bird that I would be very happy if I could see.Mike, if you have some information and some spare minutes I would be very grateful to you if you could write me some lines.
Last Sunday I saw two Varied Thrushes at Samuel P Taylor State Park in Marin County while looking for the two American Dippers between MP 17.0 and 18.0 along Sir Francis Drake Blvd. I missed the dippers.
Another good spot for Varied Thrushes is in Santa Clara County at Smith Creek Firestation half-way up Mount Hamilton Road. Park at the bridge and telephone, cross through the opening in the fence and hike east along the creek.
If you like, I can post a request for you to a couple other Bay-Area birding listserves like South-Bay Birds. East-Bay-Birds, San Franciso Birds, and pen-bird (San Mateo County).
Best Birding-regards,
Hans Johansson,
Storfors, Sweden e-mail: beata.jaske@telia.comMike Feighner, Livermore, CA
Seaview Trail, Tilden Regional Park
Thu, 9 Dec 1999 20:45:49 -0800
From: Larry Tunstall
Ore and I and a few others joined Alan Kaplan this morning for a walk on the Seaview Trail south from Inspiration Point in Tilden Regional Park in the Berkeley Hills. The main front of the storm had already moved through by our 7:30 AM starting time, and the scattered showers that followed nicely held off for two hours to give us lovely (if chilly) weather for our walk. Sun poking through the clouds provided some beautiful lighting for some of the birds, including a kestrel and some nuthatches.
The highlight of the morning was a mixed flock that included at least two Pygmy Nuthatches and three Red-breasted Nuthatches. A few posed nicely in good light on the top of fairly short trees near the trail, giving us excellent and prolonged studies of the two species only a few feet apart. A couple of us saw two birds that appeared to be Varied Thrushes, but they flew before we could get a good enough look to be absolutely sure that they were not just American Robins.
During the second hour of the walk, it began to cloud over again and the light dimmed, the bird sounds diminished, and it became very hard to identify those birds that were seen - mostly just silhouettes up in the trees. As a result our list was relatively short, and we had no raptors other than the single kestrel (and the call of a Red-tailed Hawk - probably not a jay imitation):
Double-crested Cormorant (Phalacrocorax auritus) - flyover
American Kestrel (Falco sparverius)
California Quail (Callipepla californica) - several on trail
Northern Flicker (Colaptes auratus)
Hutton's Vireo (Vireo huttoni)
Steller's Jay (Cyanocitta stelleri)
Chestnut-backed Chickadee (Poecile rufescens)
Bushtit (Psaltriparus minimus)
Red-breasted Nuthatch (Sitta canadensis)
Pygmy Nuthatch (Sitta pygmaea)
Bewick's Wren (Thryomanes bewickii)
Winter Wren (Troglodytes troglodytes)
Ruby-crowned Kinglet (Regulus calendula)
Varied Thrush (Ixoreus naevius) - probable
Wrentit (Chamaea fasciata)
Yellow-rumped Warbler (Dendroica coronata)
Townsend's Warbler (Dendroica townsendi)
California Towhee (Pipilo crissalis)
Song Sparrow (Melospiza melodia)
Dark-eyed Junco (Junco hyemalis)
Good birding, Larry
Larry Tunstall
El Cerrito CA
Burrowing Owl in Berkeley on Dec 3
Fri, 10 Dec 1999 07:16:18 -0800
From: Larry Tunstall
I received the following e-mail message sent last night, presumably intended for the group:
I sighted a Burrowing Owl sitting in a shrub at the east end of the old Berkeley dump road (near the Pumpkin Patch/Christmas Tree Lots), Friday, December 3 at 4:30 PM. Deb Golata
Posted to EBbird by Larry Tunstall