[EBB Sightings] more Del Puerto Canyon

Dear Birders:

Reading Debbie Brusco's posting on Del Puerto Canyon, Corral Hollow, and 
Mines Road, made me think again about the memorable field trip with the Mt. 
Diablo Audubon group two weeks.  We entered from the opposite direction, off 
Highway 5 in the vicinity of the Patterson turnoff.  I've driven down 
Highway 5 many times and have always wondered about those rolling hills, 
unrevealing at high speeds except for the suggestion of something 
interesting in their canyons  I've always loved the lean landscape of the 
inner coast ranges. You sense that spring is tightly compressed -- maybe a 
few weeks of intensity between the icy ground fogs of winter and the 
overwhelming heat of summer that bakes every bit of moisture out of the 
land.

We made a couple of stops still in sight of the freeway.  Though treeless, 
the undulating curves of the hills and their still-green grasses on that 
cool morning with the sky made bluer by a few wisps of cirrus clouds, was 
deeply refreshing. The most interesting -- and puzzling sighting was of a 
large, pale raptor sitting on distant fence post which in flight revealed 
darker wings (the post-mortem consensus was that the bird was a 
partially-albino red-tail.

Once entering the canyon, the road follows Del Puerto Creek rippling over 
its rocks and full enough to invade the surrounding grasses.  As we 
continued inland making frequent stops along the road, we encountered 
reddish outcrop of rocks and a variety of vegetation.  At one stop near a 
blooming tobacco bush we saw a Costa's hummingbird display its purple 
gorget, a male northern oriole on a bare cottonwood branch, a rock wren 
singing top of a big boulder, and up near the ridgeline, a pair of golden 
eagles showing the coppery sheen across the top of their wings and heads. 
As if such avian riches weren't sufficient, the steep hill was gold with 
sticky monkey
blooms and fiddlenecks, accented by scarlet flames of Indian paint brush.

But there's also a serpent in this paradise.  Graffiti covers most of the 
reachable rocks, and the intermittent big trucks and RV's pulling trailers 
carrying Off Highway Vehicles (OHVs) roar by.  And for a real horror 
scenario, the dread Pombo wants to replace the meandering road with a 
highway.

We stopped for lunch at the Frank Raines Park (I think), an uninviting 
campground with the surrounding hills deeply scarred by those OHVs.  A pair 
of phainopeplas nesting in a weathered and partly bare tree didn't seem to 
mind.  The female sat on the nest in the crouch of the tree with just her 
shaggy crest showing, while the sleek, handsome male with his white wing 
patches swept in.  We ate lunch watching a lively flock of Lawrence's 
goldfinches.

At the intersection of Del Puerto and San Antonio Valley road we turned left 
in search of the wood ducks on the pond and the Lewis's woodpecker, both of 
which we found.  This valley is lush and well-watered-looking with fine 
valley oaks and displays of brilliant yellow goldfields.

Altogether we saw close to 75 species, including two 'lifers' for me -- the 
Costa hummingbird and the Lewis's woodpecker.

Go before the month is over!

Phila Rogers