[EBB Sightings] San Leandro shoreline, July 25, 2006

On what turned out to be the last heavy day of the heat wave, Marsha 
Feinland and I took a walk from San Leandro Shoreline Park to Roberts 
Landing and back (about 3 miles round trip) in the late afternoon. There 
were hundreds of shorebirds present and continuing evidence of breeding 
and/or nesting behavior.

Species seen:

Brandt's Cormorant (flying north along the coast line)
Great Egret
Snowy Egret
Canada Goose
Mallard
Duck sp.
Virginia Rail (see below)
Killdeer
American Avocet
Black-necked Stilt (see below)
Willet
Whimbrel
Marbled Godwit
Dunlin
Western Sandpiper
Peep sp. (Least Sandpipers??)
Short-billed Dowitchers
Ring-billed Gull
Western Gull
Gull sp.
Forster's Tern
Tern sp.
Mourning Dove
Anna's Hummingbird
Tree Swallow
Cliff Swallow
European Starling
Red-winged Blackbirds (at least one "bi-colored")
House Finches

The Virginia Rail was a sleeper for us. I thought at first it was a Clapper 
Rail, since it has been many years since I saw a Virginia Rail and this 
bird seemed much larger than I remembered it being. It had, however, bright 
orange legs and thick "knees", and was walking around in the open in the 
wetlands between the trail and the golf course, stopping to preen, take a 
drink of water, probe at the mud, etc. -- much more typical Virginia Rail 
behavior. It was much duller than what I take to be Virginia Rail plumage, 
so much so that I looked up rails when I got home because I thought it was 
too gray to be a Clapper Rail. It also didn't have very sharply defined 
lines on the flanks. (Marsha, who has never seen either species before -- 
or any rails other than Sora and Corn Crake --, took my word that it was a 
Clapper Rail.)

Many of the Black-necked Stilts were paired off, and one indignant male 
furiously drove a Mallard off-territory, first in the water and then in the 
air, while a female stood still partially camouflaged by pickleweed. 
Mourning Doves were also still in pairs and acting out.


Tom Condit
tomcondit at igc.org