[EBB Sightings] Lafayette Birds Oct 1st

Hi,

While visiting my parents I went for a walk around
their neighborhood.  They live on Las Huertas and I
walked to the end of this road to the bike trail and
then looped around on Las Trampas back to Las Huertas.
 This walk took about 2 hours.

My parents live near Las Trampas creek and I was
surprised to hear a Yellow Warbler chipping here.  I
pished it in and it appeared to be a female since it
had no red streaks.  I then heard the flat "tep" call
of a Black-throated Gray Warbler.  It stayed high in a
Monterey Pine before flying off into a neighbor's
yard.  

Still on Las Huertas, but further away from the creek,
a Western Bluebird was on another neighbor's powerline
and two Acorn Woodpeckers were calling loudly atop a
power tower.  A male/female pair of Wood Ducks flew by
heading west over the Las Trampas riparia.  

On Los Palos Manor, I found two Western Tanagers: one
appeared to be a male and the other an immature
female.  

In a field on a ridge just west of Phillips Road, I
saw a flock of 10 Wild Turkeys.  I thought they were
pets at first, but they were moving from one fenced
pasture to another.  This is the first time in 13
years of birding this area that I have seen Wild
Turkeys.  A Black-headed Grosbeak "squick" called from
an oak tree and 5 Western Bluebirds perched in another
oak nearby.  My walk was almost over, but I thought
that my list was shy of a raptor or two so I started
scanning the sky.  I spotted a speck (vulture,
red-tail?) way up above circling.  With my binoculars
on it, I could see that it was actually a Golden Eagle
with its long entirely dark wings, dark body and tail,
and relatively long dark head.  It turned to the west
and flew off.  Although I have seen Golden Eagle
several times before in this area, it's still a good
bird, and I was just thinking about the timing of this
bird and how lucky I was when another adult Golden
Eagle flew by heading west.  Only this one was
probably just 50 meters away flying just slightly
above me.  At this distance and angle I was able to
clearly see its golden hackles.  Wow, the perfect bird
to end a nice morning walk!


Location:     Las Huertas/Trampas
Observation date:     10/1/06
Number of species:     38

Wood Duck     2
Wild Turkey     10
Turkey Vulture     1
Golden Eagle     2
Mourning Dove     3
Anna's Hummingbird     7
Acorn Woodpecker     2
Nuttall's Woodpecker     3
Downy Woodpecker     3
Hairy Woodpecker     1
Northern Flicker     2
Black Phoebe     2
Steller's Jay     13
Western Scrub-Jay     30
American Crow     2
Chestnut-backed Chickadee     15
Oak Titmouse     14
Bushtit     28
White-breasted Nuthatch     8
Bewick's Wren     5
Ruby-crowned Kinglet     1
Western Bluebird     6
American Robin     13
European Starling     3
Yellow Warbler     1
Yellow-rumped Warbler     1
Black-throated Gray Warbler     1
Townsend's Warbler     2
Western Tanager     2
Spotted Towhee     2
California Towhee     6
White-crowned Sparrow     11
Golden-crowned Sparrow     3
Black-headed Grosbeak     1
Purple Finch     1
House Finch     37
Lesser Goldfinch     12
American Goldfinch     2

This report was generated automatically by eBird v2
(http://www.ebird.org)

Happy Trails,
Jim

James R. Tietz
Arcata, CA

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