[EBB Sightings] Blue-gray Gnatcatcher at Coyote Hills

   During my morning commute up I-880 Thursday morning,
the road turned into a parking lot. I decided to invest
an hour at Coyote Hills instead of squandering it in
traffic.

   The park was full of the usuals residents. The surprise
of the morning, however, was a very cooperative Blue-gray
Gnatcatcher, feeding for about 20 minutes on a nest of
termites right beside the trail. Pix of the Gnatcatcher
(and a couple of the other regulars) are at:

    http://www.flickr.com/photos/rwolf/

    Go to the southwest corner of the quarry parking lot,
just past the picnic table. Go about 50-60 yards uphill
on the marked trail from that corner of the parking lot.
The Gnatcatcher was moving from the low brush on both
sides to feed on nearly invisible termites on the ground.

    The thicket in that area was very birdy with 8 Yellow
Rumps, 2 Black Phoebes, 1 Bewick's Wren, 2 Ruby-crowned
Kinglet, small flocks of White-crowned and Golden-crowned
Sparrows, 2 Fox Sparrows, a few Juncos and 1 Say's Phoebe
another 20 yards up the hillside. (It was the first time
I got to hear the longer, coarser buzz of the Bewick's
Wren and the shorter, softer buzz of the Gnatcatcher
simultaneously.)

-- Ron Wolf
    Palo Alto