[EBB Sightings] Ferruginous hawk and Ross's goose at Lake Elizabeth - Fremont

Sometimes Lake Elizabeth in Fremont's Central Park
only offers up the "usual suspects"; other times, it
is full of surprises. This afternoon was definitely
the latter case!

An adult FERRUGINOUS HAWK was eyeballing a field full
of ground squirrels from a lightpost above the
scoreboard at one of the softball fields just east of
the animal shelter. Matt, a park ranger, drove up in
his pickup to check out the flock of little CACKLING
GEESE ("minima" and "Aleutian") that were also below
the hawk's perch, and I waved him over to share the
sighting. Our presence was not what the hawk had in
mind, and it promptly muted and took off, circling
ever higher as it flew towards the eastern hills. I
have never seen a ferruginous hawk in Fremont before.

At that point, I noticed that the flock of cackling
geese had a white member.  At first, I thought it was
a snow goose, but it was smaller than some of the
cackling geese, its bill was small and reddish-pink,
and it had a short neck, and so I arrived at ROSS'S
GOOSE. 

Matt mentioned that he maintains the burrowing owl
burrow near the dog park even though he hasn't seen a
BUOW there in a year.  Someone told him a few weeks
ago they'd seen a BUOW there; I didn't have time to
check it out today.

Of the 45 species I found at the lake today, most
plentiful were the YELLOW-RUMPED WARBLERS in the trees
all along the creek east of the lake. I pished up two
FOX SPARROWS from the always-productive woodlands just
west of the R/R tracks south of New Marsh. WESTERN
MEADOWLARKS are still hanging out near New Marsh.

Looking southeast from the southernmost parking lot
(south of the swimming lagoon), I spotted a much
smaller hawk harassing a RED-SHOULDERED HAWK over the
open space near the R/R tracks.  The smaller hawk
"twinkled" (flap, flap, flap...soar) as it gave chase,
which put me in mind of a SHARP-SHINNED HAWK. I am not
a "sharpie connoisseur" (I've only seen them on Hawk
Hill, where someone knowledgable was calling it), and
I don't know how likely it would be to see one in
Fremont, but that's what it looked like to me. An
AMERICAN KESTREL was perched on the wires near the
swimming lagoon. The bird harassing the RSHA was not a
falcon.

A great many WHITE-THROATED SWIFTS were flying over
the lake, and, at the northeast bay, many TREE
SWALLOWS were also flying.  The swifts commanded a
higher altitude than the swallows; the swallows went
right down to lake-level. Tree swallows nest in the
boxes set up for them around the lake.

Finally, a lone BONAPARTE's GULL was on the east side
of the lake. I initially saw it near Bird Island, but
it worked its way up to the northeast bay by the time
I got there, where I found it very close to the lake's
edge (right at my feet). The bird was demonstrating
interesting feeding behavior. It would pick something
off the surface of the lake, settle on the water for a
second, then immediately take back off, come down
elsewhere, and repeat. Over and over again.

One AMERICAN WHITE PELICAN was also on the lake.

I have really dreadful handheld digizoomed (no scope
today!) photos of the ferrug and the geese; reply to
me directly if you would like a link to them.  





Stephanie Floyd
Fremont


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