[EBB Sightings] Summer Tanager and other northern Alameda highlights

Best and most aggravating bird of the day: SUMMER TANAGER. I went tanager
hunting at Cedar and La Loma in the Berkeley Hills north of campus, per the
information from Jonathan Wheatley. An hour of canvassing the neighborhood
and playing a tape yielded nothing. I was walking back to my truck when I
heard the tanager's distinctive burry call note. So I spent another hour
trying to locate it but it called only once more. Bottom line: it's there, I
heard it, I'm counting it (unless someone objects), but I didn't see it. And
tapes appear to be useless.

By mid-morning, I was at the Albany waterfront, where I added 6 BLACK
OYSTERCATCHERS, RED KNOT, and OSPREY. On the way back to the truck, I
scanned the mudflat area again at high tide and located the Wigeon flock on
the far side next to the freeway, just before the county-line sign. The
EURASIAN WIGEON was in the flock, barely countable on the Alameda Co. list.

A SHARP-SHINNED HAWK flew over Berkeley Meadow. Out at the end of the
Municipal pier, I found a HEERMANN'S GULL in with the Westerns accepting
handouts.

I ended the day back at Aquatic Park (yeeewww!) yet again, where I spent a
couple hours trying to outskulk the NORTHERN WATERTHRUSH. Bob Brandriff
joined me for the last 15 minutes or so and we finally had the briefest of
glimpses of the waterthrush zipping through and crossing the road to another
soggy thicket. We made do with our brief glimpse and got out of the willow
thicket. Now I need a shower.

For you listers out there, my BYB list currently stands at 124, including
the species below not previously reported.

Bruce Mast
Oakland

Bewick's Wren
Lesser Goldfinch
American Goldfinch
Red-breasted Nuthatch
Fox Sparrow
Cinnamon Teal
White-tailed Kite
Red-tailed Hawk
Short-billed Dowitcher
Greater Yellowlegs
Spotted Sandpiper
Black Turnstone
Least Sandpiper
Herring Gull
White-throated Swift
Common Yellowthroat
Lincoln's Sparrow
Red-winged Blackbird
Common Loon
Cooper's Hawk
Red-shouldered Hawk
Long-billed Curlew
Western Sandpiper
Forster's Tern
Steller's Jay
Western Scrub-Jay
Bushtit
Ruby-crowned Kinglet
Hermit Thrush
Brewer's Blackbird