[EBB Sightings] kinglets to the left of me...

I was happily surrounded by a flock of passerines yesterday at Huckleberry Preserve, flicking through an ancient, trailside coast live oak. I have been sorely tormented by ruby crowned kinglet-looking birds recently...Hutton's? kinglet? wing flicks? no wing flicks? If I can't confirm it, I hate to cite it...yesterday tho, I had a kinglet give me the full-on red crown, flashing me from afar. No question what YOU are, little dude, and nice to see you, too!

Lots of tantalizing flashes of unidentifiable parts of birds throughout the oak branches (including some obvious, handsome chestnut backed chickadees, unknown in the Bay Area prior to the 1960s, now common everywhere), then a flash of white eye line...wren? vireo? Nope, a golden- streaked nod of the head gave me my first golden crowned kinglet of the season. Varied thrush have been popping, startled, from the underbrush for the past week at Huck, and are still dove-tailing with the rufous-washed Swainson's thrushes, along the lower trail. 

Everyone is utilizing the huckleberry resources, from thrushes to foxes to feral pigs; the trail-side scat tells the tale. I even saw my very first coyote there last week, trotting towards me along the trail...I thought it to be a lop-eared dog at first; he thought, well, who knows?! But once we figured it out, it gave us both pause. He backtracked a bit, and waited for some folks coming up the lower trail to pass, before he slipped away into the underbrush. It was on a busy Sunday, but at the end of the day...the perfect witching hour for this crepuscular and spreading species. 

Wild times with wildlife. Beats wild Wall Street.

Debbie Viess
Oakland