[EBB Sightings] Coyote Hills - Brown Thrasher seen 11:40am

Birders,

I arrived at Coyote Hills about 11:15AM today and found Scott Terrill. He
said he had arrived 15 minutes earlier and been told that no one had seen
the Brown Thrasher today - with one birder, at least, arriving before 8AM.

Scott and I checked the tree with poison ivy wrapped around it, where the
thrasher was seen yesterday. We checked bushes along the trail leading up to
the rock structures. Then we checked the poison oak along the paved trail--
parallel with the center of the parking lot, and we found the BROWN
THRASHER.  

About 30 minutes later, after Scott had left, I was hiking up the steep
trail going to the rock structures, and the Brown Thrasher appeared right at
the base of this  path, again in poison oak. I was trying to imitate a
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher mew -- and attracted a Common Yellowthroat and the
Brown Thrasher instead. In the same bush, by the way, was a Fox Sparrow and
Hermit Thrush - so lots of brown/rusty spotted birds. 

So I would check all around the Quarry area, especially in poison oak. It
seems to move around a lot.

The first place Scott and I saw the thrasher today is in poison oak/willows
that are next to the paved trail, near an indistinct path leading from about
the center of the parking lot across a grass median. The path is close to
the largest tree out there. The Thrasher was in the bushes directly across
from this tree/path-- bushes that border the rushes and ponds. You are
looking East (per Scott's watch) but feel as if you are looking South (at
least Scott and I did) -- sort of back towards the entrance to the park--
when you face the right bushes. I included a photo on Flickr to show the
location. Not hard to find.

Second time--it was in the poison oak near the base of the trail to the top
of the rock structure. This trail goes straight up from the far end of the
parking lot. You don't need to hike up very far.


The Brown Thrasher was first seen on Feb. 13 -- in the Quarry area (and
reported 2/18 by Stephen Long):
"The bird was just up the hill from the first big parking lot inside the
gate, the so-called Quarry Staging Area.  It perched on a short conifer for
a minute or so -- long enough for Lauryn [Benedict] to get a scope on it,
and show each of the ten students the bird."  Lauryn also took another
section of the class to Coyote Hills on Saturday.  She looked for the
thrasher on Saturday, but did not find it.

Good luck!

Kris Olson
Menlo Park

Photos (including a couple of the areas where it was seen, so you can sight
them better than my words enable):

http://www.flickr.com/photos/27741504 at N08/sets/


I also saw a Purple Finch deep in the poison oak. Do they frequent Coyote
Hills?