[EBB Sightings] Western tanager at Coyote Hills RP

Hi Stephanie and other EBBs:

I spent  several hours this afternoon at Coyote Hills, including a couple 
of hours inside  the butterfly garden.  Birds of note in the garden were one 
WARBLING VIREO  and two different ORANGE-CROWNED WARBLERs.  I also had the 
pleasure of  watching a group of six Bushtits bathing together in one of the 
many birdbaths  (I know, they're common birds, but it's always fun to see 
them in a behavior  that I do not often witness).  All the hummingbirds I saw 
(many) were  Anna's. There was also a SWAINSON'S THRUSH (SWTH), which was 
seen later outside  the garden.

After I got kicked out of the garden at closing time, I  wandered out to 
the front of the visitors' center, where I ran into the  Steenhovens.  We saw 
at least two (and possibly three) WESTERN TANAGERSs  moving between the 
pines and the coffee berry(?) bushes.  That's the  general area where we saw the 
SWTH again.

Good birding,
Kathy  Robertson
Hayward, CA

In a message dated 9/5/2009 9:15:20 A.M.  Pacific Daylight Time, 
scfloyd2000 at yahoo.com writes:
A western tanager was in  the pines in front of the visitor center at 
Coyote Hills mid-day  yesterday.

I saw about five Pacific-slope flycatchers in various places,  near the 
butterfly garden and Hoot Hollow and in the patches of fennel out the  Bayview 
Trail and at the junction of the Chochenyo and dust trails.   

At least 150 American white pelicans were on North Marsh.

A flock  of white-throated swifts was flying around over the hillside 
behind the visitor  center.

Most interesting was a flock of 40 or so killdeer hunkered down  on the dry 
mud chunks of the Main Marsh.  Their remarkable camouflage made  them  
invisible to the naked eye, and I only saw them when they startled up  from the 
nooks and crannies of the dry bed.  Along with least sandpipers  and song 
sparrows, they were feeding on something in the deep crevices.   The holes 
were so deep that the sparrows would disappear into them and pop up  again on 
the other side.

Stephanie Floyd
Fremont