[EBB Sightings] Coyote Hills this morning

Great birding - 70 species! - and a splendid morning for Ohlone Audubon's field trip to Coyote Hills today.  A highlight and life bird for several participants was the four pectoral sandpipers feeding among the muddy chunks of Main Marsh right beside the dirt-and-gravel trail just a few feet from us. Rich Nicholson actually saw the shy blue-gray gnatcatcher by the hillside ramada above Quarry parking area (others of us heard it). Other highlights included a FOS golden-crowned sparrow on that same hillside, FOS Say's phoebe on the hillside by the Meadowlark Trail, and two house wrens in an oak on the east side of Lizard Rock. A very well-camouflaged great horned owl was dozing hugged up to the trunk of a eucalyptus above the footpath out of Hoot Hollow, where we also saw a female western tanager fly over.  A female black-headed grosbeak was in the oaks west of the visitor center.  Warblers were everywhere - mostly orange-crowned and yellow warblers, but
 we also saw Townsend's, Wilson, and yellow-rumped warblers and common yellowthroats. 

Stephanie Floyd
Fremont