[EBB Sightings] Garin Park, Hayward: birds and newt (Feb. 4th)

[I tried to send this last night, but... here it is finally
--Debbie]


All,

I went for a walk / birding in Garin Park, Hayward this
morning.  The park was wet and muddy from recent rains,
but it was sunny and from the windmill area on the ridge,
San Francisco and Oakland were clearly in view, including
one of the Golden Gate Bridge towers (with the aid of
binoculars).

There were a few birds worth mentioning.
I saw a flock of VARIED THRUSH, 6, had visuals of 3 and the
other 3 disappeared.  They flew up from the ground to mid
level of a large tree in groups of 3, 2, 1 within 2 seconds.
And one of the two BROWN CREEPERs I saw gave me a close,
good view, including a fast outward push of the lower body
and tail before it pooped.  This makes sense but is new for
me to witness. One BROWN CREEPER had a more buffy supercilium
and a less dark plumage on the back.  The other had a more
darker overall plumage. I suppose this is just individual
variation as plumage is supposed to be the same for both
sexes in BRCR.

The surprise of the day was a HAMMOND'S FLYCATCHER.
It had a gray head, tear-drop eye ring, the lower mandible
was almost all dark, (more dark gray in color than black),
a bit lighter color near the base, but not flesh color as
WESTERN FLYCATCHER's, nor only dark tip.  Lighter color
on the throat but not yellow.  Overall, it had a "smaller
bird" appearance to me.  I extracted a HAMMOND's FLYCATCHER
last week (on Jan. 27) in Coyote Creek Field Banding Station
in Alviso.  That bird was first banded one month ago and
recaptured last week (in the same area).  So, we do have
wintering HAFL in the Bay area, and it is nice to know
that they are in the East Bay as well.  I last saw a HAFL
in Garin a few years ago in July.

An adult RED-BREASTED SAPSUCKER was working on a tall
leafless cottonwood (?) tree near Jordon's Pond. I didn't
see any ducks except COOTs and a pair of courting
MALLARDs, they did the head bobbing dance.

Other birds seen were the usual suspects for this time
of the year: crowned sparrows (golden and white),
finches (house and lesser), Bewick's wren, western blue
birds, oak titmouse, phoebe: Say's and black, ruby
crowned kinglet, bushtit, etc.

I didn't see a raptor except a WESTERN SCRUBJAY imitating
the call of a RED-TAILED HAWK.  It was pretty good!

================

A 100 feet or so from the stream, I saw a bright orange
brown color NEWT.  I took pictures of it with my cell phone
camera.  I concluded from images available on the net that
it was a California Newt, the Sierra Newt subspecies.  It
was a great looking newt.

Debbie Wong