Re: dead owls
Thu, 8 Nov 2001 09:05:37 -0800
From: Dick Anderson
Hi folks
Greetings from Idaho! It is not at all unusual to see dead owls along the highways here in the winter. The workers keep the sides of the roads clear and the small mammals accumulate there and then the owls come in to feed on them and then in turn are dazzled by the head lights of the traffic and are run down. Between Pocatello and Boise people often count 40 to 50 bodies along the side of the road. For the same reason, in some of the rural areas you can often see Rough-legged Hawks in great numbers, each sitting on top of a fence post or an irrigation device, some down on the ground. Between Pocatello and Idaho Falls, about 50 miles, we have counted 50 or more hawks before we were tired of the game. Imagine the numbers that we don't see going 65 miles per hour.
Dick Anderson
Pocatello, ID (formerly from Berkeley)
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Eurasian Wigeon at Crab Cove
Thu, 08 Nov 2001 20:40:59 -0800
From: Bonnie Strand
Today I birded at Crab Cove in Alameda at low tide. There was a Eurasian Wigeon there in the company of about 30 American Wigeon.
(Not to mention hundreds of other shorebirds, including Black Oystercatchers and Black Turnstones. There was also a Black-crowned Night-Heron on the rocky shore.)
Bonnie Strand
Berkeley CA
Arrowhead Marsh, MLK Regional Shoreline,
Oakland
Fri, 9 Nov 2001 13:10:40 -0800
From: Mike Ezekiel
Dear EBBers
A Blue-winged Teal is again present at Arrowhead Marsh in the Martin Luther King Jr Regional Shoreline in Oakland. In addition, this morning between 8 and 9 AM, I saw flocks of scaup, lots of shorebirds including about 15 Long-billed Curlew, and the Burrowing Owl. Another birder, who saw the teal concurrently, also mentioned having seen Barrow's Goldeneye earlier, but I did not see them.
The usual assortment of Black-necked Stilt, American Avocet, Killdeer, Willet, lots of Black-bellied Plover, Least Sandpiper, egrets of several stripe (Snowy and Great), Great Blue Heron, Marbled Godwit and Lesser Yellowlegs, sparrows including Golden-crowned and White-crowned, and Savanah Sparrow, and a Marsh Wren.
Mike Ezekiel
Oakland, Ca.
New yard bird - sorta
Sat, 10 Nov 2001 16:41:02 -0800
From: Jerrie Arko
Well, almost a yard bird.
Janey came by at 9:00 AM to pick me up and we were headed for Arrowhead Marsh down near the Oakland Airport [in Martin Luther King Jr Regional Shoreline]. Got in the car and she pulled slowly away from the curb while looking intently at my neighbors yard. I almost said something about watching the road ... then I looked to see what she was locked in on. A California Quail!!!!!!!! Just outside my yard ... and I wasn't in my yard, so can it be a yard bird for me? Or just a neighborhood bird?
Remember that I live in the middle of a large urban area. Cities to the left and right and across the Bay. I have never seen a California Quail in El Cerrito. Janey and I chortled and grinned and carried on until there was a car behind us with a very impatient driver wanting us to move along. The quail scurried up a driveway across the street and disappeared under some bushes.
So off to the marsh. First thing we saw was a Greater Yellowlegs and close by for comparison and discussion was a Lesser Yellowlegs. First time I have seen them side by side so was able to tell which was which. Then, just over there ... was about 50 Long-billed Curlews. A few Willets and one lone Snowy Plover.
We walked along the shoreline and found lots of scaup of both flavors. Buffleheads, American Coots, American Wigeons, Ruddy Ducks, Double-crested Cormorants. Then we headed for the pier that juts out into the marsh for about an eighth of a mile. Watched a Ring-billed Gull wade in the mud, dig up a mollusk, fly up and over the pier and drop it with a thud on the pier to break open the shell. Then he flew down and gobbled up the most disgusting breakfast I have ever seen. Guts, slime and other runny stuff. And off he went for another one.
After that bit of entertainment we set the scope up and watched Willets, Marbled Godwits, Western Sandpipers and Least Sandpipers. Some Black-necked Stilts flew over acting like terns and I got all excited about the "different" tern until they landed and it was easy to see they were stilts. All of a sudden Janey was pulling at me and trying to say something while pointing and looking thru her bins. Bingo! Her first Clapper Rail. Out on the bank picking thru the mud for tidbits. He poked around for a few minutes and then disappeared into the reeds. Janey soon spotted a second rail just the other side of the channel.
So it was a good day of birding! Just as we were leaving the marsh, rain started coming down. We never did find the Blue-winged Teal and never found a Burrowing Owl. I think the construction along the road may have chased the owls away. We did see a Black Phoebe and a Red-tailed Hawk among many other birds there.
Jerrie Arko, El Cerrito, CA
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