[EBB Sightings] South Tilden Park

Dear Birders:

We were nine well-bundled participants including our leader, Emilie Strauss, who gathered at the lower Lake Anza parking lot at seven a.m. yesterday.  The crescent spent moon accompanyed by two bright planets - Jupiter and Mars -- promised a clear day.  It was cold in the canyon.  Frost whitened the big lawn and ice glazed the bridge above  the spillway.  A good variety of ducks appeared undaunted by the ice fog that drifted in patches on the water. The gadwalls and the Common Mergansers were observed for the second time in the twenty-two-year count period.  The usual Ring-necked Ducks, fleets of Mallards and Coots plus several Pied-billed Grebes, and a few of the commoner duck species completed the waterfowl count. After considering a hawk perched in a nearby tree, the group consensus declared it to be a Merlin. 

As we crunched across the frosty grass, the new sun illuminated a tall redwood which came alive with a flock of American Goldfinches.  And from the shade we heard the long, quavering calls issued on different pitches from this year's bountiful crop of Varied Thrushes.

Some of us visited the Botanical Garden -- more thrushes and Ruby-crowned Kinglets (the other bird in record numbers for the day) -- while one team hiked up the Big Springs trail finding the pair of resident Rufous-crowned Sparrows and a flock of Pygmy Nutharches and Western Bluebirds. Though producing no suprises, the Vollmer Peak area, the highest point in the Oakland-Berkeley Hills, offered inspiring views over the rolling, now green, hills of Contra Contra County to Mt. Diablo and west over the blue expanse of Bay and ocean.

Altogether, we counted 56 species including two new species for our count area -- the Merlin and two Lincoln Sparrows.  We also exceeded the 1994 record for Varied Thrushes with 73 birds -- impressive unless you consider the more than 200 individuals tallied in the north Tilden area.

The question remains -- how do we account for the exceptional numbers of Varied Thrushes being seen everywhere?

Phila Rogers


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