[EBB Sightings] 9-23 big day trip notes; long

Notes on Sunday's SFBBO big day.  Written up by Mary
Wisnewski and Bill Walker.  Submitted by,
Bob Power
Oakland, CA

> For an Alameda County Big Day, our three person crew
> met up in Bob's
> driveway at 2:30 AM. By 2:55 we had our first bird:
> Great Horned Owl
> calling at Redwood Regional Park. At 8 pm we wrapped
> up with bird
> #128, a Common Tern at Berkeley Marina. Our first
> warbler of the day,
> found at Del Valle Regional Park, turned out to be
> the bird that
> followed us throughout the county -- Yellow Warbler.
> 
> Our itinerary was heavily researched and frequently
> rearranged during
> the four weeks between coming up with the idea to do
> a big day and our
> chosen date -- chosen because it was the only free
> day in our
> calendars inside the SFBBO Fall Challenge period.
> We'll be using these
> notes to enter our total in the Fall Challenge
> contest and for
> planning our next Alameda Big Day.
> 
> 2:55 - 4:15 am - Redwood Regional Park
> Much quiet listening and tape playing only turned up
> two owl species -
> Great Horned (between 2 and 6 individuals) and
> Western Screech (4
> individuals). A slow start.
> 
> 4:45 - 5:40 Arrowhead Marsh
> Walking in the back way let us look at Black-crowned
> Night-heron,
> Mallard, Mourning Dove and Great Egret in the dark
> on our way to the
> Rail Spot, where both Clapper & Virginia Rail
> obliged, but Sora and
> (elusive?) Black Rail did not.
> 
> 6:45 - 7:00 Mines Road
> A quick pullout turned up California Thrasher and
> Rufous-crowned
> Sparrow. One of our biggest scouting successes was
> knowing where to go
> to get these dry, interior species quickly.
> 
> 7:00 - 8:30 Del Valle Regional Park
> A great spot for dawn - and we chose the specific
> stop inside the park
> based on email sent to the EBB mailing list the
> night before. Our
> "species per hour" average jumped way up, as we
> entered Del Valle with
> 21 species (that's four per hour) and left at 8:30
> with 53 (slightly
> over ten per hour). Specialties of the location were
> : Wilson's Snipe,
> Red-breasted Sapsucker, Downy Woodpecker, Spotted
> Sandpiper, Osprey,
> Yellow-billed Magpie and Green Heron.
> 
> 8:45 - 9:00 - Murietta's Well
> This quick stop for a specialty bird did not go as
> planned. We left
> without the Eurasian Collared Dove, but traded that
> miss for a Western
> Tanager. And Yellow Warblers.
> 
> 9:15 - 9:30 - Owl Road
> Another great scouting success - knowing where to
> find a Burrowing
> Owl, Say's Phoebe, Loggerhead Shrike and (possible)
> Golden Eagle was
> very helpful in picking up 6 species in about 15
> minutes. Onward! 9:55
> - 10:10 - Tassajara Creek park
> Reported on EBB, this park was another quick dive
> into known birds,
> turning up two good warblers and a House Sparrow.
> 
> 11:00 - 1:30 pm - Frank's Dump
> Eucalpytus / bushes around the parking lot had a
> Lincoln's Sparrow,
> Warbling Vireo, more Yellow Warblers, and a
> White-Crowned sparrow.
> 
> The large pond south of the parking lot obliged with
> a couple of duck
> species we hadn't gotten at Del Valle - Greater
> Scaup, Ruddy Duck, and
> Northern Pintail - along with an Eared Grebe.
> 
> The long walk out to the main shorebird roost was
> wearing -- some of
> us were dragging a bit by this time. But the payoff
> was *huge* with
> large flocks of Western Sandpiper and Black-bellied
> Plover harboring
> small numbers of Sanderling (10ish), Ruddy Turnstone
> (3), Black
> Turnstone (1), Red Knot (20?), and Surfbird (1).
> Hundreds of Marbled
> Godwit scanned failed to turn into Long-billed
> Curlews. On the walk
> back, we heard, but never saw, Horned Larks on top
> of the active trash
> heap and Bob spotted a single fly-by Whimbrel. We
> probably spent more
> time than we should have trying to spot the Horned
> Larks, but they
> were soooooo annoying close and vocal, it was hard
> to resist
> 
> 2 pm - 3:30 pm Coyote Hills
> The butterfly garden had a Western Woodpewee and
> American but not
> Lesser Goldfinches (a miss for the day). An adult
> Cooper's Hawk landed
> on a pole just beyond the gardens and there wasn't
> much feeder action
> after that! Rock Wren failed to appear on our way
> out to the ducks
> overlook, but Green-winged Teal, American Wigeon,
> and Common Moorhen
> were located amongst hundreds of eclipse Northern
> Pintails -- and seen
> by Bob & Bill but missed by Mary, rats! The arrival
> of a Lark Sparrow
> (once again, credit to Bob!) was a consolation
> prize.
> 
> TIME - San Leandro Marina
> Drove up to San Leandro and found an oft-sighted
> Pectoral Sandpiper on
> the island breakwater, but the tide was so low at
> this point that the
> "island" was acessible to the humans, and no terns
> were hanging
> around.
> 
> TIME - Alameda shore
> Parked near the beach at Alameda South shore, where
> Bob managed to
> sight two Elegant Terns heading away. Picked up
> Long-billed Curlew,
> but no Sora. Elected to cut this stop short in order
> to return to the
> redwoods, since our "likely" list had 8 redwood
> species left on it.
> 
> TIME - Chabot observatory
> Another highly successful stop brought morale back
> up after a
> mid-afternoon slump amongst the smaller animals in
> the expedition. In
> 10 minutes, we picked up Townsend's Warbler, Pygmy
> Nuthatch, Dark-eyed
> Junco, Steller's Jay, Brown Creeper, and Hairy
> Woodpecker in the first
> 10 feet of the trail. Only Mary saw the Band-tailed
> Pigeon flyover, so
> we can't count that on the list, but another 15
> minutes work brought
> us Red-breasted Nuthatch and Hutton's Vireo. A
> second stop for
> chaparral netted us a Wrentit. Now we were at 127
> species and had our
> eyes on 130. We dashed back to the shore to try our
> luck.
> 
> TIME - Cesar Chaves Park
> We headed north along the road towards Cesar Chavez
> park near Berkeley
> Marina. There was one Clark's Grebe visible in the
> water -- but none
> of our hoped for comormants or scoters. We did find
> at least one
> Common Tern, but were unable to scare up the Barn
> Owl from the kite
> flying park. We had to close our day with 128
> species. A more
> energetic team would surely have tried another stop
> for Pelagic
> Cormorant or maybe Sora back at Arrowhead, to boost
> the total, but we
> were cooked on both sides and had to call it a
> night.
> 
> Our day ends with 128 species for the team - a
> perfect square - and a
> feeling that we did "pretty well" for our first
> Alameda Big Day, but
> we want another shot!
>