[EBB Sightings] Birding Garin and Coyote Hills 4/16/09

We previewed Garin RP yesterday morning in preparation for next Thursday morning's Ohlone Audubon field trip. Highlights were several bright Bullock's orioles vocalizing and flying around between the eucalyptus on the hillside and the sycamores along the creek north of the red barn.  A house wren was singing next to its nest hole in a sycamore.  In the willows along the creek closer to Jordan Pond, we found 4 Pacific slope flycatchers, 2 Wilson's warblers, and a male and a female black-headed grosbeak. Western bluebirds were on the lawn and fence, a warbling vireo was by the picnic area near the pond, a Hutton's vireo was in a tree in the parking lot, and a very distant western kingbird was on a fence high above the kite field.  

I went to Coyote Hills RP late in the afternoon. Three Bullock's orioles and two Allen's hummingbirds were flying in and out of the butterfly garden, to and from the red-flowering eucalyptus.  One Allen's was displaying in shallow U's.  A male Wilson's warbler was taking a dip in a bird bath in the garden.  A varied thrush was foraging under the oaks west of the garden.  A big great horned owlet was bobbing around next to its parent in the nest above Hoot Hollow.  Two western kingbirds were flycatching from snags north of Hoot Hollow by Glider Hill Trail. Barn swallows are once again nesting under the eaves of the visitor center.

Stephanie Floyd
Fremont