[EBB Sightings] Ten raptor species day at Hayward shoreline/Coyote Hills

I joined Jim Chiropolas and Ann Griffith for a bike ride that began around 10:30am today after taking BART down to Hayward and then proceeding on W.Winton Ave to the bay. Another beautiful day along the bay with the following highlights:

* Merlin perched on a wire on the near the last curve of West Winton Ave before it ends at the staging area.
* Peregrine Falcon making multiple dive-bombing attempts at a large huddled group of Willets and Godwits who refused to budge at the Frank's Dump pond. It then turned its attention to two Cackling Geese flying by and dove on them a couple times before leaving the area.
* Single Eared Grebe near Frank's Dump
* Boneparte's Gull flanked on one side by a Herring Gull and the other by a Glacous-winged Gull on the pilings just north of Bookman Channel.
* From the same point we could see an Osprey perched on a offshore snag.  I've seen it there frequently. 
*  Cooper's Hawk near Cogswell Marsh
* A second Merlin near the Hayward Shoreline Interpretive Center
* A second Peregrine Falcon perched on the power line south of the Coyote Hills entrance kiosk.
* The Golden Eagle reported by others at Coyote Hills
* A pair of beautiful Ring-necked Pheasants on the Alameda Creek trail near the north end of the pond section.
* Rounding out the raptor list were multiple Northern Harriers, White-tailed Kites, Red-shouldered Hawks, Red-Tailed Hawks and Kestrels. 

On a non-native bird note, Saturday I got a nice look at a Saffron Finch in the oak trees right along the fence on the east edge of Fairyland at Lake Merritt, the same spot I saw it a couple years ago.

Derek Heins
Piedmont