[EBB Sightings] Bike ride from Lake Merritt to Alameda Creek

Jim Chiropolos and I did our favorite ride south yesterday, a route we continue to refine to maximize our riding and birding experience.  Some highlights of the 107 species seen or heard:

* Green Heron & Ring-necked Duck at Lake Merritt.
* Hutton's Vireo building a nest of pampas grass blooms in a small oak tree near the Lake Merritt outlet channel
* From MLK Shoreline we saw three Greater White-fronted Geese in the grass along the Doolittle Drive shoreline. 
* We are consistently finding a single Common Moorhen in the small pond north of San Leandro Creek.
* North of Frank's Dump we had Osprey, Peregrine Falcon and handful of Red Knots.
* At Coyote Hills we found two Blue-grey Gnatcatchers, a single Rock Wren, Peregrine Falcon and heard a Ring-necked Pheasant. We were not able to relocate a California Thrasher we had great views of a week earlier; the easiest way to get to this spot by foot is through the woods by the entry kiosk to the eastern-most pond near Alameda Creek. It was in inside the area surrounded by a chain-link fence.  We did see an Allen's Hummingbird in that area yesterday.
* We easily found the small flock of Horned Larks at Frank's Dump, a Burrowing Owl, Cackling Geese and a small flock of Amerian Pipits.
* Along Alameda Creek we had a single Greater White-fronted Goose and a large flock of Ring-necked Ducks (10 male and 4 female) floating down the creek.

Pehaps the most interesting birds were the birds we did not see. For the first time, we dipped on house sparrows. After golden crowned sparrows were the most numourous sparrow a week ago, we were unable to find one with white crowns being common. This year, Says Phoebes have been hard to find with none found the last month on our rides; last year we would typically found 3 or 4 on this stretch.

Regarding the Burrowing Owl at Frank's Dump, since this is a habitat restoation area we wonder whether it should be managed and restored for the owls since their habitat is disapearing at other locations.

Unrelated to our bike ride, I saw a single White-throated Swift at the 580 overpass at Grand Avenue in Oakland this morning.

Derek Heins