California: Day 2 Bay Area Continued

We continued our birding of the San Francisco Bay area by stopping at our next stop on Radio Road.  This place is one large fairly shallow pond, but the amount of birds on this pond was staggering.  This was my first viewing of the Black Skimmer.  A small island out in the water held 18 of these birds and then up closer to our shore was a juvenile.  I believe it is the only bird with the lower mandible being much longer than the upper mandible.  These birds are awesome to look at.  

 Black Skimmers

Black Skimmer juvenile

A Forster's Tern put on quite the acrobatic display for us while we were there.

 Forster's Tern

  Forster's Tern

  Forster's Tern

 Forster's Tern

While we had been seeing hundreds of Brown Pelicans on the coast, in this spot we found 5 American White Pelicans which rounded out the US pelican species.

American White Pelican

One of our guides, Leslie, was able to pickup a lone Short-billed Dowitcher in the huge numbers of Long-billed Dowitchers.  These 2 species can be tough to identify.

Short-billed Dowitcher

The next stop this day was Stulsaft Park which is a small but fabulous park very well hidden in a very residential area consisting of a lot of trees and a stream with flowing water down in the base of this small canyon.  Got 2 new life birds in this area, the Oak Titmouse and Nuttall's Woodpecker, but failed to get 'good' photos of them.  We did find 4 Brown Creepers in this spot and did mange to capture a passable photo of one of them.  A very tough bird to photograph.  Also found this small park is full of black Squirrels.  Have no idea if it is a separate species or just a color variation of a common species.

 Brown Creeper

 Brown Creeper

 Black Squirrel

A cool spider web for fun

To round out the day, we stopped at Skylawn Cemetery in the afternoon on our way back to Half Moon Bay.  This place is situated at the top of the pass that separated the San Francisco Bay from the Pacific Ocean.  It is a beautiful place with stunning views down the valley towards Half Moon Bay.  We had another Wrentit, another one of those new life birds that did not want to allow photos, and also a bird common to me in Arizona, a Black Phoebe that presented itself on the edge of the cemetery.  But the biggest thrill was a pair of Golden Eagles.  We had seen 2 the day before at a different location and quite high in the sky, but today was a bit different.  One of the 2 was being harassed by a Red-tailed Hawk and this one flew almost straight over us, all the while being dive bombed by the hawk.  The Red-tailed Hawk is a fairly large bird, but when it is in the same photo frame as the Golden Eagle, then one can really appreciate how magnificent these Golden Eagles really are.

 Golden Eagle

Golden Eagle and Red-tailed Hawk

Black Phoebe

The cemetery was also inhabited by some resident deer that must have known they were safe from hunters in this area.  Probably were also taking advantage of the fresh flowers that were edible from many of the cemetery plots.  They did not seem too over concerned with us and our cameras and binoculars.

A very full day of birding with lots of nice surprises and finds.  But the day finally came to an end, but the next day was to be the pelagic trip out in the Pacific Ocean for 12 hours and observing and seeing birds and anything else we could find.  That will be the topic of my next blog post.

Puerto Penasco, (Rocky Point), Mexico - Part 2

Sunday morning we bundled up and headed to Pelican Point and Tucson Beach near Cholla Bay.  It was very early in the morning and it was very cold; in fact I had to borrow an extra jacket/wind breaker at least until the sun came up and the air quickly warmed up enough to make birding a bit more enjoyable.  One of the most impressive birds for me was the American Oystercatcher.  We had seen 4 of them on Saturday far out in Cholla Bay at low tide, but on Saturday, while standing on the rocks at Pelican Point a small flock of them came flying by in the early morning light.  A little bit later, we got to observe several of them up close on the sand and some were even engaging in courtship displays.

American Oystercatcher

American Oystercatcher

American Oystercatcher

As with most environments around water, the Osprey is almost always present.  The early morning sunrise with an Osprey 'kiting' was nice and it created a nice warm effect on the photos of the bird.  The photo of the perched Osprey was taken later in the morning without the effects of early morning sun.

 Osprey

Osprey

Osprey

One of the biggest surprises was a Merlin that flew in with its catch of the day and landed on a rock a short distance from where we were.  It appears to have captured a shore bird.

Merlin  

Of course another photo of a Brown Pelican is always worth it, especially when they are displaying their breeding attire.

Brown Pelican

And more gulls, they were everywhere.  This time we found an adult Heerman's Gull, which is one of the easiest species to identify.  But we also found a Herring as well.

 Heerman's Gull-adult

Herring Gull

And since we spent most of the day in Cholla Bay, we obviously had more shore birds.  Lighting was a bit better and the birds were a bit more approachable on this day.  Captured photos of Black-bellied Plover and Willet, along with a couple of new birds, the Short-billed Dowitcher and Wilson's Plover.  

 Willet

Black-bellied Plover

 Short-billed Dowitcher

 Wilson's Plover

Wilson's Plover

The last bird photos are of a Sparrow, that almost looks a little out of place with all the water bird photos.  However, this is a special sparrow; it is a sub-species of the Savannah Sparrow, known as the 'Large-billed' Savannah Sparrow.  This bird has a fairly limited range and has the possibility of some day being split from the Savannah Sparrow species and becoming a separate species of its own in the near future.  The photos quite clearly show how large of a bill it has when compared to other sparrow species.

 'Large-billed' Savannah Sparrow

'Large-billed' Savannah Sparrow

Monday dawned with rain in Rocky Point which did not bode well for much birding, but it was nice to see as this area gets very little rain every year.  Will like to return again in the future, but have no idea when that might happen, but I really enjoy travelling to this small seaside community.