Surf Scoters at Shoreline Park

Thursday, March 16th, 2006

Thursday afternoon I decided to make one last trip to Shoreline Amphitheater in Mountain View to look for the Burrowing Owls. I didn’t find any, but I did find a Jackrabbit, numerous American Coots, and 14 Surf Scoters:

2 Surf Scoters
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Birding at SD

Wednesday, March 15th, 2006

This morning I led Software Development’s first ever Birds of a Feather on the subject of birding. 10 hearty, early rising attendees gathered in the hotel lobby at 6:00 A.M. where we shared three cabs to Sunnyvale Baylands Park. From there the plan was to follow the water back to the hotel.

Map created by GPSVisualizer.com


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Life Mammal

Wednesday, March 15th, 2006

Saturday I went on an Santa Clara Valley Audubon Society field trip led by Rich Page to Ogier Ponds. Along with numerous birds, I picked up my first ever live Bobcat:

Bobcat
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Truth in Advertising

Tuesday, March 14th, 2006

Prepping for the BoF

Tuesday, March 14th, 2006

This afternoon I took a quick spin out to Sunnyvale Baylands Park to scout out the route for tomorrow morning’s BoF, and make sure no one had thrown up fences in the route.

View of Sunnyvale Baylands
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#340 at the Don Edwards Environmental Education Center

Sunday, March 12th, 2006

After getting a new rental car, I considered where I could profitably spend a late Sunday afternoon. The nearest site I hadn’t visited was the Don Edwards Environmental Education Center in Alviso so I headed up Zanker Road to the center. This road passes through various sewer ponds and sewage treatment plants. The smell’s awful. The birds are great.

By lucky happenstance I missed the turnoff to the center and took the next right into Alviso instead. I say it was lucky because I immediately spotted possibly a hundred Black-necked Stilts and eleven Mew Gulls! My fourth life bird for the day. Eventually the gulls flew off but not before posing for some pictures:

Mew Gulls in Alviso

I turned around and headed back to the right road. This proved to be the best gull location of the trip. It conveniently offered both Ring-billed and California Gulls so I could practice comparing and distinguishing the two similar species. Also present were Herring and one Western Gull. However gulls weren’t all. I also had my first American White Pelican this trip:

American White Pelican at Don Edwards Environmental Education Center

There were also the usual assortment of waterfowl and shorebirds including Eared Grebe, American Coot, and Snowy Egret.

It was cold, damp, and grey so I only spent a couple of hours there. The site would be very interesting to explore in more depth in the future. Sunday, however, I instead decided to head over to Mountain View Shoreline to catch low tide. More on that in the next post.