Mokka mit Schlag

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:

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:

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.

Sunday I again joined the Santa Clara Valley Audubon Society, this time heading north to Palo Alto and the Arastradero Preserve for a trip led by Frank Vanslager. The group was meeting at 8:00 A.M., but I got there an hour early. This was fortunate because my Fox Rent-A-Car had a slow leak in the right rear tire, and it had gone almost flat. I needed the extra time to find a gas station and fill the tire. Fortunately California gas stations are quite friendly, and I had no trouble getting some air.

I arrived at the preserve about 7:30. The gates weren’t open yet, so I drove down the road and picked up Western Bluebird and some sparrows. Driving back I found the ranger opening the gate so I parked. The others soon arrived. From the parking lot we spotted Red-winged Blackbird, Western Bluebird, American Robin, Red-tailed Hawk, and various other birds.

It had been drizzling all along, but at this point it got serious. We wandered over to some half-finished buildings that showed clear evidence of owl infestation. However no owl was seen. We birded from the porch for about half an hour picking off a few birds in the trees across the street or flying over the meadow behind us, before we decided the rain wasn’t going to let up.

There were two choices left: get wet or go home. I’d come 2500 miles for this trip so I wasn’t going home. Fortunately the rest of the group felt the same way so we took off in the rain.
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After leaving Ogier Ponds around noon, I drove up to Mountain View and one of my favorite sites, Mountain View Shoreline Park. Unfortunately I hit it several hours before low tide, and the shore birds hadn’t yet come in. 100+ American Avocets and several dozen dowitchers were camped out on a small island in the middle of the pond. A few Canvasbacks and other ducks were swimming around:

However it would be a few hours before the tide moved enough to bring them in, so I decided to try a different site and drove north to Fremont and the Don Edwards Wildlife Refuge. This proved to be a wise choice. Don Edwards was packed with birds including Bushtit; Golden, White-crowned, and Song Sparrow; and lots of shorebirds, especially Black-necked Stilt, American Avocet, and Willet. Also present was at least one Greater Yellowlegs.
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Normally The Colbert Report comes on after my bedtime. I usually fall asleep either before or during The Daily Show. However apparently it’s repeated at various times the following day, and yesterday I happened to catch it on my JetBlue flight to San Jose.

This show is freaking hilarious!
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Saturday I joined the Santa Clara Valley Audubon Society for a field trip to Ogier Ponds down in south San Jose. The trip officially started at 8:30 A.M., but not knowing the area I’d alloted more time than necessary to reach the site and got there about 7:30 A.M.

The first bird I saw was an American Robin. The last time I was an Audubon trip in California I’d also spotted a robin before the start of the walk, which I didn’t learn till the walk was over was a big surprise at that site and location so I hadn’t taken a picture. This time I was prepared and snapped this picture:

Of course, Murphy’s law applies; and at this site at this time of year, robins turned out to be common. We saw seven or eight more, and no one was the least impressed with my early robin. :-)
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So I get my new Mac Mini, connect it, and launch the bundled copy of Quicken 2006. It asks me to personalize it with my name. Simple enough I think, but no. Believe it or not, it won’t accept “Elliotte Rusty Harold” as a name. It gets stuck right before the d. Seems it believes no name can be longer than 20 letters, and “Elliotte Rusty Harold” is 21.
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