My pelagic trip to the Farallon Islands was cancelled today. I was so disappointed because I was hoping to see the Brown Booby that's been there for months. The Farallon Islands are about 27 miles off the coast of San Francisco and are the largest sea bird breeding grounds in the lower 48 states. It was sunny all week until Saturday morning when it rained steadily. However, around 7:30 AM the rain stopped so I made a late start out to Point Lobos in San Francisco. I was hoping to at least study some lingering jaegers but there was none. To my surprise instead I was treated to a life bird. The ocean was very turbulent and I only saw one COMMON MURRE, a few RED-THROATED LOONS, COMMON LOONS, and one PACIFIC LOON. Then I saw a strange gray bird flying like a bat over the waves low over the water beyond the Mile Rock Lighthouse. It was too big to be an Ashy Storm-Petrel and it was gray all over, but it had that distinct bat-like storm petrel flight. It had rapid shallow wingbeats and I could just make out the dark wing linings. It was my first ever FORK-TAILED STORM-PETREL! I was able to follow it for about 10 minutes before I lost track of it in the waves. Heading back up the hill there were a few BROWN-HEADED COWBIRDS and BREWER'S BLACKBIRDS.
My next stop was East Fort Miley. I wasn't expecting to see much; it just is the logical next stop because it is close by. I found a GOLDEN-CROWNED KINGLET in a pine tree. I have rarely seen this bird in San Francisco so that was fun. Also in the same pine tree was a BROWN CREEPER, TOWNSEND'S WARBLER, RUBY-CROWNED KINGLET, CALIFORNIA TOWHEE, WHITE-CROWNED SPARROW, and GOLDEN-CROWNED SPARROW.
After not finding much else I moved on to Middle Lake in Golden Gate Park. I was checking out the myoporum bushes on the west side of the lake when I saw a woman with a camera set up on a tripod near the spot where a Swamp Sparrow had been reported. I never chase birds and I certainly wouldn't chase this one even though they are rare here because they are so elusive and secretive. But I thought well if she has her camera set up it must be uncharacteristically perched I guess. I stood behind her and tried to put my binoculars where her camera was pointed but I saw no birds at all. Finally she turned around and it was this woman, Anne, who was in my Field Ornithology Class I took 2 1/2 years ago. I said to her do you actually see the bird and she said no I haven't seen it at all. I told her how difficult it would be to photograph a Swamp Sparrow and that I only have about two seconds of videotape of one. She seemed undeterred. She was trying to film it with a 62mm Leica spotting scope and a digital camera with no adapter. After a few minutes I heard its call note, much like a Black Phoebe and a sparrow flew out from the Lilac bush and into the bramble. Unmistakably the Swamp Sparrow. I said to her, wasn't that it. She put her expensive Leica bins on a different location from where the SWAMP SPARROW had flown and said no that's a SONG SPARROW and it was. Some people just cannot be helped. I left and stopped by North Lake Merced. I only saw the usual CLARK'S GREBE and WESTERN GREBE. But I looked up in the sky and low and behold there was a ROUGH-LEGGED HAWK overhead.
This woman told me that she ran around Bair Island every day and never saw a single bird. I was shocked. This island was recently bought by the Peninsula Open Space Trust and given to the California Department of Fish and Game to reclaim it as the salt marsh it once was before salt companies owned it. It will give a much needed cleansing to our polluted San Francisco Bay when it is complete. So I went down there on Saturday afternoon to check it out. I walked the three mile trail from 1:15 PM to 2:30 PM and saw 34 species, nothing rare but certainly better than the zero birds she had reported. Here is the list: 1. Pied-billed Grebe
2. Horned Grebe
3. Brown Pelican
4. Double-crested Cormorant
5. Great Blue Heron
6. Snowy Egret
7. Great Egret
8. Mallard
9. Common Goldeneye
10. Bufflehead
11. Turkey Vulture
12. White-tailed Kite
13. Northern Harrier
14. American Kestrel
15. American Coot
16. Greater Yellowlegs
17. Lesser Yellowlegs
18. Willet
19. Western Sandpiper
20. Least Sandpiper
21. Short-billed Dowitcher
22. Ring-billed Gull
23. California Gull
24. Western Gull
25. Rock Pigeon
26. Black Phoebe
27. American Crow
28. Common Raven
29. Yellow-rumped Warbler
30. Savannah Sparrow
31. Song Sparrow
32. Golden-crowned Sparrow
33. White-crowned Sparrow
34. House Finch
Next I left there and stopped by the Nob Hill Supermarket Pond and saw Green-winged Teal, Northern Pintail, Northern Shoveler, Ruddy Duck, Canvasback, Ring-billed Gull, Willet, Marbled Godwits by the hundreds, Dunlins, American Avocets, Dowitchers, American Coots, Killdeer, and Bushtits.
Then it was time to head home.
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