I thought I could get some birding in before the storm descended but even as I arrived at Pigeon Point at 8:00 AM the wind was easily 35 MPH. I stood out on the viewing platform with my scope but was uanble to even look south due to the intense wind coming from the southeast. Even when I tried to scope looking north I could barely keep my scope steady. I was only able to tolerate these conditions about 30 minutes. The sea was very turbulent and the waves were crashing up near to the platform when I finally gave in and fled for my car. My hands were stiff with cold. I managed to see on ANCIENT MURRELET flying past. I would have never seen it sitting on the water with the huge waves and turbulence. The birds were struggling to fly in the intense wind and were mostly flying north. I saw one BLACK OYSTERCATCHER, one COMMON MURRE, and many BROWN PELICANS and BRANDT'S CORMORANTS. Before leaving I checked the cove and saw six RED-BREASTED MERGANSERS.
I decided to head back north toward San Francisco and stopped at Pescadero Marsh. It was impossible to see anything in the sea so I walked down underneath the bridge to the marsh. This is the bridge where I saw my first Yellow-billed Loon last month. While looking through some photos to post on my web site, I found one I had taken on November 10, 2006, some nine days before Francis Toldi reported the Yellow-billed Loon. I am chagrinned to admit that it was the same bird, the Yellow-billed Loon and I had passed it off as some strange looking Red-throated Loon (it was the only one in the book with a yellow bill: I had not even contemplated Yellow-billed Loon). I vow to study all birds more thoroughly from now on. There wasn't much in the marsh, BUFFLEHEAD, SURF SCOTER, NORTHERN SHOVLER,GREEN-WINGED TEAL, CINNAMON TEAL, GREAT BLUE HERON, SNOWY EGRET, AMERICAN WIGEON, RUDDY DUCK, and NORTHERN PINTAIL. There was one TURKEY VULTURE circling.
I continued heading north along the coast next stopping at Pomponio State Beach where there was a lone HERRING GULL on the beach with a BROWN PELICAN. Hawking over the grass were NORTHERN HARRIER, WHITE-TAILED KITE, and AMERICAN KESTREL.
Next stop was Venice State Beach. There were thousands of gulls on the beach, mostly GLAUCOUS-WINGED GULL, WESTERN GULL, and CALIFORNIA GULL. I saw two adult THAYER'S GULLS and a few GLAUCOUS-WINGED X WESTERN GULL hybrids. There were two adult HEERMAN'S GULLS and one or two HERRING GULLS but no unusual gulls that I could find before I had to leave. Some enormously obese guy on a bicycle introduced himself and told me that there was an expert birder at the other end of the beach. I walked down there and it was Al Jaramillo pushing a baby carriage. He showed me a picture of a possible Slaty-backed but it didn't have the string of pearls. He didn't know what it was. If Al Jaramillo didn't know what it was then I don't know who could identify it. The fat man rode up on his bike and started saying the most ridiculous things such as the best optics are 16x50 binoculars. Al just said "oh really." Then fat man said to Al (I clearly was not important enough to question) do you like image stabilization binoculars? Al was very polite but it was obvious that nothing would be accomplished as long as this moron was present. So I left poor Al with fatso. As I was walking back to the car a RED-TAILED HAWK let me get within five feet of it. I think it was having a hard time flying in the strong wind. I got some good photos of it.
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