Birding the East Bay: November 12, 2006

Normally I don't like to bird in the East Bay because it means crossing the Bay Bridge and that means traffic most times. But today we woke up late and decided to try Berkeley's Aquatic Park which has hosted many vagrants over the years including a Northern Waterthrush that overwintered there this past winter. There is a nice paved path around the largest body of water with oak trees and eucalyptus trees one side for land birds and the water on the other side. The only drawback to birding here is that for some reason it has become a major pick-up location for gay men. I have no idea why. We didn't see anything rare but many ducks have arrived and there was a diversity of avifauna present. We saw DOUBLE-CRESTED CORMORANT, GREAT EGRET, SNOWY EGRET, GREATER YELLOWLEGS, DOWITCHER, FORSTER'S TERN, RING-BILLED GULL, WESTERN GULL, GLAUCOUS-WINGED GULL, BLACK-CROWNED NIGHT-HERON, BUFFLEHEAD, AMERICAN COOT, RED-BREASTED MERGANSER, COMMON GOLDENEYE, RUDDY DUCK, BLACK-NECKED STILT, MARBLED GODWIT, BELTED KINGFISHER, YELLOW-RUMPED WARBLER, TOWNSEND'S WARBLER, COMMON YELLOWTHROAT, CALIFORNIA TOWHEE, SONG SPARROW, WHITE-CROWNED SPARROW, GOLDEN-CROWNED SPARROW, AMERICAN GOLDFINCH, PIED-BILLED GREBE, EARED GREBE, AND ANNA'S HUMMINGBIRD.

Next we drove down to Pt. Pinole Regional Park, part of the East Bay Regional Park District. This park runs along San Pablo Bay and hosts many shorebirds, gulls, terns, and ducks, and has many lands birds as well. It was once the home of the Atlas Dynamite Company who planted all the eucalyptus trees. Before the arrival of Europeans it had no trees. Unfortunately the lack of diversity in the trees they planted has limited the diversity of wildlife on one hand but provided some kind of haven that didn't exist before on the other hand. You can usually see a Great Horned Owl here. We didn't see it this trip but have on numerous other visits in the past. Today we found a new sign installed indicating that the park is rejuvenating the salt marsh to make suitable habitat for the state endangered Black Rail. We walked partially down to the restored area just to see how it's coming along. A small rail flew across the channel and into the pickleweed. I wonder if it was a Black Rail. That would be a life bird for me. It never peeked back out; the tide was too low. However, the trail was very muddy so we proceeded back down along the edge of the Bay. There were hundreds of LEAST SANDPIPERS but no Western sandpipers which I thought was odd. There were also many AMERICAN WIGEONS, SCAUP, and DUNLINS. There were also a couple of MEW GULLS on the shore along with some WESTERN GULLS and RING-BILLED GULLS. We found a RED-SHOULDERED HAWK feasting on something in the woods but it flew off when we went to investigate. Near the end of our loop trail we ran into about ten LINCOLN'S SPARROWS. Then near the trail head we found a NUTTALL'S WOODPECKER up in a eucyluptus tree and there were two NORTHERN MOCKINGBIRDS and a large flock of WESTERN MEADOWLARKS in the parking lot. We saw nothing rare or unusual: it was just the end of a very fun birding weekend in the Bay Area.