Today was my last field trip with my Field Ornithology class (they have another next weekend, but I cannot make it), and it wound up being a great walk, with a few lifers.
Since I live near Golden Gate Park I bicycled to the Arboretum, locked up, and joined our group at 9. We started out birding around the Rhododendron Dell, which was blooming away. This is a beautiful part of the park, with large fern-like palms and quite a lot of verdant ground cover. We saw a pair of Dark-eyed Juncos carrying nesting material, and high in the canopy a small flock of Cedar Waxwings foraged from treetop to treetop.
A couple of Warbling Vieros (LIFER!) flitted about in the understory, hard to see, but I made them out wel enough to count them. Alas, they did not live up to their name and we heard no warbling from them.
As we were watching the Waxwings, Joe spied a Cassin’s Vireo, and after much squinting, I saw it too – LIFER, and my 200th bird – woot!
A Pygmy Nuthatch (LIFER!) foraged right in front of us on the trail near the construction site for the new California Academy of Science, and I got a good view of it through my scope before it flitted away.
There were not a lot of birds about, however, and at about 10:30 we moved to Strybring Arboretum. Many more birds were here, starting with a beautiful pale Red-shouldered Hawk posing in perfect light at the top of a tree. I let some nearby non-birders take a look through my scope and they were quite impressed to see a nice view of the RSH – it’s always fun sharing a good view of birds with others!
A quartet of Red-tailed Hawks soared high above us, chased by one angry Common Raven, and a Turkey Vulture, uncommon in SF city limits (but quite common elsewhere in the bay area), flew past, en route to parts unknown.
In the California garden, we found two separate pairs of California Quail as well, which was great to see, since they’re quite threatened in San Francisco due to predation by feral cats. Only two colonies remain, one where we were in the Arboretum, the other in the Presidio.
Up by the maintenance area we saw a couple of Western Tanagers, my first for the year, and, following a call he heard, Joe found a Black-throated Gray Warbler (LIFER!). We also found an American Robin’s nest nearby, but of course did not approach it closely.
Heading back towards the entrance didn’t turn up any other new birds, although we saw many of the expected ones (Bushtit, American Robin, etc). This was a great walk, with a much smaller group than at Lake Merced last weekend. It was particularly nice because my life list broke 200 (it’s now 202), and my 2007 list hit 130, already surpassing by 10 my 2006 list, and the year’s only 1/3 done!
Birds seen (29 species):
- American Robin
- Allen’s Hummingbird
- Anna’s Hummingbird
- Barn Swallow
- Black Phoebe
* Black-throated Gray Warbler
- Brewer’s Blackbird
- Bushtit
- California Quail
- California Towhee
* Cassin’s Vireo
- Cedar Waxwing
- Chestnut-backed Chickadee
- Common Raven
- Dark-eyed Junco
- European Starling
- House Finch
- Mallard
* Pygmy Nuthatch
- Red-shouldered Hawk
- Red-tailed Hawk
- Rock Pigeon
- Song Sparrow
- Turkey Vulture
* Warbling Vireo
- Western Gull
- Western Scrub-Jay
+ Western Tanager
- Yellow-rumped Warbler
* = life bird, + = year bird
