Adam Paul

Sarah & I spent a lovely couple of hours at Chrissy Field yesterday, along with what felt like most of the rest of San Francisco. Apparently everyone else here was feeling the itch to get out, as this lovely day (mid-50s, very little wind, clear skies) found the Golden Gate Promenade as crowded as I’ve ever seen it!

Golden Gate Promenade

After a quick shopping stop at Sports Basement, we walked around Chrissy Lagoon. A dozen or so Scaup, several Bufflehead, two Snowy Egrets and a bunch of Ruddy Ducks and American Coots were present, along with many Western Gulls. A quick scan of the gulls turned up one Glaucous-winged Gull, but my gull ID skills aren’t sharp enough yet to pick anything else out, if present.

We walked along the Golden Gate Promenade, a magnificent example of urban renewal if ever there was one. Formerly the airstrip for the San Francisco Presidio, and once very polluted, this land has been transformed into a wonderful multi-use path with a grassy lawn and a lagoon where the airfield used to be. Unsurprisingly, given its stellar views of the bay, Golden Gate Bridge, the largely-undeveloped Presidio, and downtown SF, it is an extremely popular area, with tourists, joggers, bicyclists, locals, families, kite-fliers, surfers, birders, etc etc making heavy use of it.

Restored dunes and the Golden Gate Bridge

With so much use inevitably comes some measure of conflict, and the main one here is between dogs and the endangered Western Snowy Plover. Dogs are permitted off-leash everywhere at Chrissy Field except for one perhaps half-mile-long beach area, where the Snowy Plovers spend the winter, and dogs are required to be on-leash. As in every other visit, I saw numerous off-leash dogs in this protected area, which is disheartening, since there is abundant room for dogs to play in the surf off-leash without bothering a protected species!

This time, the 3 Snowy Plovers I saw were not being bothered, and Sarah & I enjoyed a few minutes of watching these cute little shorebirds, which blend in VERY well to their preferred rocky beachy habitat. I had only seen them once previously, way south of SF in Big Sur, and it was great to observe an endangered species right in our fair city.

Beach Strawberry

Signs of spring were visible, with territorial Anna’s Hummingbirds darting about, Strawberries and Lupine flowering in the restored sand dune area, and a warm note in the air. My light fleece jacket was actually too warm – a nice problem to have in early February to be sure

Golden Gate Promenade

The Warming Hut has finally re-opened after a fire damaged it a year ago, and it makes a fine turning-around point, since it has a nice little store with a cafe in it, so we walked there, then retraced our steps back to the car.

Lupine

On our return, I scanned the lagoon again and saw one female Common Merganser, but no other not-previously-seen birds.

It’s always wonderful to go for a walk here, and today was no exception! I wished I’d had my SLR with me, as the bird photo ops are often very good here, as most birds present are used to people and allow a close approach, but so it goes!

Location:     Crissy Field GGNRA
Observation date:     2/9/08
Number of species:     19

Greater/Lesser Scaup - Aythya marila/affinis     15
Surf Scoter - Melanitta perspicillata     40
Bufflehead - Bucephala albeola     5
Common Goldeneye - Bucephala clangula     1
Common Merganser - Mergus merganser     1
Ruddy Duck - Oxyura jamaicensis     20
Horned Grebe - Podiceps auritus     1
Western Grebe - Aechmophorus occidentalis     30
+ Clark's Grebe - Aechmophorus clarkii     2
+ Snowy Egret - Egretta thula     2
American Coot - Fulica americana     10
+ Snowy Plover - Charadrius alexandrinus     3
Western Gull - Larus occidentalis     150
+ Glaucous-winged Gull - Larus glaucescens     1
Rock Pigeon - Columba livia     10
Anna's Hummingbird - Calypte anna     5
Black Phoebe - Sayornis nigricans     1
American Crow - Corvus brachyrhynchos     4
White-crowned Sparrow - Zonotrichia leucophrys     30

+ = year bird
This report was generated automatically by eBird v2(http://ebird.org)