The Lost Vagrant: Signs of Spring

Last Sunday (3/9/14), I went to Shoreline to do some birding. This time, however, I was joined by a fellow birder within 4 years of my age. His name is Sergey and please check out his blog and superior pictures at http://scbigyear2014.blogspot.com/.
Anyways, we started off at the Coast Casey Forebay marsh in attempt to find soras. However, not a single sora appeared or even vocalized, a strange occurrence. However, we both got to see a cute, little marsh wren actively flitting about some cattails, a "seen lifer" as although I had heard them multiple times before, this was the first time I had actually seen one. We then walked to the nearby Terminal Road Creek. The resident bittern was being cryptic and eluded us for the day but 2 soras were found actively walking around in the open, the first time I had seen them in this area.

One cannot appreciate the truly diminutive size of these adorable rails until seen in person.

Night herons resting for the day. That morning, we saw a total of 23 night herons, mosty in these cattails.

We then walked around Charleston Slough where I got my only lifer for the day: the BLACK SKIMMER (finally). They were surprisingly well "camouflaged" with the other shorebirds on "godwit island" - in fact I probably wouldn't have noticed them if Sergey didn't view the island with binoculars. Perhaps these amazing ternlike birds were actually present the past few times I went to search for them. Oops. Shortly after seeing the skimmers, I got my third and last year bird of the day, which is also one of my favorite migratory birds: the tree swallow.

Morning views of Salt Pond A1 by Charleston Slough

Find the skimmers

There they are in the middle

Don't know that that behavior is but these 2 birds were doing this action several times. I think it may be courtship but skimmers usually breed much further south than the San Francisco Bay, which is the northern limit of their range on the west coast.

Sergey and I then walked on the Bay Trail between Adobe Creek and outer Charleston Slough. The highlight of that portion was seeing a gigantic flock of gulls and a greater white-fronted goose in Adobe Creek. Spring was in the air with several scattered groups of swallows and the abundant vocalizing of songbirds.

A song sparrow sings his heart out.

The sprouting pickleweed was adorable, with each succulent, almost florescent green sprout looking like a miniature Baikal sponge

Male ruddy duck in his lovely breeding plumage.

All those gulls by the trail, so little time

The contrast between the dark clouds and light sky was very clear-cut and quite striking

Sparkly water

A feeding pair of Northern shovelers

"Ok let's search for a Thayer's gull. Ok I give up". Unfortunately time is too fleeting and we were unable to devote 3 hours in what would likely be a wild goose (gull) chase.

Speaking of wild geese, here is a greater white-fronted goose trying to fit in with the Canada geese

Blurry close-up

Blurry avocet in full breeding plumage. What a simple yet lovely color combo.

We then returned to the slough for a brief amount of time before ending the day. New birds of interest included a winter plumage Forster's tern sitting on a pole in Salt Pond A1 and a beautiful great egret taking flight. Additionally, the skimmers took on a new light as their background was glimmering from the sun's now unobstructed rays.

I hope that sometime I'll see the skimmers hunting. They usually do so at dusk or dawn so maybe I'll go in the very early morning sometime soon or in the evening. Supposedly they also hunt on bright, moonlit nights. That must be a sight to behold.

Morning shorebirds in Coast Casey Forebay. Mostly avocets and dowitchers (which are mostly long-billed, I believe)

Forster's tern floating in blue space

Perfect position of bird, decent lighting, nice background, camera fail

Warning: Do not enlarge these pictures of the flying egret. You will be blinded by blurriness

As shown by the egrets above, I am super excellent at taking flight shots. Here is another A+ flight shot, this time of one of the earlier barn swallows.

Another photography masterpiece made by me. This time it is the lovely tree swallow, whose beauty is clearly captured in this image.

Another sign of spring's approach: an eared grebe coming into breeding plumage on Shoreline Lake.

Additionally by the lake was the intelligent gull club - the group of gulls that fish for clams, then fly up with them and drop them to break the shells. Normally I only see ring-billed gulls in this group but today a young glaucous-winged gull / hybrid joined them in the clam feast. I am not sure if it had cracked the shell or was just mooching off of the ring-billed's success.

Hmmm primaries look dark, suggesting maybe hybrid...

Or wait, could it have been the lighting? I think I'll lean towards full GW gull

Looking for a better place to strike the motionless clam

Afterwards, Sergey needed to leave while I sticked around for a little longer. Before leaving, he directed me to a place where he had previously seen a golden eagle before that was a short bike ride away. Unfortunately, although I saw two larger birds perched on poles in the location, they were a raven and red-tailed hawk.

Ravens look surprisingly majestic when backlit and flying

Wrong raptor

Golden eagle food. I saw several more of these tasty jackrabbit morsels hopping around.

On the way back, I saw several spring flowers starting to bloom along the road. I believe that in a few weeks, the large number of mustards will become a giant, beautiful, yellow field of invasiveness.

A lovely chicory flower. I have always had fond memories of these soft blue flowers growing up. Even though they are non-native and potentially invasive, they are one of my favorite wildflowers of the area.

Upon further inspection of the flower, I noticed this small insect inside. I am fairly certain that it is a sweat bee.

Wild lupine. Such a pretty shade of purple.

The baby hummingbirds starting to grow real feathers. Now their beaks are starting to elongate as well. The orchid is very unhappy. This was taken about a week ago.

Sprouting fig at my school.

It was interesting seeing a raven at my school. This guy was flipping through the trash can on 3/12/14.

I believe the same raven sticked around for a while as the next time I saw it around where I ate lunch. Later that day I saw two ravens flying above the school. Perhaps they were here all along and I somehow just didn't notice them.

Coast live oak coming into bloom and getting covered with golden catkins.

Sunset at Rinconada Park on 3/14

On Saturday 3/15, I joined my teammates to go to the Bay Area Regional Science Olympiad (BARSO). We left before the sun rose and on the way to CSU East Bay, the sun just began to poke out from behind the mountains, allowing me to take these pictures of a quite beautiful scene from the car.

The water by the Dumbarton Bridge was glassy still in the morning and the reflections were stunning.

After the awards ceremony, which dragged on forever due to technical issues, we witnessed the sunset. Oh if only that glare didn't happen.

Stupid car window reflection as the sun goes down

Oh how they grow up so quickly... Taken 3/16.

The beaks still have a little bit to grow but they are basically adult size. Only a short matter of time before their feathers fully grow out and they will leave to live their lives in a harsh real world. Enjoy your childhoods little ones...