Birdically Interesting Highway One

We woke up this morning in Oyster Bay to a soft rain which stopped before we were ready to leave. Robert wanted to dial into a work teleconference. During the conference call we ate a continental breakfast of bagel with cream cheese, fresh fruit and hot coffee.

After the conference call we went to San Bruno Mountain in a suburb of San Francisco and drove slowly to the summit. There we saw our first life bird of this trip, the red shafted Northern Flicker of the western United States. We have seen the yellow shafted Northern Flickers in our own backyard in Memphis. The markings of the two Flickers are very similar. We identified the red shafted Northern Flicker by its beautiful red tear drop shaped markings under each eye. Unmistakable.

Other birds we saw at this site included several House Finch in a bush, a pair of Fox Sparrow on the road, a Western Scrub Jay at the top of a Dogwood tree and several rather pale breasted American Robins.

We were still getting into our groove, what we usually do on vacation, so, on the way to Golden Gate Park, we stopped to get a white styrofoam cooler, some drinks and some munchies. Traffic quickly became an irritation as we got into downtown San Francisco. Golden Gate park was too crowded with cars and people for birding, which requires relative solitude and quiet. We made our way to Stow Lake at the famous Presidio Park. There, at the little Stow Lake with its red Chinese style pagoda, we saw many Mallard male and female either sleeping or dabbling peacefully in the water, Ring Billed Gulls perched on a log, a Pied Billed Grebe diving in the deeper water and a Black Crowned Night Heron hiding in a tree along the bank.

Leaving San Francisco we drove across the famous Golden Gate Bridge. There were thousands of tourists standing on this bridge. We drove across the bridge and turned to Sausalito. This is is a very touristy town, which reminded us of Gatlinburg in Tennessee. We ate lunch at a crab shack, then headed northwest toward the Pacific Ocean to continue our birding adventure.

We drove northwest along the Pacific coast to the Marin Headlands and Fort Cronkite. We walked to the lighthouse there along a tremendously steep path. We walked on the brown sand there and identified the Western Gull.

We continued driving along the birdically interesting Highway One.

• Brown Pelicans
• American White Pelican
• Wimbrel
• Black Crowned Night Heron
• Belted Kingfisher
• Willet
• Long Billed Curlew
• Black Phoebe
• Acorn Woodpecker
• Bar Tailed Godwit
• Common Raven
• Red Head Duck
• Blue Wing Teal
• Cinnamon Teal

Mule Eared Deer were munching their way through the gorse in the area around the lighthouse. Seals lounged on rocks in the water near the lighthouse while Sea Lions played in the water.

We enjoyed a lovely Italian dinner of Rigatoni Bolognese and Pork Chop Milanese in Novato, California.

Robert and Berry

photo courtesy of wikipedia