On Friday, April 19, the Almaden Eagles team did our annual Spring Birdathon. We are an all-woman team and do our counting using the "distributed" option with each member selecting their own area and/or place to count at their own time and pace. This year's team includes Janna Pauser, Kirsten Holmquist, Marion Farber, Linda Sullivan, Bobbie Baker and Ann Verdi.
Cedar Waxwings: Janna Pauser
We ended up with a total of 114 species this year. Rather than go through a long list of birds seen and heard, I just want to highlight special birds seen by each team member.
Two of the team members cover fairly large areas, so I want to start with them first:
Black-throated Gray Warbler: Jann Pauser
Janna Pauser covers most of the Almaden area including Hicks and Alamitos Roads and always comes up with a substantial number of species seen and heard, including ASH-THROATED FLYCATCHER, BLACK-THROATED GRAY WARBLER, TOWNSEND'S WARBLER, CASSIN'S VIREO and more.. This year she had a PHAINOPEPLA at Casa Grande in New Almaden, Also, in the early evening she got COMMON POORWILL on the road leading up to IBM.
Kirsten Holmquist covers much of the area south of Almaden proper - part of Stile Ranch Trail at Santa Teresa (ROCK WREN, WHITE-TAILED KITE), Calero Reservoir (OSPREY, 4 grebe species including EARED GREBE, 5 swallow species including BARN and CLIFF, and two tern species (CASPIAN and FORSTER'S). At Canada del Oro her finds included OLIVE-SIDED FLYCATCHER, W. WOOD-PEWEE, W. FLYCATCHER, W. KINGBIRD and HUTtON'S VIREO. In Coyote Valley, she added YELLOW-BILLED MAGPIE and YELLOW WARBLER.
Linda Sullivan joined us this year to cover the Santa Clara Valley Water District and Guadalupe Oak Grove Park. Unfortunately the Water District had decided to drain the entire main pond and do maintenance on the smaller mitigation pond at this time - so what to do? As a true birder, Linda decided to go ahead with it anyway, and somehow the birding god (goddess) looked down on her and sent a magnificent adult BALD EAGLE to survey the situation thereby causing the workmen to stop what they were doing to see what was going on.
Linda also joined others, including Janna, to check Santa Teresa later in the day to view some of the birds there - LAZULI BUNTING, RUFOUS-CROWNED SPARROW, RUFOUS HUMMINGBIRD, and also found a GOLDEN EAGLE. So that makes for a two eagle day for the Almaden Eagle team.
Marion Farber checked the Los Capitancillos Ponds again this year, and happily has reported that a female WOOD DUCK is now caring for her young brood in the easternmost pond west of Meridian again.
Bobbie Baker saw the GREATER WHITE-FRONTED GOOSE at Almaden Lake who seems to want to hang on here a while longer. We were hoping this goose would still be here, and so it was.
Ann Verdi counted at the Greystone Park and was able to come up with a furtive RED-BREASTED NUTHATCH in the tall evergreen trees there - the only one seen for our day.
So - there you have it - another successful and somewhat unique day for our annual Birdathon. We hope to try it again next year.