The Almaden Eagles team did our SCVBA Spring Birdathon on Friday, April 18. We are an all-women distributed team of eight participants in which each person takes her own part of the Almaden area and nearby vicinity to count. The start of our morning was under very cloudy overcast conditions which didn't begin to clear up until later in the day, not what we would have hoped or expected but we persevered anyway, and came up with a good collection of birds for the day.
Birds seen and heard besides our local residents included a few lingering wintering birds (crowned sparrows, Hermit Thrush) - newly arrived spring migrants (orioles, flycatchers, vireos, etc) - 7 duck species - 6 woodpecker species - 5 swallow species - 5 finch species - 11 sparrow-types - 5 warblers - and more.
Here I want to acknowledge our team members with some of their unique birds seen during the day
JANNA PAUSER: Hicks Rd & most of the New Almaden area - Pileated Woodpecker - and later, Great Horned Owl, W. Screech Owl, Common Poorwill
AMANDA NEWLOVE: Mt Umunhum area & nearby vicinity - five warbler species including Black-throated Gray Warbler - Chipping Sparrow - 14 Band-tailed Pigeons
KIRSTEN HOLMQUIST: portion of Stile Ranch Trail including Horned Lark, Rufous-crowned Sparrow & Lark Sparrow - Calero Reservoir: Wilson's Snipe, White-tailed Kite, Caspian & Forster's Terns, and "rushing" Western and Clark's Grebes
MARION FARBER: Los Capitancillos Ponds - female Wood Duck with very young ducklings - Spotted Sandpiper (the only one for our day)
BROOKE MILLER : Calero Creek Trail & nearby vicinity - Lawrence's Goldfinch, American Goldfinch, White-throated Sparrow, Lazuli Bunting (first one of season)
BOBBIE BAKER: Los Alamitos Creek Trail from Mazzone to Camden bridge a male Black-chinned Hummingbird (first one of season seen in this location) - Common Mergansers
LINDA SULLIVAN: Almaden Lake & Water District - Linda gave us our "eagle" for the day - a Bald Eagle seen in both locations - also detailed sightings of the heron/egret nesting island - Vaux's and White-throated Swifts
ANN VERDI: portion of Guadalupe River Trail from Coleman Rd to the spillway - many N, Rough-winged Swallows seen around Coleman Rd where they nest underneath the Coleman Rd vehicle bridge - and 6 newly arrived Cliff Swallows beginning nesting activities under the Coleman pedestrian bridge - and then at least 5 House Sparrows in the bushes near the apartments (hey, they count too!)
We ended up with a total of 121 species for the day - the highest number for this all-women team. I want to thank all our team members for their efforts that day - especially during the gloomy overcast at the start of the day. Way to go, team!