April 25:
We descended on Ed Levin Park (Sandy Wool Lake Area) at 8:00 to find an enormous line of Fish Day participants waiting at the entrance. Within a few minutes though, everybody in our group had gathered at the Dog Run above the lake. I had been suffering from a bad cold and was planning on taking the day slowly and not exerting myself. But the temptation to climb the hill and locate Rufous-crowned Sparrow proved too strong to ignore. So up we all went, sweating and panting the whole way but we found our target perched on the barbed wire fence beside the trail. As well we located several Lazuli Buntings and Grasshopper Sparrows!
Next we dropped by Spring Valley to see a breeding pair of White-tailed Kites, both species of Oriole and the remainder of the day’s Swallow species including nesting Tree Swallows. In fact, we saw many examples of breeding behavior during our day—another nice thing about spring birding! Happily, we found many fewer people in this portion of the park but it still seems like we made the right decision going to Sandy Wool before it got too hot. Cars were still streaming into the main entrance even as we made our way down the road toward Milpitas.
Finally, we caravanned to Don Edwards to round out our Shorebirds and Waterfowl. The first birds along the entrance road included Semipalmated and Snowy Plover, Dunlin, Long-billed Dowitchers, Least and Western Sandpipers. We then scoped the main pond and picked out an American Wigeon and a single Redhead among the crowd of Ducks. We ended our day right at noon with a total of 95 species after which I went home a returned to bed with a spoonful of cough syrup and a very big smile.