This week's outing was Lonesome Dove, a 24 hour big day, where I set a goal of 100 species for the day. This is my first formal big day, since in general I don't enjoy competitive birding against others or against a clock, but because we can't do my normal group sits and my schedule didn't allow for my to organize virtual groups, I decided this birdathon was a good reason to finally pull off a big day.
TL;DR: I still am not a huge fan of big days, but I'm really satisfied with the results.
My original plan was to start about 9AM, since I have morning obligations at my real job. As it turned out, I had a last minute other complication which had me parked in Cupertino for a while waiting for my cockatoo to finish her quarterly visit to her vet, so I didn't actually start the big day until 10:30AM.
I had mapped out a route that covered the locations in a fairly efficient way, trying to minimize driving time and maximizing birding time, and of course this threw a wrench in those plans, so I found myself scrambling the rest of the day to try to re-organize the outing. I think I ended up losing about an hour of time due to extra driving from my original plans, which was sad but necessary.
What I ended up doing was slicing off the morning stops (my time in Coyote Valley) and deferring them, so at 10:30 I started the day up in Steven's Creek Park at the Cooley Picnic Area. I think this is an under-birded location that can sometimes be magical and at other times be junco's and jays. The trick to Cooley is to catch it in migration, and when there aren't others there. Once you start getting people at the area it dies off, so I find morning weekdays best.
Cooley Picnic Area
Cooley Picnic Area is, I think, the spring equivalent to Pichetti's magic persimmon tree in fall: when it kicks in, it's magic. For me, that's what happened.
I drove up and parked, and as I got out of the car, I had a spotted towhee fly by and dive into the brush past me. A rather auspicious start. It sat there hidden, calling much of my visit. I was immediately adopted by a couple of Steller's Jays, one of whom spent much of my visit following me around and yelling at me for trespassing on their turf. I ended up spending just under an hour at Cooley and logged 20 species, but some really special ones, including a solo fly-by Band-Tailed Pigeon seen through a hole in the tree canopy, the spotted towhee, Steller's Jays, three woodpeckers (Acorn: a family of at least six active along the stream; Hairy and Nuttall's) and three different warblers (Orange-Crowned, A couple of really bright and colorful Townsend's males, and to my delight, a beautiful Wilson's). Also seen were a pair of chickadee's copulating, and heard nearby was an enthusiastic red-shouldered hawk.
I'll note Cooley is, I believe the most reliable place for Steller's Jay in the county. I've noticed, over the last decade or so, many places where I used to see this species now host Scrub Jays instead, so it looks like the Steller's Jay loses that territory fight most of the time. Here, there almost always seems to be a few within hearing and often they'll come in and see what mischief they can cause for you.
https://ebird.org/checklist/S85042303
After Cooley I decided to check out Gates of Heaven cemetery, which was a wash; I didn't bother to open a list. The pond was empty, there was one active funeral and two other setups for pending ones, and I simply felt that wasn't a place to be birding, so I drove in, circled around and back out.
I then drove to McClellan Ranch, which had a full lot and no feeders (of course). At that point the vet called that my bird was ready, so I headed to pick her up and take her home. By this time it's noon and I'm sweating bullets on time. I grabbed a quick lunch, and headed back out, now to Ed Levin and the east bay hills region.
Ed Levin
I finally started birding again at 1:45PM at Ed Levin. I found out they had run out of annual pass forms (hopefully back in stock next week, this seems to be a problem at most parks because they didn't plan for a surge of requests). I birded starting at the dog park area and around Sandy Wool, then headed off to the Elm picnic area. Since last time I visited there most of the trees along the fence by the golf course have come been taken down, which changed that area for me a lot Still, there were some nice birds. I (of course) didn't research where the great horned owl nest was and didn't find it, because I'm an idiot. But I spent 45 minutes at Ed Levin for 25 species, of which 22 added to the day list.
Highlight bird because it was so unexpected: a single male Bufflehead, which shouldn't still be here. I failed (again) at seeing a Violet-Green Swallow, but did see tree, northern rough-winged and a few barn. I admit to now taking their hiding from me personally, and I vow to add them to my year list soon (or else). Also of interest was one, possibly a pair, of great-tailed grackles, with the male wandering the edge of Sandy Wool at the waterline, and later flying off and being joined by a possible female.
It was incredibly windy at Ed Levin, and a stiff breeze dogged me the rest of the day.
https://ebird.org/checklist/S85055509
Marsh Road
I then felt like I was way behind schedule and needed to make some choices. I decided to skip Spring Valley area in favor of Marsh Road. If you read Carter's report on birding Spring Valley, I made the wrong choice, since Marsh Road was quiet, giving me only two new species for 20 minutes of birding (plus another 20 or so of driving). But Marsh Road is emotionally an important location for me in the county, so I regret nothing. It was also, with no Coyote Valley stops, the most likely place to see Yellow-Billed Magpie, which of course was nowhere to be found. Also, I felt, the best place for Wild turkey (nope) and California Quail (nope) on my agenda.
https://ebird.org/checklist/S85055519
Curtner Elementary
On the way out of Milpitas I did a literal drive-by of the Milpitas nest, got lucky and tagged Bald eagle (and two mourning doves) in a < 5 minute stop.
https://ebird.org/checklist/S85055905
EEC
Next up was EEC in Alviso, which nicely opened its gates this week, for which my knees thanked them. It is after 3:30 and I felt a lot of time pressure here, so I decided not to carry my scope so I walked out to A16 and back. In retrospect -- I should have spent another 15 minutes here, carried the scope and looked through the gulls for Herring and Iceland and also for terns. Bad call on my part.
That said, there were three eared grebes close to shore, I got my first Canada Goose of the day, and Cinnamon Teal in the slough, as well as many marsh wrens.
https://ebird.org/checklist/S85059382
Shoreline
I cut my planned stop at the Alviso Marina park due to time, and scurried off to Shoreline Lake. I went to the boat launch area, found a parking spot and walked across the grass. The light was terrible, the wind was worse (it blew over the tripod three times -- yes, I had the scope now), and there were > 12 wind surfers on the lake. I quickly decided to speed date this stop and look for the specialty birds. Much to my amazement I found the Brant with my first look, in among more CAGO eating the golf course, and a number of Black Skimmers on the island. I also saw a couple of Common Goldeneye and two Surf Scoters, but it's now 4:30, the lake is full of boats not birds, and I decided to spend more time at Baylands instead of trying to find birds among the whitecaps (it was REALLY windy). I decided to cut Terminal Road and Charleston Slough out due to time, which was sad.
https://ebird.org/checklist/S85062531
Palo Alto Baylands
My last stop for the afternoon was Palo Alto Baylands. The wind did not magically stop. that said, it did a good job of filling out my duck dance card and handed me both green-winged teal and Canvasback, both expected. NOT so expected were a single American Wigeon and also a single Gadwall. I finally started ticking off shorebirds not named Avocet and Stilt. I spent about 30 minutes at Baylands, finishing up a bit before 5:30. My hard stop was 6, so I didn't follow up at Byxbee, Emily Renzell or Geng road but I had them as options if I'd had time. Still,seven more species to the day list on this last stop.
https://ebird.org/checklist/S85064265
No-feeders Watch
After I got home, I did an impromptu "my feeders are down and my yard is boring" watch, but it gave me two more for the day list, Bewick's Wren and House Sparrow.
Coyote Valley OSP
I was really regretting having to slice off Coyote Valley due to my time conflicts, and I simply couldn't see my big day list being complete without a Magpie or three. On the way home from Baylands, I realized that if I didn't start birding until 10:45AM and the event was a 24 event, it meant if I got out early I could take in a bit of Coyote Valley and still be within both the letter and spirit of the rules. I have a daily required meeting at work every morning at 8:30, but once that was done, I marked myself out of the office and hauled butt out to Coyote Valley OSP. I arrived right at 10AM, giving myself 45 minutes for a mini big sit in the parking lot.
It was well worth it. the Rock Wren immediately jumped up on a favorite rock, and I had a few fly-by magpies. While searching with increasing desperation for orioles and kingbirds, I had two male Bullock's get in a territory argument and explode out of a tree, one chasing the other -- straight at me. They finally noticed I was in the way, but they came within 10 feet of me. I did ultimately find 2, possibly 3 male and one female bullock's there. I saw zero kingbirds. Also a nice plus was my first northern harrier of the big day, soaring along the top of the ridge in the distance -- and then being chased by a flock of blackbirds. There was one specific tree along the ridge top they seemed to be protecting, as the harrier, a red-tail and later a turkey vulture all found out the hard way. Amusingly, the red-tail's response was to land IN the tree and pretend to ignore them for a while as they madly dive-bombed it, then take off again and leave, still pretending none of them were chasing him or pulling feathers. My attempt to conjure a golden eagle out of nothing failed.
https://ebird.org/checklist/S85103645
At 10:45 exactly I closed my eBird report, got in the car, and came home. I didn't get a chance to look for the Swainson's, for the Cassin's Kingbird or Lawrence's Goldfinch near 152, or along Laguna road, but I still pulled out five final species to end my big day.
I will warn visitors to Coyote Valley OSP there are two mockingbirds in full bellow there right now, and one of them does a rather impressive Yellow-Billed Magpie. Be wary of ear birding that species there for a few weeks.
My end result: 77 species. Not the 100 I hoped for but I always saw that as a real stretch. 8 of those were year birds, none were lifer or county birds.
Probably the biggest missed location for me was Ulistac, which I regret. Second was Charleston Slough. If I were do to it again (Hey, I will be, but with a camera) I'd delete Marsh road and Gates of Heaven in favor of finding time for both places, even if Ulistac is "only" a sit near the artificial stream for 30-40 minutes. I'd definitely add Spring valley in while I'm near Ed levin for 45 minutes of birding.
I believe I had one too many stops on my planned list even before my schedule chaos, and I have to think that through. That said, to cover the wide diversity of habitats and species in the county, you have to cover a lot of territory -- Coyote Valley OSP, Ed Levin, Ulistac, EEC, Shoreline and Baylands seems to be the bare minimum to try to get a broad coverage of what's available.
I think the Wilson's Warbler was the best bird, or at least most unexpected.
Notable misses: White-breasted Nuthatch, where the McClellan Ranch feeders being down hurt. Golden Eagle. Northern Flicker. Scaups. Long-Billed Curlew. Herring Gull.
I had fun, and I'm tired but it was worth it and for a good cause. Will I do it again? Yes, in a couple of weeks, and I could use a few more sponsors. (grin)
https://www.chuq.me/blog/my-big-day-trip-to-support-santa-clara-valley-audubon