The new social distancing rules for the 2020 Birdathon were a great opportunity for a father and son birdathon. With Vayun's focus on bird photography, the 4 hour photography challenge seemed like the perfect balance especially since we wanted to limit driving during this stay-at-home phase.

We chose April 12th as the date in the hopes of getting a mixture of winter species and any passage migrants and early arrivals. The strategy was to focus on the Mtn View/Palo Alto Baylands and then round it off with some quick birding inland. Vayun carried the camera and I enjoyed birding light with just a pair of binoculars, like in the old days!We started at the end of Terminal Blvd to cover the north end of Shoreline Lake, Coast Casey Forebay and Charleston Slough in about an hour. This worked well as we ended in just over an hour with 49 species seen and 45 photographed. The highlights were BLACK SKIMMERS on the lake, 8 species of ducks, 4 species of swallows, and single GREAT-TAILED GRACKLEs flying overhead twice.We then headed to the east end of Embarcadero Road where the road is blocked, and then walked all the way to boat ramp past the interpretive center. This ended up taking longer than we anticipated with 47 species observed in an hour and 15 minutes but only 12 new species photographed. But it was still an enjoyable walk in great weather. The main highlight here was great looks at BLUE-WINGED TEAL (at the same spot where I had reported them earlier). Unfortunately the Eurasian Wigeon reported earlier could be not be found among the AMERICAN WIGEONs near the yachthouse. Also added BLACK-BELLIED PLOVER and WHIMBREL here. We decided to head on to Ed Levin Park and spent about an hour till the end of our 4 hour period. 40 species observed here with 13 new species photographed. Highlights were WILD TURKEY, several Selasphorous hummingbirds in the "magic" eucalyptus tree at the end of the road in the Spring Valley Area. Since time was short we did not linger to try and id the Selasphorous zipping around in the tree, most we saw had some green on the back with a couple that were mostly green but leaving them as Selasphorous sp. A BULLOCK's ORIOLE and WESTERN KINGBIRD provided additional justification for coming here. We ran out the clock at Sandy Wood Lake, where Vayun spent the last few minutes getting good shots of male GREAT-TAILED GRACKLEs in beautiful light ending the day with more individuals of this species than we have ever seen in a single day in the Bay Area.Overall we ended up with 78 species seen, 70 photographed in 4 hours and the satisfaction of just being able to get out and see that there is still something to look forward to even in this unprecedented period.

Vayun's pics of the Great-tailed Grackle and Blue-winged Teal and a couple of other species are are here:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/116247036@N06/49851268703/in/photostream/

https://www.flickr.com/photos/116247036@N06/49852104312/in/dateposted/