From south-bay-birds-bounces+south-bay-birds-archive=[[email protected]] Mon Dec 27 13:34:40 2004 Received: from www.plaidworks.com (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by plaidworks.com (8.12.9/8.12.9) with ESMTP id iBRLWPlF011468 for <[[email protected]]>; Mon, 27 Dec 2004 13:32:25 -0800 (PST) Received: from pony1pub.arc.nasa.gov (pony1pub.arc.nasa.gov [128.102.31.41]) by plaidworks.com (8.12.9/8.12.9) with ESMTP id iBRLUoYK011412 for <[[email protected]]>; Mon, 27 Dec 2004 13:30:51 -0800 (PST) Received: from [129.99.140.17] (HELO mail.arc.nasa.gov) by pony1pub.arc.nasa.gov (CommuniGate Pro SMTP 4.2.6) with ESMTP id 15832832 for [[email protected]]; Mon, 27 Dec 2004 13:30:49 -0800 Message-ID: <[[email protected]]> Date: Mon, 27 Dec 2004 13:30:49 -0800 From: Mike Rogers <[[email protected]]> User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC Mac OS X Mach-O; en-US; rv:1.4) Gecko/20030624 Netscape/7.1 X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: birders <[[email protected]]> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Subject: [SBB] Calero-Morgan Hill CBC - 12/26/04 X-BeenThere: [[email protected]] X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5b1 Precedence: list List-Id: South Bay Birding List-Unsubscribe: , List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Sender: south-bay-birds-bounces+south-bay-birds-archive=[[email protected]] Errors-To: south-bay-birds-bounces+south-bay-birds-archive=[[email protected]] All, Yesterday 12/26/04, I covered San Felipe and Las Animas Roads for the Calero-Morgan Hill Christmas Bird Count. I started out by owling at the upper portions of Metcalf Canyon (along Metcalf Road) at 5:30am. Response was less than in most years, and it was not until I was nearly to the junction with San Felipe Road that I heard my first WESTERN SCREECH-OWL. I spent from 6:15am to 7:00am walking south along Las Animas Road and had better luck there, adding four more WESTERN SCREECH-OWLS and single GREAT HORNED and NORTHERN PYGMY-OWLS right before dawn. I even managed to get nice looks at the PYOW right as it was getting light. I birded my way back to the car at the junction of San Felipe and Las Animas Roads, finding plenty of SPARROWS, TOWHEES, and JUNCOS and 6 of the day's 9 VARIED TRHUSHES, the only ones reported at the countdown dinner for the whole count! PINE SISKINS were flying around the junction by the car, along with AMERICAN and LESSER GOLDFINCHES. I then took advantage of pre-arranged access to the gated private portion of San Felipe Road, walking the road to the count circle boundary and back. This added more SISKIN (toal of 69 for the day), 28 WILD TURKEYS (most/all displaying males), 16 PURPLE FINCHES, a RED-BREASTED SAPSUCKER, and an adult GOLDEN EAGLE. A small stock pond along the road had 8 MALLARDS, a female BUFFLEHEAD, and a pair of WOOD DUCKS. I next covered the accessible portions of the southern part of Las Animas Road, adding 2 more VARIED THRUSHES and 2 BROWN CREEPERS. After this it was off to San Felipe Road, where I covered from Las Animas Road down to the junction with Heartland Way. An immature GOLDEN EAGLE was soaring northeast of the pass south of Mt Misery but otherwise the birds were similar to those found along the other roads walked earlier - with one exception. As I got out of the car at a pullout 1.2 miles above Heartland Way (across from a leaning telephone pole), I heard the "tip, tip" call notes of a WINTER WREN. This bird was completely unexpected in this small creek drainage ditch well up into the Diablo Range. I managed to get a brief look at it as it moved up to the tangled brush, but it continued calling for quite a while, still responding to pishing when I returned a half hour later. I had to be home by 1:30pm, so I headed out at 12:30pm, stopping by the Walmart parking lot at Blossom Hill Road and Monterey Highway to check for BROWN-HEADED COWBIRDS (can be missed on this count), of which I managed to find 16 in one big group. Mike Rogers _______________________________________________ Do not post admin requests to the list. They will be ignored. south-bay-birds mailing list ([[email protected]]) Help/Unsubscribe/Update your Subscription: http://www.plaidworks.com/mailman/options/south-bay-birds/south-bay-birds-archive%40plaidworks.com This email sent to [[email protected]]