[SBB] Peregrine Flacons at Stevens Creek, north of Crittenden trail head

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Around 2:30 pm, walking across the marsh boardwalk, we heard quite a  
fuss from some large birds. One landed on a near power pylon, two on  
one further away. The pair weren't easily distinguishable with the  
bright sky behind them, but the single one was fairly clear with a  
dark head, grey body, and light chest. The call it was making could  
be considered the "we'chew" as given in my Peterson's Western Birds.  
We finished crossing the boardwalk and began walking back to the  
Crittendon trailhead through the overflow parking lot when the pair  
of birds moved to another pair of power pylons, apparently chasing  
off a hawk (wide fan shaped tail). We were able to walk past the  
pylons to get better light on the birds and were able to make out the  
sideburns and yellow bill. The pair took off towards Moffett Field,  
remarkably swift, with a narrow tail and sharply angled narrow wings  
in clear silhouette against the sky.

We also saw a bushtit (and believed we were standing in front of a  
coyote bush full of them but couldn't quite see them), three male  
green winged teal with (presumably) a female in the creek just down  
stream from the Crittendon bridge*, the snowy and great egrets in the  
marsh, a single coot in the creek, a single diving grebe (probably a  
least grebe) in the western salt pond.

We also heard plenty of gun shots and saw two pickup trucks of hunters.

* On Oct 28 around 1:15, observed a number of green winged teal just  
at the Crittendon bridge.

As this is my first post, i hope it's not too insignificant -- i  
think peregrines are usually noted here -- please forgive me if this  
is not quite right for the list (and let me know how to improve my  
post).

Cheers,

judith bush


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