[SBB] Wandering Tattler and Black Turnstone

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All,

Since the Sunnyvale WPCP tern roost hasn't hosted many terns this fall, I decided to look for terns elsewhere and checked out outer Charleston Slough this afternoon 9/3/05. When I biked out there, the tide was high enough to cover the wooden posts and no terns of any kind were present. So I opted to bike out further and look out over the bay. There is a short stretch of the levee here that looks right out onto the bay (not buffered by salt ponds or Hook's Isle) and this portion is covered with rip-rap to protect it from wind and waves (which were in evidence today). I have often thought that this would be a great place for rocky shorebirds but have never before seen any despite many dozens of visits. Today my luck changed. A juvenile WANDERING TATTLER was foraging right in front of me, too close to view with my scope. A minute after finding this bird, I saw a BLACK TURNSTONE fly out to the boardwalk and land on a concrete piling of one of the high tension towers. After I enj!
 oyed the tattler for several minutes, it was flushed by a man jogging his male ECLECTUS PARROT and flew off to the north calling. I later refound the Black Turnstone foraging on the uncovering mudflat just southeast of the rip-rap section. It appeared to be an adult, although first-winter BLTU can be difficult to separate from adults in the field. After being flushed by a jogger it again flew to the boardwalk, this time landing on the wooden planks. SHORT-BILLED DOWITCHERS were easily identified here, both by call and by patterned juvenile tertials. Several groups of BROWN PELICANS winged their way north, including 11 birds, 11 birds, and 8 birds. A female-plumaged CANVASBACK was sleeping among the many LESSER SCAUP and other ducks on one of the islands in the outer Palo Alto Flood Control Basin.

Back at the Forebay pumphouse BARN SWALLOWS were feeding young. Many eclipse plumaged ducks have returned, including 45+ GREEN-WINGED TEAL in Adobe Creek.

Mike Rogers
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