[SBB] Steven's Creek dam

[Chuq Von Rospach <[[email protected]]>]

I've been spending lunches up at Steven's Creek dam -- close enough  
to work to get to, far enough to hide at.

It's really quiet up there bird-wise these days, but over the last  
week or so, I have seen a couple of fledged scrub jay juvies  
wandering around. Today, there was a small flock of them, all in  
juvenile feathering, wandering around the parking lot at the dam. I  
counted 7, so the nesting up in that area seems to have been pretty  
successful. No adults in view recently, although I've seen one or two  
occasionally over the last couple of months. The nests seem to be  
across the street and up the hill somewhere.

Only other birds I'm seeing up there are cormorants; the last week or  
so, there've been three there regularly. two are double-crested, the  
third I'm not so sure. It's probably a younger double-crested, but  
the beak is very thin and the throat area that's yellow is dark to  
black.

Twice in the last week while I've been up there I've seen the  
cormorants fly in and I've seen what seems to be the classic white  
flashes  of the pelagic of the bird in flight. What I haven't been  
able to do (and continue to check for) is getting binoculars on the  
bird while flying to verify the patches and taht it's the same bird  
with the thin bill -- it's very possible I'm seeing a light artifact.

I know it's very unlikely that it's a pelagic, and it probably isn't  
a pelagic, and I've spent time identifying pelagics down in Pismo and  
Morro Bay, and while I can't say that it *is* a pelagic, I can't rule  
it out, and I've been trying (what I need is to catch it flying with  
binocs in hand, not a sandwich...). it's probably nothing special,  
but just in case, I thought it was time to mention it....


-- 
Chuq Von Rospach, Architech
[[email protected]] -- http://chuqui.typepad.com/



And lo, though I travel through the valley of the archetypes, I shall  
fear no evil, for I know that the author can't kill me off for at  
least another 150 pages, no matter how stupid or trite I become, or  
he ruins the book.



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