[SBB] Sunnyw

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

I took my walk today over at the sunnyvale water plant. Spent most of  
my time working the rushes, so I only made it out to the water  
redistribution dam and the first set of ponds, but it was a wonderful  
walk...

In the rushes were hundreds (I counted at least 100, I know there  
were many times that from the noise) blackbirds. the blackbirds at  
EEC were younger, there were many red epaulets flying. Very noisy,  
very vibrant. In among the rushes I did find a few sparrows (the one  
I ID'd was a white-crowned), and warblers (yellow, and yellow- 
rumped). WE also had a great blue heron and a great egret standing on  
a pipe over the channel out of the facility, and snowy egrets around  
the place.

In the various ponds were gadwalls and shovelers and ruddys, and some  
mallards. Also coots. the one pond to the east of the redistribution  
area (near the radar, where the gates are you go through to the  
levee's) was loaded with ducks -- at least 200 ruddys alone there,  
plus everything else. On the far shore of that pond was a group of at  
least 75 white pelicans hanging out to get a sense of what it looked  
like, see this: (http://www.flickr.com/photos/chuqui/268334610/in/ 
set-72057594102306566/). On the levee nearer where I was was a small  
flock of white geese; they looked like escapees to me, plus a few  
canada geese.

When I arrived, there were five turkey vultures soaring the area; as  
I walked out, they wandered off. I also had a number of ravens (six  
or so) hanging out on one of the power towers. We had a good sized  
red-tail hawk fly in and do a touch-and-go on the hillside, then fly  
up and shoo the ravens off of the tower, mostly (it seemed) to show  
it could. The ravens made a lot of noise, and then flew off south/ 
east, making lots of noise. the hawk then took off again and mosied  
off north.

I do have one bird I haven't figured out:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/chuqui/268334356/in/set-72057594102306566/

it flew in and landed at the top of one of the power poles -- the one  
I was standing under, of course. It's good sized, and it looks like a  
flicker or woodpecker to me, but I can't match up the markings (it  
seems wrong for northern flicker, but that's closest I can think of);  
unfortunately, that's also the best view I have, since I tried to   
move to get a better angle, and it ran off on me.

Pictures from today here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/chuqui/sets/ 
72057594102306566/

and some of them don't suck, but none of them are apocryphal..... A  
couple of cute shots of the hawk doing its takeoff, but the  
resolution after cropping isn't there (memo to self... carry the  
teleconverters!)




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

Someday, we'll look back on this, laugh
nervously and change the subject.



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