[SBB] Alviso area

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

Laurie and I birded the Alviso area today, starting at State and Spreckels -- I think we saw Michael out on the railroad tracks, but not his plovers. there were five Avocet nests visible from Spreckels, along with a few stilts, otherwise very quiet. 

Laurie had never birded the Arzino ranch fields, so our next stop was the Jubilee. Driving up Disk Drive, just as I was noting that we might get lucky and see a burrowing owl, she pointed and said "like these?" -- sitting on the fence within about 200 feet total were two burrowing owls and an American Kestrel. WE parked in the Jubilee lot and walked back. Both owls took off, of course, into the field on the western side of the roadway. One I saw land and then disappear, so it pretty clearly went into a burrow; I lost the other so I didn't see where it ended up.

The Kestrel was pretty cooperative, on the other hand, a nice, well-colored male. After walking up and down Disk looking for owls, we returned to the Jubilee lot. On the fence on the eastern side of the field on the Eastern side of Jubilee, we saw a second kestrel. No signs of the cattle egrets.

While at the Jubilee lot, we ran into a pair of ravens looking for trouble to get into. They were joined by two more, and the four spent time perching on the Jubilee building, then flew west into the field where they landed and looked to be grubbing. One good sized red-tailed hawk floated across the area and then flew off east.

After that, we headed to the marina, On the way, we had a second red-tail perching on one of the power poles. The marina  was pretty quiet. I got decent looks at a very loud and insistent marsh wren, and Laurie got looks at a common yellowthroat. A few Forster's terns fishing in the salt pond, and at the far north edge of the pond I saw one western grebe. Beyond that, a few sparrows and swallows (some were feeding young on the telephone poles), that was about it. In the pond at the Northeast corner of the marina area by the Amtrak tracks I did see a stilt sitting on a nest and a killdeer. 

As we were leaving, we had four ravens arrive at the old cannery and start making noise. I'm asusming they're the same ravens we had at Jubilee, since I find it doubtful we'd have two sets of four ravens that close together, but you never know... 

chuq


-- 
Chuq Von Rospach
([[email protected]]; http://chuqui.typepad.com)
_______________________________________________
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://plaidworks.org/mailman/listinfo/south-bay-birds_plaidworks.org