[SBB] Brown Booby and Black Turnstones

["Kris Olson" <[[email protected]]>]

This afternoon at 3:45pm I arrived at Alviso to look for the Brown Booby.
The friendly park hosts looked at my map and gave me directions -- the wrong
way! Finally out at the end of A13/A15 (walking by the railroad tracks --
don't), I turned around, walked back to the Alviso Marina and out by the
slough, arriving just before 6pm at the leveel between A10 and A11. ) Thanks
for Mike Rogers for answering my phone call and redirecting my path.

However, in the meantime (on my wrong-way out), in the corner of A13 just
after you pass the jog in A12 (see excellent map on South Bay Birders
Unlimited -- Sunnyvale map by Dick Teater, URL at the bottom of this email),
two  BLACK TURNSTONES had flown in at my feet. They apparently flew from the
inner edge of the levee (parallel to the rail road tracks) and landed just
below the top of the dirt levee in the very corner of A13. We quietly
assessed each other and I left, giving them wide berth so they would stay,
which they did at least until I was out of sight. They were not there on my
way back. 

OK, back to the Booby. So I made it out to A10/11 about 6pm, maybe before.
There were tons of birds on this levee, all settling in for the night, with
hundreds of gulls arriving by the minute from across A10. Brown Pelicans,
one American White Pelican with shocking orange legs, Double-crested
Cormorants, gulls, Snowy Egrets -- it was a veritable mass of bird life,
most with their heads tucked under. This did not bode well for finding a
Booby (in the bird stack?), with the sky darkening. Luckily, I picked out a
likely candidate fairly quickly - it sat on the sloping of the levee, facing
A10. I watched, it picked up its face, yes, it was the BROWN BOOBY. Took
off, flew a little cirle, came back and disappeared into the birds.  (What I
noticed was a warm, dark brown back and what I could see of its bent neck
with a clean white under-body.) Since I was now an hour late for home, I did
not tarry to look for Jaegers (sigh).  Another birder passed me on the way
out to the Booby, I gave him directions and hope he found it.  The sun had
made a beautiful sunset before I got back to the marina.

Other birds:
1 CASPIAN TERN on the way back
Several FORSTER'S TERNS
4++ CLARK'S GREBES
1 WESTERN GREBE
30-40 RED-NECKED PHALAROPES (over on the A13 side)
1 NORTHERN SHOVELER - ditto
Heard 2 SORA RAILS

It is funny how serendipity works: had I not received incorrect directions,
I would not have seen the Turnstones. On the other hand, had I gone the
right way, I would have time to look for the Jaeger. I guess the exercise
gods are at least pleased.

Good birding!

Kris Olson,  Menlo Park


Sunnyvale Salt Pond map
http://www.stanford.edu/~kendric/birds/PondMaps/SV.html



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