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| Pied-billed Grebes at South Lake |
The various waterfowl in Golden Gate Park seem to be pairing up more avidly these days. The coots, pied-billed grebes, hooded mergansers, northern shovelers, and mallards -- and who can tell with the various gulls and Canada geese since they seem to like hanging out in crowds.
As I walked under chilly clouds of fog and smog this morning it seemed like the streets were a lot less birdy than usual, and it wasn't until I reached the Oak Woodland that I finally heard birdcalls in the trees. Even that happy sign of life disappeared soon after, though. On Whiskey Hill (where even the usually ubiquitous ravens were absent) I tried in vain to get a decent shot of the only bird I saw: a Nuttall's woodpecker. Then nothing more until I was just a block from home and spotted a group of red-masked parakeets hanging out on the edge of an apartment building instead of on one of their favorite neighborhood trees.
On a still-chilly bike ride afterward (with air quality steadily improving, thanks to a changing wind direction) I stopped by North Lake to check out the bird life and heard the tell-tale rustling of a gopher at work beneath a layer of fallen leaves. As I was watching the gopher, a brown creeper dropped in nearby, and following it eventually led me to a Bewick's wren that made a rare and very brief appearance in the open.
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| Urban Parakeets, Golden Gate Heights |
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| Brown Creeper at North Lake |
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| Brown Creeper Scaling a Tree |
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| At first I thought this was the creeper again, but was pleasantly surprised (it hadn't been vocalizing at all) to see that it was a Bewick's wren. |
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| Bewick's Wren, Top View |
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| This little song sparrow was hanging out near my bike and was so fearless that I couldn't help snapping a photo. |
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| A female hooded merganser paddles past a pair of mallards at South Lake, showing how much smaller the merganser is. |
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| I don't know if the female hooded merganser was afraid of me (and my loud, chartreuse bike jacket), or maybe just annoyed by her suitor, but after getting quite close to me she suddenly bolted and took wing, with the male right on her tail. |
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| This Anna's hummingbird was hovering nearby after the mergies took off. |
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