Wednesday, April 23, 2025

Lesser Goldfinch

 

Lesser Goldfinch on its Singing Branch

Another red-tailed hawk made a swooping play for a pair of squirrels high in a cypress tree at Golden Gate Heights Park this morning, just as I was passing through. I'd love to have gotten a photo of the striking moment when the hawk flaired its wings and tail feathers as it overshot its mark. You could almost hear the screaching sound of brakes as in an old Roadrunner cartoon. 

One of the squirrels ran down the tree while the other ran up. Only the one that ran down began its alarm call when the hawk found a perch on some lower branches. I wondered if the other one, still high in the tree, preferred not to give away its location. In any event, the hawk soon realized that, without the advantage of surprise, the squirrels would be far too nimble to catch.

It was another windy and overcast day here on the city's west side, and Seal Rocks looked especially forlorn with very few birds resting on them. Even the ever-present cormorants were in short supply. I was glad to at least see a few wandering tattlers on the rocks below the Cliff House. They're so well-camouflaged from above that I might have missed them if one hadn't been bobbing its tail.

On the way home through the park I braked for a pair of lesser goldfinches and got lucky with an unusually bold one who tolerated my presence while swirling out its song from some brush along the side of the road.


Black-crowned Night Heron Resting in a Willow at North Lake


While at North Lake I stopped beneath a eucalyptus tree that was singing with numerous cedar waxwings. They were too high up to photograph, and didn't appear to be feeding on any nearby berries that would have brought them lower. I snapped a shot of this Allen's hummingbird who was more accommodating.


A few pelicans glided over the guano-covered sea stacks but continued flying south, leaving Seal Rocks about as bare of birds as I've seen it. 


A couple days later (4/25/25)


Wandering Tattler


I'm interested whenever a local birder posts a sighting here at the Cliff House on the same day I was there. On a recent day where I saw a dozen or so surfbirds but no tattlers, someone else reported tattlers but no surfbirds. At another time of day I suspect there might have been black oystercatchers and black turnstones on the rocks, but no tattlers or surfbirds.


Lesser Goldfinch


In this short clip of a lesser goldfinch singing from its perch, I set the audio to 150%, but the song is still faint behind the wind noise.

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