Nature Where I Live: San Francisco: Hudsonian Whimbrel

Whimbrel Catches a Fish, Heron's Head Park

After a week of being cold on my walks, cold on the bike rides, and cold at the San Francisco Botanical Garden's Lightscape show, I hesitated to go out for a ride this morning and subject myself to still more cold. So I hemmed and hawed, spent a lot of time online, and eventually the morning was almost over.

It still wasn't exactly warm when I left, but at least it was a beautiful sunny day, and the birdwatching at Heron's Head was pretty good. I rode back along the coast past the new Standard Deviant location at Pier 70, past Crane Cove Park, then the ballpark, the Embarcadero (where I posed with Corpus), and Fisherman's Wharf, to Fort Mason, where the highlight was seeing a scrub jay who'd caught a mouse.

Goats Who Stare At Men

Head-butting Goats

The whimbrel spent some time trying to corral the fish in its hiding place beneath a rock on the water's edge. The fish had no backdoor escape hatch and was finally caught.

The whimbrel was in no great hurry to swallow the fish, but it eventually got little minnow lined up properly in its bill, tilted its head back, and swallowed it whole.

A snowy egret nearby seemed to watch the proceedings with interest.

The whimbrel soon wandered too close for the egret's comfort, and with a flutter and a squawk, the egret pounced.

The whimbrel just wanted to pass by peacefully, but the egret kept a territorial eye out to make sure the whimbrel kept moving along.

Greater Yellowlegs

I'd forgotten that Heron's Head can be an excellent place to view black oystercatchers at close range.

Black Toenails

Black Oystercatcher

The egret paid no heed to the oystercatcher as it passed by.

There were a couple of female buffleheads diving in a lagoon area.

A few black-bellied plovers were also working the mudflats.

I have yet to see a male black-bellied plover in breeding plumage.

A young black-necked stilt was pestering the adults a little bit, and at one point there was much loud chattering among the spread-out flock that sounded like scolding, and they all flew wildly about before landing again to resume feeding.

Black-necked Stilt Between Heron's Head and India Basin

Lone Least Sandpiper
(not to be confused with the diplomatic Lend-Lease Sandpiper)

When the stilts had their fracas, this bird took off for the other side of the canal to find a little peace.

Yes, it was another Hudsonian Whimbrel.

Flock of Least Sandpipers

The great blue heron just stood around looking regal.

A small flotilla of double-crested cormorants plied the lagoon for quite a while. This one broke off from the group to do some preening.

In the Fort Mason Community Garden, this golden-crowned sparrow was making a little divot in the earth to lay in and get warm, apparently after a recent bath.

I read an email report of some interesting birds in the garden near the bird bath, but I didn't recall having ever seen a bird bath there.

As I poked around the garden I soon stumbled onto the bath, which was just a small bowl with kind of gross water it. The Townsend's warbler only got this far before he chickened out and flew away.

I'd been observing a few scrub jays flying from tree to tree when this one showed up on the ground nearby. I couldn't make out what he had in his beak until I zoomed in with my camera lens. Because I once saw a scrub jay snag a garter snake in the San Francisco Botanical Garden of all places (where I've never seen a snake before or since), I wasn't too surprised to see the mouse. It flew the little rodent into a nearby tree and returned a little later with a nut in its beak, back to looking like a typical scrub jay.