Alviso- Chicago Marsh and Sunnyvale WPCP

On Sunday September 18th the four of us headed to two spots on the San Francisco Wildlife Refuge on the way to the airport. But we began with a detour into the Santa Teresa County Park in which we found our target bird - Wild Turkey:

  At Alviso my brother and I had the Ruff in with a number of Long-billed Dowitchers along the road into the Environmental Center but otherwise the  birds were very much as expected. There were more American White Pelicans there than I had ever seen before. The wetter area at Sunnyvale WCPC had a larger number of ducks than on previous visits but again nothing too noteworthy.

American White Pelicans

Greater Yellowlegs

Black-necked Stilt

Moss Landing

On Saturday September 17th my brother and his wife stopped by for a weekend in San Jose and we took them out to the coast. Our first destination was Moss Landing and we stopped first at the wildlife area before crossing to the State Beach. We then headed to Fisherman's Wharf in Monterey before ending the day in Carmel.

Brown Pelican

Harbour Seal

Sea Otters

American Pipit

We saw many of the usual suspects at Moss Landing which included a large group of Semi-palmated Plovers with one Sanderling on the beach, where a fly-by Surfbird was a nice surprise. Monterey yielded a large group of Heerman's Gulls on the rocks. Carmel River Beach was hosting a wedding and so that was a little disappointing but the walk along the coast yielded both Black Turnstones and a Black Oystercatcher.

Elegant Tern

Heerman's Gull

Belted Kingfisher

Labor Day Weekend around San Jose

On  Saturday September 3rd my wife and I went to the Alviso/Chicago Marsh area of the Don Edwards San Francisco Bay Wildlife Refuge. The target birds were a Stilt Sandpiper and a Ruff but we had no luck with these. But we enjoyed seeing the many terns and shorebirds of the area, in particular a couple of Least Terns, a cooperative Greater Yellowlegs and a couple of Common Gallinules.

On Sunday September 4th we went to Moss Landing and made a stop at Zmudowski State Beach. This was a first, encouraged by a number of eBird sightings. It took us a while to find the lagoon but when we did we had a nice selection of gulls, terns and waders including a Semi-palmated Plover and some Sanderlings. We could not resist stopping at Moss Landing itself and saw this spot with the tide in for the first time. The curlews and godwits were present in good numbers in the vegetation and the White-tailed Kite was in its usual tree. the highlight for me was a couple of Red-necked Phalarope at the ocean edge - a new bird for me at this location.

Least Sandpiper

Sanderlings

Yellowlegs