Day 19.253: Moss Landing State Beach (visit 2)

As you may have gathered from yesterday's post title, I returned to Moss Landing State Beach before driving back to San Jose at the end of my work duties. Before we get there, here is another life bird I forgot to add to the previous post:

Heermann's gulls

I'm not sure how that happened. Now onto my late afternoon visit:

I heard various birds in the scrubby bushes on the dunes during my first visit, but they were hard to spot in the early morning light. I didn't have much more joy in the afternoon, but a couple of birds made themselves visible - starting with this - I might have taken it for a Carolina wren, but my "every bird could be a life bird" mantra allowed me to first get some decent photos: 

and then identify it as a Bewick's wren.

Brewer's blackbird - another first sighting

Apparently, the often feed on the ground

And a couple of other perching birds - these ones turned out to not be life birds.

House finch

White-crowned sparrow

Bold little fellow

Many of the shorebirds from earlier were looking rather sleepy in the reeds near the water, but there were a few being more active - and easier to photograph in this light.

Long-billed curlew

Western gull

Brown pelicans

Least sandpiper

And then, one last life bird flew in (several of them):

Black-necked stilts

Time to say goodbye to the marbled godwits

Willets and godwits

Willet

And then one more bird - for some reason the first sighting of the year of an American kestrel a couple of miles away as I prepared to head back up to San Jose:

American kestrel

So final life list tally: Mountain View: 3 and Moss Landing: 9 to round out an even dozen. 

Day 19.252: Moss Landing State Beach (visit 1)

The reason for my visit to Northern California was a meeting in Moss Landing - about 50 miles and anything from one hour to five hours* south of San Jose. In order to (1) avoid the five hour end of that, (2) stay on Eastern Time and (3) make time for some birding, I decided to leave around 4:30 am (7:30 Eastern), go and do some dawn birding at the local state beach and then go to the meeting at 8 am.

My drive took me down the 17 (which turned quite windy through the mountains in the dark) until I got to the 1 ... later I would take a left on Dolan, straight over and then take the 101 North all the way up to San Jose, California. (Anyone else not able to think about driving in California without thinking of these sketches?)

This is how that visit went (in addition to the sea otter):

In the first light - a whimbrel (Hudsonian) sighting - only a second life record I think and an excellent look in the low light

California gull

Long-billed curlew (I'd been hearing them since before the light was good enough to see them, but I quite like this first shot of one)

Elegant tern (similarly vocal in the dawn light)

I walked over the dunes to the beach and saw this gull harassing this common murre

Sadly, we read that murre's have been struggling to find food out at sea after a successful breeding year

Marbled godwit (also a second life-sighting)

Marbled godwits

Western gull with the godwits

Godwit flyby

California gull

The photography got a little easier as the light improved.

Great blue heron

Black-bellied plover

Harbor seals

Long-billed curlew

Long-billed curlew

Western gull

Brown pelican

Brandt's cormorant

Brandt's cormorants

A happier-looking common murre

Splashing in the harbor entrance

Elegant tern

Loon (likely common)

I liked this comparison of a long-billed curlew and a marbled godwit in flight

For those keeping score on life birds from this short trip to the Pacific coast, there were three in yesterday's post (black phoebe, California gull & American avocet) and five more here (long-billed curlew, elegant tern, common murre, western gull & Brandt's cormorant).

* five hours may be an exaggeration, but the traffic is quite serious at times.

Day 19.251: Shoreline at Mountain View

I arrived in California on Tuesday after an approximately 12 hour journey to find it was still early-afternoon and technically before I was guaranteed to be able to check in to my hotel, so I decided to go for a walk and potentially do a bit of bird spotting. I chose Shoreline Park in Mountain View - right next to the Googleplex - Google's HQ. Driving past the entrance to the Google campus also allowed me to check another item of my San Jose want-to list by spotting several Waymo driverless cabs near the entrance. I figured that a map showing drivers per road-vehicle probably has a local minimum around that entrance albeit with a value below, but still pretty close to one.

My mantra as soon as I saw a bird was "every bird could be a life bird". Of course, that's probably the right way to approach all birding, but as the first time I'd done any deliberate bird identification on the west coast, it was especially true.

Many of the birds I saw at Shoreline Park were not life birds, but a few were. Here is some of what I saw.

Snowy egret 

Lesser yellowlegs

Semipalmated plover

Cormorants (likely double-crested)

I wanted this to be an American golden-plover, but most likely it is a black-bellied (a.k.a. grey) plover

The white eye-stripe suggests golden, but it's not enough for me to be sure

Black-bellied is the more-common and non-lifer choice

Common raven

Semipalmated plover

American white pelican (second life-sighting)

The first life bird - and one I might have missed if not for my mantra

It looked and acted like a phoebe - because it is one - a black phoebe

California gull (also identified by sound with assistance of Merlin) - another life bird

Red-tailed hawk

Red-tailed hawk

Pied-billed grebe

Pied-billed grebe

Lesser scaup

Least sandpipers

Savannah sparrow

Another life bird - American avocets

I estimate about 300 flew by in the space of five to ten minutes

House finch

Brown-headed cowbirds in what I suspect is a California buckeye tree

I've been spotted!

Launch!

Fly away!

Some kind of seablite (suaeda)

Pacific goldenthread

California ground squirrel

Just chillin'

Not bad for a quick walk on a travel day.