I’ve been seeing so many cute little Goldfinches as I walk around my neighborhood, I went birding the other day with the intent of capturing some in the beautiful sunshine. Always a bad idea…

I went to the Shoreline Trail (also part of the Palo Alto Baylands), but a different area than I had birded before. It was getting later in the afternoon, about an hour or so before sunset, and the wind had picked up a bit of speed. I don’t often lug my tripod around with me because I prefer to stay mobile and walk around; thus I knew I had my work set out for me. My lens is rather large and likes to act like a sail when I’m trying to take pictures.

Regardless, I was able to stay still long enough to get some decent pics. The American Avocets are nicely showing off their breeding plumage, and I did stop for a while to watch them sweep their upcurved bills along the top of the water as they fed. Of course the best picture was of one who had been napping!

Speaking of napping, there were LOADS of Short-billed Dowitchers (and I’m sure some Long-billed as well, I just didn’t actually identify any of them) taking in an afternoon snooze.

Though they did take pity on me and exploded in a beautiful synchronous flight.

 Some other birds of note for the day: a pair of Gadwalls. 

A Western Grebe.  I need to find where I’ve misplaced it, but I have an awesome picture of my parent’s lab in a face-off with one of these guys in the ocean.  It’s really cool.  They look so menacing with that long sword-like bill and blazing red eyes!

 A Willet.  I remember back to when I was in college taking a field ornithology lab (one of my favorite classes EVER, duh!  Even though we had our field trips starting at 6am on Saturday mornings!  Totally worth it.), my instructor told us that Willets were rather easy to identify.  “They are pretty much nondescript!  So if you see nothing in particular that stands out, chances are it’s a Willet!”  I’m sure there will be some that argue with that logic, but it worked for me so far!

I love to watch terns hunting along the water’s edge.  This trip, most of them were being lazy bums and just hanging out.

This is fun.  When I was flipping through my pictures from the trip, I took one look and a song filled my head… One of these things is not like the other…

Can you find it? 

There is some structure along the trail that is the home to some Barn Swallows.  The eves are very low so you can almost see into their muddy nests.  I can’t help but think that some of them get bothered and *gasp* maybe even vandalized by hoodlums. 

Then, of course, just as I am resigning myself to go home without my planned pictures of those cute little Goldfinches, this beauty flits in front of me and feeds for a few minutes until another family travelling the trail scares him away.  But at least I got my wish! 

In my quest to find a picture or group of pictures that encompass what the Silicon Valley is, I couldn’t help but think of the fake cell phone trees…  They are a blend of the natural (the idea is, anyway) and the decidedly unnatural, but it’s a testiment to the constant attempts of Californians to preserve as much of “nature” as we can without sacrificing our technological comforts. 

As it happens, ever since I thought up getting a picture of the faux tree, it was nearly impossible to actually get one.  Isn’t it funny how often you see something only to not be able to find it when you want to?  I’m sure there are loads of them around me, but I either don’t notice them (good for you, designers!) or didn’t have my camera.   Regardless, at long last I finally got my picture!

 

Oh the lovely internet… you can find anything!

I totally stole the title of this post from my best friend Phatty Tuna.  It really got me thinking though, as I revamped my site and struggled to come up with a new header photo… what picture or pictures capture my new surroundings?

Napa was easy… a shady road with vines on it.  Simple.  Descriptive.  It portrayed a natural setting where one would be able to find birds.  What about my new home, a typical suburban city smack in the heart of the Bay Area… of Silicon Valley.  What does a person think of when they hear Silicon Valley?  Big corporate buildings… cars stuck in traffic… the Golden Gate Bridge maybe (for those who immediately associate the Bay Area with San Francisco)?  These are certainly what immediately come to my mind.  As I look out my window, I see just roof tops with a smattering of tree tops sprinkled throughout. 

Well, perhaps I should have a picture of that then, eh?  It’s a true-to-life situation for those living around here.  Or, do I pretend I am actually up in the foothills where there is actually ample greenery (well… it’s really only really green for a few short months of the year, now being that time)? 

Aha!  I’ll take a panorama of the Valley from a hillside!  That way I’ll have greenery AND the trueness of the setting with the buildings included.  Hmm… without being a wizard at Photoshop, how do I get around the omni-present smog (by the way, happy Earth Day everybody!)?  After a rain?  Sunny California doesn’t lend itself to many of these opportunities (and, after raining the trails can be horrendous). 

How about just a collage of bird photos then, like some other birding blogs?  Um, precisely that — it’s been done by other blogs.  I would really like to be more creative than that… at least be able to come up with my own scheme or something.

Sigh.  Disappointed by my innate lack of creativity, I wailed about my predicament to Phatty Tuna on the treadmill at one of our gym dates.  She’s got a degree in graphic design and excitedly offered her Photoshop expertise to hone the one idea I had floating around in my head that I was halfway happy with.  Still working out the details, but rest assured, it will appear soon. 

It certainly felt like spring as I strolled around some of the corporate parks near the Bay Trail. I had originally planned on walking along the Trail, but got sidetracked by a lot of bird calls coming from a nearby grove. I instead walked along a nice paved path that weaved between two large buildings and around a small park. The sun was shining and the birds were singing their hearts out!

There were loads of California Towhees along the path making quite a ruckus (it’s amazing how loud one little bird can be). I love to sit and watch them scritch the ground with their cute little hop-hop forage dance. Of course then I get distracted and not actually take a picture of them until they are up in a tree. :-)

Much quieter but equally as fun to watch forage are Black Phoebes. They are very common around here, and yet I still pause to watch them sally from their perch to snatch insects right out of the air.

Just then a big shadow crosses my path and I look up to see a Red-tailed Hawk fly into a nearby tree. She didn’t turn around to face me, but rather just let her beautiful red tail gleam in the sunlight.

And then she found something more interesting to do elsewhere.

Another neat sighting was this Nuttall’s Woodpecker. Did you know that the male Nuttall’s does most of the incubation of their clutches, including all of the nocturnal incubation and brooding duties? What a man! :-)

Speaking of nests and clutches and the like, I had a grand time watching Bushtits foraging for nesting supplies! I bet that green rope looked like great material for him… but a bit rough for my taste! What thread count do you think it is? I can’t sleep on anything less than 600. :-)

He eventually found some softer material that was suitable.

He then proceeded to pop into this nest and dance around a bit. It’s hard to convey motion in these pictures, but I assure you that pendant nest was bouncing around!

Bushtits will very frequently abandon nests (and eggs for that matter) if they are disturbed, so I didn’t want to push my luck and walked on. I read also that they will even change mates if they do desert their nest, they will also change mates before building a new nest. The nest was actually hanging over the path and was almost within reaching distance, so I don’t have high hopes for this one. But here’s hoping!