April Recap
In case you missed it you can find last month's newsletter here: april newsletter
April bird walk
In April we returned to Golden Gate Park.
It was a tad rainy but we still saw some cool birds and also a bushtit nest and coopers hawk nest.
Here are some pictures from the walk:
Thank you to everyone who came out and for braving the rain:)
May Bird Walk
This month we're going to try something a little different.
We're going to head to Mt Davidson and try to spot some song birds during migration.
We'll have the opportunity to try and see some cool birds we haven't seen on previous walks,
like lazuli buntings, western tanagers, hooded orioles, and black-headed grosbeaks.
The birding walk will be on the saturday morning of may 16th.
Head to the partiful link
to rsvp.
Spotlight Bird: Ring-necked Duck (Aythya collaris)
Ring-necked ducks are pretty underrated. We often see them on our walks in golden gate park like we did last month and don't pay them too much attention, but they're pretty cool birds.
Fun Ring-necked Duck Facts:
-
it's a pretty poorly named duck.
they have a cinnamon ring on their neck but I never see it.
1) Apparently the ring is only visible when the neck is extended and there is optimal light.
2) Apparently the ornithologists who named it were looking at dead ducks and so it stood out more.
3) Apparently some people call them ringbills because of the white rings on the bills. That's a little better. -
they are winter visitors in the sf bay
ebird weekly bar chart for sf - they are in the same genus as some other ducks that may be familiar like canvasbacks, greater and lesser scaups, and tufted ducks
- they are occasional vagrants to europe. one time a group of 4 showed up in the uk (bbc article). Reading about the brits flocking to see these same guys that we see floatin around our ponds all the time makes me want to appreciate them more:) There's probably a lesson in there somewhere
Member Submissions
Thank you to everyone who sent me photos of the birds they saw!
To lead I wanted to call out the great horned owls at Bernal Heights Park. I went a couple weeks ago with Adam and we saw the two owlets. Adam has gone back a few times and even saw the adult catching a mouse and feeding it to an owlet! And Jon went the other week and saw a painted redstart!!
Next up I was sent this picture of a Raven and nest on Taylor St. in the city.
Dom saw a bunch of cool birds in santa barbara
Kelly and baby John saw coot chicks in their local pond in the east bay! if you recall from when they were our bird of the month back in november we shared the fun fact about that cool coloration on the chicks and the interesting parent child stuff going on there
Gus and Anjali spotted a red-winged blackbird showing off a lil yellow
Frank and Theresa did some birding in santa barbara
besides the bernal owlets i don't have any photos to include, so i'll share some cedar waxwings from GGP post-walk and another shot of the allen's from the walk
Closeout
That's all; happy birding