A Brit abroad: (Almost) a perfect day

September 23, 2004

(Almost) a perfect day

Yesterday I headed into San Francisco to meet up with my great aunt and uncle, who have been on an exhaustive 2 week tour taking in LA, the Grand Canyon, Vegas and Yosemite. By happy coincidence, Fort Mason in downtown SF had hosted Dickcissel, Tennessee Warbler and Blackpoll Warbler over the last week, all of which would be new US birds for me. As a result, I got up stupidly early to catch the train, and arrived at Fort Mason at around 8:20am, in surprisingly warm, still weather.

Within minutes of arriving, another birder pointed out the Dickcissel sitting in a bare tree! The bird was somewhat larger than the accompanying House Sparrows, and its bright coloration suggests that it is an adult male. I managed a few not too wonderful digibinned photos of the bird in the tree, foraging underneath the bird feeder and an unexpected flight shot!

The feeder also attracted an unexpected Tricolored Blackbird, and this odd-looking Junco. Other birders reported Pink-sided Junco from this site today: is this the bird? And if so, why?

Given the high levels of bird activity and gorgeous weather, I ditched plans to go shopping and instead spent the next 4 hours birding around the Fort. During this time I saw a fly-by Yellow-shafted Flicker (or hybrid), 6 Sparrow spp (including Chipping and 2 races of Fox) and hordes of Pygmy Nuthatches. Another real surprise was a large and vocal flock of feral Red-masked (aka Cherry-headed) Parakeets - are these birds tickable?

When the sun became too hot, I found sitting on the shaded hill behind the youth hostel to be an excellent spot: in an hour's watch I noted huge numbers of migrants (see below), the best of which was my life Tennessee Warbler, a very grey bird with diagnostic white undertail coverts and strong supercilium. A Ruby-crowned Kinglet and (Audubon's) Yellow-rumped Warbler were my first of the fall.

After the morning's excitement, I spent the afternoon enjoying the view from Coit Tower and sharing a tasty Italian meal with my great aunt and uncle. All in all, the day went pretty much perfectly, until I came to get the train back to Davis. To cut a long story short, the 2 hour journey actually ended up taking 4.5 hours thanks to someone thoughtfully leaving shopping carts on the track, a police incident and a power blackout on the train! The latter problem was solved by attaching a couple of flashlights to the front of the train and crawling back to Davis at a snail's pace!

Read on to see a list of birds seen from Fort Mason, plus a few random scenery shots.

Birds seen from Fort Mason, 22nd September 2004

Brown Pelican, Elegant Tern, Heerman's Gull - good numbers of each in the Bay.
Cooper's Hawk - 2, possibly migrants.
Red-masked Parakeet - at least 50 birds in a noisy flock
Mourning Dove - lots
Yellow-shafted and Red-shafted Flicker
Downy Woodpecker
Rufous and Anna's Hummingbirds
Willow, Olive-sided, Pacific-slope Flycatchers and Western Wood-Pewee - a hat trick!
Vireo sp (probably Warbling)
Ruby-crowned Kinglet - 1, my first of fall
Pygmy Nuthatch - superabundant!
Western Tanager - by far the commonest migrant, larger numbers than I've ever seen in one place before
Warblers: Orange-crowned (10+, both races), TENNESSEE (1, lifer), Yellow (100+, commonest warbler), (Audubon's) Yellow-rumped (2), Black-throated Gray (5), Townsend's (2), Common Yellowthroat (1).
Tricolored Blackbird - 1 coming to feeder
Brown-headed Cowbird - 1
Western Meadowlark - 5, migrants?
DICKCISSEL - a life bird
Sparrows: House, White-crowned (both abundant), Fox (10ish, Slate-colored and Sooty), Savannah (10s), Lincoln's (3), Chipping (1).
Junco: 1 of unidentified race
Starling - lots, unfortunately
House Finch
American Goldfinch