Review: Billingham Hadley Digital camera bag
Since the days are light longer, I swung by the Palace of Fine Arts and Chrissy Field before my birding class tonight. I haven’t birded either place with any frequency, but a recent report of Red-shouldered Hawks preying on Pigeons and Coots at the PFA piqued my interest.
No raptors were seen at the PFA, and the birding wasn’t terribly interesting around most of the lake – mostly American Coots, Rock Pigeons, Western and Ring-billed Gulls, with one pre-adult-plumaged Glaucous-winged Gull, and the resident Mute Swans. Walking around the “ruins” side of the lake proved more interesting, with an only-a-mother-could-love-it Muscovy Duck, as well as two Black-crowned Night Herons (one adult, one juvenile) and a Great Blue Heron.
There were a great many released turtles sunning themselves – they’ve become a nuisance in many of SF’s park lakes, and people keep dumping them and feeding them.
Chrissy Field was very windy, and the near bay was filled with wind-surfers and very few avians – the only one I saw was a probable Clark’s Grebe in the surf. The lagoon was more productive, with a dozen Caspian Terns amid the Western & Ring-billed Gulls, a couple of pairs of Buffleheads, a Willet, and an Anna’s Hummingbird that definitely did not appreciate my presence!
On the short protected path across the lagoon I almost got a perfect photo of an American Robin perched atop a blooming lupine bush, but it flew away right as I swung my camera around – rats!
Looping around the lagoon, I got reasonably close to the Caspian Terns, but the lighting wasn’t wonderful – I’ll have to see what I can do to make pleasing photographs from the results.
I’ll update this post with the photos I took sometime next week – I should have some nice Anna’s Hummingbirds if nothing else.
All told, I saw 20 species:
– American Coot
– American Robin
– Anna’s Hummingbird
– Black-crowned Night Heron
– Bufflehead
– Caspian Tern
– Clark’s Grebe
– Common Raven
– Double-crested Cormorant
– Glaucous-winged Gull
– Great Blue Heron
– Mallard
(Muscovy Duck)
(Mute Swan)
– Ring-billed Gull
– Rock Pigeon
– Ruddy Duck
– Scaup sp.
– Western Gull
– White-crowned Sparrow
() = domestic/released bird
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Wonderful list of birds here! I have been looking but no turtles yet!! Lets hope soon once the weather starts to get better!
Thanks, Tom – it’s great to be able to go birding right before my class 🙂