Coyote Hills Birding

In the mood for something a little different, I went back to my old stomping grounds of Coyote Hills. When I lived in Fremont, I birded and hiked here frequently, and in fact, the diversity of wildlife here is what really got me into birdwatching. Alas, since it’s about a 40 minute round-trip detour from my already-long commute (on the mercifully few days that I have to go to the office!), I rarely visit this Bay Area gem much nowadays.

Coyote Hills has diverse habitats and covers a pretty large area, so it’s easy to spend quite a bit of time here. Due to time constraints (and a somewhat chilly wind blowing by the bay), I hiked around the eastern marshes and avoided the hills. Two specialties of this park are the Common Moorhen, which despite its name, I’ve only seen here, and then only about half of my visits, and Tree Swallows, which were here in droves, flying around and chattering among themselves by the numerous boxes installed along the slough for them to nest in.

White-tailed Kites are often seen, today being no exception, but the Kites here are extremely shy, and fly off when I get even within a hundred feet of them! Fortunately one flew over my head and I got a decent photo of it. At least 4 Northern Harrier individuals (2 each of male & female) were cruising the marshes and courting, and 2 Red-tailed Hawks soared over the hills – lots of raptors for a fairly contained area!

I spent some time by the Tree Swallows, trying to get flight photos of them, but their flight is soooo swift, and their movement so erratic, I didn’t have a lot of luck. It was great to be here again – I’ll have to make a point to take a break from my usual Palo Alto Baylands peninsula birding, and well worth the detour.

Birds seen (27 species):

– American Coot
– American Robin
– American Wigeon
– Barn Swallow
– California Towhee
– Canada Goose
– Cinnamon Teal
+ Common Moorhen
– Dowitcher sp.
– Gadwall
– Great Blue Heron
– Great Egret
– Green-winged Teal
– Mallard
– Marsh Wren
– Northern Harrier
– Pied-billed Grebe
– Red-tailed Hawk
– Red-winged Blackbird
– Ruddy Duck
– Snowy Egret
+ Tree Swallow
– Turkey Vulture
– White-crowned Sparrow
– White-tailed Kite
– Yellow-rumped Warbler

+ = year bird

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