Hayward Regional Shoreline 9-04-2005
New friends and old came out to search for the elusive Red Knot. The morning started off with a bang when kekking calls turned what I thought was a calling Cooper’s Hawk into an American Kestrel. But wait! It was a Kestrel dive-bombing an adult Cooper’s Hawk on top of a telephone pole. The Kestrel chased the Cooper’s Hawk out of the territory, and we were left to start our mission. Highlights came in regular doses, with a cooperative Anna’s Hummingbird, a distant perched Red-tailed Hawk, and our first looks at shorebirds: Marbled Godwits, Black-bellied Plovers, Willets, and Short-billed Dowitchers. A flyover Forster’s Tern was a treat. Halfway to Frank’s Dump we stopped to study some tiny birds huddled in the mud: Semi-palmated Plovers! And not long thereafter, a Black-bellied Plover with a real live black belly! Quite a treat.
I had expected to see Red Knots by now, so I was starting to sweat a bit. A Peregrine Falcon treated us to extended looks as it sprinted by and then caught a thermal updraft with the help of which it soared in circles until it was too distant to watch. Shorebirds at Frank’s Dump were numerous, with large flocks of American Avocets, incoming Marbled Godwits, and a smattering of sandpipers, mostly Least Sandpipers. And no Red Knots. Yikes! So we turned our attention back to the bay to study the birds feeding along the edge of the incoming tide, and thank goodness, there were 3 Red Knots foraging steadily while trying to confuse us with their non-breeding plumage and by moving between equally non-descript Plovers and Willets. We located two more Red Knots, one of which had traces of orange coloring its chest and belly. Most? Some? A few? of the group agreed that indeed they were seeing orange and were convinced that they could now say they had seen a Red Knot! Big smiles all around.
* Indicates trip pictures from Hayward Regional Shoreline -- Courtesy Ashok Khosla
Trip list:
bob power
september .04. 2005