Birding With Ted

Don Edwards NWR Trip, Fremont/Union City, CA

Jan. 18, 2012

Scheduled a bird class outing to Don Edwards NWR in Fremont/Union City last Weds for a few hours in the morning. We’ve been studying shorebirds this semester, so it seemed like a good place, (obviously) because of the shoreline. We met at the main HQ, right next to the Dumbarton Bridge toll booths. Coyote Hills, right on the other side of the highway, gets all the visitors, but I find this park interesting. It’s partly because of the slightly weird topography, partly because of the shoreline, partly because it’s kind of mysterious to me. Also, I’m pretty sure I saw my first Loggerhead shrike there, many years ago. It was, if I recall right, dismembering a peep of some kind when I saw it. Nice way to get acquainted! But for a shrike, entirely appropriate.

Coming from the East Coast (Connecticut, New York) where I had never seen a shrike, this was a big deal. I still find it exciting to see these vicious little predators (at least they look vicious, with those evil black masks and hooked beaks), but none today. Why they should be more exciting than, say, a Black Phoebe-- makes you wonder. Is it the drama of life and death that surrounds them (and other raptorial birds)? My students always act like raptors are the most exciting birds they can imagine. You can see it in their faces when they talk about them. Hawks, owls, maybe cranes, always provoke the strongest reactions. I wonder what’s really going on in our heads when we look at them? Anticipation of the death of some little creature? After all, death is, paradoxically, the greatest mystery of life. A web of contradictions. And unresolved for most of us (at least until death). Is it the beginning or the end –- of something really big? We blithely go on about our lives, ignoring the question, until the very end. As it has been said, and well said, “The undiscovered country from whose bourn no traveler returns, puzzles the will…” Oh yes. I think the uncertainty, pain and anxiety we all repress on the subject explodes when we see a predator take a life. And since we are both predators and prey, hunters and hunted, we vibrate, we feel, we are, both protagonists at once! One would think bird-watching was a quiet, calm and proper past-time, but no, not always so! Some moments of high drama in between the robins, finches and cormorants. But not today.

Back to our subject-- birds, nature, birders, observations, Don Edwards, Fremont, etc.: the refuge is enormous, and stretches all around the south end of the bay, thousands and thousands of acres. Of course we only had time to see a tiny part of it. Saw quite a few birds, of all kinds (maybe 35 species?) Lucky we had one last nice day before the series of rainstorms that hit us the last few days. Weather brisk, some wind, but mostly chilly and sunny. Not bad at all, when you think about it. Viewing conditions ideal.

We basically walked down to the water from the parking lot, and took the closest loop around/through the mudflats along the shore, then straight up the hill to the top and back to the visitor’s center. Amazing view from the top, you can see in all directions, all the way to the East Bay hills, and across the bay. Heart-pounding walk up to the top (unless you go slow), and extremely dramatic. I counseled a slow pace, and we all made it to the top!

There were plenty of birds there (saw maybe 35 species) of all kinds. Good numbers, at least in the water, and we saw a variety of shorebirds, ducks, grebes, etc. The tide was high, no mudflats, so shorebirds were scattered here and there along the shore (as well on a few outcrops in the water). Had a few raptors (a very dark Red tail, two White tail kites, few vultures). No harriers -- slightly surprised -- but I guess they’re all across the road in Coyote Hills, (where conditions are ideal). The kites stymied me for a minute or two. They were together, on a small dead tree on the edge of a precipice on the side of the hill. Just far enough away (without a scope) and straight into the light, to make colors (of which they do not have much, anyway) unclear and almost blotted out. So it took me a little while to figure them out. It’s best in these situations, I’ve found, not to force a decision, just to observe, calmly as possible. Let the sights and possibilities wander through your mind until one rings a bell. The size, location, “duality,” general color scheme, and finally, the little black line near the eye, all made me think they had to be kites. (And the last question, what else could they be!) The black shoulder patches weren’t very visible, only vaguely so. All together, thusly, they were vaguely kites. But they were certainly not vaguely mockingbirds. I had a hard time convincing most of the students, given the less than stellar image of the birds, but we composed ourselves, had a bit of commentary, and went on. We trodded further up the hill, enjoying the ever more extraordinary vistas on every side. It peaked as we reached the summit.

Saw some songbirds, but nothing too dramatic: probable Hermit thrush, a robin, yellow-rumps (noisy), two very active mockers (!), few phoebes, Cal. towhees, several savannah and song sparrows, house finches, 5-10 meadowlarks, probable bushtits and a few others. You might hope for a shrike or Says’ Phoebe, maybe a pipit, but not to be this time. The songbirds we saw were mostly scattered all over the brushy slopes and groves of the hill. Phoebes and sparrows in the grasses and bushes along the edge of the shoreline at the bottom of the hill. Song sparrows were singing occasionally, I seem to remember. They do that in the bright sunshine, even in the winter.

Most of the shorebirds were bunched up on several earthy/muddy projections just above the water. Most were too far away (no scope today) to make positive IDs. Some were undoubtedly peeps. A few peeps flew in very close, and we could tell they were Least (yellow legs visible). Others way in the distance were probably willets, grayish and mid-sized, many bunched up, shoulder to shoulder, like subway commuters. Just waiting, waiting, waiting, for their stop. No obvious curlews and godwits we could see. At least 20 or more avocets, and maybe 8-10 or so stilts, not far away in the water. One lone ruddy and a probable female goldeneye floating by themselves. Several male Green-wing Teal, but not close. When the light isn’t ideal, you can’t really see much of that wonderful headgear they have. But we made it out anyway. A coot or two, a pied-bill and a probable spotty SP too, which flew by, fast, and disappeared into an exposed side of mudbank. The fact that they have those stiff and shallow (I call them broken, or at least curtailed) wing beats and are (almost) always individual, makes them a little easier to figure out. Not to mention if they start the rhumba.

Shovelers, Boneparte’s gulls and Horned grebes in the water, just off shore, very close. They seemed to be in a feeding frenzy, like a football scrum, dabbing at the water constantly, like a bunch of phalaropes. There were a few groups of these birds, all doing the same thing. Interesting. Whatever they were eating, it was too small for us to see. Also a few snowies and one Great Egret graced the waters as we walked by, always beautiful to see.

Late morning came, as it always does, sneaking up on us. But by then we had made a decent circuit of the shoreline, trudged up the hill, and seen quite a variety of birdlife. I could not dawdle, myself, since my next class, back at the center (the American Revolution), awaited me in an hour or two, and the trip back to Berkeley was fairly long and unpredictable. Visions of General Washington and the fall of New York -- and how to present this calamity to the class -- were crowding in through my head already. Exactly where were the necessary films, the reprints, the books, the maps, the papers? I needed to be back to assemble it all and compose a tidy narrative of Manhattan, mid-summer and fall of 1776. The great British naval invasion, the heroic American resistance, the terrible losses of men and arms. And to keep hope alive, the retreat through New Jersey, and the soon-coming victories of Princeton and Trenton. Not a bird in it I could think of, precisely, except the ever defiant American eagle.

We finally visited the Visitor’s Center, sampled the brochures and books, said our farewells, and departed. I think all present would say “much the wiser” regarding this craggy, rocky outcrop, this solitary sentinel of the South Bay, this standard bearer of the refuge Don Edwards, and its attendant birdlife. We shall see.