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From: wander@csa2.lbl.gov (ADRIAN WANDER)
Newsgroups: rec.birds
Subject: Re: anyone seen any...
Message-ID: <6782@dog.ee.lbl.gov>
Date: 4 Sep 90 21:29:33 GMT
References: <34190@eerie.acsu.Buffalo.EDU> <1990Sep4.192934.19286@msuinfo.cl.msu.edu> <49339@olivea.atc.olivetti.com>
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In article <49339@olivea.atc.olivetti.com>, mjm@oliven.olivetti.com (Michael Mammoser) writes...
> 
>	The Labor Day weekend has produced some interesting birds
>here in the San Francisco Bay Area.
> 
>	On Saturday I received a call from our subregional editor
>for American Birds magazine, informing me of a Hudsonian Godwit
>that had been found at the Sunnyvale Water Pollution Control Plant.
>I hustled out there and discovered that the bird was still being
>staked out by the guy who found it. It was allowing excellent views
>from a range of 50-100 ft. It was being cooperative to the point of
>flying short distances along the channel, displaying all its field
>marks, including the underwing pattern.
> 
>	On Monday I went to the Moon Glow Dairy overlooking Elkhorn 
>Slough, where an impressive array of birds were being seen. They
>included numbers of Pectoral and Baird's Sandpipers, a Semipalmated
>Sandpiper, a Rufous Necked Stint, a Ruff, and a Buff Breasted
>Sandpiper. Unfortunately, by Monday the Ruff had left and the Rufous
>Necked Stint and Semipalmated Sandpiper were darn near impossible
>to pick out of the thousands of peeps, if they were still there.
> 
>	However, it was still an excellent day of birding. The
>Pectoral and Baird's Sandpipers were the first I had seen that
>season and the Buff Breasted Sandpiper was only the second observation
>in my life. I watched a number of Elegant Terns, which I hadn't seen
>in a couple of years. A juvenile accipiter kept making sorties out
>of the eucalyptus grove, attacking the peeps on the mud flat. This
>sparked a twenty minute debate among the birders as to whether it was 
>a Cooper's or a Sharpie. A juvenile Peregrine Falcon was much more
>successful in picking off a peep. When we first noticed it, the peeps
>were already up in the air and the falcon was only about thirty
>feet above the ground. It dropped quickly to the ground and landed
>on a peep that refused to fly. It took off with its prize and flew
>across the slough. A small group of peeps flew with it, just to be
>sure that it could find its way out.
> 
>	It was an impressive raptor day, the species seen being:
>Turkey Vulture, Golden Eagle, Black Shouldered Kite, Northern
>Harrier, Cooper's Hawk (?), Red Shouldered Hawk, Red Tailed Hawk,
>Osprey, American Kestrel, Peregrine Falcon.
> 
>Mike

What did you think of the Rufous-Necked Stint? I understand that there has
been doubts expressed about the identification of this bird. By the way, 
there's a Great Knot in Oregon which I believe is the first record for the
lower 48.
				Adrian.