Natural History Wanderings

Updated 5/25/12

Today the Golden Gate Audubon birding class, “Romance is in the Air”, (which focuses on  bird courtship, mating, nest-building, and raising young) went to Coyote Hills Regional Park. The Park is nearly 978 acres and includes a bird and butterfly nectar garden, wetlands and woods.

Today’s highlights included seeing two young Great Horned Owls with an Adult, Cinnamon Teal Northern Shoveler (see Sightings: Breeding Northern Shoveler) and Canada Goose with young, and Great-tailed Grackles mating. There were also some impressive Buckeye Trees in bloom and a number of butterflies and some large dragonflies. The flowers were mostly non-natives along the trails and even the Butterfly Garden had mainly flowers that were not from California.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

To see the instructors bird list, which also includes the number of each species seen go to: http://www.wingbeats.org/classes/lists/12Romance.htm

To see my bird and butterfly list click read more

Coyote Hills Regional Park

May 19,2012

Birding Class with Bob Lewis

52 species

Canada Goose

Gadwall

American Wigeon

Mallard

Cinnamon Teal

Northern Shoveler

Ruddy Duck

Ring-necked Pheasant       Heard only

Pied-billed Grebe

Double-crested Cormorant

American White Pelican

Great Blue Heron

Great Egret

Snowy Egret

Black-crowned Night-Heron

Turkey Vulture

White-tailed Kite

Northern Harrier

Cooper’s Hawk

Common Gallinule

American Coot

Killdeer

Black Oystercatcher

American Avocet

Bonaparte’s Gull

Western Gull

California Gull

Mourning Dove

Great Horned Owl

Anna’s Hummingbird

Nuttall’s Woodpecker

Black Phoebe

Western Scrub-Jay

Tree Swallow

Barn Swallow

Bushtit

Bewick’s Wren

House Wren

Marsh Wren

European Starling

Common Yellowthroat

Spotted Towhee

California Towhee

Song Sparrow

Dark-eyed Junco       heard only

Western Tanager

Red-winged Blackbird

Brewer’s Blackbird

Great-tailed Grackle

Brown-headed Cowbird

Bullock’s Oriole

House Finch

Also heard but not by me: Sora, Pacific Slope Flycatcher

Butterflies seen:

Swallowtail

Monarch

Cabbage White

Umber Skipper