Natural History Wanderings

Today I was back on the Bay Trail between Point Isabel Regional Park and Shimada Friendship Park in Richmond.  This is quickly becoming my favorite local birding patch as it only ten minutes from home, is a pleasant and scenic walk, and most importantly has a large diversity of birds.

The number of birds continues to increase as migration proceeds and birds are coming to winter on San Francisco Bay. A large percentage of the west coast shorebird population are found in San Francisco Bay.  Over 50 percent of the total Pacific Coast population of eleven different shorebirds spend at least part of the year here. Read more about this in an earlier post Shorebird Heaven: San Francisco Bay.

Today I saw 39 species of birds.  Highlights included a Kestrel, many Clark’s and Western Grebes including some interesting territorial(?) behaviors, a good number of American Wigeons,  and what we pretty sure were two snipe. Also seen were Buckeye, Monarch, and Cabbage White butterflies and a number of native plants still showed some bloom including California Poppies, Lavatera, Lizardtail and Seaside Daisy, Monkeyflower (most of these have been planted).

To see today’s birdlist go to: Pt. Isabel Regional Shoreline Birdlist 11/5/12

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• Birding The Bay Trail (naturalhistorywanderings.com)
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• Birding Pt. Isabel And The Bay Trail 10/12/12 (naturalhistorywanderings.com)