Today we went birding with friends along the Berkeley section of the Bay Trail between Gilman and University Avenues and in the Berkeley Meadow in the Eastshore State Park. There continue to be more species as we identified 40 different birds today. There also was evidence of a small fire south of the soccer field area. Many more passerines this week including numbers of Meadowlarks, Yellow-rumped warblers and White-crowned Sparrows. There are also reports that there is a Burrowing Owl in nearby Cesar Chavez park in the usual spot in the northeast corner of the park. Today’s highlights included:
- seeing four Black Oystercatchers including watching one catch oysters or clams and cracking them open and eating
- American Crows mobbing a Northern Harrier
- watching Forster’s Terns diving and catching fish
- Snowy Egret fishing
- Great Egret submerging himself (maybe to cool off)
- a group of nine grebes (probably Clark’s as all the large grebes that is I have been able to ID in this area in the last week are Clark’s)
- two White-tailed Kites in the same small tree they were in last week (see photo)
- Red-tail Hawk ID that took us almost a half hour until we could finally get a good look
- Black Phoebe eating a dragonfly
- a harbor seal
- Monarch and Buckeye butterflies.
To see today’s birdlist go to: Eastshore State Park bird list 10/5/13.
Natural History Wanderings 
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