Natural History Wanderings

Today I did a Point Reyes Field Institute bird program with Dave Whimpfheimer. It was called “Down for the Count: Exploring Bird Diversity and Rarities”. Originally, the field class was scheduled to be the day after the Point Reyes Christmas Bird Count with the intent to include possible rarities seen during the Christmas Bird Count. However, the count had been rescheduled for next weekend. This did not deter the group. We hit a number of sites saw or heard about 75 species and even had success finding some of the recent rarities. We went to the Bear Valley Visitor Center Area, White House Pool, Giacomini Wetlands, Inverness, North Beach, RCA Building, and Pierce Point Rd. near mile marker 4. No birds were seen by everyone but almost everyone saw the top birds of the day.

The highlights were

• Sora at White House Pool, that was observed swimming,
• Gray Whales at North Beach; some of which came in quite close and were large
• the fields east of the Mile 4 marker on Pierce Point Road where we saw a Ferruginous Hawk, Pacific Golden-Plover, American Pipits, heard a Lapland Longspur, possibly saw 100 Killdeer and the bird of the day a Mountain Plover  (a new one for me)
•  seen only by Dave Whimpfheimer and not included on the list below was Northern Fulmar

To see today’s bird list go to Point Reyes National Seashore Bird List 12/15/13