Lake Merced on a Monday walk
Lake Merced in San Francisco has a few things to offer. But one is not a walk around one of the lakes. Harding Park Golf Course is nestled between the two lakes and pedestrian traffic is forbidden on the golf course. But despite this frustration, I managed to see a few birds that got me happy.
A juvenile red-shouldered hawk caught my attention flying down one of the fairways. It took me a while to make the ID. The bright white crescents on the dorsal side of the wings near the tips matched up nicely to the National Geographic field guide. Maybe due to the intense fog the bird looked more grey than brown and I could hardly see any banding on the tail feathers. I'm fairly sure it was not a red-tail, it wasn't stocky enough, the flight style didn't seem quite right, and those white crescents were the most visible thing on the bird as it flew away from me. I managed to find where it landed and we checked each other out. When it took off again the only other thing I noticed was that the tail seemed slightly longer than a red-tail's would, but nowhere near as long as an accipiter's. And it didn't look anything like an accip.
Heading to the lake side, we came upon an active and loud belted kingfisher, with two bright orange bars on the belly alternating with white, and darker brown and white bars/stripes up the chest with a thick white ring around its neck. I followed it to three successive perches but kept scaring it off as I approached. The only odd thing about this bird was that it seemd to be substantially bigger than the numerous kingfishers I saw from my former office window overlooking the lagoon in San Rafael. Maybe those were just farther away, or maybe there is size difference between sexes. According to Sibley though, there is not. Oh well, size is the most commonly mistaken feature of a bird.
In addition to a slew of gulls and cormorants we saw a few grebes, in particular one grebe with 2 or 3 little fuzzy babies squeaking non-stop a hundred feet or so offshore. I don't know what kind they were. I seem to recall their heads being more roundish than ovalish, so they may have been eared grebes. They were fairly gray and drab overall.
I'm finding it ironic that all the buteos I've seen lately in the city have been red-shouldered Hawks when it seems that until recently I thought everything was a red-tail. I wonder if I was previously mistaken and am just more thorough at making IDs now, or if I'm just seeing more birds locally and finding more diversity than I ever thought existed so close to my city home. Either way, I like it.
A juvenile red-shouldered hawk caught my attention flying down one of the fairways. It took me a while to make the ID. The bright white crescents on the dorsal side of the wings near the tips matched up nicely to the National Geographic field guide. Maybe due to the intense fog the bird looked more grey than brown and I could hardly see any banding on the tail feathers. I'm fairly sure it was not a red-tail, it wasn't stocky enough, the flight style didn't seem quite right, and those white crescents were the most visible thing on the bird as it flew away from me. I managed to find where it landed and we checked each other out. When it took off again the only other thing I noticed was that the tail seemed slightly longer than a red-tail's would, but nowhere near as long as an accipiter's. And it didn't look anything like an accip.
Heading to the lake side, we came upon an active and loud belted kingfisher, with two bright orange bars on the belly alternating with white, and darker brown and white bars/stripes up the chest with a thick white ring around its neck. I followed it to three successive perches but kept scaring it off as I approached. The only odd thing about this bird was that it seemd to be substantially bigger than the numerous kingfishers I saw from my former office window overlooking the lagoon in San Rafael. Maybe those were just farther away, or maybe there is size difference between sexes. According to Sibley though, there is not. Oh well, size is the most commonly mistaken feature of a bird.
In addition to a slew of gulls and cormorants we saw a few grebes, in particular one grebe with 2 or 3 little fuzzy babies squeaking non-stop a hundred feet or so offshore. I don't know what kind they were. I seem to recall their heads being more roundish than ovalish, so they may have been eared grebes. They were fairly gray and drab overall.
I'm finding it ironic that all the buteos I've seen lately in the city have been red-shouldered Hawks when it seems that until recently I thought everything was a red-tail. I wonder if I was previously mistaken and am just more thorough at making IDs now, or if I'm just seeing more birds locally and finding more diversity than I ever thought existed so close to my city home. Either way, I like it.
posted by Chuck Baldwin at 11:55 PM
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