A San Francisco Bay Circumnavigation Big Day

A birding big day is always a fun adventure and this year we focused on an unusual geographic feature for such an endeavor. As Jeff will soon be moving up to the Eastbay he was interested in getting to know more of the good birding spots in the Bay Area and concocted a plan to do a big day that scribed a clockwise circle around the Bay. As usual Michael was game and came down from Eureka to join the fun.

After celebrating Jeff's birthday the night before we started out in Napa before dawn getting our 2 owl species, then it was off to Green Island for shorebirds and ducks.

From here we visited Lake Herman and the Benica waterfront before heading south to the Moraga area and then into the Eastbay Hills. A slight navigation error on my part caused us to miss a section we had planned to do in this area so on we went to Hayward, took a lunch stop and then cut across the Bay to the Palo Alto Baylands for more ducks and shorebirds. From here we crossed over the mountain (seeing an excellent Golden Eagle) and hit the coast at Halfmoon Bay. We picked up the expected coastal birds but the real show was the constantly spouting whales just off-shore. Our next stop was the old battery that sits up on a bluff at the south end of the Golden Gate Bridge where we added a few more species then it was off to try for the rarity that was being seen this week in Marin County. No luck on the Dusky Warbler but we heard a lot of Ridgeway's Rails as the sun went down.

All told we drove 239 miles and saw 104 species. Not a big number but certainly big fun.