End

Here are the final San Francisco images from the trip... I might finally get out and do some proper UK birding now.

The house finch popped up in front of us while watching golden-crowned sparrow at the yatch club - a very dapper bird.

The red-shouldered hawk was, presumably like me, was dipping varied thrush in the Strybing arboretum in Golden Gate Park.

The black phoebe was near the rose garden in Golden Gate Park and was one of the final images taken on the trip. The walk in the park was quite productive, with townsend's warbler, hermit thrush, american wigeon, red-tailed hawk, common yellow throat, chestnut-backed chickadee and pygmy nuthatch also noted. I had hoped for a few more duck species, but I suspect the weather was too nice to draw them in for food hand-outs.

All in all a great end to a winter trip - roll on the next one...

Two Sparrows

Golden-crowned sparrow was a new species for me on this trip, and prove to be fairly numerous on our walk to Crissy Fields, with others seen in Golden Gate Park. I like the yellow on it's forecrown, a nice tough on what is relatively a dull coloured bird! This species was often in mixed flocks of white-crowned and song sparrow.

The song sparrow was photographed at Crissy Fields - I've a bit of a soft spot for photographs of birds on rusty wire fences (see below, yellow-rumped warbler...), very "rustic"?... maybe not!

Bay Area Birding

Spent an hour or so at Hauxley NR today - located at the top of Druridge Bay - both bean and white-fronted goose had been reported on the 20th. Alas, there was no sign of either - just a large group of grey-lag and a few canada. Red-breasted merganser and goldeneye were about the best I could manage and with rapidly fading light (and a hungary stomach) I headed back home.

One advantage of quiet winter afternoons is the increased time available to browse through some older photographs - so keeping with the theme of the last post, here are a few more from California in May 2006, all were taken using a Canon 10D with a Canon 100-400mm IS lens - from the top down: steller's jay (pacific form - interior west birds have white forehead markings rather than blue, this bird was at Yosemite), western scrub-jay (Golden Gate Park, San Francisco), heermann's gull (a personal favorite!, this bird was at Seaside on Robert's Lake), black phoebe (Golden Gate Park, San Francisco) and finally dark-eyed junco ("oregon" form, this bird was at Presidio, San Francisco).