Sarah & I swung by the south end of Don Edwards SF Bay NWR yesterday afternoon for a looksee. Although I’ve birded near their headquarters in Fremont (and only very rarely seen anything even remotely interesting), neither of us had birded here, in the south end of this large urban preserve.
After a little trouble finding the place, a fellow birder who was scoping some gull and sandpiper flocks pointed us in the right direction. He also let me look through his scope to see my first DUNLIN – cool!
We arrived at the preserve at 4:40, with only 20 minutes left to bird before the park closed, darn! The birder we’d met said there is an owl box by the EEC that usually has a Barn Owl in it. We found it easily enough, perched in a stand of trees to the east of the visitor’s center, and sure enough, barely visible in the shadows of the box was a BARN OWL, our first. Although we’d have loved to have seen it fly out for the evening, 10 minutes of watching showed no signs of stirring, so we ventured on.
There were a decent variety of birds on our (very) short walk, including AMERICAN WHITE PELICANS and BROWN PELICANS, both of which I see often, but not together, but time ran out and we had to leave. On the way out the same birder was scoping a different pond on the entrance road and pointed out a winter-plumaged RUFF, another first.
I was quite happy to have bagged 3 lifer’s in only about 30 minutes of birding (having an experienced birder nearby with a good scope certainly helped!). Nothing got at all close to us, however, so I took no photos worth keeping 
Today’s list is:
– American Avocet
– American White Pelican
* Barn Owl
– Black-necked Stilt
– Black Phoebe
– Brown Pelican
* Dunlin
– Mallard
– Mourning Dove
– Northern Shoveler
– Ring-billed Gull
* Ruff
– Snowy Egret
– White-crowned Sparrow
– White-tailed Kite
– Willet
* = life bird, + = year bird
Congrats on your three lifers!! Those and a few others on your list would have been lifers for me!