North Lake & Sutro Baths birding (SF)

I went back to North Lake & Sutro Baths today, camera and shiny new spotting scope in hand, and naturally there was less around than on Sunday, when I had neither!

There were a few (probable) ALLEN’S HUMMINGBIRDS at North Lake in Golden Gate Park, but no sign of the Hooded Mergansers I saw on Sunday.  A TOWNSEND’S WARBLER splashed in the water by the wooden bridge on the southwest side of the lake until it was chased off by an irate Allen’s Hummingbird – they sure are territorial!

A RED-SHOULDERED HAWK perched briefly on a treetop before flying off, but I got a very good look at it – what beautiful raptors they are!  Alas, I wasn’t paying attention to my camera settings (I’d been shooting into shady woods just prior, so had the ISO bumped up), and the photos I got, although certainly enough to identify it, aren’t very sharp.

Other than that, it was mostly the usual lake denizens.  There wasn’t much hanging around for me to look at through my scope, but I did get a nice look at a YELLOW-RUMPED WARBLER (“Myrtle” subspecies).

Onward to Sutro Baths, as I was hopeful of some good seawatching with my scope.  In the main pool were a RING-NECKED DUCK, several female and one male BUFFLEHEAD, and the usual gulls and coots.  From the observation platform, I scoped the ocean, but didn’t see much at all – it was very choppy out, and there was little evidence of seabirds.

I was able to watch a dolphin as it barely peaked through the waves, travelling west past the Golden Gate, and I got an extremely distant glimpse of what looked like an Aechmomorphus grebe. A flock of SURF SCOTER were by Seal Rocks, but had disappeared when I had set up the scope.

The best views I got through the scope, however, were of the nearly-full moon as it rose over the treetops – at 60x, although a bit dim, I could see quite a lot of detail of the valleys and craters!  I did find that the 11m eye relief of the Pentax XF SMC eyepiece, when at 60x, makes it nearly impossible to view with glasses on.  The 15mm at 20x is fine, and the image is amazingly bright and sharp from 20-40x, with the expected light falloff as the magnification increases from 40x.

The list du jour is:

– Allen’s Hummingbird
– American Coot
– American Robin
– Anna’s Hummingbird
– Black Phoebe
– Black-crowned Night Heron
– Bufflehead
– Common Raven
– Dark-eyed Junco (“Oregon”)
– Golden-crowned Sparrow
– Mallard
– Pied-billed Grebe
+ Red-shouldered Hawk
– Red-tailed Hawk
– Stellar’s Jay
+ Surf Scoter
– Townsend’s Warbler
– Western Gull
– White-crowned Sparrow
– Yellow-rumped Warbler

+ = year bird, * = life bird, () = domestic/escapee

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