Berkeley Backyard Bird Blog: Birds Galore at Albany Shoreline & Bulb Add to Life List of First Sightings

Birdin' at the Bulb

Through binoculars, I'm peering into a thick bush about thirty feet distant, surrounded by concrete detritus, a homeless encampment, sundry sculptures, and rock-painted art strewn about a roguish slice of recovering ecosystem at the Albany Bulb.

Western Grebe

I'm trying my best to bring into focus what may well be a first sighting of a Northern Shrike. The bird, famous for impaling small prey on thorns or barbed wire, is deeply ensconced in thick brush, difficult to single out.

A possible Shrike (terrible photo)

Earlier, on two occasions, I thought I had spotted the little sucker flying furtively into the bushes. Each time, though, I was unsuccessful in nailing down a positive ID. Until perhaps this time. Photographic evidence, as you can see, is sketchy, but after glimpsing a flash of black and white wing for two seconds during a bush-diving maneuver, I'm confident I've spotted a Northern Strike.

Pretty Pelicans (and Gulls)

Go ahead, tell me:

Sunset over the Golden Gate Bridge at Albany Bulb

Three Shrikes and yer out . . .

Great Blue Heron scoping out the scene

I divert up a path to check out a fenced in 8-acre scrubby plateau above the parking lot – “habitat enhancement” set aside for the last half dozen years for Burrowing Owls. Just one of the elusive fellers has been spotted here since 2006.

View of Marin Headlands

Quite unlike at nearby Cesar Chavez Park and elsewhere in McLaughin Eastshore State Park along Berkeley's waterfront, where the "species of special concern" has long been observed wintering over in sheltered nesting grounds rich in insects and rodents.

White-tailed Kite alighting in tree top

No one knows why these uniquely adapted birds have avoided the predator-proofed, attractive real estate, at least for a Burrowing Owl looking for a decent and safe place to crash for a few months. If I had to guess, insects and rodents must be in short supply. How else to explain a perfectly designed Burrowing Owl habitat failing to provide perfectly fine Burrowing Owl conditions?

Burrowing Owl restored habitat

In response to my query about the single sighting from eight years ago, East Bay Regional Park District Supervisor Scott Possin wrote:

Well, Owl be, I spotted him!

"To date, we are not aware of any Burrowing Owls

that have been spotted at the preserve at the Albany Plateau."

Burrowing Owl came out of his burrow to say HOO goes there

Well, Owl most definitely keep my eyeballs peeled for 'em . . .

Marbled Godwits (?) and Willets aflutter

Speaking of habitat enhancement, the poor Bulb needs a severe make-over after years of going to the dogs.

Million dollar view of the City

Unsightly blight is tough to take anywhere, let alone in a regenerative ecosystem with pristine million dollar views. Not to diss the down and outers and indigent who've taken up residency in a pop-up shantytown.

Codornices Creek's outlet to the mudflats of the Bay

And let's face it, who wouldn't rather hunker down under the stars surrounded by nature, as opposed to, say, a stuffy rules-abiding shelter or pissy University Avenue doorway.

Detritus of cleared out encampment

But, sad to say, the homeless encampment situation is out of hand as the "authorities" move glacially to turn the Bulb into a bone fide family friendly park, in turn creating tension and contention in the homeless ranks versus the City of Albany and their considerable marshaled resources in the legal and compassionate battle to evict them.

Heron wading in golden water

Once that's accomplished (and it must be done), then there's the huge mess to clean up before The Bulb, once and for all, can be meaningfully established as the wildlife sanctuary and human recreational area that it was meant to be.

Encampment at the Bulb

Meanwhile, the rag-tag band of self-proclaimed denizens of our public land is suing the City of Albany with legal guidance proffered by famed Berkeley "people's lawyer" Osha Neumann of the East Bay Community Law Center.

Shorebirds feasting on micro and macro organisms in nutrient-rich mudflats

The show-down is purely symbolic, of course, and hopefully, the campers will be offered help, resources, job training, something, anything, but they cannot go back to living in "paradise" at the edge of the continent.

What say you? I'm hard of Heron!

Okay, enough of this off-topic rantin' 'n Raven . . .

Three Amigos

The Albany Bulb truly is a place apart, lost to its own natural rhythms, a reclaimed spit of land wild enough to support a voracious little predator like the Northern Shrike. Jutting into San Francisco Bay from Albany Waterfront Park, the tiny peninsula was once a dumping ground for toxic and hazardous industrial debris.

Once a dumping ground . . . not always a dumping ground

Over thirty years, it has regenerated into a sylvan paradise and wildlife retreat / bird sanctuary, complete with million dollar jaw-dropping San Francisco Bay / Marin Headlands / Golden Gate views.

Bountiful Bulb beauty

Creative art and intriguing sculpture lie scattered over 31 acres of beautiful Bay shoreline and upland woods and brush. Such perfectly fine habitat for all manner of mammals, reptiles, amphibians and, I’d guess, maybe 100 species of birds.

First ever I did see of a Pipit

Put that in your Pipit and smoke it a while . . .

Beachcombers' sand bar extending into Bay

I will return here ptarm and Ptarmigan, for once there, I am reminded of why I always return to the place by the bay where three lovely creeks – Codornices, Village and Marin – converge hidden from the urban sprawl and super-highways.

A creek's journey from the hills ends at the mudflats

Once a pastoral debouchment, today up to 20,000 individual birds at a time can be found pecking about its vast mudflats feeding on invertebrates and milling about when the tide is out; food is abundant here, and conditions are ripe for resident and semi-permanent birds to make a good living.

More smorgasbording on the mudflats

Among the multifarious shorebirds and pelagic kin frequenting the mudflats / shoreline are Long-billed Curlews, Whimbrels, Dowitchers, Semipalmated and Black-bellied Plovers, Western and Least Sandpipers, Herons and Egrets.

Sanderlings chilling on abandoned structure

And Oystercatcher, Killdeer, Phalaropes, Greater and Lesser Yellowlegs, Coots, Cormorants, Loons, Grebes, American and Gray Pelicans, Sanderlings, and dozens of other common, frequent, occasional, or rarely spotted species of waterfowl, Gulls and Terns, and all manner of perching birds.

Graceful inlet looking east toward the Berkeley Hills

Recently, and cause for big fuss, a Northern Gannet was spotted making errant rounds this side of the continent.

Cormorant and Gull enjoying a moment

Ah, Willet ever be possible to see 'em all . . . ?

Non-breeding Willet just standing there

Ah, Gannet it be true, all these birds . . . ?

Lone Coot plying the waters

Ibis just going to say in passerine . . .

I'm hoping to have a field day punning and word-botching.

WOW and WHOA views of Mount Tamalpais and Angel Island

Indeed, I've sighted a Northern Shrike, a Northern Mockingbird, a first-ever positive ID of Say's Phoebe, American Avocets, Whimbrels, and many kinds of Ducks.

Lovely Golden-crowned Sparrow couple

Also meriting attention: a Pigeon in resplendent plumage. How can anyone think this Pigeon I spotted hunting and pecking in a field near the Burrowing Owls is anything but gorgeous? Let us heed the words of Hans Christian Andersen to remind us constantly that, the pedestrian Pigeon included:

"Lowly and mean", the Pigeon is unfairly reviled as an urban pest

" . . . the whole world is a series of miracles,
but we're so used to them we call them ordinary things."

Dazzling mudflats

Other birds I would love to see but have not include Western Meadowlark, Savannah Sparrow and Northern Rough-winged Swallow.

Sunsets of the World have some competition

Ah, doncha just love bird watching

and watching for birds at the Albany Bulbul . . .

American Avocets

Coot it be possible that three hours have already passed?

Great Egret on the hunt

Passed so easily, just bird watchin' / watchin' for birds / buzzin’ around the Bulb’s patchwork of single-track and fire road trails.

Oooh la la!

Heron and there stopping to investigate mysterious avian presences and marvel at expansive bluff top views or walk the labyrinth overlooking the excavated pit from hell now a "natural feature" attracting Bewick's Wrens, Yellow-rumped Warblers and frisky California Ground Squirrels.

Juvenile Fox Sparrow, possibly

Elsewhere, I have to hang abrupt u-eys at cul-de-sac homeless encampments. Down thattaway, I find navigable rocky shoreline trail to explore, where giant humanoid sculptures greet you open-armed, where don't be surprised if you spot an Eider know what.