Tuesday, June 3, 2014

Prime Time Birding in the Wildcat Creek Watershed

Be (t)here now

Small miracles and tiny wonders abound in a surprising sylvan / riparian paradise hidden nearly in plain sight in the Berkeley Hills.

American Goldfinch in handsome plumage

Where you are this moment.

Down on the creek

In your little canyon in your little park with your little creek running through it: Wildcat Creek. Without doubt, it's your favorite, and best of all, you don't need a car to get there.

Gushing Wildcat Creek after a big rain

Added bonus for bird aficionados:
everywhere you turn,
it's excellent avian habitat.

Dark-eyed Junco flashing the "live" eye

Ah, to be a free flying bird.

Freshets and falls everywhere

Reposed on a nearly inaccessible stretch of the creek – a veritable walk in the park approach – the bustling world of humans is hush hush; purely natural sounds prevail. Aural pleasantries of a gently wafting breeze, insects, possibly cicadas, buzzing and chirping, branches creaking and groaning, water tinkling, throaty birds singing.

Golden-crowned Kinglet never did appear on this day

A place down low, sheltering a realm of silence cocooned from ubiquitous urban noise pollution. A low-down place so quiet you hear the tympanic hum of Mother Earth, a living, breathing entity, syncopated with your own breathing.

American Kestrel

Perhaps you've slipped off into some dreamy meditation on a sun-splashed sandbar (very miniature) with sing-song water rippling over cut bedrock (very modest).

A pretty place to sink your feet in

Where you feel a profound resonance with eerie W Wave tree communication (very cool), of which birds are expert in interpreting, for they are part and parcel of, and one with, trees, so intertwined is their existence and fate with their genial arboreal hosts who symbiotically provide most of their food and shelter.

Juvenile Night-crowned Heron learning to hunt

In some transcendent tongue, they must speak with one another in a language "deeper than words" as author and environmentalist Derrick Jensen intuited:

Pretty Wildcat rounding 10,000,000 year old volcanic plug

" . . . the language of bodies, of body on body . . .
. . . but we have forgotten this language . . .
We do not even remember that it exists."

The path least trodden

But, aha!
The birds and trees –
they remember!

Wildcat Creek in Wildcat Canyon Regional Park

ECCE AVE!

Wild Turkeys are amusing, fun and smart

Springtime is the best time. (Now behind us.) When temperatures are mild and wildflowers carpet rolling green hills and bug-eyed dragonflies flit to and fro like charismatic little drones.

Wildcat Canyon springtime allure

When gullies are flush with fast-flowing runoff and cottony cumuli caress azure skies. When birds of all stripes are in transit, on their way here and there and everywhere, boundaries, borders and private property be damned, never an obstacle to their comings and goings as they please.

Laurel Canyon gully lush with ferns and runoff

Ah, to have such freedom
as a high-flying bird.

A "mean and lowly" encounter with a resident turtle

The time of year when birds make their mercurial presence known in a variety of species-peculiar ways: exaggerated mating / dominance histrionics; territorial posturing; nest defending remonstrations; industrial doings; frivolous play; and preening exhibits of sheer coquetry.

Nesting Osprey mates in high tree top

And the things they do, the lengths they go to, in their never ending search for sustenance. All of which makes it extra easy to be a successful springtime birdwatcher. They're practically putting on a show for you.

Sylvan and riparian beauty along Wildcat Gorge Trail

But it's a tough ticket to scalp; the scene is easy to miss; and the Entr'acte, always a fine spectacle, but you can just as well forget it, unless you have the patience of a saint to stick around for a potential Bald Eagle sighting or – just imagine! – an Oven Bird identification.

Euphonious California Thrasher on the scene

Many of your favorites are out and about: Nuthatches, Warblers, Accipiters, Woodpeckers, Wrens and Sparrows, Ducks and Geese, but alas, only the meanest of their kind.

Fattened and squat looking Steller's Jay

Even in this bonanza of opportunities, I've yet to sight ("even") a White-breasted Nuthatch, or Downy Woodpecker, let alone a Prothonotary Warbler, Black-headed Grosbeak, Lazuli Bunting, Great Horned Owl, or, personal favorite, Golden-crowned Kinglet.

Precious secret spot along back stretch of Wildcat Creek

Proving that, even more than the time of year, it's the timing of the day that counts. Finding yourself in the right place at the right time, and then having your antennae attuned to the moment, because, believe me, it's a very fleeting moment.

Anna's Hummingbird showing off

A vanishing window of time to barely observe furtive movements in the tree canopy. Nano-seconds to hone in on some dazzling flash of color skirting across the sky. Robbed visions of easily overlooked, flitting movements of, say, could it be a Say's Phoebe, I wonder, or a Lawrence's Goldfinch, perhaps?

Crow in golden aura

A moment in time, if you're lucky, to be privy to the over, gone, and done with world – of birds bein' birds. So when you do have a cool sighting, a sustained voyeuristic glimpse of some relative exotic avian denizen or visitor, it's usually by accident rather than plotting accomplishment and concerted effort.

Squeezing through the deer path

At least that's my experience.

Wildcat Creek flooding Jewel Lake

Such as when you head out on the Gorge Trail in Tilden Nature Area to see what's up. You take Blue Gum Trail past Laurel Canyon to Jewel Lake (where you spot dozens of sunning turtles, many Ducks, and a Great Blue Heron presiding over all), always a fav, always a superb slice of nature!

Great Egret and Mallard chillin' on the pond

Just beautiful!
Right here in the 9-county,
7 million population Bay Area.

Never-ending beauty down on the creek

You stop to take it all in, and the next thing you know, a half hour passes in a bird watching blur. The furious activity makes you dizzy, a flurry of Wilson's Warblers, Juncos, Lark Sparrows, and Anna's Hummingbirds ruling the roosts of big eucalyptus and oak trees.

American Robin lookin' purty

Loud, melodious whistlers (Black-headed Grosbeaks? Robins?) lurk unseen. Your main focus is on the Wilson's Warblers, tiny yellow birds with a black "tam" gracing their pates; not rarely seen – you've seen the little guy, individually, any number of times – but never in such droves, in such beautiful groves.

Wilson's Warbler flashing his black "tam"

Out on Wildcat Gorge Trail, just past Jewel Lake, you drop your bike to sneak a peek through an unnoticeable opening in the forest, just for a quick look-see down at the creek maybe 50 feet below.

The creek sings its merry song

You part the woodsy curtain, trod delicately on the squishy floor made up of hundreds of years of accumulating layers of humus. The forest aura is simple, sublime, primal, even.

Water striders are delicacies for newts, birds and raccoons

Oh, how you love Wildcat Creek, one of the East Bay's grooviest streams – literally, as is evidenced by cut bedrock channels carved by millennia of run-off originating from seeping swales up near Grizzly Peak at 1759 feet above the Bay.

Young buck enjoying new sprouts in the park

Suddenly, a sharp "kik-kik-kik" erupts and you instinctively duck to avoid a big bird, soon identified as a Sharp-shinned Hawk. This gorgeous bird, the smallest Hawk in North America, and ferocious songbird-eating forest acrobat, swoops down in a kamikaze arc and then swoops back up to land on a high branch, where she continues to shriek and remonstrate.

Sharp-shinned Hawk surveying my approach

A moment later, another The Birds-like swipe before alighting on a branch. Looking up, you spot a big stick nest harboring eggs or maybe hatchlings and experience an "oh duh" moment. Not wishing to cause further stress, you skulk out, but not before snapping a mediocre photo. Most definitely it's a WOW! moment in the annals of your avian-grokking avocation.

Sharp-shinned Hawk issuing her warning

A little ways down the trail, you ditch your trusty ol' Gary Fisher hard-tail mountain bike in a patch of weeds and cow parsnip in full bloom interspersed with artichoke thistle and foxtail grasses (where you spend 30 minutes looking for it on the way back out).

Beauty and small miracle intrigue around every bend

Making your way down to the creek, the nasty foxtails really mess with your shoes and socks. (They must be good for something, right?) The water level is low, somehow managing to pool in reflective mirrors and gently rifting on its way to the Bay.

Meditative moment to reflect (reflective moment to meditate)

Elsewhere, it's dried up in places, filtering underground, re-emerging downstream like oases. Everywhere, the forest is alive with birds bein' birds – a Steller's Jay fiercely davening at a foe; a pair of Mourning Doves skittering off somewhere; a troupe of Bushtits descending in a Big-Leaf Maple; a Downy or a Ladderback, can't tell which, hammering high up in the branches of some cool barked tree you can't ID but should know.

My goodness! What do we have here? Willow Flycatcher chicks!

Ah, to be a bird, down on the creek . . .

Surprise appearance on the creek of a Virginia Rail

Ah, to be a bird,
free to fly as high as the sky . . .

Red-tailed Hawk
or maybe Red-shouldered fella

Read more essays from Gambolin' Man
on birding in beautiful and hidden Wildcat Creek & the Watershed,
along with a link to all bird posts at his backyard bird blog:

Wildcat Creek
splendor in the Berkeley Hills

Read more of Gambolin' Man's shout-outs
on the simple wonders & charming splendors
of Wildcat Creek Watershed, Wildcat Creek, Wildcat Gorge Trail,
Tilden Nature Area & Tilden Regional Park:



Lake Anza Spillway
seasonal waterfall splendor 

Enjoy dozens of live-action scenes
of a special creek & watershed in the Berkeley Hills:



Wildcat Creek
charm, magic, beauty hidden away
out of sight
you have to want it

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2 comments:

  1. mauiJune 20, 2014 at 2:17 PM

    Most of us barely notice the birds, just take them for granted, like air and the sky. but you meditate on them with such love, they change the air and the sky into a magical wonderland. ah, to be free like a bird, indeed!

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  2. Cat McGuireJuly 22, 2014 at 12:08 PM

    In some transcendent tongue, they must speak with one another in a language "deeper than words." Indeed. It has been said that we lost our primal ability to communicate, telepathically and otherwise, when we began to speak and use word-language.

    ReplyDelete

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