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The first time I beheld the awesome bounty of Oakland’s Arrowhead Marsh, that initial encounter with a wonderland of waterfowl, waders, and West Coast gulls, was some time before noon in March of 2006. Though my surprise then at Arrowhead’s amazing productivity could surely be described as pleasant, my surprise this time upon learning that [...]

Is the heat wave that seems to have the entire U.S., or at least the lower 48, in a vise getting you down? Do what I did and fly to the balmy Bay Area. With the rest of the Core Team safely ensconced in the nurturing bosom of Potter County, PA, I’ve struck out for [...]

Apart from the first frenzied hours of my arrival in Oakland, birding was restricted primarily to those species eking out a living in my hotel’s foliage. Not that I tired of my spare minutes with the same old scrub-jays, ruby-crowns, yellow-rumps, crows, gulls, Anna’s Hummingbirds, Black Phoebes, and Brewer’s Blackbirds …it’s just that I wasn’t [...]

Yesterday, I described the excitement of landing in Oakland and birding Arrowhead Marsh. By the time I finished there, checked into my hotel, and found my way to the hills above Oakland, the sun was growing low in the sky. The dramatic heights of Oakland Hills and the other elevated areas east of Oakland proper [...]

Anna’s Hummingbird
Business has brought me to California this week and I’ve got to say, flying into Oakland is pretty sweet. Not only is the airport nice and clean, it sits less than a mile from premier birding habitat! Arrowhead Marsh, part of the Martin Luther King Jr. Regional Shoreline Park, is a birding bonanza, a [...]