Birding the Bay Area - Mori Point and Shoreline Park Area

Upon my return from at the epic conclusion of the Michigan trip in the beautiful Eastern Sierra Mountains, I was held ransom by menial desk work for many weeks as I caught up on the stuff I should’ve done during the vacation. However, I still had the time to go birding a couple of times throughout the weeks. More specifically, we spent quite some time at Mori Point, a place down the coast near Pacifica, and Shoreline Park, a locale close on the Southwestern side of the South Bay. I did not take many photos but did get a few good ones, including some rather interesting situations.

While walking along a dirt trail, we encountered this tiny fuzzy Spotted Tussock Moth (Lophocampa maculata) sitting on a leaf. It wasn’t thrilled to be disturbed with our presence and quickly scampered off into the thicket.

The real treat at Mori Point, though, were multiple Peregrine Falcons (Falco peregrinus). A pair of them nest out on Devil’s Slide, a cliffside around 3 miles south from here, and they were teaching their young to eat pigeon.

This young bird (on the left) was very excited to get some tasty niblets of pigeon flesh. However, the adult seemed to be more concerned with defeathering the bird first.

The pigeon also gave the youngsters something to fight about. It looked almost like they were about to crash into the cliff!

Here’s one of the adults carefully observing from the sidelines.

Finally, one last Peregrine, this time in flight.

Here we have a Pied-billed Grebe (Podilymbus podiceps) chilling out on Shoreline Lake. Although Pied-billed Grebe is the only living member of the genus Podilymbus now, that didn’t use to be the case. Two other prehistoric grebe species lived in the same genus in Wisconsin and Florida. Also extinct, but much more recently, is the Atitlán Grebe (Podilymbus gigas). It went extinct in the 1980s following an earthquake in Guatemala that drained part of the only lake it lived in. Also, introduced Largemouth and Smallmouth significantly contributed to its extinction, eating the fish and crabs the birds fed on and sometimes even their chicks. Like so many other extinct birds, the grebe was flightless, which definitely did not help it. However, despite this, the grebe was recovering after a refuge was established, but following the earthquake and the murder of the park’s game warden due to political instability and a civil war, the grebe quickly went extinct.

Here are two Ring-billed Gulls (Larus delawarensis) fighting over what I assumed was a Cheeto. One bird kept taking all the food that someone was tossing at them, and the other one was reasonably upset and got into a giant fight with the other bird that concluded with the two of them holding this position for a minute or two, before both of them, exhausted, broke apart.

Here are the two birds going at it again.

Following the fight, this gull looked pretty messed up. Note the orange gape wasn’t from the conflict. It’s actually a feature of their breeding plumage. However, the ratty plumage was something that was obtained from the schism.

We were lucky enough to encounter this California Towhee (Melozone crissalis) bathing in a muddy puddle. The bird in the background is a juvenile Dark-eyed Junco (Junco hyemalis) of the Oregon subspecies, which is also looking to wash off.

Lastly, we came upon a female Anna’s Hummingbird (Calypte anna) posing nicely on a plant to create a perfect fusion of pollen-dusted hummingbird and leaf. Unlike the previous photos which, for the most part, were taken at Mori Point and Charleston Slough, this one was taken in a suburban neighborhood, in front of a house with a hummingbird feeder. There are reportedly three hummingbirds that fight for control over the feeder at different times of day, with this yucca leaf perch as the typical position the current defender takes.