Chapter Year Report

General Meeting

Russian River Water Wrangling

October Birding

Bird Walk Reports

Observations

Backyard Birding:
Water Gardening for Birds, Part One

Pee Wee Update

Related Activites

Eagle Feathers-a Legal Flap

North Coast Birds on Tape

British Birders for Corks

Protecting Coastal Rocks, Islets

New Edition of Field Guide

Magazines Benefit Audubon

October Birding
By Betty Burridge
October is one of the most exciting months for bird migration in Sonoma County, and Madrone Audubon's bird walks are planned to take advantage of that fact. If you can't attend a walk, perhaps this article will encourage and help you to explore some of these areas on your own.
The Bodega Bay/Doran Park bird walks on October 6 and 28 will explore coastal wetlands and estuaries, where we can now expect to find the loons, grebes, waterfowl, Snowy Plovers, Long-billed Dowitchers, Dunlin, gulls, and, possibly, Red Phalaropes which were mostly missing in the summer months. With the approach of winter, great numbers of these birds will be returning from their breeding ranges in the far North or high in the western mountain ranges.
We'll be keeping an eye out for Sharp-shinned and Cooper's Hawks on October 2 at Crane Creek Regional Park and October16 at the McCormick Ranch section of Sugarloaf Ridge State Park. Two good observation sites on the hawk migration flyway are the Willowcreek drainage near the mouth of the Russian River and the often spectacular Hawk Hill in the Marin Headlands. If you missed Madrone's September trip to Hawk Hill, the Golden Gate Raptor Observatory's Web site (www.ggro.org) can help you enjoy a visit to this birding "hot spot".
The coastal walks also offer our best chance of the season to see some off-course "accidental" migrant species, especially at Owl Canyon by Bodega Bay. There, we may find some eastern natives that are seldom seen in California. In previous years, Owl Canyon has yielded such rarities as American Redstart, Chestnut-sided Warbler, and even a Connecticut Warbler. We'll also be looking for accidentals at Point Reyes on the October 20, October 30, and November 3 trips, especially on the outer peninsula, which is internationally famous as a rare-migrant trap.
White-crowned Sparrows return to inland Sonoma County backyards by the end of September. They will probably be seen on the October 2, 14, 16, and 20 and November 3 and 6 bird walks and throughout Sonoma and Marin Counties, along with our other returning winter residents: Say's Phoebes, Varied and Hermit Thrushes, Ruby-crowned Kinglets, Water Pipits, Golden-crowned Sparrows, Yellow-rumped Warblers and, maybe, Red-breasted Nuthatches.
There is, of course, no guarantee that all of the expected birds will be seen on every birding trip, but this is a glorious time of year to get out and welcome as many of our returning Sonoma County winter residents as we can.

Editor's Note
Last month's Leaves was the first issue in years to be completed without the keen eye of long-time co-editor Malcolm Blanchard. Some little errors slipped through, along with one big one: I omitted Betty Burridge's name as the author of the excellent front-page story on Sam and Vicki Sebastiani's Viansa Wetland. Betty says Sam also wants everyone to know how much assistance the wetland has gotten from Ducks Unlimited, which continues to help the Sebastianis support the project.--JSB