Birdwatching in Fairfield

One of these days I’ll write a blog post about one of the Christmas gifts from my family—a calendar with 365 days of “National (fill in the blank) Day”. Then they filled in chosen days to do something with me. For instance my son and DIL came over to watch a movie for National Science Fiction Day. Tuesday was, according to this calendar, National Bird Day. My brother got a new lens for his camera so he could get a better view of his local birds and he has been photographing and identifying birds in his neighborhood. I have been very impressed with his photos because I don’t feel as though I have been very successful at bird photos. He invited me to go on a birdwatching walk with him.

I know…this isn’t a bird. But it was the first wildlife I saw when we walked out the gate of Dave’s backyard. Dave’s house and yard back up to a seasonal creek and there are paths along both sides. At times there have been families of beavers living in the creek and he sees a lot of birds there.

I hate to admit how poor my bird ID skills are, but this jaunt made me decide I can do better. I think when I’m out walking here with my dogs I haven’t been focused well enough to pay attention to the differences in all the little birds that live in the area. And many times it’s easier to ID the bird by looking at photos that I can enlarge on my computer than be trying to see the detail in real life.

I do know that this is a dove—a mourning dove I think.

This one is easy—red-winged blackbird.

We started out in the neighborhood but eventually followed the creek out of town.

These oak galls caught my eye. Stationary objects are easier to photograph than moving birds.

Woodpecker. Hairy or Downy? Dave told me which one, but now I don’t remember.

I noticed several small painted wood blocks in random places. Dave said that he doesn’t know who puts them up but they are changed occasionally.

More interesting and easy-to-photograph objects.

At the edge of town.

I just looked up the history of the area known as Cement Hill. According to an article in the local newspaper:

“The Pacific Portland Cement Co. from 1902 to 1927 quarried the rock and made cement…The castle-like remains in the hills served as the foundation of the rock crusher, with the wooden building and metal equipment now long gone. A rail system transported the rock. At one point, more than 500 workers earned their living in these hills.”

Western meadowlark.

There isn’t much blooming right now, but I love how this Lesser Goldfinch (I think) matches the plants where he is perched.

White-crowned sparrow.

We got to the edge of town and then took a path up into the hills. They are finally getting green after our meager amount of late rainfall. However, these hills burned in October and it is sad to see how little soil cover there is. Lots of bare ground between the little bit of grass sprouting.

Dave’s dog, Daisy was a well-behaved companion on this trek.

We had a great view of Lagoon Valley to the east…

…and Fairfield and the hills to the west and north.

We could see Mt. Diablo, where we hiked last month, to the southwest although I had to tweak this photo to get it to stand out behind the clouds.

Another view east.

Cedar waxwing.

You may have to look closely but there are two Anna’s hummingbirds in this photo. It was one of the few shrubs with flowers (a few flowers) and one of the hummingbirds made repeated dive-bombing approaches, with a call I can only describe as a screech that I never expected to hear from a hummingbird. He’d drop down and then rise straight up as if he was a drone. Very cool to watch and a nice bird to end the day.

Dave kept track of the number of species we saw and he counted 25!