Evening Wader Watch

After finishing work today I managed a visit to Panama Flats, keen to see if there were any waders present. 
Water levels were generally pretty low, bar the two main pools. There were good numbers of barn swallows feeding all over the place, plus a handful of violet-green and a couple of northern rough-winged swallows.
A group of 6 dowitchers were on the bank of the larger pool. When they flew, they called and they all sounded like long-billed.
Around the pools edges were 3 spotted sandpipers.
In the far south east corner, in a vegetated muddy area. there were approximately 230 peeps feeding. Scoping through them, the ratio of birds seemed to be about 60/40 western to least sandpipers.
After around 45 minutes of thorough scanning, I finally picked up a single semi-palmated sandpiper among them. Another spotted sandpiper was also here as were up to a dozen killdeer, including 2 very young, unfledged birds.
Walking back, I noticed a pair of greater yellowlegs (pictured) that had appeared from somewhere or other.
At one point a peregrine came through, spooking everything, before sitting up in a bare tree to the consternation of a local robin.

Sunset on the Creek

Jenny surveys Holden Creek

Jenny and I had an hour down at Holden Creek this evening.
The setting sun made the birding a bit tricky, as it got progressively lower, but it was just pretty lovely being out there.
There were plenty of savannah sparrows around, plus the usual house finches and a single Lincoln's sparrow.
At least 80 Brewer's blackbirds were roosting around the farm with around 30 starling.
The geese were too distant and the light was way too low to allow me to pick out any white-fronts among the silhouettes. 

Out on the marsh there was a feeding group of 66 long-billed dowitchers (at the least the ones I heard were long-billed, there could of course have been some short-bills in there, too) and what appeared to be 5 least sandpiper.

Male house finch - Holden Creek

Up to 50 green-winged teal were around the creek, but they were busy feeding in the wet boggy grass, thanks to the very high tide.
A belted kingfisher was rattling around, and an osprey passed overhead.

Dowitching hour

Spent the last hour and a bit of light at Holden Creek this evening. How depressing - it was getting dark by 7.15pm...
Anyhoo, there were a load of green-winged teal and a couple of pintail on the creek as I arrived. A considered check through failed to reveal anything else of note.
Newly arrived were around 40 Brewer's blackbirds, in with the starlings around the farm. Otherwise, there were very few songbirds, other than a couple of golden-crowned sparrows mucking about in the undergrowth.
Taking up my position on the viewing area (you guessed it, the tide was too high to allow a crossing - in fact I even tried to see if the 'winter' route was clear yet but the brambles are still too dense to get through, so I'll have to carry on crossing at low tide for the foreseeable future) I scanned over the marsh. A tight bundle of shorebirds were busy in a small muddy pool. I counted 34 long-billed dowitcher, and single greater yellowlegs and western sandpiper with them. They were quite a way out, but I got a bit of footage of the sewing-machinesque feeding frenzy. As you can see below.
A red-tailed hawk was keeping vigil in one of the dead trees and a lone pileated woodpecker came through.
The Canada geese were feeding in the furthest field, behind the hedge, thus preventing me from seeing whether the whitefronts were still around. While I was scanning through the waders, the steady honk of some Canadas implied a few were taking off, then I heard the lovely call of the white-fronted geese as they joined the airborne flock. I got quite nostalgic at the sound - used, as I am, to the calls of multitudes of grey geese. Lovely. The family party of five, headed out toward the estuary though I suspect they might well be back in the fields tomorrow.  

Monday wader watch

There were fewer small waders in the Holden Creek area when I visited this evening, and I counted no more than 14 least sandpiper.
There were still 3 western and 2 semi-palmated sandpipers present in the creek, and a pair of long-billed dowitchers were feeding in tandem with 2 greater yellowlegs out on the marsh flashes.