Common Raven

As I climbed the sandy hills at Fort Funston in San Francisco this past May 23, I heard the gurgling croak of a Common  Raven.  I found it first, hiding up in a pine bough, then followed it when flew off to an open branch.

I was surprised to see quite a few Ravens there and on the beach.

The pair above, shot from the beach looking back up at the sandy cliff, appear to be putting together a nest, but the materials are very strange. Normally, Common Ravens make their nest from branches, so perhaps this is something else, but as can be seen in the bottom image, they definitely were gathering items at this spot.

Later, I came upon a small flock of Ravens rooting around in the sand. This one in particular didn't seem to mind having its picture taken. 

An interesting behavior I noticed was their tendency to hop. A bird this large typically walks, and they did do that most of the time, but every once in a while they would move about with a couple quick hoops.  It didn't seem quite right. :-)

Bank Swallow

 

I've had a few opportunities to bird in California over the past year and on occasion I was fairly certain that I had seen a few Bank Swallows whizzing past as swallows do, but I was never able to get a good enough look to be certain, having never seen Bank Swallows before.

That changed on the Fort Funston beach in Los Angeles this past May 15.  I had just completed photographing a few Common Ravens on the beach.  Looking inland I noticed that the sandy bank above a ridge of large, broken rocks had several holes about the size you would expect from a small bird.

Bank swallows immediately came to mind, so I scaled the rocks to get a closer look.  The holes sure looked like they could be swallow burrows, but there didn't seem to be any swallows. 

Eventually one showed up, but it quickly darted into a burrow before I had a chance to get a picture.

 

Likewise, when they left the burrows it was usually with a full head of steam.

  

Eventually more and more swallows started showing up until there were probably 20 - 30 flying around me. I never got a shot of one at rest as I never saw one at rest, but I was able to cross my fingers and shoot away as they streaked by or rode an air current off the shore and up the bank.

As you can see above, there were several holes, and this was just one section of the bank.

Whimbrel

 

 

After spending a couple hours at Lake Merced, I crossed over Highway 35 to Fort Funston, part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. The park runs along the coast, so I was hoping to find some shorebirds. My spirits were dampened a bit, however, as I climbed the hill to the shore as the park was swarming with dogs. People were walking around with not just one or two dogs, but with what seemed to be up to ten dogs.

I did some research and found that this is a very popular park for dogs in San Francisco and there is an on going attempt to put restrictions on dog use in many of the parks. Of course this is not going over well with dog owners.

The only trouble I had with the dogs (which was little) is when they flushed the birds I was trying to shoot.  While the beach was pretty desolate at first, it eventually became populated with several Whimbrels. Every time I'd get into position to get some reasonable shots, it seemed someone's dog would come running by and spooked the birds. One young lady irked me a bit as she walked her dog back and forth along the beach and flushed the Whimbrels several times as I was trying to get shots.  It was obvious what I was doing, but she made no attempt to move her dog further from the water as they walked by.

Away, I did take advantage of the situation and got some shots of the Whimbrels flying by as seen above.

 

Later, I had the beach to myself for awhile and I finally did get some reasonably close shots of the Whimbrels. It took some patience as they were careful not to let me get too close, but eventually I earned their trust.