After paying a visit to Keith Hansen in his Bolinas, CA art studio/gallery, I walked to the end of nearby Wharf Rd. to check out the large Sterna terns that were moving between the open waters of the Pacific Ocean and Bolinas Lagoon in hopes of finding an Elegant Tern amongst the many Caspian Terns that were present and gathered on the sandbars with dozens of Brown Pelicans, Double-crested Cormorants, and Western Gulls.

While sitting on a wall overlooking the lagoon, I was scanning any and all of the birds that were flying over, when suddenly two distant terns caught my attention. As I raised my binoculars I was greeted by distant, but good views of what I was exactly looking for…Elegant Terns! It was one of those things where you try so hard to make one bird species into another (Common/Hoary Redpoll, Common/Barrow’s Goldeneye, etc.) but when you find your target it becomes so obvious “Oh, so that’s what they look like in flight!” However, the terns were not the only good bird to be found. While scanning the birds trading between the lagoon and the ocean I had two large, dark swallows come into my field of view, and as I got my bins to focus…Purple Martins! These too were year birds, and I was treated with nice views for about 1 minute before I lost them over a row of buildings which lined the street. Overall, the birding was brief, lasting only about 15 minutes, but within that 15 minutes I saw hundreds of Brown Pelicans, dozens of Caspian Terns, a single Killdeer, and of course 2 Elegant Terns and 2 Purple Martins. Not too shabby!

~Chad (07/08/2006)