In an attempt to continue a long-time tradition of a long-distance birdathon by foot, last year I scouted out a Fartlek* Falcons birdathon route through Arastradero Preserve and Foothills Park. Alas, thanks to COVID the actual birdathon never took place. This year I recruited fellow double-vaxxer Chuck Wilson to join me on the first official running of this birdathon.
We started at the Arastradero parking lot at 7:15 and, as usual in birdathons, quickly picked up a number of common and expected species. One lucky surprise there were a lone ROCK PIGEON sitting on top of one of the buildings; not a species we were expecting. Entering the preserve we headed up the Wild Rye trail which is always a sure spot for HOUSE WRENS. It was today as well, though we never did see one. Fifteen minutes after we had started a WHITE-TAILED KITE appeared in front of us, kiting. Remember this for later.
Dropping down to Arastradero Lake we were hoping for an Egret or Heron but found neither. Heading up the Arastradero Creek Trail we continued picking up species, mostly by ear, including our lone PACIFIC-SLOPE FLYCATCHER.
Entering Foothills Park we followed the Coyote Trail and the Panorama Trail up to Vista Hill, where we had a lone BAND-TAILED PIGEON fly by, along with both VIOLET-GREEN and TREE SWALLOWS. As we headed down towards Boronda Lake, we spotted a RED-SHOULDERED HAWK perched on a distant snag; again, remember this. Boronda Lake added many hoped-for species, among them noisy RED-WINGED BLACKBIRDS and multiple GADWALL and AMERICAN WIGEON, as well as AMERICAN ROBIN and SONG SPARROW around the perimeter.
We had two special target species for the lake, which I had seen several weeks before - GREEN HERON and Belted Kingfisher. At one point we flushed something from the shore which *might* have been the Heron, but we both thought it was too small. We had almost finished the clockwise circumnavigation of the lake when Chuck spotted the Heron hiding behind a rock in the small cove at the back. It flew almost immediately, but was unmistakeable. No Kingfisher unfortunately.
As we re-entered Arastradero, with about an hour to go, we realized that, since our early spotting of the Kite, we had yet to see a single raptor in the sky. No Red-tails, not even a TV. With a half hour to go, we reached our target of 50 species with an AMERICAN KESTREL — perched. Finally, at 10:49 a.m., more than three hours after we had seen our first raptor in the sky, there it was — RED-TAILED HAWK! In the sky! Soaring! Still no TV. Ten minutes later, as we were heading up the ridge on the north side of Arastradero Rd., another candidate. A TV? Nope, Red-tail.
At the top of the ridge, a special treat, as a COYOTE posed for us on the other side of the fence. 11:09, six minutes to go, two more raptors in the sky. Both Red-tails! Now we're heading down to the parking lot with two minutes to go, looking for a TV, and also looking for, believe it or not, a Black Phoebe, which hasn't made our list yet. No luck.
Arriving in the parking lot with 30 seconds to go, I headed over towards the fence to try for the Phoebe. No go. But then, with 7 seconds to go, look up! A TURKEY VULTURE! Hooray! 54 species, and all in all a very satisfactory outing. 9.5 miles with 1420' of elevation gain (and loss) in exactly four hours. *"Fartlek" is a Swedish word meaning "speedplay", and is a running training method in which fast running is alternated with slow running in a semi-random fashion (as opposed to "intervals" which do so in a methodic manner). In our case, the "fast" portion was actually a trot and the "slow" portion was fully stopped, looking at birds, but "fartlek" still seemed an appropriate description.
